French President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP party stormed out of parliament Tuesday after a Socialist MP accused Interior Minister Claude Guéant (pictured) of reviving Nazi ideology with a comment about not all civilisations being equal.
Last night's guest on prime time French TV was Prime Minister François Fillon, Nicolas Sarkozy's right-hand man. The French president has still not declared himself a candidate in this spring's presidential election. On air, Fillon managed to do a balancing act of defending Sarkozy's time in office, without offering a political platform for the future.
Relations between Paris and London hit a new low Friday after the French government joined the Bank of France in attacking Britain over the state of its economy. FRANCE 24 take a closer looks at the reasons behind the latest cross channel dispute.
In the run-up to France’s presidential election, have tighter immigration quotas gone too far? François Picard’s panel explains how foreign graduate students have been singled out for deportation.
An election campaign with no promises - this is how it looks for France. The ruling conservatives are touting the need to be courageous and face the truth. The opposition socialists are also vowing to cut the debt and the deficit as everyone watches with anxiety the dominoes fall across Europe: Greece, Italy and maybe soon France. So who will be the best at selling pain?
Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to be the man who would break with the past. In the end, he has been the crisis president, and he believes he can be re-elected on this Churchillian platform. Meanwhile, on the left, the Socialists fall back to Earth after the fairy tale of the primaries. There are losing momentum in the polls and clashing with the Greens over nuclear energy.
France’s Prime Minister unveils new austerity measures, but are they too little too late? Also, we head to the United States where France's far-right party leader, Marine Le Pen, has been touring the country. She is campaigning as hard abroad as she is at home. Finally, Paris pays tribute to French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, with an exhibition of his cityscapes.
Yet more austerity in today's French papers - as they dissect the budget cuts and tax rises announced by PM François Fillon yesterday. Le Figaro reckons they will help the government get re-elected, but Liberation says they're just reversing all of what were once Sarkozy's flagship policies.
FRENCH PAPERS, Mon. 07/11/11, Austerity is the word of the day in the French press. Prime Minister François Fillon is set to unveil a series of austerity measures to tighten France’s belt. Le Figaro hails Fillon and President Sarkozy, saying that the times are tough and austerity measures are what is needed. Meanwhile, Socialist Presidential candidate François Hollande gives an interview to left-leaning Libération, saying he too agrees that austerity measures are needed to save the economy.
Several Gabonese NGOs and trade unions have urged French Prime Minister Francois Fillon to withdraw support for the country’s leader, Ali Bongo Ondimba (pictured), who won a much-disputed election in 2009 after the death of his father.
