Never mind Alain Juppé - you never stood a chance

Plenty of people thought he was the man for the job; Alain Juppé, one of the founders and the first president of the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP) when it saw the light of day back in 2002 as the Union pour la majorité présidentielle (Union for the presidential majority) was the person could break the deadlock between Jean-François Copé and Francois Fillon.

(screenshot BFM TV)

Alas, "Super Juppé", the man who, so many political pundits, fellow party members and even opponents have praised and/or described as a real "Homme d'État" has failed to bind the union that, over the past week, has redefined the term French farce.

Maybe it's not surprising though, because Juppé's career hasn't really been so "Super" after all has it?

Yes, he has held high office; prime minister, defence minister, foreign minister - twice and ecology minister, and he has been mayor of Bordeaux for 15 of the past 17 years so - on the face of it - he definitely has the political credentials.

But he also has all the usual baggage which goes with political office in France.

He was prime minister under Jacques Chirac from 1995 to 1997, drafting into government a number of so-called "Juppettes" - the somewhat sexist and condescending term used to describe his appointing 12 women into ministerial positions - and overseeing a jolly old period when strikes became almost a national pastime in France.

Juppé also "did" the typical political French thing of being convicted in 2004 - for mishandling public funds and finding himself "suspended" from holding political office of any sort for 10 years.

As this is France though, Juppé bounced back (a little faster than expected) and after a "period of rehabilitative convalescence" in Canada, he was re-elected as mayor of Bordeaux in 2006.

Proving his full political credentials had been re-instated, Juppé was back in government - briefly - when Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidential election in 2007.

He was named number two behind the prime minister François Fillon, as minister of ecology, but had to stand down (again) after failing to be elected in the parliamentary elections which followed (Sarkozy had made it a requirement that any minister standing but losing would have to resign).

Towards the end of Sarkozy's reign, Juppé was back in government - this time replacing the disgraced Michèle Alliot-Marie as foreign minister and using all his statesmenship to play second fiddle to the French president as Sarkozy took over affairs in Libya and later in the year bringing about a speedy diplomatic resolution to affairs in Syria - not.

Yes there was no doubt that with such a political pedigree and success rate, Juppé was the obvious choice to mediate between Copé and Fillon.

Now that he has thrown in the towel the party's only hope is probably the very person whose counsel should have been sought in the first place...

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.

Sing-a-long a sailor - HMS Ocean crew get into the festive spirit

Go on, put yourself in the holiday season mood

You know how some Brits have something of a reputation for being...er...eccentric and not afraid to have a laugh at their own expense?

Well here's something that surely backs up the that often-held view.

(screenshot for HMS Ocean video)

It's lip dubbing - you know the combination of lip syncing and audio dubbing to make a music video - British style.

More specifically it's the crew of HMS Ocean who put together a video to celebrate their anticipated return to the UK on December 9 - just in time for Christmas.

The men and women aboard the ship were only due to be away for seven weeks when they went on a deployment exercise with other nations but that turned into seven months away from loved ones as they "were diverted to Libya and further operations."

Anyway here they all are in a lip-dubbed video of US singer Mariah Carey's version of "All I want for Christmas is you"; four minutes of fun and feel-good sing-a-long.

It has apparently already been featured on US breakfast time TV and a thrilled Carey tweeted the video and thanked the Royal Navy

And Carey's reaction? Well she's thrilled and said as much in a Tweet she sent to the Royal Navy.

"This is the best thing I've ever seen," she wrote. "You guys just made my day! Happy Happy Christmas!!! x0x0 to the troops."

Now here's a challenge. Can any of you - even the most curmudgeonly - not to at least raise a smile at some point during this video.

Ready?

Go on. you know you want to...join in.

Claude Guéant - "a minister whispering into the ear of France's far-right Front National"

Not a day seems to go by without the recently-appointed interior minister Claude Guéant making a remark which many are interpreting as an attempt to reach out to potential voters of the far-right Front National (FN).

"He's a minister whispering into the ear of the Front National," is how one prominent Socialist party politician, Jean-Marc Ayrault, described Guéant's latest comments about the need to prevent anyone using the country's services from wearing religious symbols.

Yes Guéant is at it again.

Claude Guéant (screenshot from i>Télé interview)

In the space of a week he has made remarks that have angered the opposition Socialist party - and many others - worried some within his own party, confused and surprised those who've worked close to him over the years and provided a platform for the FN to expound its policies.

After "the French not feeling at home in France" and praising Sarkozy for "leading the crusade in Libya" comes the latest in what some see as a direct appeal to those tempted to vote for the FN.

This time it was the suggestion that religious symbols should be banned in all public services - not only for those working in them, but also those using them.

"Obviously anyone working in a public service shouldn't wear a religious symbols or show any religious preference," he said in an interview on the news and current affairs channel i>Télé on Thursday.

"Nor should those using them," he added.

Guéant tried to cover himself somewhat by saying later that he had mainly been talking about hospitals and in particular cases in which women didn't want to be seen by male doctors.

But as had happened on the previous day with his "crusade" comment, the reactions came thick and fast and once again Guéant was flavour of the day in terms of news reporting.

Most telling of all the reactions though is from someone who knows Guéant well, and indeed worked alongside him for eight years.

Interviewed on Friday morning's news magazine La Matinale on Canal +, Abderahmane Dahmane, president of the democrates musulmans de france and until recently a special advisor to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy in charge of diversity, said he was as confused as anyone by Guéant's remarks.

"I have the impression that the sky is falling in on them," he said in reference to Guéant and Sarkozy, both of whom he said he still considered friends.

"In eight years of working together I never heard a word uttered by Claude Guéant that could annoy anyone. He was always the go-between, the moderator," he continued.

"But now, I don't understand why he's saying what he is. What purpose does it serve?"

Indeed.

And where is Sarkozy in all of this?

All right so he's currently playing "King of the World" as leader of the G20, G8 and the "crusade" against Libya.

But he's also a man used to meddling in all aspects of domestic affairs as he sees fit and reining in ministers whenever they're deemed to be overstepping the mark.

Sarkozy has been strangely quiet.

Perhaps part of the answer for Guéant's apparent change in behaviour and Sarkozy's silence comes in those cantonal elections on Sunday.

Oh yes and there's that debate on laicity set by the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) for April 5, which the leader of the party Jean-François Copé is organising to "discuss religious practice in France - including Islam - and its compatibility with the country's secular laws."

But there is of course also Sarkozy's poor showing in the opinion polls, the rise of in popularity of the FN leader Marine Le Pen and the fear that some UMP supporters will be attracted to her and her party's policies when it comes to next year's presidential elections.

Recent polls suggest that Sarkozy might not even make it past the first round of those elections.

Has he "unleashed" Guéant on France in an attempt to win over that far-right vote?

Sure looks that way - whatever anyone else is saying - or not saying.

Sarkozy is "Leading the crusade" in Libya says French interior minister

Whatever was France's interior minister Claude Guéant thinking about when he said during an interview on Monday of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy's role in Libya that, "Fortunately, the president has been leading the crusade to mobilise the UN security council, the Arab League and the African Union."

France's interior minister Claude Guéant (screenshot from interview)

Yes "crusade". That's the term he used. Not exactly one lacking historical connotations as many in France have been quick to point out.

Even though he has since admitted that, "With hindsight I should have expressed myself differently and said perhaps that the president had 'mobilised public opinion to present persuading arguments to the security council'," the damage had been done and the word was out there for all to read and hear.

"Scary," is how the leader of the opposition Socialist party Martine Aubry described Guéant's choice of word.

"He would have done better to have kept quiet," said Aubry's predecessor and likely candidate for the party's presidential primaries, François Hollande.

"It was more than unfortunate, it was a word he shouldn't have uttered."

Even some within his party, the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement,UMP) were hard-pressed to defend Guéant's choice of word with the foreign minister Alain Juppé describing it quite clearly as a "blunder" and "one that had nothing to do with what was happening (in Libya)."

But was it really just an "unfortunate" term and an example of a man not used to the political limelight. Or is there something more sinister going on?

At face value Guéant certainly appears to be "like a bull in a china shop," as Le Point journalist Anna Cabana described the interior minister during her piece on national public radio France Inter on Wednesday morning.

Less than a month into the job and he has already managed to tell the country not only that Sarkozy has "led the crusade" but also that the "French don't feel at home in France".

Guéant though is no political beginner as Cabana makes clear. He has served for the past nine years as one of Sarkozy's closest political advisors and his views and thoughts must be well known to the French president.

Sure he has now stepped out of the shadows and is busy proving himself to be every bit as crass in his statements as his predecessor in the job and another Sarkozy crony, Brice Hortefeux (whose 2009 racial slur against Amine Benalia-Brouch, a young party activist of Algerian origin, still sticks in the craw).

But is this really just inexperience at play or a deliberate strategy by Sarkozy in the run-up to next year's presidential elections.

Has Guéant in fact been placed intentionally in the hot seat to try to appeal to voters who might otherwise drift towards the far-right Front National.

Remember its leader, Marine Le Pen, is currently buoyed by opinion polls that show her as a serious threat to Sarkozy's chances of making it through to the second round of voting in those elections.

Can Guéant really be the fool his statements appear to suggest. Is he just naïve when it comes to being in the public eye?

Watch this space for answers.

At this rate Guéant is not going to leave it blank for very long.

French diplomacy - "amateur, impulsive and lacking coherence "

Those were the words used to describe France's foreign policy and in particular its diplomacy, under its president Nicolas Sarkozy.

They came in an open letter published on Wednesday in the national daily, Le Monde from the Marly group, a collection of French diplomats, retired and serving, of all political persuasions, who were anonymously but collectively airing their concerns.

French foreign affairs and its diplomacy, certainly seem to have come in for a fair bit of scrutiny recently - and this week's events have perhaps only highlighted how much.

Take for example the first visit of a French government minister to Tunisia since that country's Jasmine revolution.

French foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie

In fact there wasn't just one minister but two; Christine Lagarde, the finance minister, and Laurent Wauquiez, the minister for European affairs.

Notice anything odd...apart from the fact that France saw in necessary to send a minister responsible for Europe to a country in North Africa?

Yep, the absence of the foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie (MAM) who had been dispatched to Brazil out of harm's way.

She, MAM, justified her visit to South America as being more "pragmatic".

"The visit was planned over a month ago and Brazil is a country with which we have a very important relationship," she is reported to have said in an informal conversation in the capital Brasilia.

Of course foreign ministers cannot change plans at the last minute to react to changing situations, and her absence in Tunisia had nothing whatsoever to do with the ongoing controversy there has been over her holidays there earlier this year.

So it was left to Lagarde and Wauquiez to build bridges with the finance minister telling journalists that she was confident the relationship between the two countries had not been harmed and Wauquiez mooting the idea of economic aid in the form of a "Marshall plan for Tunisia"

"We've come, not to lecture but to listen to their needs," he said, clearly aware of the fact that there are over 1,200 subsidiaries of French companies in Tunisia and there are interests to be protected.

Strangely silent and hovering in the background was the recently appointed ambassador, Boris Boillon.

He seemed almost, as some commentators back home in France observed, to be paying penance for the insulting remarks he had made to a journalist last week and which resulted in protests calling for his resignation and a subsequent very public apology on national television.

"Sarko boy" was on his best behaviour. Perhaps he had wind of an old can of worms that had been reopened in the form of an appearance he had made on the early evening news magazine Le Grand Journal on Canal + television last November.


Boillon défend Kadhafi (C+)
envoyé par LePostfr. - L'info video en direct.

During the interview Boillon had defended Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, saying he had been a terrorist but wasn't any longer.

"We all make mistakes in life," he said. "And we all have the right to another chance," he said after admitting that Gaddafi had referred to him as "his son".

Boris Boillon (screenshot from Le Grand Journal)

Yes old news - well not so old - but certainly words that seem misplaced with hindsight.

To top it all off was the publication on Wednesday in Le Monde of that open letter from the Marly grop.

"Amateur, impulsive, obsessed with the media and a lack of coherence" were the main criticisms aimed at the current state of affairs.

"Our foreign policy is one of improvisation often undertaken with respect to domestic political considerations," they wrote.

A bold move as far as the weekly news magazine L'Express was concerned and one "which coming from a group of people known for their discretion, indicated how worrying the situation was."