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Pope Francis confirms he will attend UN’s COP28 ‘climate change’ conference in Dubai The Pope's participation in the UN's Dubai climate change conference is an historic first, and is a signal move in his support for the Paris Agreement. Pope Francis has announced he will attend the upcoming climate change “COP28” conference in Dubai in December, in a historic first. In a television interview with Italian news outlet TG1, Pope Francis confirmed previous reports that he would participate in the upcoming COP28 conference being held in Dubai. “Yes, I will go to Dubai,” the Pope declared. “I think I will...

French Environment Minister Segolene Royal, representing her government at a tribute for Fidel Castro in Cuba, defended the late communist leader’s human rights record on Saturday, questioning whether the regime imprisons dissidents. The former socialist presidential candidate called Castro a “monument of history” and a “symbol of a very deep friendship between Cuba and France.” […] Asked about the human rights violations denounced by the United Nations and dissidents, Royal said the island had “religious freedom” and “freedom of conscience.” …

Truth be told, despite the best efforts by the French and British media to sell their wares, one can hardly call it Gayetgate. Indeed, the president of France, François Hollande, 60, has a mistress, actress Julie Gayet [1], now 41, whom he met about two years ago, even before being elected. Two weeks ago, Closer, a gossip weekly, published a seven-page report that included pictures of the president paying a visit to Gayet’s love nest, an apartment located on Rue du Cirque, one block away from Elysée Palace, the French head of state’s residence in central Paris [2]. However,...

Paris (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande on Saturday told AFP he has split with his longstanding partner Valerie Trierweiler after his affair with an actress nearly 20 years his junior. The announcement came after a day of rumours in the French media that Hollande would formally announce the rupture on Saturday, on the eve of a visit by Trierweiler to India for charity work. Saying he was speaking as a private individual and not as head of state as the matter concerned his private life, Hollande told AFP over the phone: "I wish to make it known that I...

Valérie Trierweiler, France’s new First Lady got her way when Ségolène Royal, François Hollande’s former partner of 30 years, crashed out of parliamentary elections to a dissident she controversially backed. Valérie Trierweiler sparked a political storm and private drama by firing off a Twitter message wishing “good luck” to the Socialist dissident rival of Ségolène Royal, 58, mother of Mr Hollande’s four children who was fighting for a seat in the constituency of western La Rochelle. Mr Hollande had backed Miss Royal for the seat reportedly without informing his new partner, who then is said to have sent the now...

He swapped her for a younger woman. Then she tried to stop him becoming president of France. But François Hollande is on course to make former partner Ségolène Royal the most powerful female politician in the country, despite the bitterness of their separation after 30 years and four children together. President-elect Hollande and fellow Socialist Royal still have their personal differences, and she does not get on with his current partner Valérie Trierweiler, a journalist 11 years her junior. Only last year, while Hollande and his former partner were contesting the Socialist nomination for the presidency, Royal said: “Can anyone...

<p>Some think politics is monotone and parliamentary sittings are boring. However, real beauties can sometimes be in these seats. We have compiled a list of ten successful women who rule the world and their beauty is breath taking.</p> <p>1. It was a bit difficult to decide which beauty to assign to the first place, we will start with exotic Japanese Yuri Fujikawa, who was named the most beautiful politician in the world by bloggers. She is a representative of the city Hachinoha and was recently involved in a sex scandal, when she was spotted entering a hotel embraced by a married man. However, nobody held it against her and he is famous for being too beautiful for politics.</p>

A bitter feud between Ségolène Royal and her former partner, the Socialist Party leader, François Hollande, is dominating the party’s summer congress. Ms Royal delivers the keynote speech at the La Rochelle gathering, but senior Socialists stayed away in disgust as the former first couple of the party fought their turf war The acrimony came to a head when Mr Hollande said that he planned to fight the mother of his four children for the party’s next presidential candidacy after her failed bid in May. Ms Royal, whose 25-year domestic partnership with Mr Hollande came ended after her defeat by...

Defeated French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal has split from her partner, party leader Francois Hollande, accusing him in a new book of having an affair. "I have asked Francois Hollande to leave our home, to pursue his love interest which is now laid out in books and newspapers and I wish him happiness," Royal said in an interview for the book to be published Wednesday. Excerpts were released as Socialists celebrated a better-than-expected performance in France's parliamentary elections on Sunday. Speculation about the couple has been rife for months. Royal did not name the other woman in Hollande's...

- The "golden couple" of the French left -- Segolene Royal and Francois Hollande -- came to an end on Sunday, weeks after the Socialists suffered a painful defeat in their presidential bid. Royal, whose hopes of becoming France's first woman president were dashed last month by Nicolas Sarkozy, confirmed what had been rumoured for some time. She said in a book to be published this week that Hollande, the leader of the Socialist Party and the father of her four children, had been having an affair and that she had asked him to leave their home. Royal, 53, met...

Paris -- The bitter rivalry between France’s leftwing power couple was today directly blamed by Socialists for the party’s disastrous showing in key elections. France’s Left was forced to contemplate the prospect of parliamentary obscurity as voters fuelled the success of President Nicolas Sarkozy. With the Socialists facing a possible record defeat in next Sunday’s final round, giving Mr Sarkozy a virtual free hand for his radical programme of reforms, Ségolene Royal and Francois Hollande responded by sparring in public. The latest spat between Ms Royal, who lost the presidency to Mr Sarkozy last month, and Mr Hollande, her party...

The mold-breaking candidate "played on being a woman, but comes across as cold, frigid and robotic, and women are disappointed with her," said a female entrepreneur. No, the voter wasn't in Des Moines dissing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton; she was in Paris, thrashing French presidential contender Segolene Royal. When Royal's candidacy was announced, conventional political wisdom held that, because she was a woman, particularly in male-dominated France, female voters would flock to her. But Royal actually lost female support before the election, won by her conservative rival Nicolas Sarkozy. Which brings us to Hillary. If France's dalliance with girl power...

Hillary Clinton's handlers are running away from Segolene Royal after her loss in France. Aside from being women, they insist, the two don't have much in common. Really? Truth is, Clinton and Royal share a significant common bond beyond their gender: Their positions on many issues can only be described as socialist. It's true that Royal, who lost to Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election, is openly socialist, while Clinton campaigns as a Democrat. But Clinton's views are no more conservative than her European counterpart. It's just that she tries to run to the right because she can't politically...

Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean that you deserve to be President!

I fully expect Hillary Clinton to be the next president of the United States of America. Check that, I expect Hillary Rodham to be the next president of the United States of America; she's already dropped the Rodham for the campaign, as I expected, and she'll surely bring it back sometime between the election and the inauguration. Assuming, of course, that she wins. And win she should. Last week's Republican debate demonstrated the massive problem facing Republicans in 2008, as Ron Paul was the only candidate with the constitutional fortitude to face up to the fact that the Iraq war...

On Sunday France elected a pro-American, conservative named Nicolas Sarkozy as its new president. The 52-year-old who beat back by 10 percentage points his Socialist rival, promises an unabashed Thatcherite agenda for France. Sarkozy also replaces the embattled Jacques Chirac, a relic from an earlier age of French politics, who made anti-Americanism his hallmark. Sarkozy campaigned on a platform of sweeping reforms, pledging to dismantle large portions of the social welfare state and to make France competitive on world markets again. He also pledged to reduce taxes, shrink the size of government and shut down redundant government programs. Carrying out...

Let the finger-pointing begin. Ségolène Royal’s defeat on Sunday night left the French Socialist party in disarray and searching for someone to blame. There is hardly a shortage of scapegoats. It is the party’s third consecutive presidential defeat. The Socialists now face the question of whether they can ever regain power without ditching their anti-capitalist rhetoric, as the mainstream left has done across almost all of Europe. Ms Royal can argue that she did better than Lionel Jospin, who in 2002 led the Socialists to a humiliating third place behind Jacques Chirac and far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. But France’s...

Who would you vote for in the presidential election?   Feb. 28 Feb. 24 Feb. 17 Nicolas Sarkozy 32% 31% 33% Segolene Royal 25% 26% 23% Francois Bayrou 18% 17.5% 16% Jean-Marie Le Pen 12.5% 13% 13% Olivier Besancenot 2.5% 3% 4% Marie-George Buffet 2% 2% 2.5% Arlette Laguiller 2% 1% 1.5% Dominique Voynet 1.5% 1% 1% Jose Bove 1.5% 2% 2% Philippe de Villiers 1% 1.5% 1.5% Frederic Nihous 0.5% 0.5% 1% Corinne Lepage 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% Nicolas Dupont-Aignan 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% Gerard Schivardi 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% Run-Off Scenario   Feb. 28 Feb. 24 Feb. 17 Nicolas Sarkozy...

In a hurry to recover lost field and supports, Royal announced her "presidential pact" 11 Feb. in a sort of issues as she gives a bunch of progressive proposals very enthusiastic. As a matter of fact, people cheered loudly the raising of the minimum wage and small pensions, and the sharp turning to far-left policy... Patrick Artus, as the chief economist of Ixis CIB, based in Paris, said " There are some good measures like the idea of reserving some government contracts for small and medium sized companies," ... "But she (Segolene) also proposes unfeasible or dangerous measures and has...

French president Jacques Chirac is expected to announce shortly if he will stand in this year's presidential elections, after on Monday winning approval for a triple constitutional reform, widely considered the last significant act of his presidency... A veteran French economist said on Monday: "The idea of Chirac standing again looks more unlikely every day." If Mr Chirac decides against standing in April's election, it will be a sensitive moment for Mr Sarkozy, who has become the early frontrunner, with an eight to 10-point lead over Ms Royal in opinion polls. As they are members of the same political party,...