100 posts
Sarko On The Skids
I first said this a week ago about the rumour around the French president's marriage...
12 March: Sarko steals the headlines
Quite a week for Nicolas Sarkozy, then. After skipping the opening ceremony of the Salon d’Agriculture, the French president wrapped up the show by announcing that France is ready to accept farm budget cuts – but only if EU farmers are given mor...
Looks like Sarkozy has a problem
French voters deliver blow to Sarkozy from FT.com – World, Europe French voters deliver a rebuke to the government of Nicolas Sarkozy with opposition parties winning an unprecedented share of the vote in the first round of regional electio...
Serious Problems Emerge For The F-UK-De Group Of Countries
Well, I for one can’t help thinking that it’s now well time we all stopped getting carried away with the use of so many acronyms. Not only may one man’s meat easily prove to be another’s poison, it may even be that for some th...
Sarkozy offers lower CAP budget for tighter import controls deal
President Sarkozy took farmers into his confidence in a recent speech at the Salon d’agriculture where he proposed a new direction in France’s position on CAP reform post 2013. Noting that there were farms in France where the share of subsidies...
Sarkozy offers a deal on CAP reform
The French President criticises subsidy dependency and calls for a return to community preference...
The 3rd oil crisis? At least in France.
Over the last week, French citizens have experienced long queues for fuel at petrol stations across the country. This follows an announcement made by Total, the French oil company, concerning plans to close a refinery in Dunkirk, which led to To...
IMF’s Strauss-Kahn Mulls a Presidential Challenge to Sarkozy
Since the Fifth Republic’s birth in 1958, France has had six presidents - and only one, François Mitterrand (1981-1995), was a man of the left. Now certain elements of the French left see a great opportunity to capture the presidency again b...
France backs ban on bluefin tuna trade
Within the next fortnight, France will announce its support for adding bluefin tuna to Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),according to an article published on the website of French newspaper, Le Monde.Th...
France and Germany seal bilateral deal with global ambitions
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have unveiled a new 10-year plan, including 80 projects designed to improve Franco-German cooperation. The goal is also to better promote European ideas globally. READ MORE...
France, two new wind farms by EDF Energies Nouvelles
French energy company EDF Energies Nouvelles announced the construction of two wind farms in Southern France, for a total installed power capacity of 38 MW. One plant is to be built by German company RePower in the Herault Department and will develop...
Paris applies 'friendly pressure' on French language use
With the Lisbon Treaty in place and recruitment ready to start for the European diplomatic service, France is on a mission to strengthen its "francophone exigency," said former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, special envoy on francophony to Pr...
Trench Warfare
The kabuki performance around the Clearstream affair in French politics (see yesterday's Salon) is now...
Another blow for Sarkozy? France brought to ECJ for "telecom tax"
After the judgement clearing former French prime Minister de Villepin in the Clearstream case, Sarkozy is facing another blow on his 55th Birthday as the Commission has opened an infringement procedure against France's telecoms tax. This tax heavily...
French government versus the burqa: Arguments for secularism wearing thin
WASHINGTON — In the early 2000s, the issue of Muslim schoolgirls, teachers, and civil servants wearing headscarves in public institutions and schools was a heated national debate in France and a source of discussion and controversy around the w...
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
Mostly in lieu of a proper review, excerpts from The Discovery of France by Graham Robb, the best non-fiction book I read in 2009. (Tough competition, too: In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak, Gold and Iron by Fritz Stern an...
France stirs burka debate
So a French parliamentary commission has ruled that "the wearing of the full veil is a challenge to the Republic". The burka and niqab are "unacceptable", the report goes on, "and we condemn this excess". However, the re...
Sarko dog-whistles and the left hum along. As usual.
All over the news again is the anti-burka "fight" in France, in which the government...
A visit to Paris
This week I was in Paris to see my French (Pierre Lellouche) and German (Werner Hoyer) counterparts and take part in a seminar on new world governance. Heavy snow in the UK meant it was touch and go whether the Eurostar would be running but...
The lost MEPs: France and the European Parliament after Lisbon
According to an article in Le Monde, the French parliament will not choose the two additional Members of European Parliament that the country will get under the Lisbon Treaty rules before summer. The vote foreseen in the Assemblée nationale has bee...
France should persevere with its ecological tax reform
As of January 1, 2010, France was supposed to have launched its ecological tax reform, under which fossil energy would be taxed at increasingly higher rates and taxes on income and would be lowered correspondingly. On December 27th, the Conseil d`Eta...
To be French
La Courneuve, a suburb of Paris, comes with a reputation, and it is not good. It is one of the banlieues. And they, too, have reputations. They are places of trouble, of seething resentment, of alienation, of car-burnings, of clashes...
Germans more corrupt than French, but not corrupt enough!
In an unexpected turn, the FT has a headline on its website which basically praises...
Emmanuel Todd on Sarkozy's race baiting
Another fascinating interview in Le Monde this week-end with one of the most interesting political...
Can’t see Ogra doing this…
A promotional video by the Young UMP, the youth section of President Sarkozy’s UMP party. Corny, but bet you’ll be humming the song “Tout ceux qui veulent changer le monde” (All those who want to change the world).” Keep an...
Nicolas Sarkozy, one. British press corps, nil.
Gordon Brown outshone...
British press in petulant Frenchman controls the city shocker
The French President can behave like a petulant teenager, yet the British press (and the British Bankers’ Association) seem to not understand that the best thing to do with a petulant teenager is to ignore it. The Times led today with the...
Du city group des Militants PSE de Charleroi : Une histoire importante !
Tout d’abord ce fut une campagne d’information et de recrutement pour assurer une présence européenne au sein de la région. Tout a débuté par la volonté de six militants, voulant mettre en place un groupe qui permette, sur base de leur saga...
Putin and energy diplomacy strategy
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Paris for a two-day working visit. Before the visit’s formal events got underway, he had breakfast with former French President Jacques Chirac, held restricted-attendance talks with French Prime Minister Francoi...
