Whoopee! Another week in French politics with best buddies, Manuel Valls (again) and Inspecteur Gadget

The political week in France began with the Socialist party holding its annual summer shindig in La Rochelle.

Well strictly speaking it was last weekend, but hey ho. Give a guy a little temporal (as related to time rather than spiritual) break please.

The great and the glorious were there, including the party's new best friends, the interior minister Manuel Valls and the justice minister Christine Taubira.

We know they're now best buddies, in spite of the former recently trying to tell the latter how to do her job properly, because Valls said so, insisting that they were both "working hand in hand to achieve the same thing - a fair and effective policy."

Valls was certainly good value for money.  Up there on the podium, he looked ready to implode (he so often does, don't you think?) as he seethed, spluttered, yelled and sometimes cooed his way through 20 minutes. There's no doubting, he sure can orate.


Valls: "L'immigration doit être régulée et... par BFMTV

Sadly the same could not be said for his immediate boss, the prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who closed the conference on Sunday.

Sure he tried to bring the whole shebang to a conclusion with a speech showing who was in charge (and don't say "nobody") and a warning that, "Personal games could ruin the collective efforts."

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/la-rochelle-quand-jean-marc-ayrault-prend-les-commandes_1275780.html

But really. Even if he thought anyone was listening and taking note, did he honestly believe they were taking any notice?

A far less apoplectic Valls (yes that man again) popped up on the revamped "Le Grand Journal" on Canal + on Monday evening.

He was the guest of honour as the show's new anchor, Antoine de Caunes, and his team went on the attack.

That photo spread with his wife in Paris Match, his own personal crusading Tour de France over the summer, and the media love-in for a man who clearly knew where the cameras were.

"Wasn't it all a bit too reminiscent of a certain former French president," he was asked.

The interior minister more than held his own - and kept his cool. But it was a little like watching a double of the real thing (Nicolas Sarkozy, just in case you were wondering) in action.

LE GRAND JOURNAL du 26/08/13 - Part. 2 Valls, la star de l'été

The programme would probably have been a good deal more interesting had another guest not been disinvited.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit had also been slated to appear, but the invitation was withdrawn at the last moment because "Valls wanted to be the only one on the programme" according to Cohn-Bendit who is now a political commentator on Europe 1 radio.

"It's not important. In fact it's rather amusing really," he said. "But it's symptomatic of what I call a 'presidential virus' in which he (Valls) is trying to project a presidential image."



Tous candidats à l’élection présidentielle ! par Europe1fr

Nothing of the sort, according to the show's production team.

It was simply that the same sort of editorial decision had been taken as similar programmes on other channels: namely to concentrate on a debriefing after the conference in La Rochelle.

http://www.jeanmarcmorandini.com/article-309004-cohn-bendit-affirme-avoir-ete-deprogramme-du-grand-journal-a-la-demande-de-manuel-valls-la-reponse-de-la-production.html

Ho hum. We believe you.

Back to Ayrault for a moment, and the prime minister finally unveiled the government's proposals for pension reform...or non-reform as the "reformettes" have also been described.

Although it's an important subject, pensions can also appear terribly tedious stuff and successive French governments have shown a talent for regularly tinkering with a complex system and making it even more incomprehensible.

The current government is no exception.

But just in case you want to try to understand what is being proposed, here's a link to a piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Finally, the French president, François Hollande, came out of his hidey hole this week to deliver an impassioned speech on the situation in Syria.

"France is ready to punish (ooh puhleeze, who the heck was his speechwriter?) those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents," he told an annual meeting in Paris of French ambassadors from around the world, undoubtedly striking fear into the very heart of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

And while Hollande waits for other international leaders to decide what, if any, action should be taken, the weekly news magazine Le Point was once again poking fun at him with a very telling front cover of its latest edition.

It features a head and shoulder shot of a half-smiling Hollande, left hand held aloft and the gloriously appropriate headline "Inspecteur Gadget"...described by that online bible of all that is true and factual, Wikipedia, as "a clumsy, dim-witted cyborg detective".

Gadget, that is. Not Hollande.

Or there again.

That's all for this week folks.

Have a great weekend.

screenshot front cover Le Point

Gérard Depardieu, Brigitte Bardot - Daniel Cohn-Bendit's "morons"

It has been one of those stories whose legs have surely proven that it has more than runs its course.

Gérard Depardieu's decision last December to buy a house in Belgium has taken on proportions that perhaps not even the most enthusiastic of spoof writers could have imagined.

But as with much seemingly silly news - albeit with serious undertones - the media is keeping it going...and going...and going (when will it be gone?) .

And the main protagonist is of course playing his larger-than-life role like a real pro.

The latest stroke of genius from one of France's "greatest living actors" is that he's not leaving France for tax reasons.

"I have a Russian passport, but I remain French and I will probably also soon have dual Belgian nationality," Depardieu told the new French sports channel L'Equipe 21.

"If I had wanted to avoid paying taxes, as the French press keeps reporting, I would have left France a long time ago."

Meanwhile Brigitte Bardot - another great Gallic cinematogapraphic treasure - has threatened to jump upon the same Moscow express as darling Gégé unless two sick elephants  at Lyon's Tête d'Or zoo are allowed to live.

"Baby" and "Nepal" both have tuberculosis and are considered a danger by the authorities to the zoo's other animals and visitors alike.

BB - Bardot that is - wants to save them and unless she gets her way, she's warning she'll pack her bags and move to Moscow (that's paraphrasing at its most lazy).

Now, all kudos to Bardot for her animal rights campaigning (if not for her political tendencies), but it's another media yawnathan - and besides, where's the proof that she carries the same sort of heavyweight clout with Russia's democratically (cough, splutter - excuse us all) leader as dear Gégé?

Finally (except it's hard to believe it really is) Hallelujah!  Enter stage left - but not as quite far left as he used to be, Dany le rouge - aka Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

Now you might not agree with his politics, but there's no doubt that Cohn-Bendit has proven himself down the years to be a man of principle: one who speaks his mind, doesn't practise the fine political art of langue de bois and thus will probably never really make it to the highest seat of power. Not that such a position is necessarily among his ambitions.

Besides he's a committed European - which means we have to forgive him for many of his faults as it's clear it'll never make him sufficiently "popular" in any country in which the "national interest" is often played as the trump card.

Anyway, Dany  - sorry, Cohn-Bendit - has had perhaps the best summing up of anyone so far in expressing his thoughts for both Gégé and BB.

At the weekend he was interviewed on BFM TV and, as you can hear from the video,  didn't mince his words, calling them both "morons" whose careers were finished.

For Cohn-Bendit, Depardieu was a "fool" and in saying Russia was a "great democracy" showed himself to be "really sick and completely full of alcohol to say such nonsense."

As for Bardot...well, Cohn-Bendit was equally scathing. "And then the other one who wants to leave France to go to Russia: to go from Saint-Tropez to Siberia," he said.

"That would be great for her. She could spend every winter in Siberia in a concentration camp for example, or a prison."



Now, who else could apply for Russian citizenship?

In fact could we all join in and nominate people to dispatch to Moscow along the lines of a French version of the UK radio television programme "Room 101"?

France's lip-synching government ministers

It's the latest video to create a buzz on the Internet here in France; members of the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement UMP) party lip-synching.

Most of the video was shot at the party's summer conference in Seignosse best remembered perhaps for THAT clip of the interior minister, Brice Hortefeux apparently making a remark which many interpreted as racist.

And it features - if that's the right word - several government ministers - past and present - letting their hair down and singing and dancing in perfect harmony, albeit it in playback.

The teaser came out last week with the official release of the full-length version set for release Friday 11 December.

But of course the French media has got hold its hands on it - so to speak - and the pirated version, complete with a Nicolas Sarkozy impersonator voice-over, is already doing the rounds.

The video is the brainchild of the UMP's youth wing. An attempt surely to appeal to the electorate ahead next year's regional elections in which several of the political "artistes" will be standing such as the minister for higher education and research, Valérie Pécresse, in Ile de France and the minister of employment, Xavier Darcos, in Aquitaine.

Also shaking their stuff and joining in the fun in a splendid show of solidarity in "Tous ceux qui veulent changer le monde" ("Everyone who wants to change the world") are several other frontline government ministers including Christine Lagarde, (finance), Eric Besson (immigration) and Eric Woerth (budget) as well as the junior minister for sports, Rama Yade, and the junior minister for family, Nadine Morano.

Not forgetting of course the former prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, or Rachida Dati, who until June this year was the justice minister and is now a member of the European parliament.

And so the list goes on.

Anyway without further ado, here it is. Sit back, enjoy and...er...sing along?

Le lip dub des jeunes de l'UMP... piraté!
par LePostfr

Have you recovered or are you still singing?

Earlier this year a similar lip-synched video from Daniel Cohn-Bendit's Europe Écologie party ahead of June's European parliamentary elections received more than 90,000 hits.

Election Européenne Lipdub Europe Écologie vote le 7 juin
par EuropeEcologie

While it would without doubt be stretching a point to say that it contributed to the party's success in the election in which it won over 16 per cent of the national vote and gained 14 seats in the European parliament, it certainly didn't do it any harm.

Something perhaps the youth wing of the UMP party is hoping it can repeat in next year's regional elections.

Low turnout "wins" European elections in France

What to make of how the French voted in the European parliamentary elections?

Well at face value the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP), and Europe Ecologie (Greens) were the big "winners" here while the Socialist party and the centre party, Mouvement démocrate (MoDem) were the "losers".

But the most telling factor of Sunday's vote perhaps was the high abstention rate, with 51 per cent of France's eligible 44 million voters not bothering to go to the polls.

Of course it's not a trend isolated to this country, but France was one of the founder-members, is a major EU player and only last December was coming to the end of its spell as the EU "big cheese" as it handed over the six-month rotating presidency to the Czech Republic.

The overall results of the European parliamentary elections appear to reflect a general shift to the centre-right throughout the 27-nation bloc, and France would seem at first sight to have been no exception.

Indeed the results here are widely billed internationally as the governing UMP having "thrashed" the Socialist party.

And it's certainly true that the UMP of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy did well with almost 28 per cent of the votes and 29 seats while the Socialist party put in a poor performance to win just 14 seats and garner a little over 16 per cent of the popular vote.

But there were a number of factors at play and of course the interpretation put on what happened also depends to a great extent on political spin.

First up before looking at the results here and what they might or might not mean, it's important once again to look at the voter turnout.

As predicted and feared by many political pundits and politicians, it was abysmal. Just 41 per cent nationally - the lowest ever for a European parliamentary election in France.

So in a real sense none of the parties managed to convince the electorate that the issues at stake were worth voting for.

A shame really as the new parliament will have an even bigger role in shaping legislation that will have an enormous impact on the everyday lives of all EU citizens.

Still that's a message that parties in France (as elsewhere) failed to get across and indeed in the last weeks of what was, by any assessment, a lacklustre campaign, the focus was either on domestic issues such as security, or personal attacks on other members of political parties.

Simply put though the results from Sunday's vote suggest there were two big winners in France; the centre-right UMP and Europe Ecologie (Greens).

And there were of course two big losers, the Socialist party and the centre MoDem.

There's no doubt the UMP did better than many had expected, but there still has to be a doubt as to whether the result can really be said to have been a vote of confidence in the government and its policies.

Even if Sarkozy tries to use the results as a ringing endorsement of the government's policies and a springboard for more legislative reform, they're surely far from being that.

Few "European" issues were addressed during the campaign no matter how much "spin" is put on the results, and Sarkozy's domestic popularity remains low.

The other big winner was undoubtedly Europe Écologie (Greens) which garnered more than 16 per cent of the vote to finish in third spot just behind the Socialist party although the two will return exactly the same number of MEPs - 14.

The reasons for its success are probably three-fold.

Firstly, the undoubted failure of the Socialist party to overcome its internal differences and present a united front to the electorate.

Secondly the charismatic leadership of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the inclusion of both Eva Joly and José Bové on the party's list.

In the end though it may well have been the leader of MoDem, François Bayrou, trading insults with Cohn-Bendit last Thursday that helped the Europe Ecologie do well and simultaneously damage MoDem's chances, and thus making it one of the "losers".

Before the two sparred off against each other, MoDem had been ahead in the polls and had been predicted to gain anything between 11 and 14 per cent going into the election.

Instead it has ended up with 8.45 per cent of the vote and just six MEPs.

That's being largely seen as a backlash and a reaction to the criticism there was the day after Bayrou accused Cohn-Bendit of "defending paedophilia" and being a personal friend of Sarkozy.

And Cohn-Bendit's barb that Bayrou was only interested in being president in 2012, which "you'll never be because you're pathetic," might well have had the ring of truth about it for many a voter.

Along with MoDem, the other big "loser" was of course the Socialist party.

But perhaps that's no real surprise, even to its most ardent supporters.

The party has been in turmoil for several years now and of course the infighting reached its pinnacle at the end of last year when Martine Aubry and Ségolène Royal fought a bitter battle for the leadership.

Aubry "won" but Royal never really accepted "defeat" and even though the two women publicly buried the hatchet in the run up to Sunday's election, it was widely seen as a rather poorly stage-managed and unbelievable peace pact.

In addition the Socialist party has also been criticised for failing to put across any specifically European political programme during campaigning (admittedly it was not alone in that).

Before the election Aubry had set the target of 20 per cent as a result to aim for.

The party won just a little over 16 per cent, which might not be as bad as its worst ever performance back in 1994 (14.49 per cent) but must still be sending alarm bells ringing over its prospects in the 2012 French presidential elections.

Alongside the four main political parties, there'll also be representatives from both the far-left and the far-right from the French political spectrum in the new European parliament with four seats for the former and three for the latter (including Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine).

And along with the one member from Libertas France (a combination of Mouvement pour la France, and Chasse, Pêche, Nature et Traditions, CPNT) a total of 72 French MEPs will take up their seats when the next session gets underway.