French News - 20 February
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 7:48PM French Finance Minister Baroin optimistic over EU Greek bailout deal
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French Finance Minister François Baroin says European Union ministers have all the elements in place for the approval of a second financial rescue package for Greece on Tuesday.
The Greek parliament last week approved a series of measures worth 3.2 billion euros in return for a second bailout deal which would write-off 100 billion euros of debt and provide an EU loan of 130 billion euros.
“I hope that we …can take into account what has been done in the last several weeks, in the last several months even, by the Greek government and the political groupings that make up the coalition in power in Athens,” he said ahead of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels.
Baroin stressed urgent moves were needed on Greece as it had bond repayments of 14.5 billion euros due on 20 March.
On Sunday US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner threw his weight behind the new austerity measures agreed by Greece and said the US backed the idea of a new IMF loan for Athens.
The International Monetary Fund which gave Greece a 30-billion-euro loan as part of the first bailout has so far remained silent over whether it will participate in a new loan.
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GREEK BAILOUT PACKAGE
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What is on the table at finance ministers meeting in Brussels.
What measures has Greece introduced to ensure the deal.
The current economic situation in Greece
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Eurozone officials in talks to finalise Greek bailout
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Eurozone officials are holding 11-th hour talks on Sunday one day ahead of a crucial finance ministers meeting to finalise a second Greek bailout deal which they hope will remove the possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone.
The deal to write off 100 billion euros of debt and provide a loan of 130 billion euros depends on new spending cuts by the government which will come amid violent protests on the streets.
On Sunday, hundreds of people joined a demonstration in central Athens against the austerity measures which include a 22 per cent reduction in the minimum wage.
For Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papdemos, securing the loan is essential because without the bailout Greece will be unable to meet a bond repayment of 14.5 billion euros on 20 march.
But while Greek party leaders seeking power in a general election set for April have committed separately to carrying out radical reforms, hardliners have floated a willingness to cut the country adrift of the euro.
The Italian government said on Friday that Prime Minister Mario Monti, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Papademos were "confident that a deal can be reached on Greece at the Eurogroup," after telephone talks.
But Germany and The Netherlands still need to get the second bailout past sceptical parliaments.
Sarkozy promotes image as President of the People
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy positioned himself as the ‘president of the people’ in his first major campaign meeting since he announced he would run for re-election last week. “I will not be the candidate of a small elite against the people,” he told a 7,000-strong crowd of cheering UMP supporters in the southern port city of Marseille on Sunday.
“I want to be the candidate of the French people,” he stated in an hour-long speech that covered immigration, the financial crisis, unemployment and the possibility of introducing a form of proportional representation in legislative elections.
He insisted proportional representation would strengthen democracy to allow all political parties to have a representative in parliament.
“The Republic is stronger when everyone has a way of expressing themselves within the Republic,’ he said.
In an attack on Socialist Party candidate François Hollande, who is currently leading in opinion polls.
Sarkozy described him as a “Thatcher in London and a Mitterand in Paris” referring to Hollande’s sharp criticism of the financial world when in France, but the adoption of a more conciliatory tone when talking to European leaders.
Sarkozy also accused the opposition of ignoring the financial crisis and putting the future of the country in danger.
“Those who are acting as if nothing serious has happened over the past three years in the world are lying to the French people,” he said. “You do not defend yourself against danger if you deny it exists.”
In contrast, he described himself as the “protector of the French people” and claimed his policies had saved the country from “catastrophe”.
His speech was well-received by the party faithful in the crowd which included Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, UMP party chief, Jean-François Copé and Prime Minister François Fillon.
Also present was his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who praised her husband’s first major meeting on the campaign trail as “moving”.
Far-right candidate attacks 'deadly' globalisation, immigration
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In a key campaign speech almost nine weeks ahead of France's presidential elections, French far-right candidate Marine Le Pen slammed globalisation and immigration, warning of adverse effects on the country's economy and national identity.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen slammed rival candidates on Sunday, calling them servants of the the banking and finance industries in a key election campaign speech in the northern city of Lille, only nine weeks ahead of presidential elections in France.
As Marine Le Pen tried to boost her support in northern France, her key rival Nicolas Sarkozy chose to present his re-election manifesto on the exact date and time in a massive party meeting at the opposite end of the country, in the southern city of Marseille.
Sarkozy’s victory in 2007 was in part due to his ability to siphon votes from the far-right party -- a strategy that Le Pen is hoping to counter in 2012.
"Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to renew 2007 by encroaching on our turf," Nicolas Bay, Le Pen's adviser on immigration issues, told reporters in Lille. "That means we have to go on the offensive, as we have no intention of letting him do it again."
The two candidates have been trying to lure voters with their anti-immigration rhetoric. Sarkozy has vowed to limit immigration, setting himself the goal of cutting legal migration to France to 150,000 people a year, having already cut the quota to 180,000 from 200,000 in past years.
In a bid to draw more far-right voters, he also proposed a referendum on battling illegal immigration, something the far-right has been championing for several years.
For Le Pen, Sarkozy’s immigration and security policies are only a ploy for electoral gain. After two days of avoiding too much focus on immigration, she naturally and effortlessly returned to controversial anti-immigration territory by claiming she had proof that all meat in Paris was Halal.
According to Bay, speaking to the public on such issues such as halal meat is important for they show the influence of Muslim values in local policies and the danger that they pose to France’s secular tradition.
WoW hears - she will have all Brit pensioners deported - what a girl eh?
Iran cuts oil exports to France and Britain
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Iran has halted sales of crude oil to British and French companies, according to a statement published Sunday on the Iranian ministry of petroleum's website, amid rising tensions over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.
REUTERS - Iran has stopped selling crude to British and French companies, the oil ministry said on Sunday, in a retaliatory measure against fresh EU sanctions on the Islamic state's lifeblood, oil.
"Exporting crude to British and French companies has been stopped ... we will sell our oil to new customers," spokesman Alireza Nikzad was quoted as saying by the ministry of petroleum website.
The European Union in January decided to stop importing crude from Iran from July 1 over its disputed nuclear programme, which the West says is aimed at building bombs. Iran denies this.
Iran's oil minister said on Feb. 4 that the Islamic state would cut its oil exports to "some" European countries.
The European Commission said last week that the bloc would not be short of oil if Iran stopped crude exports, as they have enough in stock to meet their needs for around 120 days.
Industry sources told Reuters on Feb. 16 that Iran's top oil buyers in Europe were making substantial cuts in supply months in advance of European Union sanctions, reducing flows to the continent in March by more than a third - or over 300,000 barrels daily.
France's Total has already stopped buying Iran's crude, which is subject to fresh EU embargoes. Market sources said Royal Dutch Shell has scaled back sharply.
Among European nations, debt-ridden Greece is most exposed to Iranian oil disruption.
Motor Oil Hellas of Greece was thought to have cut out Iranian crude altogether and compatriot Hellenic Petroleum along with Spain's Cepsa and Repsol were curbing imports from Iran.
Iran was supplying more than 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the EU plus Turkey in 2011, industry sources said.
By the start of this year imports had sunk to about 650,000 bpd as some customers cut back in anticipation of an EU ban.
Saudi Arabia says it is prepared to supply extra oil either by topping up existing term contracts or by making rare spot market sales. Iran has criticised Riyadh for the offer.
Iran said the cut will have no impact on its crude sales, warning that any sanctions on its oil will raise international crude prices.
Brent crude oil prices were up $1 a barrel to $118.35 shortly after Iran's state media announced last week that Tehran had cut oil exports to six European states. The report was denied shortly afterwards by Iranian officials.
"We have our own customers ... The replacements for these companies have been considered by Iran," Nikzad said.
EU's new sanctions includes a range of extra restrictions on Iran that went well beyond U.N. sanctions agreed last month and included a ban on dealing with Iranian banks and insurance companies and steps to prevent investment in Tehran's lucrative oil and gas sector, including refining.
The mounting sanctions are aimed at putting financial pressure on the world's fifth largest crude oil exporter, which has little refining capacity and has to import about 40 percent of its gasoline needs for its domestic consumption.
Government denies Le Pen's claims over halal meat
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The French food ministry has denied claims by the leader of the extreme right National Front party, Marine Le Pen, that all meat distributed in the Parisian region is ‘halal’ – slaughtered according to Islamic law.
A spokesman for the ministry said a law in place since the beginning of the year states that halal meat can only by provided by suppliers on demand and not systematically.
“If abattoirs are near a muslim or a jewish community then they can supply that community and therefore they must work in accordance with islamic or kosher customs,” he said.
On Saturday, Le Pen claimed all meat in the Parisian region was, without exception, halal and said she was going to take some of the most well-known supermarket chains to court over charges they were misleading consumers.
“The situation is a real cover-up,” she told a meeting in Lille. “The government has known about this situation for a month.” She added she had proof to back up her claim.
But Dominque Langlois, president of the association which represents meat suppliers in France denounced Le Pen’s claims as a “political move”
“ To suggest that all commercial meat in Paris or the Paris region is halal is completely wrong and does not reflect the truth,” he said in an interview on France Inter radio.
Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding also to be banned by the nice lady WoW hears. Don't you luv her?
WoW has also heard that the nice blond (is it her own colour or the hair colour favoured by exponents of the dictat of the master race) will also ban - Curries, all Chinese takeaways and Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter and all that other foul foreign muck from La France - obviously a clear leader to become President of the Republic eh? She has also, WoW hears, declared that all French trains will soon have to drive on the right as Napoleon would have wanted had he lived long enough to know what a train is. Hey - a true European.
Le Pen is also reported to be in favour of a French oil for French motorists campaign - sadly France does not produce too much oil. A candidate to watch in the Presidentials.
French weekly magazines review
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In the weeklies, it is hard to avoid President Nicolas Sarkozy after he made his, not-so-surprise announcement that he will run for a second term as president.
The satirical paper Le Canard Enchainé points out that it was a "false surprise" and Nicolas Sarkozy is on the cover of most of the other weeklies.
The front cover of L’Express features both Sarkozy and socialist challenger François Hollande. And it poses the question as to whether Sarko can in fact beat Hollande.
Sarkozy's opinion poll ratings have shifted this week due to his announcement and the fact that this week Christian Democrat candidate, Christine Boutin, pulled out of the race and says she will support Sarkozy. This has been a of a blow for the National Front's Marine Le Pen.
Le Nouvel Observateur goes into some more detail about the man behind his strategy - his "guru" Patrick Buisson, who courted favour with the far right during the last election. But also analyses how Sarko is trying to move towards the left with his rhetoric on work conditions.
Left-wing Marianne changes tack somewhat with an exclusive interview with François Hollande. I don’t want to dwell too much on the elections, but Marianne draws attention to a very pertinent question over whether there is some unease about French identity. This debate was started by Sarkozy himself when he introduce issues such as whether wearing the Islamic burka in public was compatible with French values.
This topic is very much linked to matters of immigration. The magazine cites former president François Mitterand who said in 1986 "in hospitable France, immigrants are as at home and they are in their own countries."
And no politician would dare utter that phrase these days. They include a selection of questions which, from 1 July, will constitute the test for naturalisation. Some of these questions concern, the Tour de France and rivers of France, the political system and so on...
But some of them I’m not sure I could answer, about footballers, for example. And of course immigration groups denounce this sort of arbitrary test as nonsense.
Another story that crops up in many of the papers is Greece, which has perhaps been a little overshadowed by other news stories this week, but where tensions still bubbling under the surface.
The Athens correspondent for the Nouvel Obs opens her article by describing the scene in the city last Monday where the smell of burnt plastic and tear gas lingered in the air after 170 buildings were burnt overnight.
There is a bit of a desperate tone to the article which describes the vote for the austerity packageas one adoped by a parliament with "a pistol to the temple."
The article concludes that people are despondent about their government and this is playing into the hands of parties on the extreme left and extreme right.
Marianne even wonders whether there is a sort of "Greek Spring" happening. It says that up to 40 per cent of voters now support left-wing parties, according to a recent opinion poll. This is the highest since the 1950's.
Some German right-wing politicians have remarked on references made by Greek protestors to nazism - a photoshopped image of Chancellor Merkel dressed as Hitler recently appeared in a Greek newspaper.
Le Point points out that actually other European countries are to blame for this situation for allowing Greece to enter the eurozone, despite its terrible fiscal history over the past 150 years.
Marianne also points out that the political temperature is rising in Spain and Portugal. Spanish protestors are to hit the streets today.
L'Express sparks a bit of a debate about "conjugal duty". Last year in France, a court of appeal granted 100,000 euros in damages for a woman who accused her husband of not completing his "duty" on a regular basis. His defence was chronique fatigue due to his work.
A sociology specialist tells L'Express that this stems from the 9th century when Christianity invented this obligation to pro-create as a backlash against the supposedly free-and-easy practices of paganism.
But this question of the woman being able to impose similar demands did not crop up until the Enlightenment. So this is a bit controversial, perhaps even for the 240,000 couples who married last year, that such a clause can be written into law. Having a headache is no longer a get-out clause.
An article which really caught my attention was about Qatar in L'Express. Now, Qatar is only a small state, about the size of Corsica, in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia rather looms over it.
But, as L'Express points out, it has taken a bigger and bigger role in the region, particularly since the beginning of the Arab Spring. But also in trying to broker dialogue between the Americans, Pakistanis and the Taliban.
L'Express gives a few reasons for this. Firstly that Egypt is no longer the regional power that it was, but also that it never aligned its policy with other Suni-dominated countries against Iran, as well as building bridges with Lebanon with reconstruction work after the war of 2006.
Some of the new found confidence started when the Emirate launched Al Jazeera in 1996, but has progressed since. The article concludes by saying that Qatar has decided that regime change in Syria is on the cards.
So as the Qataris are punching above their weight diplomatically, this could prove significant. We shall have to wait and see.
Also in L'Express, in the culture pages, they are using the exhibition which starts this week at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris to look at the life and work of Ai Weiwei.
Ai Weiwei is the Chinese artist and dissident who was arrested last year by the Chinese authorities, supposedly for fiscal fraud of 1.7 million euros. The story really made the news because his supporters rallied around and got the money together.
L'Express looks at his work and accuses some of it as being somewhat banal, particularly photos take on his mobile phone. But acknowledges that some of these photos are destined for the web as Weiwei is a prolific blogger.
L'Express concludes that no matter whether he is more artist or dissident these days, no-one can question his credentials as a freedom activist.
And during the week, it was Saint Valentine's day for all the romantics. But apparently all the love in the air made the Thai police nervous. They were worried that teenagers would - and I quote Le Point - succumb to "sexual frenzy" and so they imposed a 10pm curfew! So the Thai police believe that to be the hour of sexual deviance.
Just a quick science story from this week in Le Point. Apparently, a Hungarian and a Swedish scientist have come up with another theory as to why zebras have stripes.
According to them, it is not to confuse the vision of lions but to protest them from horseflies, which are a menace to horses. Apparently, horseflies prefer horizontal stripes and so leave the the zebras alone!
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