The Right, particularly the French right, always plays on fear. It’s one of the major reasons why in 2002, Chirac and Le Pen ran their campaigns on security, which made the distinctly un-authoritarian Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin loook quite far out to sea. Sarkozy, with a distinctly more right wing agenda than Chirac ever ran, [...]
Le Pen is dead, long live Le Pen! Back in March I noted that the elections to the Conseil Régional Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur would be the last time Jean-Marie Le Pen would present himself as a political candidate before retirement (here). It’s worth looking at how French fascism will cope without him. As Jean-Marie steps down [...]
Dominique de Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, launched his new party over the weekend, République Solidaire. While everyone in Britain discusses the budget, here are some thoughts on what effect de Villepin might have on the presidential elections in 2012.
John Prescott made an extremely appropriate, intelligent and articulate comment recently. Whether he knew it or not.* John Hutton, a former Labour minister who has been appointed as “chair of a new public sector pension commission” joining Labour MP Frank Field’s appointment as a “Povery Tzar”. Prescott called them both “Collaborators.” A piece on LabourList [...]
To my surprise, Ségolène Royal has, at least on the surface “put personal ambition aside to enable a united left.” She claimed that she would not decide to stand alone, but would instead consult with the other main leaders of the Parti Socialiste in France, namely the Chief Secretary (leader) Martine Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, [...]
A massive victory for the Parti Socialiste tonight, winning 21/22 regions in France. Sarkozy has finally made his mark on French history, it was thanks to him the Left won its highest score since the formation of the fifth republic (1958). Isn’t it beautiful? In PACA, I’m delighted to say we won our corner. Results [...]
Tomorrow I return to France to help the Parti Socialiste in the Regional Elections on Sundays the 14th and the 22nd. I’ve written previously about the corner I’ll be fighting in Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur here and here, and more recently about the polls predicting a socialist victory here. The lead is not restricted to PACA though, [...]
The phrase National Identity has become increasingly familiar in current political discourse, despite the fact that nationalism and nationhood are far from being new ideas in Europe. Typically, it is the Right and Far-Right which profits from and occupies itself with concerns over identity. Excluding Gordon Brown’s occasional remarks on possibly considering planning a “British [...]
French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand was fighting to keep his job last night, having been ensnared by a scandal of his own making. The row began with his defence of famous film director Roman Polanski, (arrested with charges of paedophilia) where he said that the affair was “absolutely horrifying” before launching an attack on the [...]
Yesterday concluded a massive public consultation across the whole of France. The French were asking themselves about the privatisation of the postal service, La Poste. When I say “asking themselves” I mean it literally; the whole project was a mock referendum. The mock referendum was designed to show support for a real referendum, which is [...]
