PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reelection prospects are looking tough: A swirling corruption scandal has ensnared two of his allies, and his conservative party lost control of the Senate for the first time in a half-century.
That must be because and/or why he is supporting the Palestinian bid for statehood.
The French leader huddled with allies yesterday to plot strategy a day after the opposition left won elections and seized control of the upper house of parliament for the first time since 1958....
Well, if you won an election you didn't seize anything. Obviously the results did not meet with Zionist AmeriKan media approval.
In recent weeks, Sarkozy’s prospects had at last been looking up: France helped Libyan rebels topple Moammar Khadafy and Sarkozy’s dismal poll numbers appeared on the mend. The Socialist Party appeared riddled with dissent, and far from uniting behind a presidential candidate.
But now, the Senate drubbing and the creep of an alleged corruption scandal into Sarkozy’s inner circle is threatening to dent his image again, and even some conservatives are clamoring for a change of policy.
“The political truth is that this [Senate election] is a serious warning for our majority,’’ Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire, who heads the platform committee for Sarkozy’s UMP party, told Radio Classique.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a conservative former prime minister, said on France-Info radio: “We must learn the lessons from this vote, soften the government’s policies’’ - notably with regard to domestic reforms.
That means the AUSTERITY DEMANDED by INTERNATIONAL BANKERS!
After meeting with Prime Minister Francois Fillon and UMP party boss Jean-Francois Cope, Sarkozy’s office announced a minor tweak to his Cabinet after the Senate vote: Chantal Jouanno, who won a seat in the Senate, was removed from her post as sports minister. She will be replaced by former Olympic judo champion David Douillet, who is now junior minister for French citizens overseas.
What a deck-chair-on-the-Titanic move!
The lower house of parliament still has the upper hand on legislation, and Sarkozy’s party controls that chamber by a wide margin. But the loss of control of the Senate could stall his reform agenda....
The "reform agenda" is media code for the globalist order.
While the Socialist-led victory Sunday boosted optimism on the left, many political watchers acknowledge that Sarkozy, despite relatively low poll numbers, remains a formidable opponent, and will be hard to dislodge.
Meanwhile, an ongoing, yearslong drama over an alleged corruption scandal has drawn close to Sarkozy in recent days, with the risk of political fallout as the presidential election nears. The Socialists have been stepping up their calls for a full investigation.
Investigators are probing whether a French defense deal in the 1990s with Pakistan set the stage for a Karachi car bombing in 2003 that killed 15 people, mostly French defense contractors.
The case centers on suspected kickbacks that could have benefited the former prime minister Edouard Balladur’s failed 1995 campaign for president, allegations Balladur has strongly denied....
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Related: French Sick of Sarkozy
Maybe the kids can save him:
"Teens may be asked to vow to defend France" September 22, 2011|Associated Press
PARIS - If President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives have their way, French teenagers will one day swear their allegiance to the defense of France - a sort of muscular French take on the US Pledge of Allegiance.
Fifteen years after France ended obligatory military service, Sarkozy’s UMP party wants to tighten the binds between the nation and its military by requiring rising 18-year-olds to declare “allegiance to the arms’’ of France.
But critics see political posturing: France will hold both presidential and legislative elections next year, and they say the purely symbolic idea is aimed to help conservatives siphon voter support from a resurgent far-right.
The teens are a tool, huh? I can't imagine they are feeling to good about all the French foreign aggression while their social safety net is shredded.
Many French take pride in their military, and the national anthem includes the combative cry: “Aux armes, citoyens!’’ (To arms, citizens!).
I'm not opposed to citizens taking arms. Sometimes they have to. That other part, though. I can't take pride in mine, not after the mass-murdering invasions and occupations based on lies along with the torture.
The debate about the military has already been part of the election campaign. Green Party candidate Eva Joly drew criticism over the summer after saying the annual Bastille Day military parade should be abolished and replaced by a “citizens parade.’’
I love a parade.
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Maybe the women will win him another term:
"Muslim women flout French ban on wearing veils; Say covering face stands for freedom, not submission" by Elaine Ganley Associated Press / October 2, 2011
PARIS - With Islam the second religion in France and numbers of faithful growing, there are worries that veiled Muslim women could compromise the nation’s secular foundations and undermine gender equality and women’s dignity. There are also concerns that practices like wearing full veils could open the door to a radical form of Islam. Lawmakers banned Muslim headscarves in classrooms in 2004.
Yeah, right, veiled women are responsible for all your problems. Pfffft!
Few Muslim women in France cover their faces.
Meaning the issue is being used as another political smokescreen.
Most who veil themselves wear the “niqab,’’ a filmy cloth attached to the headscarf that covers all but the eyes. The law also affects the burqa, with just a mesh covering over the eyes, worn largely in Afghanistan.
Belgium passed a similar face-veil ban that took effect in July, and the Netherlands announced Friday it has drawn up legislation to outlaw Muslim face veils. A draft law has been approved in Italy.
Don't you love the stinking stench of western intolerance?
In France, the veil ban was also seen as a political maneuver by the unpopular Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party, which Copé chairs, to entice deeply conservative and far-right voters.
Given the amount of citizens in the streets throughout the world I don't see the old tricks working anymore, do you?
Flouting the French measure outlawing face veils in all public places can lead to a fine, in some cases, citizenship classes. However, thus far there have been few legal consequences
According to the Interior Ministry, 146 women have been given citations by police, but only a handful have reportedly been forced to take the next step - appearing before a judge for a possible fine. The Justice Ministry said figures are not yet available.
“I tried to understand this law, and what I understood is that this is a law which puts us under house arrest,’’ Kenza Drider said, referring to women who choose to stay home rather than remove their face veils.
What the law has done, she said, is give citizens the right to insult veiled women.
History -- yeah, that's me -- will judge this period and its treatment of Muslims to that accorded to the Jews of the last century.
Drider and others say that many women who refuse to remove their veils become shut-ins rather than go outside and risk a citation or insults. One woman in a long black robe was seen recently in a chic Paris neighborhood wearing a surgical mask on her face - one of several tricks developed to get around the ban.
Drider, 32, who has worn a face veil for 13 years, has not shirked from denouncing the ban in the past. She was the only veiled woman to testify before an information commission of lawmakers studying a potential ban before the law was passed.
With four children, Drider says she goes about the southern city of Avignon, where she lives, facing down insults but left alone by police.
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Also see: Putting a Veil Over France
