News Analysis: French Elections

I thought I would give you guys some news and views from around the world on the French elections. I'm working on a short blog on the continuing focus on Iran by the Bush administration, but I'm not sure the angle I want to do for it since it has been covered so much by other bloggers, possibly a strict foreign policy angle. But, on to the news.

Le Monde (France)
March 7, 2007
Smiles Do Not Erase the Dissension Between Mrs. Royal and Merkel
By Cecile Calla and Isabelle Mandraud

Divergences "I do not see any," ensured Ségolène Royal, while leaving a meeting in Berling on Tuesday March 6, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "I would say that despite the political differences things went very well," said the socialist candidate at the end of an hour long meeting which was described as "very cordial, I was even going to say supportive." With a handshake, smile, and photograph Mrs. Merkel has, on other side, scrupulously and equally respected Nicolas Sarkozy during his visit to Berlin on February 12. And as in this case, she left the meeting without commenting.

For Mrs Royal this is her last trip abroad before the presidential election, which is of a particular importance due to due to the debate on the reorganization of Airbus, but it also to shore up links with German partners before the French rotation of the European Union presidency in 2008. "This is preparing for at least a year in advance," underlined Elisabeth Guigou, the former minister for European business, during a private conversation with the French delegation...(Read More)

Der Spiegel (Germany)
March 6, 2007
Paris Calls for End to Dual Management at EADS
By SMD, Reuters, Spiegel, DPA

With the French presidential campaign heating up, politicians in Paris are seizing on the Airbus crisis as an election issue. Sarkozy is calling for an end to the dual leadership at parent company EADS and Royal is calling for more state investment instead of job cuts.

French politicians are calling for an increase in state involvement in Airbus. The principle of dual French-German leadership is also being questioned in Paris...(Read More)

EUobserver.com (Belgium)
March 5, 2007
French commissioner worried by presidential election campaign
By Helena Spongenberg

Jacques Barrot, the French EU commissioner, has warned the French presidential candidates that France could lose out if it does not resume its leadership role in Europe.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Barrot, responsible for EU transport, said Europe is in danger of becoming the "big forgotten issue" in the French presidential campaign, at a time when the country needs to get out of its "whingeing, pessimistic and defensive" mindset...(Read More)


Deutsche Welle (Germany)
France's Presidential Elections Face Neck-And-Neck Race
Feb. 27, 2007
By DW Staff

The French election campaign has focused closely on the leading candidates Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. But the "third man" François Bayrou could upset the first round of voting on April 22.

The latest polls in France show that conservative presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Ségolène Royal are running neck-and-neck. But outside contenders in the vote could upset a clear outcome...(Read More)


Journal Turkish Weekly
France's elections, Turkey's choice
March 4, 2007
By Beril Dedeoglu

As the president has important powers in the French political system, the winner of the presidential elections this May is important not only for France but also for many other countries. The rightist UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, who says that “Together Everything is Possible,” seems to receive the support of the conservative sectors of the electorate. He wants to restore France’s former power and importance.


But having said that, he seems to be supportive of a federal Europe. He affirms that as in De Gaulle’s time, France and Germany should be the EU’s pivots, and he thinks that the UK is an obstacle on the path to full European integration. Sarkozy would be right if the world were the same as in De Gaulle’s time. Today the UK is a member of the EU -- and a powerful one -- even if it doesn’t please France. Sarkozy also affirms that France would be stronger if it joined fully in the dynamics of globalization. He defends globalization and a federal Europe at the same time. Beside this, he promises to take harsh measures to tackle the immigration issue, even though it’s not understandable how he reconciles this with globalization...(Read More)

People's Daily (China)
March 8, 2007
Feminist campaigners split over 'sexy Socialist' Royal
By China Daily and Agence France-Presse

The women of France agree electing a female president would be a giant step forward for a nation which has treated career women poorly.

However, feminists are split over whether presidential hopeful Segolene Royal is the best person to advance their fight for equal rights in a country where a revolutionary heroine is the national symbol...(Read More)

Time Magazine (U.S.A.)
March 8, 2007
Not Your Father's Anti-Immigrant Right
By Bruce Crumley

U.S. comedian Dave Chapelle wrought comic havoc by creating a fictional blind African-American who supports the Klu Klux Klan, unaware of his own blackness. But Farid Smahi is not a comedian, nor is he blind, although he does confound a stereotype: The son of Algerian parents and a longtime victim of anti-immigrant prejudice, Smahi is a candidate in France's forthcoming legislative election — for the anti-immigrant National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

"There is no contradiction in being Arab or black or any other minority and voting Le Pen," argues Smahi, who joined the party a decade ago after having initially backed leftist causes and marching for immigrant rights. "French minorities and banlieue [housing project] residents see they've been manipulated and exploited by both the hypocritical left and sham right for years now. Nothing has changed except the racism. So this time around, expect a lot of people to be casting votes for Le Pen in the hopes that, at last, things may change."...(Read More)

Washington Post
March 5, 2007
Candidate Wants Le Pen on France Ballot
By Elaine Ganley

PARIS -- One of France's top presidential candidates asked mayors and other elected officials on Monday to give their backing to an extreme right-wing politician to ensure he has enough endorsements to run in the spring elections.

Nicolas Sarkozy's plea for goodwill on behalf of Jean-Marie Le Pen _ in the name of democracy _ followed a similar call earlier in the day from Sarkozy's party, the governing Union for a Popular Movement, known as the UMP...(Read More)

Globe and Mail (Canada)
March 2, 2007
Suddenly sexy
By Doug Saunders

PARIS — Until a few days ago, Margot Gardelon's friends were telling her to get with the reality of French politics: Either side with the romantic promise of socialism offered by Ségolène Royal or the stern certainties of a U.S.-inspired conservatism represented by Nicolas Sarkozy. In this year's dramatic presidential election, those were the choices.

The 20-year-old university student was ridiculed, even harassed, for her distinctly unfashionable affinity: She backed an obscure, charisma-challenged farmer named François Bayrou, who proudly called himself a centrist, a concept that has never been taken very seriously in French politics...(Read More)

Mail and Guardian (South Africa)
Feb. 20, 2007
Royal Faces the nation to revive campaign


Ségolène Royal mounted a determined effort on Monday night to revive her ambitions, appearing on primetime TV to defend her campaign to become France's first female president.

Three months ago, Royal (53) a mother of four and the Socialist head of Poitou Charentes region, appeared to represent an unstoppable new face in politics. But her popularity has been dented by gaffes and infighting, with more than 20 consecutive opinion polls in recent weeks showing the public is not convinced. Her right-wing opponent, the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has a lead of up to 10 points...(Read More)

News Analysis: Elections in Turkmenistan

There were elections recently in the former Soviet Republic, Turkmenistan. The country had been ruled, dictitorially, by one president, Saparmurat Niyazov, for the past 21 years, until his recent death on Dec. 21, 2006. Here are some of the news and views about the elections from around the world.

Europe:

BBC News
Feb. 11, 2007
High Turnout for Turkmen Election

Voters were choosing between six men, in the gas-rich Central Asian nation's first multi-candidate election.

Interim leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, a former dentist, is seen as the clear favourite...(Read More)

Institute for War & Peace Reporting (U.K.)
Feb. 9, 2007
Turkmenistan Needs to Choose its Friends Carefully

As the February 11 presidential election in Turkmenistan draws close, there is little doubt who will win, but considerable uncertainty about what will happen next. Will Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov really live up to his pledges to reform education, health and pensions and give his people greater opportunities to travel and access information, or will he revert to the tough style of the man he replaces, the late Saparmurat Niazov?

On the foreign policy front, most observers agree Russia will remain Turkmenistan’s key partner, not least because it buys most of the country’s natural gas. But Turkmenistan’s proximity to Iran is likely to give it some role to play - albeit unwillingly - in the confrontation between Washington and Tehran...(Read More)

International Herald Tribune (France)
Feb. 11, 2007
Turkmenistan Votes For New Leader
By C. J. Chivers

MOSCOW: Turkmenistan held the first officially contested presidential elections in its history Sunday, conducting a carefully choreographed vote almost certain to be won by a confidante of the reclusive Central Asian country's late autocratic leader.

The election, organized by the tightly controlled state after Saparmurat Niyazov, the only president in the country's 15-year history, died in late December, was not formally monitored by international observers, who sent small teams of experts that were not expected to make any public statement about the government's conduct...(Read More)

North America:

Eurasia Daily Monitor (U.S.A.)
Feb. 9, 2007
Turkmen Elections Provides Opportunities For International Condemnation of Authoritarian Regime
By John C. K. Daly

As foreign observers gear up to monitor Sunday’s presidential elections in Turkmenistan, the first since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, more adventurous foreigners can catch a bus from Ashgabat and journey some 40 miles north of the capital into the Karakum desert, where they can visit one of the more odious remnants of the Soviet “gulag archipelago,” a custom-built prison housing about 150 opponents of the Niyazov regime.

They had better hurry, as it might not be there much longer. According to Deutsche Welle, the facility is being demolished and its prisoners transferred elsewhere (Novye izvestiya, February 7)...(Read More)


East Asia:

Chosunibo (South Korea)
Feb. 12, 2007
Turkmenistan Votes for Presidential Successor

Voters in the isolated, gas-rich Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan are voting for a successor to replace the late president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died last December. VOA's Lisa McAdams in Moscow reports the current acting president, Gurbanguli Berdymukhammedov, is expected to easily defeat his five lesser-known challengers.

By mid-day local time Sunday, Turkmenistan's Central Election Commission declared the election valid, saying more than half the country's registered voters had cast ballots in the country's first multi-candidate election...(Read More)

South Asia:

Tehran Times
Feb. 12, 2007
Turkmens Begin Voting for New Leader

KIPCHAK, Turkmenistan (AP) -- The people of Turkmenistan, ruled for more than two decades by Niyazov, began voting Sunday for his replacement in their first presidential election with more than one candidate — but still only one party. The multiple candidates in the election are among a series of hints that Turkmenistan, a strategic Central Asian nation with immense natural gas reserves, may be slowly changing its ways. But it's unclear how far it will move out of the late President Saparmurat Niyazov's shadow...(Read More)

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Bishop Gumbleton Homily: U.S. Imperialism and the True Religion

By Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton

The views and opinions expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect those of the creator of this blog and are the sole responsibility of the author. Essays expressing opinions similar to and counter to those of the creator of this blog are strictly for diversity and to start thoughtful and meaningful discussion.

Auxiliary Bishop Gumbleton, the longest serving bishop in the U.S., is a retired Catholic Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese Detroit, MI. This homily was given last Saturday at Saint Leo Church in Detroit.

Perhaps you’re aware of the speech that [U.S. Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld gave earlier this week to a convention of the American Legion. It was a speech in which he was very harsh on critics of the war [in Iraq] and critics of the policy of the President and his administration. In fact, he went so far as to charge that people who are critics of the war and of President Bush, are guilty of what he said “is moral and intellectual confusion.” President Bush himself, didn’t use the same words but yesterday, in his radio speech, he repeated practically the same idea: If you’re not for the policy of this government, you’re morally confused, or you’re intellectually confused.

Now of course, Mr. Rumsfeld early in the week -- President Bush should have known by yesterday -- could not be aware that this very week the Pentagon was giving a report that indicates that over the last quarter of this year, the violence, the killing, the suffering of the people of Iraq has escalated beyond anything that it has reached before. This means there are thousands, when you add it all up, there are hundreds of thousands in fact, of people in Iraq who have suffered, died, who right now are without electricity, without clean water, who are homeless, without jobs, who are desperately poor. Last Sunday I read a report as you may recall from a person who wrote to me from Baghdad, “it’s a hellish situation.” Even the Pentagon reported that this week.

Probably President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld were not aware that this week, the Census Bureau would publish a five year report on what has happened to people in our country. Economically, we have a larger number of poor people -- and that number has grown in the last four years -- than we’ve had in many, many decades. The report about the city of Detroit was especially devastating. The number of poor people in our city has gone up dramatically; there’s about a quarter of a million people in this city who live below the poverty line, which means they have less than $19,000 for a family of four. The number of children in Detroit who are in poverty, it’s almost 50 percent, almost one out of two kids in Detroit is in poverty, which means they are not getting enough to eat, they’re not getting good health care, they’re not getting good education.

It’s a disaster. You might have to asked, “who is morally, intellectually confused”? Those who set the priorities for our country? Or those who happen to listen to what our scriptures tell us today? This is where we’ll get moral clarity.

Again President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld could not have dreamed, I suppose, that this very week, while they’re talking about who’s intellectually and morally confused, God’s scripture speaks about what is true religion. James says it very clearly: What is true religion? It’s to take care of those who are most vulnerable, the widows and the orphans, the poor. That’s true religion.

It’s reinforced by the other lessons today, that first lesson from the Book of Deuteronomy, where Moses is speaking to the people, it says, “Listen Israel, hear now the norms and laws that you may teach them and put them into practice and you will live and enter and take possession of the land which Yahweh the God of your ancestors gives you.” He goes on then to speak to them about what is the real law of God, and he describes how if you adhere to this law, God is close to you. Well, of course it’s: “Love God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” There is nothing in it about doing violence to people, killing people, depriving people of what they need to live.

We don’t often, I think, reflect on the psalm response that we sing after the first reading, but today it’s especially helpful to reflect a little bit more upon it, because it too tells us what is true religion and where you are going to find moral clarity. “Oh God, who will dwell in your house and reside on your holy mountain.” In other words, who’s going to be close to God? Those who walk blamelessly and do what is just. Making it happen so that everyone has a chance to share in the goods of the earth that God gave for all. Those who speak truth from their hearts, who don’t dissemble and give false claims of progress in a war that is so evil. Those who control their words and who do no harm to their neighbors. Those are the ones that are close to God. Those who look down on evildoers but highly esteem God’s servants, who at all cost stand by a pledged word. Those that do all this, will never be shaken; they are the ones who are close to God, who are practicing true religion.

Of course, St. James, makes it very clear, I’ve mentioned already. In the sight of God, true, blameless religion lies in helping the orphans and widows in their need and keeping oneself from the world’s corruption.

Jesus, of course in the Gospel lesson, is also pointing out to us what is true religion. He’s saying it’s being careful of what is really important. What had happened is that the Pharisees, the teachers of the law who are described in the Gospel, they come from a tradition where -- it was with good intentions -- that the teachers of the law had built up a series of traditions, human laws, which were like a fence around the law of God. In other words, if you obeyed the human laws, then for sure you would never violate God’s law. But then over a period of time, those traditions became all important, and what they were trying to protect was lost. That’s why the Pharisees, the scribes, the teachers, would be so concerned about the fact that Jesus’ disciples didn’t do all the ritual purification that the law, the human law, required. But as Jesus pointed out, they were forgetting the heart of it all, the basic truth about what is God’s law: “Love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind and all your strength and love your neighbor.” That’s what’s all important. And that’s where we’re failing.

When we carry on war against our neighbors, when we deprive the poor in our midst of what they need for a full human life, then surely we’re not practicing true religion.

But as we reflect on this, it’s important that we not simply think of ourselves, well of course now, we are morally superior; we know what is right and we know what is God’s law, and we know it forbids killing and violence and so on. No, we can’t think of ourselves as morally superior, because we have to listen again, very carefully, to what James says: “Be doers of the word, it’s not enough just to know what God teaches, but we have to act on it.”

That means, it seems to me, that we have to be more active in trying to oppose the violence and the killing that our country is carrying out. We have to be much more active in trying to change legislation. When the Congress comes back, they’re going to debate again a minimum wage law. You see the poor people in our country are not just people who are not working. They are people working full time getting paid the minimum wage, which comes to $10,712 a year if you work full time. That’s about half of the level of poverty for a family of four. There’s a current piece of legislation that will raise that minimum wage up to $7.25 over a three year period. It failed before the Congress broke for the summer recess. It was a good thing it failed, because the Republicans had added to the bill a tax relief for the richest of the people in our country that in over 10 years would cost a trillion dollars. This is absolutely evil. It just seems so incredibly evil that we let this kind of thing go on. And so when the Congress comes back, we have to do something, each of us, to try to make sure that our representatives in that Congress and in the Senate vote for what is just and what is right.

We have to be doers of the word. Tomorrow we have an opportunity. Poor people in our neighborhood will be here for their meal, and many of us are going to serve that meal. Many of us have supplied what will be served. That’s a good thing. In that way, we are doers of the Word. And I’m thankful that we do it, but again, we have to go beyond that. We have to change legislation, we have to change priorities in this country, if we’re really going to be doers of the Word.

True religion and reaching out to the poor. True religion is loving God with your whole heart, mind and soul and loving your neighbor as yourself. We must, each of us, become a doer of the Word of God and live true religion. Each day we carry out true religion with all of our minds and hearts and strength.