Free Republic

There’s something about Kerry. The 5-term Democratic senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate seems to be looking younger by the day. A photo from the 2008 Democratic National Convention shows his face is looking pretty haggard, with bags under his eyes that are headed for Pope Benedict XVI level: Then, last month, he showed up at the White House with two black eyes and a swollen nose. The party line was a hockey puck broke his nose. From CBS: "Senator John Kerry surprised a few people at the Boston Bruins Stanley Cup ceremony at the White House Monday afternoon. The...

"We’re experiencing the beginning of the repercussions of the financial crisis,” said Michel-Edouard Leclerc on Wednesday during an interview on Europe 1, France’s largest radio network. He is the CEO of the second largest retailer in France, E. Leclerc, a privately owned cooperative association with 555 stores—mostly hypermarkets—in France and 117 stores in other countries. Sounding like a CEO one minute and like a populist presidential candidate the next, he emphasized that his company has done relatively well in 2011, sales being up 5%. Strategy: offer deals and cut prices. The whole industry, he said, “ate up inflation” with their...

French Women May Be Ordered To Have Faulty Breast Implants RemovedDecember 21, 2011 French government officials are expected to order tens of thousands of women to have defective breast implants made from industrial silicone removed because of health concerns, various media outlets reported on Tuesday. According to Guardian reporter Angelique Chrisafis, the implants, which were manufactured by a company called Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), were made from a cheaper, non-medical silicone usually used for electronics and computer parts. Furthermore, the implants were said to have a higher chance of bursting than their conventional counterparts, and now reports have surfaced that...

A French court has given former President Jacques Chirac a two-year suspended prison sentence for diverting public funds and abusing public trust. Mr Chirac, 79, was not in court to hear the verdict because of ill-health but denied wrongdoing. President from 1995 to 2007, he was put on trial on charges that dated back to his time as mayor of Paris. He was accused of paying members of his Rally for the Republic (RPR) party for municipal jobs that did not exist. The prosecution had urged the judge to acquit Mr Chirac and nine others accused in the trial. Two...

PARIS (Reuters) - A firebomb attack gutted the headquarters of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammad on its cover. This week's edition shows a cartoon of Mohammad and a speech bubble with the words: "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter." It has the headline "Charia Hebdo," in a reference to Muslim sharia law, and says Mohammad guest-edited the issue. Charlie Hebdo's website on Wednesday appeared to have been hacked and briefly showed images of a mosque with the message "no God but Allah," after which the site was...

Five foreign men were arrested during a courthouse break-in early on Wednesday and police said they found photographs of public buildings, water systems and malls from various U.S. cities in their van. The men, at least three of whom were in their 20s, will be questioned by a joint terrorism task force including the FBI and immigration authorities, officials said. Bexar County spokeswoman Laura Jesse said three men were found inside the 120-year-old Bexar County Courthouse, a landmark in downtown San Antonio and two in a large recreational vehicle parked in front of the building. She said all five were...

Orly, France - An airport in France is experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents in a bid to jazz up its terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don't need breaks and never go on strike. The pilot project at Paris' Orly airport began last month, and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travelers, who frequently try to touch and speak with the strikingly life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their boarding gate. The images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent -- a real live

Stop the presses. Barely did we have time to report that European regulators failed to impose a coordinated short selling ban, that Bloomberg reports that the countries most impact by the market plunge are about to impose standalone short-selling bans. These are Belgium, Italy, Spain and France. In other words, it really is on and the 2008 Lehman PTSD flashbacks may now resume. Until we get a headline that says it isn't. The rescue of the Borsa Italian is now more schizophrenic than that of Greece. As a reminder, in the previous post the FT quoted Abraham Lioui, a professor...

(CBS/AP) - Today in "God, could they be more French?" French baker Jean-Louis Hecht has rolled out a 24-hour automated baguette dispenser, promising warm bread for hungry night owls, shift workers or anyone else who doesn't have time to pick one up during their bakery's opening hours.

The Federal Court of Canada on Wednesday ordered Air Canada to pay $12,000 to Ottawa French-language rights crusader Michel Thibodeau in part because when he asked an English-speaking flight attendant for 7Up in May 12 of 2009, he got Sprite. Air Canada was also ordered to apologize to Mr. Thibodeau and his wife Lynda. It is Mr. Thibodeau’s second successful legal action against the airline and its subsidiaries. In 2000, he was refused service in French when he tried to order a 7Up from a unilingual English flight attendant on an Air Ontario flight from Montreal to Ottawa. Mr. Thibodeau...

Another day, another whiny, 'offended' French-Canadian. One wonders when it is all going to stop. The latest example of the plight of the poor, downtrodden French-speakers made news today when a federal court judge ruled in favor of serial-litigator Michel Thibodeau in his latest attempt at becoming a language rights crusader. It seems Thibodeau and his wife were upset when, during several flights in 2009, the Air Canada crew failed to serve him in his preferred language. My God, the horror!

Protesters loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad briefly broke into the US embassy in Damascus on Monday, while security guards at the French embassy used live ammunition to prevent them gaining access, diplomats told Reuters. No casualties were reported in the attacks, which followed a visit by the US and French ambassadors to the city of Hama last week in support of the hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators there despite a harsh crackdown by Assad gunmen. Assad accused the United States - and Ambassador Robert Ford - of trying to incite the populace against his regime, also saying the...

A Japanese man paralysed from the waist down has embarked on an ambitious trip to Normandy to climb a mountain... with the help of a cutting-edge robotic suit. Father-of-two Seiji Uchida, 49, will be carried up Mont Saint Michel - a World Heritage site - by a companion clad in a cybernetic exoskeleton which can boost the wearer's strength tenfold. For Mr Uchida, who lost the ability to walk 28 years ago after a car accident, reaching the picturesque abbey at the top of the mountain on the French coast is just the beginning of his trip of a lifetime.

The hotel maid who claims former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn raped her has been accused of working as a prostitute. Allegations have emerged that the 32-year-old cleaner was was taking extra money from male guests at the hotel for sex. 'There is information... of her getting extraordinary tips, if you know what I mean. And it's not for bringing extra f**king towels,' a source close to the defence investigation told the New York Post. The woman also had 'a lot of her expenses – hair braiding, salon expenses – paid for by men not related to her,' the source added....

The abrupt arrest of IMF acting head Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sexual assault against an employee at the New York hotel where he was staying are being treated as shocking in France. This is a "coup de tonnerre," a bolt from the blue, not to mention a body blow to the socialist party he was to represent in the upcoming elections. Everyone in Paris claims to be amazed, shaken--and doing some soul searching this Monday morning. Very few, however, are protesting "DSK"'s innocence. But if the news really came as such a jarring surprise, shouldn't there be a clamour...

In a powerful signal that traditional energy companies are banking on solar power as part of their future, French oil giant Total plans to buy a controlling stake in San Jose-based SunPower (SPWRA), Silicon Valley's dominant solar panel manufacturer. Under the deal, jointly announced by the two companies Thursday as "a broad strategic relationship to shape the future of the solar industry," Total will buy a 60 percent stake in SunPower for $1.38 billion, paying a more than 40 percent premium over SunPower's stock price Wednesday. "This is old energy betting on new energy," SunPower CEO Tom Werner told this...

France's riot police have complained about being "treated like children" following a new ban on drinking alcohol while on duty. The CRS (Republican Security Companies), which made its name quelling student demonstrators during nationwide disturbances in 1968, has always enjoyed a glass of beer or wine with its meals. However, following photos of riot police drinking bottles of beer during Paris street protest, police chiefs have decided to put an end to the tradition. They were wearing body armour and carrying weapons as they sipped from beer and wine bottles. Some were also smoking. Didier Mangione, national secretary of the...

France's controversial burka ban became law today, sparking a protest in Paris during which two women wearing full-face veils were arrested. But the demonstrations were on a relatively small scale, with the handful of protesters being outnumbered by police, reporters and tourists. Ironically, the biggest protest was in London, where a group of women in full black burkas gathered outside the French Embassy.

Various busts of Marianne, the traditional female embodiment of the French Republic in a Phrygian cap, at a moulding studion. The mayor of a town in France has thrown a Marianne statue out of his town hall because its breasts were too big, his aides said on Friday. AFP © Enlarge photo LILLE, France (AFP) - The mayor of a town in France has thrown a patriotic female statue out of his town hall because its breasts were too big, his aides said on Friday. The terracotta bust of Marianne -- the traditional female embodiment of the French Republic in...

NEW YORK (AFP) – Here's heavy metal music that won't give you a headache: a French-built organ with more than 6,000 steel pipes that has just started thundering from a New York church. The organ, built by master artisans in France, draws on centuries of French organ tradition, creating an authentic Baroque sound that other makers just can't copy, according to organist Dennis Keene. "It reminds you of Versailles at the king's arrival. We don't have this kind of sounds in the US," Keene enthused. The instrument, comprising a staggering 6,183 pipes in 111 ranks, will be officially inaugurated in...

Figuring out professor Obama's war Charles Krauthammer March 28, 2011 Advertisement Click here to find out more! WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.) It's war as designed by an Ivy League professor. True, it took three weeks to put this together, during which time Moammar Gadhafi went from besieged, delusional (remember those youthful protesters on...

Libya claims French plane shot down, Paris denies TRIPOLI: Libyan state television said a French warplane was shot down on Saturday in the Njela district of Tripoli, as the West launched air strikes against the forces of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi. "Libyan air defences have shot down a French plane in the Njela neighbourhood of Tripoli," it said in the report, without giving further details. The French military swiftly denied the report. Western powers on Saturday launched attacks from the air and sea against Gaddafi's forces under a UN Security Council resolution to impose a ceasefire in a month-long showdown...

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – The French air force destroyed Libyan tanks and armored vehicles on Saturday, the first shots fired in a U.N.-mandated military intervention to protect civilians from attacks by Muammar Gaddafi's forces. A French defense ministry official said "a number of tanks and armored vehicles" were destroyed in the region of Benghazi, with initial action focusing on stopping Gaddafi's forces from advancing on the rebels' eastern stronghold. Gaddafi's troops pushed into the outskirts of Benghazi on Saturday after a unilateral ceasefire declared by his government failed to materialize, prompting leaders meeting in Paris on Saturday to announce the...

Just announced on CNN. Sarkozy expected to speak shortly

Japan's stricken nuclear power plant was abandoned for hours today, as soaring radiation forced emergency workers to flee for their lives and authorities were reduced to spraying reactors with police water cannons. All 50 emergency workers who had been fighting to keep overheating reactors cool were this morning pulled back 500 yards from the complex as radiation levels became too dangerous. And in an extraordinary attack, the French government accused the Japanese of losing control of the situation and hiding the full scale of the disaster.

Paris - Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network is stepping up its recruitment of European combatants with a view to striking more targets in Europe, a leading French newspaper reported Monday, quoting secret service documents. Le Figaro quoted a confidential French secret service memo as saying over 100 Europeans were undergoing training in al-Qaeda camps along the Pakistani-Afghan border, compared with 'a few isolated cases' three years ago. Authorities in France were on high alert for possible plots against French targets, the newspaper reported.

<p>When Lebrun was observed walking toward the bathroom he was again instructed not to smoke," the complaint said.</p> <p>"Lebrun appeared intoxicated and smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. Lebrun then approached a female flight crew attendant in an aggressive manner and pushed her away with both hands. When the airline attendant instructed Lebrun not to touch her, Lebrun pushed her away again with both hands."</p>

At least 40 percent of those surveyed in France and Germany see Islam as a threat to their national identity, according to a survey published by the French newspaper Le Monde on Tuesday. The survey conducted by pollster IFOP found that 42 percent of French respondents consider Muslims “a threat”; while 22 percent of French respondents say they see members of the Muslim faith as “a culturally enriching factor.” The same figures for German respondents were 40 percent and 24 percent, respectively. A strong majority of the respondents in both countries said they felt Muslims had failed

GHENT, Belgium (AP) — The frontrunner in Belgium's elections this weekend is running on perhaps the ultimate in divisive proposals: the breakup of the nation. Despite its status as the home of the European Union, Belgium itself has long struggled with divisions between its 6 million Dutch-speakers and 4.5 million Francophones but until recently talk of a breakup has been limited to extremists.

Redrawing the map The European map is outdated and illogical. Here's how it should look Apr 29th 2010 | From The Economist online PEOPLE who find their neighbours tiresome can move to another neighbourhood, whereas countries can’t. But suppose they could. Rejigging the map of Europe would make life more logical and friendlier. Britain, which after its general election will have to confront its dire public finances, should move closer to the southern-European countries that find themselves in a similar position. It could be towed to a new position near the Azores. (If the journey proves a bumpy one, it...

Tomas van Houtryve for The New York Times Jean-François Bastin, 61, a Belgian convert to Islam, in his home in Brussels. His party is aggressively pursuing a pro-Muslim agenda. ANTWERP, Belgium - Filip Dewinter, a boyish man in a dark blue suit, bounds up two flights of steep stairs in his political party's 19th-century headquarters building where posters show a Muslim minaret rising menacingly above the Gothic steeple of the city's cathedral. "The radical Muslims are organizing themselves in Europe," he declared. "Other political parties, they are very worried about the Muslim votes and say let's be tolerant, while...

French-speaking enemies call him a "designer fascist", with his air of having just stepped off a plane from San Francisco. Filip Dewinter, the strongman of the Vlaams Blok, the Right-wing anti-immigration party that is poised to do well in tomorrow's Belgian election, is a man who provokes that sort of angry reaction. His Flemish front poses a mortal threat to the Belgian state and the welfare apparatus that keeps the French-speaking regions afloat. Filip Dewinter Each year, the Dutch-speaking majority in the north pay a bigger share of GDP to subsidise their former masters in Wallonia than the west Germans...

Faouzia Hariche (38) is the acting mayor (or “bourgmestre” – burgomaster, from the Dutch burgemeester) of Brussels, the capital of Belgium and of the European Union. Ms Hariche was born in Algeria in 1967. She moved to Belgium when she was seven years old. Though Brussels was historically a Dutch-speaking city and is also considered to be the capital of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern half of Belgium, the city was forcibly “frenchified” after the establishment of Belgium in 1830 by French radicals who used French-speaking Wallonia, Belgium’s southern half, as a power base to conquer Flanders. Since 1830 the Dutch...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's history of linguistic bickering between Flemings and Walloons entered a new phase this week when police arrested a Flemish woman for calling her Walloon husband lazy, Belgian media said Thursday. The 48-year-old husband filed a complaint for racism against his spouse for scratching him and calling him "a lazy Walloon, a slave and an inferior creature," De Standaard daily said. The 47-year-old woman will appear before a magistrate later Thursday to face charges of racism, the newspaper said. Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speaking Walloons are not only linguistically divided but also split socio-economically between a prosperous Flanders...

BRUSSELS - A recent documentary "Questions à la Une" acts as whistleblower against the progression of the Belgian extreme right. French-speaking Belgian TV and radio organisation RTBF recently broadcast a worrisome documentary on the growing popularity of the extreme-right party, the Vlaams Belang, in the Flemish part of the country. A popularity, according to La Libre Belgique, that may bring the Vlaams Belang to victory and which is grossly underestimated in French-speaking Belgium. Christophe Deborsu's documentary is well structured. The investigation starts with an anecdote surrounding a street name and ends with the Vlaams Belang's highly effective campaign strategy. The...

Thousands of Belgians were thrown into a panic by news that the Flemish half of the country had declared independence. A two-hour live television report on the break-up of the nation showed images of ecstatic Flemish nationalists waving flags on the streets and queues of French speakers heading for the “border”. The panic turned to anger after RTBF, the French public broadcaster, admitted 40 minutes into the show that it was a hoax designed to dramatise tensions between Flanders, in the north, and French-speaking Wallonia, in the south. Thousands of viewers called the station during the broadcast, some of them...

A FAKE television news bulletin that Belgium was to split provoked outrage in both halves of the country yesterday."Irresponsible", "questionable" and "regrettable" were among the reactions from Belgium's political mainstream in both French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders after a fictional report that Flanders had declared independence. The prime minister Guy Verhofstadt's office described the bulletin as a "misplaced joke". A commission of the Francophone parliament was set to view RTBF's footage, which included a report that King Albert II had fled the country. Only much later during the broadcast did a subtitle reveal that the reports were fictional. The Francophone...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's sharp divide between Flemings and Walloons is likely to widen but fall short of full separation after Sunday's general election given the likely next prime minister's remark about almost half the population. "Apparently the francophones do not have the intellect to learn Dutch," Christian Democrat Yves Leterme told a French newspaper last August, to the consternation of the 40 percent of Belgians whose native language is French. Leterme, premier of Dutch-speaking Flanders, is the frontrunner to succeed liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt -- also a Fleming -- in an election likely to see Belgium's regions inch...

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt planned to tender his government’s resignation Monday, one day after a general election in which conservatives - led by Christian Democrats - dealt his Socialist-Liberal coalition a stunning defeat. As votes were still being counted Sunday, Verhofstadt, 54, conceded defeat, saying he would leave the limelight after eight years as prime minister. "The voters of our country...have opted for a different majority," he said. That majority faces a difficult agenda that is bound to be dominated by steps to grant further autonomy to Flanders, Belgium’s Dutch-speaking northern half, and Wallonia, its francophone south. Since the...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's government of Liberals and Socialists took a fierce beating in Sunday's general elections as Christian Democrats translated eight years on the opposition benches into major gains, according to early vote projections. After two four-year terms, the coalition partners were predicted to lose ground across Belgium, a country of 10.5 million where political parties are split into separate Dutch and French-speaking factions. With 30 percent of the vote counted, the VRT television network gave Christian Democrats 32.4 percent of the vote in Dutch-speaking Belgium (up from 25.8 percent in 2003) and Verhofstadt's...

More than ten weeks after the Belgian elections and there is still no government in sight. On 23 August, Mr Yves Leterme, the Christian Democrat who won last June's parliamentary elections and was subsequently charged with forming a new Belgian government, gave his job back. His job was in essence: looking for a workable coalition. Any government in Belgium needs to be a coalition, as no single party is large enough to rule on its own. Mr Leterme was banking on a coalition between two parties from the Dutch speaking north, known as Flanders - and the French speaking south,...

Belgium, it is business as usual. Trains run, the prime minister greets visiting foreign leaders, social security benefits are paid and the country’s famed bureaucracy functions unabated. If everything seems normal, it is – bar one glitch. Belgium has no new government, 101 days after a general election. Since it won independence in 1830, the country has had trouble keeping itself together. Now, concerns are growing that the Franco-phone Walloons of the south and the Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north will finally split. While Belgium bears few visible scars of political impasse, disagreements over state reform have left negotiators unable...

One hundred and three days after their general election, life goes on in Belgium. People go to work, they meet their friends, the beer is world class, the food is good, folks go about life as they always have. And there is still no government. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20841339/) Hopefully the country will provide an inspirational example to the rest of the EU and split under the pressure caused by increasing Flemish unwillingness to pay the parasitic leftists who dominate Wallonia. Of course things might get messy but more likely it will be a velvet divorce... but the really interesting thing for me...

To continue the literary analogy, consider the library at Belgium's Leuven University. Make that two libraries. German armies had burned down Leuven's library in the two world wars, and it was rebuilt after each. But then in 1970, the last time the Flemings and the Walloons got seriously restive, the million-volume collection was carved into two: Odd-numbered books remained on the original campus in the Dutch-speaking part of the country, while even-numbered books went to a new Francophone school built in a field 17 miles to the south. Thirty-seven years later, Belgium's national identity is still so elusive, so fragile...

Brussels (1 December) - The head of Belgium's Flemish Christian Democrats Yves Leterme has announced that he is unable to form a coalition government. King Albert II has accepted his resignation as coalition negotiator. Mr Leterme resigned after the French-speaking Christian Democrats rejected a proposal which would lead to greater regional autonomy. Belgium's political parties have been attempting to form a government since elections were held in June.

Brussels (17 December 2007) - Belgium's outgoing Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has agreed to King Albert's request to form an interim government. The king wants the prime minister to address the most urgent issues, including negotiations on important institutional reforms. Belgium is divided into French-speaking Wallonia in the south and Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north. Parliamentary elections were held in Belgium on 10 June, but so far no coalition has been formed because the French-language and Dutch-language parties have been unable to reach agreement. Mr Verhofstadt has suggested forming a government, consisting of a Christian Democratic-Labour bloc representing the Walloon...

European human rights watchdogs are now watching Belgian democracy closely after the move by Flemish local authorities. The Council of Europe has "opened a monitoring procedure on local democracy" fuelling a row between Dutch speaking and francophone Belgians that has threatened the existence of Belgium. Flemish regional authorities have blocked three French-speaking mayors from taking up public office since they were elected in January 2007 in the Brussels suburbs of Linkebeek, Wezembeek-Oppem and Kraainem. Marino Keulen, the Flemish Interior Minister responsible for the ban, remained defiant and announced he will stick by his decision to outlaw the elected mayors....

Belgian Prime Minister offered his government’s resignation to the king Monday, said a source BRUSSELS - Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme offered his government's resignation to the king Monday after talks between Flemish and French-speakers on new reforms failed, a source close to the government said. "He will present his government's resignation," the source told AFP under cover of anonymity. "It's an admission of a complete deadlock on community questions, combined with the fact the government will not be able to present an agreement on reforming the state by 15 July," as Leterme had promised, the source said. Leterme only...

BRUSSELS — The move to break up Belgium gathered momentum Sunday as separatists won an emphatic election victory in Flanders, the prosperous Dutch-speaking half of the fiercely divided nation. A stunning electoral success for Bart de Wever’s Flemish nationalist party marks a significant new challenge to the fragile unity of a country where tensions between French and Dutch speakers run deep. Scheduled to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union in less than three weeks, Belgium will now do so with a caretaker administration and facing months of tortuous negotiations to put together a coalition government. “We are...

LANGUAGE wars between French and Flemish-speakers in Belgium have reignited, sparking riots, bringing the Government to the brink of collapse and prompting some commentators to say that the country is “finished”.The dispute, over whether 120,000 French-speakers living in Flemish areas should have the right to elect French- speaking politicians, arouses high passions in a country split between the two languages. As the apparently innocuous spat in an electoral district just outside Brussels escalated out of control, demonstrations ended in violent confrontations with police. Senior government ministers cancelled all other work for emergency negotiations, but failed to broker a deal over...