French ministers and votes for foreigners - same hymn sheet but different notes

Ah cohesion and clarity.

Two words so often lacking in French government during Nicolas Sarkozy's time in office when ministers would regularly step out of line and speak their minds.

Sometimes it was refreshing such as Fadela Amara calling the proposal to verify the bloodlines of would-be immigrants with DNA tests "dégueulasse" or Rama Yade criticising the visit to France of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

On other occasions it was clearly an attempt to appeal to the very worst sectors of French society such as former interior minister Claude Guéant saying, "France didn't need foreign bricklayers or waiters" or that, "The number of Moslems in France caused problems".

In fact Guéant was a master of the most inappropriate and oftentimes racist of comments?

Thankfully though François Hollande is now president - just in case you hadn't realised...and you could probably be forgiven for not noticing.

So things are bound to be different.

Um.

Maybe not.

Hollande's 60 election promises (which is surely grounds in itself not to believe) included extending the right to vote in local elections to non-EU citizens resident in France.

On Monday a group of 75 Socialist parliamentarians - with more than an eye on the 2014 local elections - decided to call his bluff, urging Hollande and the government to get the process underway saying, "Proposals for were needed quickly because any reform of the law would require constitutional amendment and that would take time."

The reaction of interior minister Manuel Valls, the most liberal-minded and truly Socialist member of government, was one of which both his immediate predecessors in office, Guéant or Brice Hortefeux, would have been proud.

"Is this reform something which preoccupies the French at the moment and would it be a way of improving integration of foreigners into French society?" he asked.

"No," he emphatically told the French daily Le Monde.

"There isn't the same sort of drive for such a move as there would have been 30 years ago," he continued.

"The challenge today is how best French society can integrate foreigners."

Hang about. What exactly did Hollande say during his presidential campaign?

Well in his typically decisive manner, he "promised" a reform but of course left the timing rather open-ended as many, even within his own party, doubted (and still do) whether it was a "priority".



Such clarity: a promise made is one that's certainly not going to be kept.

Enter stage left housing minister Cécile Duflot, free from the constraints of having to toe the Socialist party line because she's in fact a member of  Europe Écologie – Les Verts or the Greens to the rest of us, and one of that party's two ministers in the government.

Don't ask why they've been included because the Socialist party could quite happily form a government without them. Still there was an electoral pact, and we all know how much politicians believe in sticking to promises made.

Cécile Duflot (screenshot from interview with France Inter)

"It's absolutely a necessity and yes, it was an election promise (made by François Hollande) and it'll be honoured next year," she said on France Inter radio.

"It remains an important element in helping integration into French society," she added, contradicting neatly what Valls had said.

"Reform is such an obvious given, that it's surprising it hasn't been done already."


Cécile Duflot par franceinter

So that's as clear as mud.

It remains government policy, but not just yet - and 2013 is still far enough away for plenty of other things to get in the way and banish the promise to the backburner.

(Don't) watch this space.

Sarkozy sidesteps minister's racial slur

It's a story that has been making the headlines here in France for over a week now; the incident when the interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, apparently made a remark which many interpreted as being racist.

It occurred at the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party's summer conference at Seignosse in southwestern France at the beginning of the month.

Hortefeux was captured on video saying in the presence of Amine Benalia-Brouch, a young party activist of Algerian origin, that he (Benalia-Brouch), "Doesn't match the prototype. We always need one. It's when there are lots of them that there are problems."

When the video made its way on to the Net, the reactions and criticisms came thick and fast.



The opposition Socialist party and groups representing ethnic minorities and those campaigning against racism roundly condemned the remarks, with some calling for the minister's resignation.

And the spokesman for the Socialist party, Benoît Hamon questioned what Hortefeux was "still doing in the government".

But just as quickly, colleagues of Hortefeux leapt to the minister's defence.

The prime minister, François Fillon, told national TF1 television that the interior minister had been "the victim of a fairly scandalous campaign of defamation," and that, "I reiterate that he (Hortefeux) has my full support."

The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo insisted that "Brice Hortefeux is anything but a racist," and Fadela Amara the junior minister for urban policy and herself of North African origin, shrugged off the remark as being part of Hortefeux's "sense of humour".

It seems that Hortefeux is well known for making jokes that aren't always appreciated.

From Brussels though came a somewhat dissenting voice within the UMP in the shape of the reaction from a former cabinet colleague, Rachida Dati, also of North African descent.

Now a member of the European parliament, Dati said on national radio that although she hadn't seen the clip but had only read the transcript in the newspaper, she still found the remark inappropriate.

"I don't agree that it is humourous rather that it's tactless," she said.

"For me racism has nothing to do with humour."

For his part, Hortefeux has not apologised for the remarks he made but has said that he "regretted" the resulting controversial and "unnecessary" debate that followed.

And he had the support of Benalia-Brouch, who said that he didn't understand why there had been such a debate surrounding the video and that there had been no racist intent in what the minister had said and no offence taken.

But noticeably quiet up until now has been the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The two men are close political allies and long-time friends, and indeed it was Sarkozy who brought Hortefeux into the government in June 2007 as immigration minister, then appointed him at the beginning of this year to employment before offering him the job of interior minister in June's reshuffle.

Sarkozy is keen to keep Hortefeux in government, and twice in recent months has taken steps to ensure that he remains there; first by preventing him from taking up the seat he won in June's European parliamentary elections and then by insisting that he should not run in next year's regional presidential elections.

So what has Sarkozy's comment been on the whole matter?

Well according to the national daily, Le Figaro, the French president had rather a different reaction to most on seeing the video.

"When you're a minister you are always on duty," Sarkozy reportedly told him.

"And when you're minister of the interior that counts double," he continued.

"You should have been wearing a suit and tie and not have put in an appearance so casually dressed."

Sarkozy plays musical chairs with a handful of ministers

Fancy a bit of French politics for a Saturday read? Then here goes.

Don't worry it's not tremendously weighty (heaven forbid) and won't be too long - promise.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has tinkered a little with his government this week as expected, "splitting" difficult couples, springing one slight surprise in the process and promoting a "buddy".

Oh yes and he has also continued his policy of opening up the government to reflect better the political landscape.

Or another way of putting it, depending on your political perspective, could be seen as him maintaining his strategy of dividing and conquering the opposition.

What's happened isn't exactly a cabinet reshuffle, but more - in his own words - an "adjustment", as Sarkozy has ever so slightly conducted a game of musical chairs in making the changes.

So who are the not-so-new faces who've switched jobs or moved ministries?

Shuffle the cabinet

Well first up, the way was paved for that "adjustment" by Xavier Bertrand stepping down from the government to take over the leadership of the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party.

Bertrand is one of Sarkozy's "favourites" and, in many political commentators' eyes, a potential future prime minister should the current one, François Fillon drop out of favour.

To fill the seat that has become vacant at the employment or labour ministry Sarkozy has turned to his "buddy", Brice Hortefeux.

No surprises there as his likely move had been anything less than a well kept secret.

Hortefeux, who had never been particularly keen on his previous job as minister of immigration when it was created in June 2007, is a long-time friend and close political ally of the French president.

His new post will also see him take on extra responsibility as the outspoken Socialist politician, Fadela Amara will be working alongside him.

She'll keep the same portfolio she has had until now of junior minister for urban policy but switches bosses from Christine Boutin, the housing minister with whom she has had a less than comfortable relationship, to Hortefeux.

Amara has been a vital member of the French government and a potent symbol of Sarkozy’s desire to break with the politics of the past, but it hasn’t stopped her from speaking her mind whenever it suits her.

So it should be fun to see how she gets on with Hortefeux, whose legislation for voluntary DNA testing of would-be immigrants she famously described as "dégueulasse" (disgusting) when it was being debated in parliament.

Amara and Boutin, who've rarely seen eye to eye, aren't the only couple to have been split.

It's also the case of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who had been a junior minister of ecology under the super ministry (transport, energy and environment) headed by the larger than life Jean-Louis Borloo.

Kosciusko-Morizet (or NKM as she's known in the "meeja") and Borloo didn't get on, so she has been given a new job - perhaps the only real surprise among the appointments - as wait for it, junior minister of prospectives and evaluation of public policies (please don't ask) reporting directly to the prime minister, François Fillon.

That (mouthful of a) job became vacant because Eric Besson is moving to become minister of immigration (Hortefeux's old job - remember?).

It's a rapid promotion for a man who "jumped political ships" so to speak during the 2007 presidential campaign when he was still a member of the Socialist party and an advisor to Ségèlone Royal before resigning from both.

And there basically you have it.

The music has finished and the chosen few called to the floor to circle the chairs have all found their seats.

Perhaps the real surprise in all of this comes in the form of two ministers that have remained very much were they are - against all expectations.

Rachida Dati is still hanging in there as justice minister, and there's no word as to whether she'll head the party's list for the European parliamentary elections in June.

Oh and also let's not forget that other tricky customer, Rama Yade, the junior minister for human rights.

She's also staying put for the moment, somewhat confounding the experts who had predicted her dismissal after a) she refused "orders" to head the list for the very same European parliamentary elections (a request she likened to being forced to marry Prince Albert (of Monaco)".

And b) being rather pointedly slapped down in public last December when her immediate boss, the foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, turned around and said that it had been a mistake to appoint a junior minister responsible for human rights as "foreign policy cannot be conducted only in terms of how human rights functions".

There you go, a promise made is a promise kept.

The End

Bon weekend à tous et à toutes.

Delanoe throws his hat into the ring in the race to lead France's Socialists

As of yesterday it's official. The current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has declared he's running to become the next leader of this country's Socialist party.

It hasn't perhaps been the best kept secret here in France, as his name hasn't been far out of the headlines for most of this year as a potential successor to the current incumbent François Hollande.

Présentation de la contribution
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At the end of July a poll in the national daily newspaper, Le Parisien, showed that party members put him ahead in the race to become their next leader.

So why then is Delanoë's declaration so important? And what are its possible implications?

Well to start off with it's the manner in which he made his announcement

There was no razzamatazz, none of the "bling bling" that seems to have pervaded French politics since the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, first came to office 15 months ago, and no apparent desire to resort to verbal fisticuffs (in this instance at least) with his main rival for the job, Ségolène Royal.

She, you might remember, was the party's defeated candidate in last year's presidential elections.

Mind you, that's not to say the Delanoë has been averse to making scathing comments about Royal in the past. We are after all talking politics here. Among other things Delanoë has accused her of running a directionless (presidential) campaign last year and holds her partly responsible for the malaise in which the Socialist party now finds itself.

Delanoë has prepared the groundwork for his long awaited official announcement very carefully.

He let one of his main political backers, the former prime minister and failed presidential candidate back in 2002, Lionel Jospin, do all the legwork earlier in the year on a national level, when he was prevented from doing so because he was running for re-election as mayor of Paris.

Then towards the end of campaigning in those local elections, the ever media-savvy Delanoë (and let's face it, that's a pretty important component of 21st century politicking) appeared head-to-head on national television with his main rival for the capital's top job, Françoise de Panafieu of the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP).

And then the crowning glory (so far) with the release at the end of May of his book “De l’audace” in which he set out some of his visions for the future of Socialism in France.

While Tuesday's announcement probably didn't exactly come as a shock, choosing to do so in an interview with one of the country's most respected newspapers, Le Monde, perhaps sent a signal that Delanoë wanted to make a break from staged photo ops which have characterised French politics recently.

So why is Delanoë's declaration important? Well the malaise in which the Socialist party finds itself is undeniable - even they admit it, in spite of a relatively strong showing in March's local elections.

The Socialists are riven by political infighting (of which Delanoe hasn't exactly been guiltless) and there's a battle on for the future direction of the party. It's at more perhaps than a crossroads, and if it doesn't unite behind one leader, some political commentators have suggested there could be a split.

Part of that is probably down to Sarkozy of all people, who has done a pretty good job of dividing and conquering. He has invited prominent Socialists into government such as the foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and the junior minister for urban policy, Fadela Amara. Or he has successfully recommended them for high level jobs overseas such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the International Monetary Fund.

There's talk in the media that some factions of the party might consider a possible realignment with the Communist party which took a hammering in the national and local elections, and the far Left of Olivier Besancenot's La Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist League, LCR).

And then of course there's Royal, who has spoken about perhaps moving the party closer to the Centre and a more populist “listening and hearing” approach to politics.

Delanoë firmly rejects any sort of alliance - even with MoDem, the centre party, and in recently outlining his vision for the future of the party called on it to embrace economic liberalism and to accept the principle of competition – long a taboo to many on the Left.

For many, especially among the party faithful, Delanoë represents the future of the Socialist party. The 58-year-old is often accused of having a somewhat autocratic style and often portrayed as a control freak, but some think those are the very strengths needed to hold the party together and provide an effective oppostion.

Finally and probably not most importantly, Delanoë is openly gay. Perhaps that's not an issue - it certainly hasn't been during his tenure as mayor of Paris - but it could become a point picked up by the international media should he become the party's leader and its eventual presidential candidate in 2012, for no other reason than it reflects a change in attitudes and acceptance towards sexuality within France and abroad over the past couple of decades.

So now he's thrown his hat in the ring, we only have to wait until November to see how he fares. There's a whole gaggle of pretenders to the crown - declared and yet to declare. But at the moment it seems that it's very much Delanoë who's in the driving seat.

Only party activists get to vote in November's election, and that's a fact of which he's very much aware.

But in four year's time, come the presidential race, it'll be the country that votes. And Delanoë will surely want to have the popular base of support, not only from which to launch a powerful campaign against Sarkozy (should he decide to run for re-election) but also to take him all the way to the Elysée palace.

Putting the boot in

The French housing minister, Christine Boutin, has an odd way of lending her support to her cabinet colleague and junior minister for urban policy, Fadela Amara.

With just a over a week to go before Amara is due to launch her strategy for resolving the problems of the country’s deprived inner city suburbs, Boutin – her boss – has weighed in and said that she doesn’t really believe a plan aimed solely at those areas will work.

In an interview with the Catholic daily, “La Croix”, she questioned the wisdom of proposals that would, in her words, for the umpteenth time, only address the problems of the suburbs without taking a look at the wider picture of the divisions that existed in the country’s towns and cities.

Instead she calls for a “global solution”. Any plan for real urban regeneration, according to Boutin, must take into account the needs of everyone in the local community – poor and wealthy alike.

She stresses that all barriers – physical, cultural, psychological and economic – have to be broken down, discrimination ended and everyone encouraged to “work together for a common future.”

The millions of Euros that have been poured into the inner cities over the decades have not helped resolve their problems. For Boutin, the distribution of financial aid has become far too complicated, public services, hospitals, schools and employment opportunities are lacking where they are mainly required and most importantly there’s a dire shortage of decent and affordable housing that needs to be at the heart of any urban regeneration programme.

She insists the solution lies in listening to the elected local officials and letting them decide how and where to spend the money.

Fine sentiments indeed and ones that Amara may well echo next week, when amongst other things she too is expected to call for an end to the ghetto mentality and create links between all social classes

Boutin might claim that the two women get on well together and compliment each other, but she has hardly thrown her support behind Amara’s proposals just as her junior minister is about to put the finishing touches to them.

Perhaps though it’s not so surprising as even though they are united in government, the two women could not be further removed from each other politically.

Boutin is a member of Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right “Union pour un Mouvement Populaire”, an advocate of moral conservatism and founder of one of France’s largest pro-life organisations. Amara is a practising Moslem, an outspoken Socialist, anti-racist and feminist who has spent years campaigning for women’s rights.

The two will stand side by side at the launch of Amara’s “Equal Opportunities” programme on January 22, but Boutin has made it clear that the findings will be those of the junior minister to whom she has given a “free hand” in putting together the proposals.

Now that really is called putting the boot in.


JS

Not holding her tongue.

Fadela Amara might be a vital member of the French government and a potent symbol of president Nicolas Sarkozy’s desire to break with the politics of the past, but it hasn’t stopped her from speaking her mind whenever it suits her.

Indeed Amara has started the new year in the same fighting form that has characterised her first months as junior minister for urban policy, by making it clear that she wouldn’t be voting for her boss in the 2012 presidential race.

Now it might seem a little early to be looking so far ahead, but Amara – a supporter of the Socialist party although no longer a member – was weighing in on the debate surrounding the future leadership of a party which has been in disarray since last May’s presidential elections.

Her comments came in an interview in the most recent issue of the political weekly “Le Point” in which she had less than tender words for the way in which the Socialists had been tearing themselves apart since last year’s defeat.

She accused leading figures of being more interested in their own political futures and stressed the need for the party to decide whether it wanted to define itself as Social Democratic or Left

Amara softened her remarks about her boss somewhat when she later faced the assembled throng of television cameras by insisting that Sarkozy was trying to introduce the social reforms the country needed, but she would only consider voting for a Socialist candidate next time around. If the party didn’t put forward the right person, she would abstain.

While Amara’s comments – especially about Sarkozy - might not play too well with some of her government colleagues, they do not seem to have harmed her reputation among the general public. She figured as the fourth most popular and capable minister in a recent poll.

But some members of the president’s ruling Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party, have questioned his wisdom in keeping firebrands like Amara in government as part of the “rupture” with the old way of doing politics.

In October last year for example, she described government plans to introduce DNA testing for immigrants as “disgusting”.

And she had a public war of words with the UMP’s spokeswoman, Nadine Morano, in November.

When Morano questioned Amara’s apparent silence the day after rioting broke out in a Parisian suburb, the minister’s hackles quickly raised to fire the salvo that “although Morano was a nice person, she got on everyone’s nerves and everybody wanted to try to avoid her.”

Echoing perhaps the sentiments of many within the party and probably more than a few within the government, Morano responded that Amara’s behaviour and language was inappropriate for a government minister. “If you don’t agree with her, you find yourself the target of insults,” Morano said. “It might be deplorable, but parliamentarians have got used to it.”

For the moment though Sarkozy seems to tolerate, and even appreciate, Amara’s outspokenness.

Rest assured though, his eyes, and those of many others, will be upon her when she delivers her-long-awaited proposals on urban regeneration later this month.

Persiflage

Fadela Amara – Dornröschen?

Actually Fadela Amara is far from being a “Sleeping Beauty” of any kind but she could well prove to be both the real thorn and rose in French president’s Nicolas Sarkozy’s government.

Along with justice minister, Rachida Dati, and the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, Amara forms part of the triumvirate of women of immigrant origin to be welcomed into the government.

But of the three, Amara’s appointment as junior minister of urban policy has been by far the most unexpected and intriguing. And unlike the other two she is the only one to have been given a portfolio related to her origins.

The 43-year-old “ghetto warrior” as she has been dubbed by one newspaper is one of 11 children born into an Algerian Kabyle family and has built up a reputation for her work as a feminist in France’s immigrant suburbs.

She’s a committed Socialist whom Sarkozy has charged with the delicate task of putting together an action plan to deal with problems in the country’s deprived inner city suburbs.

And if anyone has the credibility, drive and integrity to get things moving, it has to be Amara.

Her career has been unconventional in French terms, as it has been built upon her experience as an activist in several pressure groups, rather than the classic route of higher education.

A fierce anti-racist and feminist, she has spent years campaigning for women’s rights and although a practising Moslem has sometimes drawn severe criticism from within her own community.

Some claim she has helped “demonise” the public perception in France of young North African men and she came under fire for her support of the ban on wearing headscarves in state schools. Amara defends her stance by claiming that the headscarf has less to do with tradition, as other French feminists might insist, and is instead “archaic and a clear visible symbol of the subjugation of women”.

Obviously Amara is not one to mince her words and her fighting talk is also matched by action.

Back in 1983, she took part in the landmark equal rights march for the second generation of North African immigrants. It started in Marseille with a handful of activists but by the time it reached Paris it was almost 100,000-strong.

And Amara was back on the streets in 2003 following two high-profile cases of violence against young Muslim women in the suburbs. This time the march, which she organised, was to highlight the plight of millions of women in inner city suburbs. By the time it reached Paris more than 30,000 were demonstrating under the banner “Ni Putes, Ni Soumises” (Neither whores,nor slaves) – a movement which has since become one of the most vociferous feminist movements in the country.

The roots of much of Amara’s self-admitted “anger” at social injustice can be traced back to the death of one of her brothers when she was just 14. Malik, five years old at the time, was the victim of a drunk-driving accident. Amara looked on as the police, rather than charging the motorist, sided with him and blamed her parents, “able to mistreat them because they were Arabs,” she says.

The trappings of office have so far not changed Amara’s lifestyle. She has refused to accept the apartment that goes with the job, preferring instead to remain living in the suburbs of Paris. And somehow it’s hard to imagine her posing for the front cover of the weekly glossies as Rachida Dati did for last week’s issue of Paris Match.

Her formula for resolving the causes of the problems that set the inner city suburbs alight in 2005 and saw them flare up again just last month – is eagerly waited.

The extent of the problem and how to break the cycle of chronic unemployment, poverty and a marginalised youth may seem insurmountable. But it could prove crucial in the long run to Sarkozy’s presidency.

And if anyone is up to the challenge, it has to be Fadela Amara.

Let’s hope so.



JS