Free Republic

22 March 2015 Ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP and its allies led voting in the first round of French local elections, exit polls suggest. They pushed the far-right National Front into second, with President Francois Hollande's ruling Socialists in third. Voters are electing representatives in 101 departments, or counties, charged with issues like schools and welfare. A second round of voting will take place in a week's time.

During Barack Obama's recent State of the Union speech, he told America he had no more campaigns to run. But it seems that statement flies in the face of reports that an organization known as “One Voice” has brought in what has been called a "five-man Obama team" to defeat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Included in that five-man team is Jeremy Bird, the national field director for Obama's 2012 campaign, Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of the Independent Media Review and Analysis, said Monday, citing a report at Haaretz. That group, Dr. Lerner added, will run the anti-Netanyahu effort out...

As political encores go, former President Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t quite get the warm embrace from his party that many French had expected in his return to public life on Saturday. The hard-charging Gaullist who once made headlines for reviving France’s U.S. ties, helping depose Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and marrying a former supermodel while in office won a race for leader of France’s main conservative party—but with a margin of victory that was smaller than many had predicted. Sarkozy’s victory as chief of the Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP, was a crucial first step on his road to...

Ex-French PM accuses Hollande aide of lying over Sarkozy legal case claims PARIS Sun Nov 9, 2014 4:36pm EST (Reuters) - Former French prime minister Francois Fillon accused President Francois Hollande's chief of staff of lying on Sunday after a media report accused Fillon of asking him to accelerate a legal case against his rival Nicolas Sarkozy. Newspaper Le Monde said that Fillon had asked Jean-Pierre Jouyet in June to speed up legal cases involving Sarkozy to undermine his political comeback, including one linked to fines over the funding of the former president's 2012 campaign.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy could face up to five years in prison and a €500,000 fine on allegations of corruption and influence peddling. The embattled center-right politician was released from police custody late Tuesday (1 July) and is now under formal investigation. Sarkozy is suspected to have attempted to obstruct an investigation into the financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. He denies any wrongdoing and says the accusations are politically motivated. …

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was held on Tuesday for questioning into suspicions that a network of informers kept him abreast of a separate inquiry into alleged irregularities in his 2007 election campaign, a legal source said. Local media said it was the first time a former head of state had been held for questioning in modern French history. The conservative politician denies wrongdoing in a string of investigations which could derail his hopes of a come-back after his 2012 presidential election defeat by Francois Hollande. Sarkozy arrived early Tuesday to be quizzed by investigators at their offices in Nanterre,...

Look how the power madman is pointing, talking down to an ally. Would he dare treat his Islamic masters with such disrespect? President Sarkozy called him "a madman," "a lunatic." Perhaps, I don't know -- but one thing is for sure: Hussein is a muhammadan. He 's not insane ...........he wants jihad to win. That's what he is doing. Of course, to the western mind, the rational mind, the logical mind, the American mind, that is insane.

Obama going off the deep end FLOYD AND MARY BETH BROWN, COMMENTARY April 9, 2010 A recent analysis by Roger Simon of PJTV Media maintains that Obama is showing signs of mental illness. A wide variety of commentators have observed that Obama displays severe narcissism. Obama is conceited, and he is demonstrating a serious disassociation from reality. A recent case in point was Obama's bizarre and meandering 17-minute, 2,500-word answer to the simple question about how he could justify raising taxes for ObamaCare during a recession when citizens are already overtaxed. Obama's wildly inappropriate answer left the audience stunned and...

If you are, as I am, a perusing cogitator of the Democratic Party's purveying of balderdash, then you most certainly have been left scratching your head in a state of bewilderment as to how a brain, or collective brains, larger than a walnut, could produce such poppycock outside an asylum for the maniacal. It's as if the entire collective Democratic Party and our dear President Obama have gnawed their way out of restraints, moved to Washington, DC, and set up shop. At last, relief appears to be cresting the horizon. All in possession of gumption, intelligence, and old fashioned horse-sense...

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - French magistrates abandoned a long-running party funding investigation against former president Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday, buoying his chances of a political comeback in 2017. Sarkozy, whom most conservatives want to see lead the centre-right in the 2017 presidential race, was targeted with others in a judicial inquiry into his UMP party's ties with France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. At issue were allegations that Sarkozy, 58, took advantage of the mental frailty of billionaire Bettencourt to obtain money for his 2007 presidential campaign. He has denied wrongdoing.....

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy's hopes of a political comeback got a boost on Tuesday after a fundraising campaign he spearheaded to avert a financial crisis for his conservative UMP party raised 8.3 million euros in less than a month. The national drive to refill the UMP coffers -- dubbed "Sarkothon" by the media -- underscores Sarkozy's continued star appeal among centre-right voters despite his loss of the presidency to Socialist Francois Hollande in May 2012. With the UMP's finances now largely repaired, Sarkozy can more easily prepare for a possible presidential bid in 2017. For this, he will have...

Suddenly a handshake from David Cameron probably seems an awful lot more inviting. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy could become the next wealthy Frenchman to flee to Britain over his country’s looming tax hikes on the rich. Mr Sarkozy – who famously snubbed the Prime Minister’s attempt to shake his hand after Mr Cameron vetoed changes to the EU treaty in 2011 – is reportedly planning to move to London to set up a £800million investment fund. The 57-year-old, who was ousted from office last June, has amassed a fortune from £150,000-an-hour public speaking engagements and is now said to be...

The effort by François Hollande to get the wealthy to fund his Socialist agenda isn't off to a propitious start, needless to say. The announcement of Hollande's 75% tax rate for high-income earners has panicked the business and investment communities in France that Hollande needs to generate economic growth. It drove France's greatest living actor (and perhaps overall artist) to abandon his native country for the greener pastures of Belgium … or perhaps Russia: Gerard Depardieu, the French actor awarded Russian citizenship this month, is shopping for land near a provincial capital where he plans to settle down after a...

Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to move to London to set up a billion pounds plus investment fund, it was claimed today. If the move goes ahead, the controversial Frenchman will become the latest to escape a potential top tax rate of 75 per cent in his home country. He and his former supermodel third wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy would be likely to settle in an affluent district like South Kensington – so becoming the most high profile Gallic celebrity couple in the city.

The Venezuelan Minister of Correctional Services, Iris Varela, has announced on her Twitter account the expulsion of a French citizen known as Frédéric Laurent Bouquet, December 29, 2012 Mr. Bouquet (photo) had been arrested in Caracas on June 18, 2009, with three Dominican nationals in possession of an arsenal. In the apartment he had acquired, forensic police seized 500 grams of C4 explosives, 14 assault rifles including 5 with telescopic lenses, 5 with laser sighting and one with a silencer, special cables, 11 electronic detonators, 19,721 cartridges of different calibers, 3 machine guns, 4 hand guns of different calibers, 11...

A massively wealthy arms dealer with close links to Britain is set to provide proof that Nicolas Sarkozy received millions in illegal cash from Colonel Gaddafi. Ziad Takieddine, 62, insists that the former Libyan dictator funded the former French president’s election campaign in 2007. ....................... Takieddine’s explosive testament follows similar claims from other witnesses, all of whom insist that Sarkozy was a corrupt head of state. French law bans candidates from receiving cash payments above £6,300, but it is claimed that Gaddafi’s donations were laundered through bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland. An Arabic language document made public last year...

 After more than a week of wrangling over the outcome of its hotly contested party election, the leadership of France’s center-right opposition party on Monday confirmed Jean-François Copé, a right-leaning protégé of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, as the party’s new chief, staring down a last-minute legal challenge from his centrist rival, François Fillon.  The disputed election has sown confusion and embarrassment across France and in particular within the already bruised party, known as the U.M.P. The drawn-out battle, which has played out on live television and via social media networks, follows Mr. Sarkozy’s loss in the presidential race in May,...

A bitter election battle to succeed Nicolas Sarkozy as new leader of France’s main centre-Right party, UMP, has gone down to the wire in a contest that could decide whether or not the group swings farther Right. Jean-Francois Cope, the party’s firebrand secretary-general, was more than 3,000 votes ahead of the moderate Francois Fillon, with some 155,000 ballots counted from the election among the party’s 300,000 members. With the outcome still unclear, the surprise of the night was the higher-than-expected score of Mr Copé, 48, who was expected to finish well behind Mr Fillon, 58. Last night members of the...

Both candidates have claimed victory in the race to become France's next opposition leader, in a contest marred by allegations of vote-rigging. Hundreds of votes are said to separate right-wing candidate Jean-Francois Cope and ex-PM Francois Fillon. As the neck-and-neck result emerged, supporters of both UMP candidates made accusations of vote fraud. The party has been without a leader since Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in the May presidential election. Mr Cope has been secretary general of the conservative UMP since 2010 while his rival was prime minister for five years during Mr Sarkozy's presidency. More than 50% of the party's...

  Francois Hollande will celebrate 100 days since his election as French president on Tuesday knowing his honeymoon with the electorate is over and that life is not going to get easier any time soon.   Record unemployment and an economy headed back into recession provide a sombre backdrop to an event Hollande will mark by interrupting his summer break to visit police officers in a village where two of their female colleagues died in a shootout in June. The village, Pierrefeu-du-Var, is located close to the Fort de Bregancon presidential retreat where Hollande has been on holiday with his glamorous journalist...