UE: Sarkozy, ''conservateur britannique'' Les propos de Nicolas Sarkozy, hier à Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis), où il a menacé que la France sorte de Schengen, sont dignes d'un "Premier ministre britannique conservateur", a estimé aujourd'hui le directeur de campagne de François Hollande, Pierre Moscovici. "J'ai eu l'impression d'entendre non pas un président français, parce qu'un président français, c'est quelqu'un qui veut toujours construire l'Europe, la bâtir, la faire avancer. Mais presque un Premier ministre britannique, conservateur", a déclaré Pierre Moscovici sur France 2. Les Britanniques "refusent la logique de Schengen depuis 25 ans", et les déclarations de Nicolas Sarkozy représentent "un retour en arrière phénoménal". "Les dirigeants conservateurs (européens) ne vont plus recevoir Nicolas Sarkozy s'il continue. "La solution n'est pas le repli national" Selon Pierre Moscovici, Nicolas Sarkozy "cache" aux Français que la révision des accords de Schengen "est en route".
Mise en scène néolibérale de l’élection présidentielle française à la BBC J’ai récemment été invité par la BBC à parler de l’élection présidentielle française. Professeur dans une université de Londres, les sollicitations des médias ne manquent pas. En règle générale, je me méfie des invitations à la radio ou à la télévision. Il faut d’abord parlementer au téléphone avec le producteur du programme. L’entretien a lieu dans l’urgence. Supporteurs de candidats Malgré ces fortes réticences déontologiques, j’avais accepté de participer à un séminaire sur l’élection présidentielle française. Je parlai le premier, faisant une présentation très « science po », tel qu’on me l’avait demandé : conditions d’éligibilité ; nature du vote ; les dix candidats en lice et un bref résumé de leurs propositions ; le rôle des sondages et les thèmes majeurs de campagne. Mise en musique idéologique de l’élection Ce fut pourtant l’unique fois où je mis les rieurs de mon côté.
The French media circus continues Seventy-year-old Jacques Cheminade, a man with close ties to the controversial American conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed political activist Lyndon LaRouche, is running for president in the French election this month. He believes, among other things, that violent video games should be outlawed; that the industrialisation of the moon is an economic imperative; that Queen Elizabeth II's fortune is partly predicated on a worldwide drug-smuggling ring; and that it is not ridiculous to compare Barack Obama to Hitler, as Lyndon LaRouche has done on several occasions. On 9 April, the official presidential campaign was launched, meaning that all ten candidates must be given equal air time in the media. Prior to this, the Solidarité and Progres candidate, who is credited with less than 0.5 per cent of votes in current polls for the first round of the election on 22 April, had only been given 0.4 per cent of the total media coverage of the presidential election since January.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon's policies are no far-left fantasy | Philippe Marlière Superbly ignored by the media until recently, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the new flavour of the day in the French presidential campaign. In truth, while trying to account for his dramatic rise in the polls – latest reports put him at 17% of the vote – most commentators could not help pour scorn on the Left Front candidate. A survey of the main articles recently published in the British media provides a compelling case study of political prejudice and misunderstanding. It is striking that the more favourable assessment of Mélenchon's politics remains off the mark. Oratory is politically useless if one does not have an important message to deliver. In France raging pundits and opponents call the Left Front programme an "economic nightmare" or a "delirious fantasy". Mélenchon has done French democracy a further favour. Mélenchon's campaign politicises the young.
la-presidentielle-sous-le-regard-amuse-ennuye-ou-severe-de-la-presse-etrangere_1689095_1471069.html?utm_source=dlvr Ennuyeuse, la campagne présidentielle française ? Morose ? "Pitoyable", même, comme l'a suggéré la socialiste Martine Aubry ? "Frivole", a tranché le 30 mars The Economist, l'hebdomadaire britannique donnant le ton à une presse européenne ébahie de voir les "vrais enjeux" - croissance, compétitivité, réduction des dépenses publiques - s'effacer devant des sujets secondaires comme la viande halal ou la gratuité du permis de conduire. Même le quotidien de centre gauche The Independent a prévenu : "Les Français ne voteront pas pour l'austérité, mais c'est ce qu'ils auront." Une certaine propension française à "nier la réalité" a également été mise en avant en Allemagne, où le Tagesspiegel regrette que "les grandes questions qui décident du sort du pays et de l'Europe aient été simplement évacuées". Il Foglio, le quotidien de la droite intellectuelle italienne, a déjà baissé le rideau. Les médias argentins, eux, ont accordé une place inhabituelle à un candidat... franco-argentin.
François Hollande: from a small town in France to the gates of the Elysée | World news | The Observer Corrèze is what its inhabitants call "la France profonde" – in other words, the sticks. If it were not for the motorway from Paris built on the orders of former president Jacques ChiracJacques Chirac, a local man, it would be the back of beyond. The locals are the first to admit this. Despite its splendid isolation, however, this rural region in south-central FranceFrance – a five-hour drive from the capital – has produced three popes (Clement VI in 1342, Innocent VI in 1352 and Gregory XI in 1370) and will, if François Hollande, is elected, have been the hothouse for two French presidents. At the local tourist office visitors are reminded of other local specialities: Tulle, the region's capital, boasts France's last accordion factory, and is famous for its armaments industry, now in decline, and speciality lace. It was in Tulle in 1981 that the young and ambitious Hollande first made his political mark shortly after France's first Socialist president, François Mitterrand, was elected.
Anger or answers? - David Miliband MP – Official website If you have just moved or you are looking to leave your current financial institution, you may have some questions about the difference between a credit union and a bank. They’re actually not as different as you think, but at the same time, the differences between the two can be a determining factor of which you enroll with. Credit unions were created in the 1860’s in Germany, banks had been around since the 1700’s. By definition, a bank is a financial entity, usually in the form of a corporation, which has been registered through a state or federal government. On the other hand, a credit union is a nonprofit organization that is classified as a financial institution. Most important thing to note: Credit Unions are non-profit.
French election descends into trench warfare over Le Pen voters | World news After the far-right Marine Le Pen's high score in the first round of the French presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy has set out in clear pursuit of her 6.4 million voters, because without winning over a large number of them, he has no chance of re-election. But as political bullets fly left and right over what lengths Sarkozy and his Socialist rival, François Hollande, should go to to bring Le Pen's supporters into their folds, the battle over French historical metaphors is in full swing. The communist paper L'Humanité sparked a row with its front page comparing Sarkozy to Marshal Pétain, the leader of France's Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime in the 1940s, who was convicted of treason after the second world war. The paper said Sarkozy's decision to hold his own Labour Day rally in Paris on 1 May to celebrate what he termed "real" work, as opposed to the traditional, trade-union-led rallies by the left, harked back to a Pétain-style discourse.
Our French resistance is only just beginning | Jean-Luc Mélenchon For the first time in more than 30 years, a new French political force – not only to the left of the Socialists, but also unafraid to assert itself as an alternative to them – scored double figures in a presidential election: 11.1%, climbing to 16% in large cities. This achievement of the Front de Gauche (Left Front) represents the most recent and the strongest success of the "other left" in Europe. After too many years of fragmentation, the Front de Gauche has managed to unify the leftist forces that advocate social and environmental transformation. Now we must make sure that Nicolas Sarkozy is ousted from the Elysée with a crushing defeat in the second round of the presidential election on 6 May. But this short-term objective should not be confused in any way with support for the Socialist party's candidate or his programme. The Left Front, created in 2009, has in its first presidential election mobilised close to four million people.
Greek socialists hope François Hollande wins French elections | World news The leader of Greece's socialist party says the country is pinning its hopes on the election of François Hollande in Sunday's French presidential election, with the socialist frontrunner being seen as the best guarantor of the growth policies the EU's austerity-wracked southern periphery so desperately needs. With the Greeks also going to the polls, the socialist Pasok party leader, Evangelos Venizelos, said in an interview with the Guardian: "We are very much hoping that he [Hollande] will win. He is by far the best solution." Support for the French socialist is the most glaring reflection yet of the growing rift in Europe over Berlin's Calvinist approach to resolving a crisis that many believe could have been contained had austerity not been so remorselessly pursued when it first broke out in Athens. "This is undoubtedly a war, the war of our generation," said Venizelos, who was a teenager during Greece's 1967-74 military regime. "We need to be helped. … we have a small favour to ask.