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  • French Presidential Elections: The Left has to Stand Up!
    18 April 2007 par (Open-Publishing)
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    By Patrick Le Hyaric
    There are are only seven days to the election. Everything is still possible. The network of militants that is spreading out throughout the country can still avoid all the traps and create the conditions of a new hope. So, we say: Stand Up on the Left!
    Clearly, in the private offices of the French financial elite, they have decided to use, as never before, their considerable wealth and clout to divert the presidential and legislative elections from the real issues at (…)

  • Bayrou’s Journey to the Heart of the Chirac-d’Estaing Machine
    13 April 2007 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Sébastien Crépel
    He has occupied every post on the political right. Today, his rebellious tone helps him hold his own when faced with a UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) converted to his same Euro-liberalism.
    Francois Bayrou is the archetypal man of the same ‘system’ that he is denouncing; even more so of the UMP-ex-RPR-UDF majority that governed France for nearly 20 years starting in 1974, for which he was local counselor, deputy, and minister. Originally a protégé of Jean Lecanuet, (…)

  • 2007 Presidential Campaign : Humiliated, the "Beur" Minister Defects ... to the Right
    13 April 2007 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Jean-Paul Piérot
    The lesson under Villepin and Sarkozy was bitter enough. But why on earth did Azouz Begag join the team in the first place? And why must he now bind himself to Bayrou, Villepin’s "centre-right " (right-wing)challenger?
    The team he joined was a nest of vipers. His entry into Villepin’s government in 2005 surprised many, even beyond the circle of his friends. That he, a Beur (1), son of Algerian immigrants who grew up on a rundown suburban estate near Lyon and made a (…)

  • France’s presidential elections: Much ado about nothing in Guadeloupe
    13 April 2007 par (Open-Publishing)
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    By Danik Ibraheem Zandwonis Caribbean Net News Guadeloupe Correspondent
    POINT A PITRE, Guadeloupe: The campaign for France’s presidential elections, which has been just completed in Guadeloupe, has not caught the attention of the voters. In spite of the visits of presidential candidates and of an important media group, the inhabitants of Guadeloupe seemed rather indifferent to the different programmes.
    Surveys and abstention.
    What is new this year? The surveys by Qualistat Institute in (…)

  • Is Sarkozy going too far?
    12 April 2007 par (Open-Publishing)

    As the election draws closer, Nicolas Sarkozy pushes further the conservative, right-wing agenda that has made him famous as interior minister. The man who once used to dub youths from disadvantaged suburbs "scum", promised to clean crime-ridden neighbourhoods with a "Kärcher" industrial pressure cleaner and forced a publishing house to cancel the launch of a biography of his wife Cécilia is at it again. Last month,he promised to establish a ministry of immigration and national identity if (…)

  • No Tampering with History: Chirac’s Multi-faceted Personality
    28 March 2007 par (Open-Publishing)
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    By José Fort
    The French president’s clear statements on dark memorial issues have repeatedly confounded friends and foes alike. Jacques Chirac will be remembered as the president who recognized the responsibility of the collaborationist Vichy government during Nazi Occupation.
    General de Gaulle maintained that France could not be held responsible for the policies of the Vichy regime during the Occupation; François Mitterrand likewise stubbornly opposed acknowledging France’s (…)

  • Damn it, 40 Years of Chirac are Enough!
    28 March 2007 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Marc de Miramon
    In announcing that he does not aspire to a third term, Jacques Chirac brings an end to his steadfastly right-wing political life, which has been marked by betrayals.
    “A tough young politician […], extremely ambitious […], unencumbered by the Gaullist rhetoric…” When an American diplomat wrote this fairly true to life portrait (1) of Jacques Chirac in 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had just become Prime Minister. His dazzling career path and his precocious talent for (…)

  • Maurice Papon’s Cynicism and Death
    28 March 2007 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Maurice Ulrich
    Dead at the age of 96 years on Saturday [February 10, 2007], the former minister never admitted his role in the imprisonment of 1645 Jews in concentration camps, as he never showed any regret for anything he did.
    There are some silences which speak volumes. Yesterday, a day after Maurice Papon’s death, the only two reported political reactions were those from Marie-George Buffet and François Hollande. The old man, who died at Pontault –Combault (Seine-et-Marne) at the (…)

  • Sarkozy to the US: "I’m your free friend"
    12 March 2007 par (Open-Publishing)

    Nicolas Sarkozy detailed his foreign policy programme this week in Paris in a hotel conference room packed with international journalists. The place was too small to seat all the visiting Chinese, Hungarian, American, Brazilian colleagues - to name only a few nationalities.
    The candidate started his speech with a vibrant homage to Jacques Chirac’s foreign policy: " I approve of everything that was done for 12 years", he said. Chirac "restored the Blue Helmets’ honour in Bosnia", diplayed (…)

  • Can the Presidential Election Change France’s Foreign Policy?
    15 February 2007 par (Open-Publishing)
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    Interview by Rosa Moussaoui ORIGINAL FRENCH ARTICLE :
    Nicolas Sarkozy shaking the hand of a George W. Bush caught up in the Iraqi mess, Ségolène Royal posing for photographers on the Great Wall of China…These pictures cannot be a substitute for a foreign policy programme. In the context of international tensions, where globalisation blurs the boundaries between domestic and foreign matters on a daily basis, Pascal Boniface (1), director of the Institute of International Relations and (…)