Jean-Pierre who?

Veteran journalist Jean-Pierre Elkabbach is pretty well known to the French.

He has been around for seemingly donkey's years and has held several high profile posts in the French media including president of France Télévisions (December 1993 - June 1996), president of the parliamentary TV channel Public Sénat (December 1999 - April 2009) and directeur général (April 2005) and later president (until June 2008) of Europe 1 radio.

At 75 years of age, Elkabbach is still going strong and shows no signs of losing his tenacity and combativity as a journalist.

He currently has two programmes on Europe 1.

Firstly there's the Sunday morning "Le Grand Rendez-vous" in which he heads a team of four journalists who grill (in the nicest possible manner of course because this, after all, is France) an invited guest (usually, but not always, a politician) on the most pressing matters of the day or the past week.

And then there's his daily 10-minute slot starting at around 8.20 am on the station's morning show when he gets to go head-to-head with a "mover and a shaker" - again most often a politician.

The list of his most recent guests reads like a who's who of the French political stage: Ségolène Royal (no introductions necessary), Laurence Parisot (the still-head, but not for much longer, of the French employers' union MEDEF), the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso (all right so he's not exactly French) and the interior minister Manuel Valls are just a few of those who've faced Elkabbach so far this month.

On Tuesday it was the turn of Delphine Batho, France's (deep breath please) minister of ecology, sustainable development, and energy.

Jean-Pierre Elkabbach and Delphine Batho (screenshot Europe 1 radio)

Now Batho doesn't have a huge amount of experience of politics at a national level. Well she wouldn't really, as she's still only 40.

And although she has been an elected member of parliament since 2007 (taking over incidentally the seat previously held by Royal) her current job is her first big one in government.

That's unless you count the couple of weeks she spent as a junior minister in the justice ministry before the prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault had a mini reshuffle shortly after June 2012 parliamentary elections.

Perhaps then, it was that lack of experience that had Batho flummoxed on Tuesday morning.

There again, maybe she had been out partying the previous working-non-working public holiday mess that is  lundi de Pentecôte.

Or it could just have been one of those moments that happens to all of us from time to time, because Batho didn't seem to be able to figure out who exactly was facing her in the studio.

As you can hear from the exchange in the accompanying video, she seemed convinced at times, that interviewing her was another Jean-Pierre - the Socialist party politician, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a former minister under both François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac and one year younger (as if it had anything to do with it) than his, on this occasion, apparently first-named mix-up, Elkabbach.

"Global warming is no longer speculation Jean-Pierre Chevènement, it's now a fact to be witnessed in several countries," said Batho.

"Who is Jean-Pierre Chevènement," asked Elkabbach, eliciting an immediate apology and correction from Batho.

Only for exactly the same thing to happen to her moments later.

Elkabbach gave as good as he got, deliberately borrowing names of ministers present (that of health, Marisol Touraine) and past (budget and higher education, Valérie Pécresse) to come up with two new "Delphines" during the course of the interview.

The pair seemed to enjoy the joshing around, but the initial confusion was most probably down to that irritating habit journalists and those being interviewed (in France) have of repeating the name of the person they're talking to several times throughout a conversation.

It's either a confrontational technique or one meant to play for time or avoid the pitfall of forgetting the other person's name (in which case, it doesn't always work), but how much easier and more entertaining it might be, if they just all called each other "darling" instead - well just for one day at least.


Delphine Batho confond Jean-Pierre Elkabbach et... par LeLab_E1

A "unifying" moment of radio silence for Jean-François Copé

If you turn on your radio on a Sunday morning in France and tune in to Europe 1 at 10 o'clock, then you'll be able to hear arguably one of the country's most experienced and perhaps political journalists, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, grilling his guests on "Le Grand Rendez-vous".

Elkabbach is no stranger to many French, having held several high profile posts for television and radio, including president of France Télévisions (December 1993 - June 1996), president of the parliamentary TV channel Public Sénat (December 1999 - April 2009) and directeur général (April 2005) and later president (until June 2008) of the radio station for which he still works, Europe 1.

"Le Grand Rendez-vous" is a sort of "joint venture" if you like, between Europe 1, the popular national daily Aujourd'hui en France, the all-news channel i>Télé and TV5 Monde.

A fellow journalist from each of the three partners sits alongside Elkabbach, but there's no doubting who's in charge.

The programme lasts just one hour, during which the guest - usually a politician (but not always) - goes head-to-head (or should that be the other wary round?) with Elkabbach on the most pressing matters of the day or the past week.

The list of recent guests includes, politicians Michel Sapin, François Fillon and Pierre Moscovici, trade unionist leader Laurent Berger, former CEO of EADS Louis Gallois and Cardinal André Vingt-Trois.

As the whole thing is filmed and available live on the Net, most guests - especially the politicians, keen to preen and aware of the importance of image - have taken to inviting along people of their choice to sit in the audience.

Space is limited by the size of the studio of course, but some politicians cannot resist a show of strength.

Such was the case recently with Jean-François Copé, the president of the centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP).

Jean-François Copé (screenshot from Europe 1's "Le Grand Rendez-vous")

You might remember, he was "elected" to that position after the party's internal voting shenanigans last year and the ensuing stalemate with former prime minister François Fillon.

Events have moved on since then. The two men have buried the proverbial hatchet - although it's not sure where - the party split has been "healed" and there are vice-presidents galore from both camps.

And that "bonhomie" among party members was something the ever media-savvy Copé was eager to stress during his one hour with Elkabbach.

Except the seasoned journalist wasn't letting Copé off the hook so easily and at one point, after listening to "unity...yadda, yadda, yadda", "cooperation...yadda, yadda, yadda" and "agreement...yadda, yadda, yadda" for more than long enough, Elkabbach challenged his guest.

He pointed out that all 22 of the party members Copé had invited to sit in the audience while being interviewed, were from his "clan": they had all supported him before, during and after the leadership voting debacle.

Rattling of a list of names of those present, Elkabbach asked, "But where are the (so-called) Fillonists? There's not a single one here," he said, finger raised.

http://www.canalplus.fr/c-infos-documentaires/pid3847-c-la-nouvelle-edition.html

"There's no sign of (Valérie) Pécresse, (Éric) Ciotti not even - excuse me for saying this - François Baroin....how come?" continued Elkabbach.

"What a silence," he exclaimed as Copé took more than a moment to summon his response.

It was a classic...a moment when a usually smug Copé floundered, discovering that he had been well and truly outmanoeuvred

Take a look - at the accompanying video from five minutes and 12 seconds as Copé quite rightly gets his come-uppance.

La Nouvelle Edition du 03/05 - Partie 3

The number of Moslems in France causes problems says Claude Guéant

He's at it again.

Hardly a week goes by - no strike that - hardly a day goes by - without France's recently-appointed interior minister, Claude Guéant, making a remark guaranteed to hit the headlines.



Guéant is proving himself to be the master of the provocative comment that doesn't just border on the racist, but is clearly meant to appeal to any xenophobic tendencies that might and do exist among some French.

And his comments have once again ignited outrage from the opposition Socialist party and angered anti-racist groups.

After saying that the "French didn't not feeling at home in France" and suggesting that "Obviously anyone working in a public service shouldn't wear a religious symbols or show any religious preference" Guéant has continued with the same theme.

"This growth in the number of Moslems and a certain number of behaviours causes problems," he said on Monday.

"There is no reason why the nation should accord more rights to one particular religion than others that were formerly anchored in our country."

Highly appropriate and timely from the interior minister given than the comments came on the eve of the debate organised by governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire's (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) debate on laicity.

It's a debate which is supposedly about secularism but is really more about the place of Islam in French society and comes shortly before the implementation of the ban on wearing full face veils in public places on April 11.

It's surely hard to defend Guéant's comments, even if some of his cabinet colleagues such as the higher education and research minister Valérie Pécresse have tried, when she suggested that the "Left was trying to whip up anti-Claude Guéant propoganda."

The big question remains though, where is the Omnipresent One, usually so keen in the past to rein in ministers when they step out of line?

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy has been noticeably quiet giving the impression that he is more than happy to allow his interior minister to be his "unofficial spokesman" in making an appeal to those who might be attracted to the far-right Front National and its leader Marine Le Pen in next year's presidential elections.

Perhaps it's Eva Joly, a European Member of Parliament for the Europe Écologie party, who best sums up the sentiment many have about why Sarkozy, far from reprimanding Guéant, could actually be encouraging him.

"Nicolas Sarkozy seems determined to overtake Marine Le Pen on the Right," she said after Guéant's most recent remarks.

"He's allowing his chief spokesman to 'surf' on subjects such as national identity, the Roma immigration and Islam," she continued.

"It has become an ignoble competition with the xenophobic Right."

Hear hear!

Cantonal elections leave Sarkozy's centre-right UMP at sixes and sevens

Those ruddy cantonal elections at the weekend.

That's surely what the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) must be thinking right now.

Actually, given the mixed messages they've been sending out over the past couple of days, you would be hard-pushed to believe they were "thinking" at all.

Have they well and truly lost the plot? And what the heck is the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, playing at?

French electoral card (from Wikipedia)

On paper, the first round of the cantonal elections were hardly the most exciting; their purpose was to replace half the representatives to the general councils of France's 100 départements.

In other words they were supposed to be local elections.

Somehow though they were highjacked by the far-right Front National and its leader Marine Le Pen who campaigned on national issues and managed to score well, leaving and Sarkozy's governing centre-right party with something of a political headache.

Apart from the high abstention rate (more than 55 per cent) the most notable outcome was the FN's strong showing nationwide.

The party scored 15.18, behind UMP (17.07) and the Socialist party (25.04)

But the election isn't over.

As is always the case in France if there's no candidate achieving 50 per cent of the vote or more in the first round, there's a run-off between the top two (and sometimes three if it's a close thing) in the second round.

And that's what's creating problems for the UMP because, in a number of cantons, the party's candidates have been pushed out of the frame leaving the second round a straight head-to-head between the Socialist party and the FN.

What to do?

If it were to follow the example set in the 2002 presidential elections when Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, faced Jacques Chirac (UMP) in the second round after finishing ahead of the Socialist party's Lionel Jospin in the first, there wouldn't be a problem and the party's supporters would know what to do.

UMP would tell them to throw their support behind the Socialist party just as Jospin had done the other way round in 2002.

But no. Sarkozy and the current leader of the UMP Jean-François Copé have decided on different tactics and the additional problem is that not everyone in the party - and especially some high ranking ministers - seems to agree.

First up Copé, who said after Sunday's results that UMP voters should decide for themselves what they thought would be best: the "ni-ni (neither Front National nor Socialist party" option.

"There's absolutely no question of any sort of alliance with the Front national, that's a trap that has been laid by the Socialist party in its accusations," he said.

"But we're also saying no systematic alliance with the Socialist party either because if we do that we fall into another trap set by the FN which says the two major parties are indistinguishable from one another.

"That's what Marine La Pen has been saying by using the slogan 'UMPS'."

Copé's strategy was one backed up by Sarzkoy when he called for a "Ni-ni (neither nor) vote". In other words for UMP supporters to vote for neither the FN nor the Socialist party.

But then the prime minister, François Fillon seemed to contradict them both by calling quite clearly for a vote against the FN.

"Where there is a duel between the Socialist Party and the National Front, we must first remember our values," he said.

And our values ​​are not those of the National Front. We must call our voters to make the choice of accountability in the management of local affairs."

In short, he was calling for UMP supporters to vote Socialist when necessary.

But after reportedly being rapped on the knuckles by Sarkozy and criticised by UMP parliamentarians, Fillon "revised" his position to fall in line with his boss - giving that "ni-ni" recommendation.

The problem is though that even if Fillon now appears to be "singing from the same hymn sheet" as his boss and the party leader, not all government ministers agree.

Valérie Pécresse (higher education), Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (environment) and Alain Juppé (foreign affairs) have all called recommended the "republican candidate" in FN-Socialist party duels; in other words to vote for the Socialist party candidate.

What a UMP mess!

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.

No regional presidency race for Brice Hortefeux

In what was hardly the best-kept political secret of the week, the interior minister, Brice Hortfeux, has confirmed that he will not stand as a candidate for the president of the council of Auvergne in next year's regional elections.

He had been slated to head the country's governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) in the central French region.

But on Friday he said wouldn't after the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had insisted that his long-term friend and close political ally was needed at the interior ministry - a job he took up in the government reshuffle in June.

Hortefeux's decision was to a great extent one forced upon him by Sarkozy, who appears to have decided that government ministers will have to step down if elected as presidents of their regions next year.

It's apparently part of an effort to prevent politicians amassing jobs, a common practice within French politics over the years as they've sought office on a number of levels - local, regional, national and even European - sometimes all at the same time

"The president has entrusted me with some very important responsibilities," Hortefeux said of his decision in a televised interview.

"Ensuring the security of our citizens and preparing how the country will face the threat posed by a flu pandemic require all my attention, and are incompatible with running for office on a regional level," he added.

So Hortefeux is doing "the honourable thing" if you like, in not standing in the elections next March - even if his decision to do so is at the insistence of Sarkozy.

The process of "accumulating terms" (and salaries as well as pension rights of course) was one discouraged under the Socialist government from 1997 to 2002 and successive centre-right governments under the former French president, Jacques Chirac.

But under Sarkozy, there has been no such unwritten rule, and it tends to depend on how politically appropriate it might be - or how much of a fuss the opposition is likely to kick up.

In fact it seems that Sarkozy blows hot and cold on the issue, depending on whether it's political expedient.

In June's European parliamentary elections the message was clear; a position as government minister or a member of the European parliament. Not both at the same time.

It was the reason why two former ministers - for justice, Rachida Dati, and for agriculture, Michel Barnier, had to step down in June after they secured seats in Brussels-Strasbourg.

Sarkozy "blowing hot" for sure and a convenient way of sidelining Dati in particular who had probably become something of a political liability on the domestic front as far as the president was concerned.

But wait, in those very same elections you might remember that Sarkozy faced a dilemma as Hortefeux rather unexpectedly won a seat to the European parliament (for more on that see here).

In the end Hortefeux declined to take up the post, mainly after being persuaded by Sarkozy - and let's not forget, he had just got his hands on the job he really wanted - that of the interior ministry.

While "hot" on the issue in terms of the European and regional elections, Sarkozy was decidedly "lukewarm" approaching "cold" in last year's local elections.

Far from it being a specified requirement of government ministers at the time that they should leave their jobs if elected to local positions, many of those who had never stood for office, such as Dati, were actively encouraged to put their names forward to boost their credibility.

For the moment though, back to next year's regional elections and the decision by Hortefeux that he won't stand.

It seems to assure him of a job in government even if, as rumoured, there's a reshuffle directly after those elections.

But the same cannot be said for some other ministers

Valérie Pécresse, the higher education minister is a candidate to head the list in the Ile de France region. The emplyment minister, Xavier Darcos, is the candidate for Aquitaine as is the health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, for Pays de la Loire.

If they're all successful, and should Sarkozy hold true to his word then there could indeed be some very high level changes in government come next March.

Sarkozy’s trouble with women 3

The students are revolting! And how she must wish they weren’t.

At just 40 Valérie Pécresse is the youngest member of the cabinet and as minister for higher education and research has probably had the toughest introduction to frontline politics of any of the newcomers to the government.

Once again the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has appointed someone with limited political experience although she has been a member of parliament since 2002.

Her academic pedigree is impeccable – she’s a graduate of the prestigious Ecole nationale d’administration, the university from which much of the country’s political and business elite is drawn.

Articulate, ambitious and dynamic, she quickly threw herself into the job of carrying out one of Sarkozy’s election pledges – to overhaul the country’s creaking higher education system.

After a swift consultation period with student and university representatives she was the first minister to push through legislation in parliament – strategically timed to sail through while most of the country was on holiday.

The law allows universities more autonomy to manage their assets and budgets, recruit staff and design courses, create partnerships with business and look for additional funding from private financial corporations. It also gives special power to university heads.

Unfortunately for Pécresse, students are not buying in to the government’s spin on the reforms. Instead many of them claim the so-called “privatisation” of higher education will allow big business to fund courses only designed to fit their needs, to the detriment of liberal arts and social sciences faculties.


So with the spirit of ’68 clearly ringing in the ears, students have all but closed down a majority of France’s universities and thrown their weight behind strikes organised by transport workers and civil servants.

Pécresse hasn’t exactly helped deflate the situation. She held negotiations with union leaders in early November but refused to back down. And with an arrogance that perhaps comes from knowing she has Sarkozy’s full backing, Pécresse has been less than tactful in suggesting that the extreme left wing has infiltrated the movement to spearhead the students’ protests.

But with the Socialist party opposition hardly throwing its support behind the students, reform looks to be a done deal. Pécresse is likely to come out of the fray battered but triumphant with a political standing which can do no harm to her reputation as the rising young star of the centre right.