FRENCH ELECTION UPDATE :: SEVEN WOMEN AND SOCIALIST FOREIGN MINISTER IN NEW FRENCH CABINET

The Tocqueville Connection ^ | May 18 2007 | staff

[ScaniaBoy]

Sorry, forgot the link:

Hollande : "Kouchner n’est plus membre du PS"

[RobbyS]

Obviously his cabinet choices are madxe in anticipation of the June elections. He NEEDS a majority.

[Cicero]

Well, and what will hillary’s campaign make of this? Instead of a socialist woman president, France has a conservative male president and seven women in his cabinet.

How about Fred Thompson for president and seven tough, no-nonsense women working for him? Maybe Phyllis Schafly, for instance.

[Cincinna]

Sounds like the PS (Socialist Party) still acts like the Communist Party. Excommunicating people for daring to disagree with their hard line.

The Socialist have now suffered three consecutive massive Electoral defeats : 1997,2002,2007.

Perhaps they should stop blaming others and hating others, and look inward for the reasons.

[Cincinna]

Sounds like a good team to me.

Bill Clinton, for all his “feminist” BS, surrounded himself with advisors who were all white males.

Dimocrats & Socialists the same : NATO :: No Action, Talk Only.

[Cincinna]

From The Tocqueville Connection

http://www.ttc.org/200705181948.l4ijmfg20744.htm

NEW FRENCH PM TO IMPLEMENT SARKOZY REFORMS ‘SCRUPULOUSLY’

- France’s new government plans to implement the reform agenda of freshly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy to the letter, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in his first official interview Friday.

“It will be a free government and an open government but I say to both the French people and to the members of my government it will be a government that will scrupulously implement Nicolas Sarkozy’s political plan,” he told France’s evening news programme.

But he said that the greatest priority at the moment would be to secure a majority in legislative elections on June 10 and 17. Most opinion polls indicate Sarkozy’s UMP party will do so easily.

“Without a majority in the National Assembly, we will not be able to do anything about the commitments the president has undertaken,” Fillon told TF1.

Following the election, a special session of parliament will see the agenda dominated by tougher law and order measures, plans to make the labour market more flexible to reduce unemployment, and tax changes, he said.

Fillon, whose appointment was announced Thursday by Sarkozy, said the session would debate legislation on public security intended to toughen penalties for repeat offenders and youth crime.

A second priority would be the “rehabilitation of work,” with measures to make the labour market more flexible with tax concessions to employers on overtime hours.

Fillon also announced plans for a “tax revolution” including two steps to be implemented immediately: a reduction in inheritance tax “for 95 percent of French people except for the wealthiest,” and a tax cut on mortgages.

He added that he wanted to cut France’s national debt and budget deficit within five years.

“You have to relaunch growth in order to relaunch growth, you need the structural reforms that we are going to enact — this is what was missing in the past — and to do reforms you cannot hesitate to start things rolling,” he said.

“It’s over five years that we are going to reduce the state’s budget deficit, it’s over five years that we are going to reduce the debt. You have to know sometimes to invest a bit to make significant savings.”

Sarkozy on Friday unveiled a slimmed-down 15-minister government that includes seven women and the left-wing human rights champion Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister.

The new cabinet met for the first time Friday afternoon, Sarkozy repeating his commitment to reforms aimed at slashing unemployment to five percent, according to Christine Albanel, culture minister and government spokeswoman.

and this:

NEW FRENCH PM SIGNALS INITATIVES ON LAW AND ORDER, UNEMPLOYMENT, TAX

France’s new Prime Minister Francois Fillon Friday signalled plans for tougher law and order, measures to make the labour market more flexible to reduce unemployment, and tax changes.
    
These priorities would dominate the agenda of a special session of parliament to convene following legislative elections on June 10 and 17, he told television.
   
 Fillon, whose appointment was announced Friday by France’s new right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy, said the National Assembly session would debate legislation on public security intended to toughen penalties for repeat offenders, including lowering the age for minors who repeatedly offend from 18 to 16 years.
    
A second priority would be the “rehabilitation of work,” with measures to make the labour market more flexible with tax concessions to employers on overtime hours.
    
Fillon also announced plans for a “tax revolution” including two steps to be implemented immediately, namely a reduction in inheritance tax “for 95 percent of French people except for the wealthiest,” and a tax deduction on borrowing to finance purchase of private homes.
    
Sarkozy on Friday unveiled a 15-minister government that includes seven women and the left-wing human rights champion Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister.
    
The new team, announced a day after the right-wing president named Francois Fillon as prime minister to lead his sweeping reform drive, is a radically slimmed down administration.
   
 The new cabinet met for the first time Friday afternoon, Sarkozy repeating his commitment to reforms aimed at slashing unemployment to five percent, according to Christine Albanel, culture minister and government spokeswoman.
    
The new government is expected to quickly roll out a raft of measures to cut taxes, keep trains running during strikes and relax France’s 35-hour working week.
   
 But Fillon must first lead his UMP party into parliamentary elections in June hoping for the majority needed to push through the reforms in the eurozone’s second biggest economy.

[Cincinna]

from Boz at French Election 1007:

PRIME MINISTER FILLON FIGHTS BACK

Francois Fillon has only been Prime Minister for two days, but that has not stopped him from lashing back at the Socialists for criticizing his new government, especially with regards to the appointment of (former) Socialist Bernard Kouchner as Foreign Minister.

"Above all what I find lamentable this moment is the commentary of the Socialist Party. Mme Royal said she wanted to open, Mr. Bayrou said he wanted to open. When they wanted to open, it was fine, when it is we who do so, it is no longer all right. The truth is that the Socialists like opening only when it is around them. One sometimes has the impression that they don't like the people except when the people vote for them."

Reminds me of an old Groucho Marx line: I love Humanity, but I hate people.

[montag813]

in some respects, the french have a more conservative government than bush

Does Bush have ANY conservatives?

[WesternCulture]

“Does Bush have ANY conservatives?”

- Today, There are few true Conservatives left.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful to anyone, but neither the US, nor any of the European countries are especially Conservative anymore.

The problems true Americans face are very much the same as aware citizens over here in Europe are confronted with.

Europe is perhaps moving a little bit towards Conservatism presently, while the US seems to be getting more and more Liberal/Socialist day by day.

If this development continues, we will end up being two reversed, although perfectly matching, sad invertebrate remnants of a culture that once produced men like Columbus and Washington.

Is there a solution to this problem?

Yes, addressing oneself, as an independent individual, with this question:

“What is Western Civilization essentially about and in which ways do I contribute to it?”

[Cincinna]

PENELOPE FILLON, FRANCE'S FIRST WELSH/BRITISH 'SECOND LADY'

From The Tocqueville Connection :: http://www.ttc.org/200705171355.l4hdtun25617.htm

- Penelope Fillon, the Welsh woman whose husband Francois on Thursday became France's new prime minister, is the first British woman to marry a French head of government.     

The daughter of a local solicitor in the village of Llanover, near Abergavenny in south Wales, the 51-year-old Fillon is set to be thrust into the public eye following her husband's appointment.

  France's "first lady" is Cecilia Sarkozy, a former model and PR executive whose up-and-down relationship with President Nicolas Sarkozy has filled the pages of gossip tabloids for years.     

By contrast, Penelope Fillion largely escaped the media glare during her husband's years in successive right-wing governments, leading a quiet life near the northern city of Le Mans, where the couple owns a 12th-century castle.    

 "Penny" was a law student when she met her future huband in the late 1970s while she was teaching English in a lycee in the Sarthe, the northern region which Francois Fillon represents in the French senate.     

They married in her home village in 1981, and one of Francois' brothers, Pierre, later married Jane, Penelope's sister.     

The couple have five children: Marie, Charles, Antoine, Edouard and Arnaud, the youngest of whom was born in 2001.     

Reports say the Fillons are planning to leave their home, the Chateau de Beauve, to move into Matignon, the prime minister's official residence in Paris -- largely to allow Francois to stay in touch with his children.     

The prime minister's residence is just down the road from the Elysee presidential palace, where the Sarkozys moved on Wednesday following the handover of power with Jacques Chirac.     

Francois Fillon, 53, is a friend and ally of Sarkozy, serving as his political advisor and regular running partner during the election campaign.    

  As well as a long-distance runner, he is an avid mountain climber and a race-car driver who every year gets behind the wheel of a Ferrari to take part in the 24 Hour race Le Mans.     

Like her husband, Penelope is a keen sportswoman with a passion for horseriding.     

Locals says she fully integrated herself in the life of Sable-sur-Sarthe, the electoral fief of her husband, where she was appreciated for her simplicity and openness.     

She was described by her former high school French teacher, Alan Breeze, as "an outstanding student, a gifted linguist and a very thoughtful person."     

Eva Barre, the Hungarian wife of former prime minister Raymond Barre, was the first foreigner to be married to a French head of government under the Fifth Republic that began in 1958.

[PGalt]

Interesting thread. Thanks for the ping.

[Stultis]

Most French approve of Sarkozy's cabinet: Polls

AP via NDTV (India)
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070012696

Associated Press

Sunday, May 20, 2007 (Paris)

At least half of French respondents in two polls published on Sunday said that they approve of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's new Cabinet.

Fifty per cent of those polled for the weekly Le Parisien Dimanche said they were satisfied with last week's choice of Prime Minister Francois Fillon and 15 ministers; 22 per cent were dissatisfied; and the rest had no opinion.

But in a separate poll for the Journal du Dimanche weekly, 69 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied - at least partially - and 30 per cent were at least somewhat dissatisfied. One per cent did not respond.

In the JDD poll, Economy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo was the most popular Cabinet member, followed by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner - a leftist who crossed the political divide to join Sarkozy's team - and Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who has Algerian and Moroccan roots.

Sarkozy, who was inaugurated Wednesday, appointed Fillon a day later and the Cabinet on Friday.

He has promised an array of reforms for a country suffering from economic malaise, troubles integrating its ethnic minorities and a sense that its power in the world is waning.

The telephone poll of 1,001 adults by CSA-CISCO agency for Le Parisien Dimanche was conducted Friday, while the JDD poll was carried out by phone among 981 adults by OpinionWay on Friday and Saturday.

No margin of error was given for either survey but for polls of that size would be about plus or minus three percentage points.

[Cincinna]

Thanks for posting the great news!

This is important progress ahead of next month’s Legislative Elections on June 10.

Another poll I saw has Sarko’s popularity at 57%, a gain over the 53% he got in the Election last Sunday.

[Atlantic Friend]

THree Frenchmen out of four approve the composition of PM Fillon’s government and Fillon’s own nomination as PM.

Even more interestingly, 72% of right-leaning voters and 63% of traditionally Left-leaning voters approve the way it associates Centrists and personalities from the Left such as Kouchner, Hirsch or Morin.