de Villapin is the new French PM.

by ribbid ribbid Tue May 31, 2005 17:13

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1496057,00.html

the Telegraph are describing him as "poet and politician". (quite a heady mix) They like him. You will soon get to read "tweedledum and tweedledee part 2" an update of the article on that most peculiar of U$ strategic post €uropean war relations, in that it predates the U$ strategy - "the entente cordial".

so here is the C&P of the Telegraph afternoon appraisal (the Tory and civil service ""mandarin" newspaper). [if you don't know what a mandarin is or what one looks like, there's an illustration in today's gallery. at http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70030&condense_comments=false#attachment11392

POET AND POLITICIAN

Dominique de Villepin has been rewarded for his loyalty to Jacques Chirac, the French president.

The 51-year-old former interior minister and foreign minister has been handed the job of prime minister after the resignation of Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

A close Chirac ally, he was named interior minister last year after two years as foreign minister during which he became the face and voice of French opposition to the war in Iraq.

With dashing style and skill as a speech-maker, he is seen as one of the few politicians with the finesse to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious centre-right party chief who could fight Mr Chirac for the presidency in an election due in 2007.

Mr Villepin is from the political establishment rejected by the voters in the referendum. He is a graduate of the prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration, a traditional breeding ground for top civil servants and politicians.

He has never faced the electorate.

He was a prime mover behind Chirac's disastrous early dissolution of parliament in 1997, which saw a conservative majority replaced by a Socialist-led coalition government.

The silver-haired as well as silver-tongued politician is also a literary figure who has published an 800-page book on poetry, essays and profiles and criticism of poets he admires.

Since the mid-1980s, Mr de Villepin has published four collections of his poetry, Word from an Exile, Birthright, Secession and Barbarous Elegies, all of which have been praised for their mastery of technique.

He has also written a well-received political tract, The Cry of the Gargoyle, which attacked the lassitude of contemporary France, and a history of Napoleon's return from Elba, The 100 Days.

Mr de Villepin takes over a divided country - seen by some among its fellow EU members as the naughty child after it rejected the treaty.

He has social issues to tackle back home as well including an unemployment rate of 10 percent.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€
I'll be interested to see what Geraldine K has to say, I'd be happy if someone were to C&P her journos appraisal in the comments.

All the usual ribbid ribbid ribbid-ers are wetting themselves. Le Monde have also published a
"de Villepin in the circle of influence" article.
yes quite-
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3230,36-656401@51-633431,0.html
De Villepin as well as being taller than Tony Blair, and therefore the man to say Oui or Non to him, got on really well with Condolence Rice, whom we all remember (don't we?) he called "la cherie Connie". She loved it and lapped it all up. This man might just be a future president of France you know. (go on lap it up!) (ribbid ribbid ribbid).

by ribbidly ribbiding Tue May 31, 2005 18:21

"Analysis: France blows a fuse"
Jacques Chirac's decision to change his prime
minister is the latest use of a well-tried escape route open to French presidents in trouble.

French President Jacques Chirac with departing Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Rafarrin
French presidents traditionally push their PMs in times of crisis
The prime minister is often described as a "fuse", ready to blow up when the tension between the head of state and his people gets too strong.....

(read more at link)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4596407.stm

While you're at it, wondering how would they have
the brits ever assembled an empire without our
input, here is John Simpson (the man who
claimed to have liberated Kabul in Afghanistan)
Aunty Beeb's thinking man's Terry Wogan. (still not
as sexy as Kate Adie)

"Across the table from me at an unfeasibly
expensive restaurant ludicrously called Comme
Chez Soi ("Just like being at home"), sat a visiting grandee from the British Foreign Office.

He was so superb, I was worried about my table manners.

"So if we vote yes," I asked him, "what sort of Europe will it turn out to be?"

He adjusted the position of his knife and fork, and outlined the future for me with a remarkable accuracy.

It was, he explained, a race."

..... jayzhuys, misses beeeton and caraâme.
if I could get the bollix that starts all this, I'd -
* wring his neck.
* buy him a pint.
* offer him a job in spin.
* stay on the right side of him.
* join his side.
* send me kids to wherever he went.-

If you don't know what I'm on about "liberating
Afghanistan" then here's a flashback - (jeejeejee)
how my good friend Steve Bell marked the occasion-
http://images.google.es/imgres?imgurl=http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2001/11/14/1114bell.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,593188,00.html&h=400&w=512&sz=70&tbnid=_7iDotjiSGEJ:&tbnh=100&tbnw=128&hl=es&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djohn%2Bsimpson%2Bkabul%2Bsteve%2Bbell%26hl%3Des%26lr%3Dlang_en%26sa%3DN

Just one thing b4 I sign off for the day,
(go write alexandrines, practise my sous or something like that)
In the month of May 2005 from the 1st to the 20th
823 were people killed in Iraq.
Of whom over 250 were foreign soldiers.
That is one for every vote of the majority of
"index finger man" George Galloway.
And the death toll so far today brings the total to-
832 as 9 soldiers were killed in seperate air crashes, (not attributed to combat) 4 US and 4
italians and one Iraqi.
It is worth considering, that though the Iraqi government announced today the trial of Saddam in about two months time, (august when its really hot) that over 800 dead in 30 days is sign of War.
A War that could have been avoided, if at that time,
the 200 most influential persons on the planet and acted with one purpose and not been such stuck up their arses panicking monkeys, that they put back the cause of liberty into what has been termed by a decent bloke and old (92years) czech poet yesterday - "the cruelty of the medieval with the language of walt disney mountain".

think about it.
Now Mr Geldof is asking you to go to a concert,
and goto scoaturland to tell the big boyos, (jayzhes one of them could be a smack dealer) to feed the poor. And yes, I just made up that quote from the
czech poet, to encourage you to listen to old people
and stuff like that. Still a lot of you would take it
all the more seriously if it were true.

by gutter Wed Jun 01, 2005 14:22

de Villepin has done his first interview and called for a 100day test to restore confidence and act on unemployment. France suffers more than 10% unemployment at the moment.
He has appointed Sarkozy to the interior.

This is a small indication of the style of the man, if you read the comments above you'd remember he wrote (and ahem - published himself) a biography of Napoleon foccusing on the last days of that man.
He had earlier won the napoleon foundation prize for other poetical efforts and the gargoyle stuff. 100days is very napoleonic, which in the safety of the XXI century is very far away, and natural for de-gaullists whom you will remember Chirac and deV are. And what was it, de-Gaul always said?

now enuff of dat-
heres the french PM office english page.
the wiki has been updated, but the french still haven't updated their biog. very slow.

http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/en/

by >?>? Wed Jun 01, 2005 14:41

Do tell us, Iosaf, what is your take on this particular item from the same site?:

by iosaf. - "you be distracting me from the praetorian gardas" Wed Jun 01, 2005 16:06

De Villepin at first glance seems to be a right wign xenophobic bastard, but like most things, he was given the ball and played as part of a team-

& he certainly headed off the extreme right by placating their xenophobia, his measures included the setting up migration police, alluded to in the comments, which *actually* was part of a pan-european project, and was introduced by the Luxembourger presidency in January, and will be appearing in other states as well, and guess what? deV. might get the credit.

n 2001 of a then total population of 357 million, the European Union regularised 14 million migrants.
in 2004, on the 1st of May the Union expanded to 450,000,000 approx citizens and on Jan 11 2005 a Green paper was published on establishing a common migration policy for the Union. This varies from the policies of deV in France, to the mass regularisation in Spain. (the acceptance of 750,000 new citizens, really just got Zp off a hook and made spain look good to the left, and guaranteed increased tax income as almost half of the new workers are in service, "mrs beeton style")
This followed the closing of a European council investigation thingy-
http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/skills_mobility/immigration_en.htm

So, i don't think the measures were that un-usual, nor the other things he did at the same time, which many people in France on the left and right mutter about - he introduced at the same time, laws obliging imams to study french culture.

That one actually started on my side of the pyrennes, with a ground-breaking ruling that saw the catalan regional government release an imam from prison, where he had been sent for writing a book which incited violence (it explained how husbands could discipline their wives without leaving bruises or scars), and it also opened the lid on the problems of arranged marriages, which personally I've seen whilst living in London, which has a very different long term experience of migration and these are serious issues of gender politics and inter-faith relations and secularism.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68020

de V. as I said, through all this just got the ball and played it. He is important because he's managed to avoid the usual tests of social democracy, nobody has voted for him, the media haven't been able to slate him. One thing which perhaps people miss in ireland, is the very complex multi-layered world of migration, inter-culturalism, and rights in such a centralised state as France which now has a mixture of "migrants" some at third generation and yet others just arrived.
The need for workers in the state, and communities who are sensitive to the issues facing these communities is essential until that point where those communities are represented in those institutions. ((("the old how would a nigerian garda help problem")))
wee illustration:-
but in the last weeks, as every year, people (young people) get stabbed in the mediterranean. I don't know why, "it could be the heat", "it could be the parents". No-one really knows, but yesterday kids got stabbed at school here, and at the weekend a kid got stabbed at a festival, and "political gang affiliation" comes into the after effects as it always seems those doing the stabbing supported some generally extreme right music group, or had previous for hate. And so too in France, in "northern catalonia", or "catalogne" as the french call it, where an algerian was recently murdered by some gypsies. 2 minority migrant groups. Neither feel very comfortable around the french police or courts and neither are "represented" either.
This led to demonstrations in Perpignan, Paris and Barcelona by very angry algerians, and counter-angst from the french fascists and then mobilisations of defence by the gypsies.

Anyway- these laws come.
these institutional changes come.
We ought know that, but the problems remain, and that's why we need to "keep up with the facts" rather than just lapping up the political point scorings, and not keep our own eyes off the goal-
.:. out of babalon .:.

so here's the map of the camps again (it's in the comments to this article)-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69199

by burp Wed Jun 01, 2005 17:05

you can read it here:-
http://elysee.fr/elysee/francais/interventions/lettres_et_messages/2005/mai/lettre_du_president_de_la_republique_adressee_a_m_bertie_ahern_premier_ministre_d_irlande_a_la_suite_du_rejet_du_traite_constitutionnel_europeen_par_le_peuple_francais.30000.html

LE Monde has just sort of asked what's goin' on
in the Elysee?
chers compatriotes de métropole, d'outre-mer et de l'étranger"
Chirac has now issued three of the
statements & they're saying its "opera bouffe".

He's sort of turning into Chavez. its "hola presidente!" french style. (chavez has a weekend
telly slot in which he plays baseball and talks to
the people about whats new, its called "hola presidente!" its very popular, and two weeks ago,
Lulu of Brazil and Kirchner of Argentina set up a new
south american telly station with him and guess what?
they get their "hola presidente!" moments as well.
I don't know if they'll be playing baseball. But they seem to think "going pop" á la elton john is the way forward.)


each one of Chirac's statements begins
with the ominous
"chers compatriotes de métropole, d'outre-mer et de l'étranger"
with the anthem, and the flag and all the pomp.

& now he's gone and sent all 25 heads of state a letter, they're all exactly the same btw.
Meanwhile ABC the US news site has declared de Villepin is
a muskateer, intriguer, arrogant, dandy, anti-american, manipulator.
Ah yes, mais oui, but can he do the most important thing-
contain the french fascists?
that's been a difficult and long term problem.
I remember getting a machine gun prodded in my
stomach years ago after a mobilisation in strassbourg against the FN. i think it was 97.
the soldier didn't like us and it was his job to let us know,
we were a bus of lefties and do-gooders from paris.
wouldn't a "failte romhat taoiseach!" program be great?
Bertie with a sliothar showing us round the gaff.
Or maybe he wouldn't have time, sure he could get
mcDowell to do it. that would be ace.
big swinging michael with the baseball bat,
or even better one of those guns that fire sponge balls,
shooting up targets of career criminals.



sorry about the format on this article by the way its to do with the links.

by >?>? Wed Jun 01, 2005 17:51

"headed off the extreme right by placating their xenophobia"

That is precisely the line that McDowell is trotting out. He has also repeated his "cock & bull" remarks, and claims that he was speaking 'the straight, honest truth'.

I really do not want to distract you from your praetorian gardas, but I feel the need to point out to you that placating the racists only leads to them demanding more. Have we not learned anything from being nice to the orange bigots?

by iosaf Thu Jun 02, 2005 02:35

if you don't have a centre left you can work with
(such as one which doesn't enter into pre-arranged pacts with parties of conservative neo-liberal economics ostensibly rejecting their role as the
broadest church for "all the left"), then at centralised
state level such as elysee you work with what you
have, and ensure it doesn't go 100% bigot.

by :-) Fri Jun 03, 2005 12:23

31 minister
6 women.
2 ethnic minorities.
one minister for promoting integration is a first generation algerian published writer.
http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/information/actualites_20/composition_gouvernement_dominique_villepin_53146.html
one minister for army veterans, (algeria mostly) was
born in algeria (but he'd think himself french you know).
all round the "l’Ecole nationale d’administration" that
institution which ought be called "the school for ruling france" oh, it is! gosh.

the END is as well-represented as Eton is in the UK.
Though of course, in the UK they just work in civil
service, don't they? Well no, they run the police, the
army, the library, and even the canteen, both New
Labour and Conservatives employing equal number of
Etonians as part of their mandarin outreach program.
I'm digressing.

Other interesting thing, of the "end" heads, a good
few wrote decent essays on decent french important people
this is a little clue to Mr dV. those next 100 days,
which he has launched with full page newspaper
adverts, linking to his all new government WEBSITE!
(god they're catching on aren't they?) will be peppered
with clever and witty references one imagines to
voltaire.

Last thing-
The BBC have asked is it "de Villepin" or "villepin"
Good question, was it "de Valera" or "valera"?
is it "macavity" or "avity"?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4600907.stm

by :-) Wed Jun 15, 2005 13:52

This week, tweedledum met tweedledee (the Paris - London gig) which always proves good for a laugh for all the other little countries and states who aren't nuclear capable.
Julia (in the photo) is nuclear capable and paid a visit to Paris and Brussels to talk about the Ukraine joining the EU at the same time, and meanwhile on the french telly, viewers were spared pictures of Blair walking with Putin his dog, and listened to newly released
Florence talk about her days in captivity.
Whilst the bad man, didier julia (for you fans of France)
was again blamed for messing up diplomatic relations
with the mad mullahs in post Saddam Iraq.

The socialist party of France is trying to stop the EU
expansion it seems.
No-one is talking about Eggs.
And Mr DeV is reaching into the defecit to tackle
unemployment, and create jobs....
ribbid, ribbid, ribbid, yummy.

is it Ioulia or Yulia or Julia?

by iosaf mac diarmada - ipsiphi "doth ping" Tue Apr 04, 2006 21:28

but let us for a moment enjoy speaking the language of power
in every state of the European Union, the meritocracy argues that
there is not enough money to offer social welfare, pensions, health care, housing,
and all the stuff that seemed so terribly progressive and wonderful after the war.
Hmmmm. makes you think where the money came from the last time.
Now what is it we have to do to deserve these things -
social welfare, pensions, health care, housing?
Do we have to endure the military industrial complex and its darkness,
profits and total war? Are these basic rights and entitlements a reward
for having suffered mass murder or not turning bolshie?

Today I have enjoyed reaction to a message I posted on various
French indymedia spaces in the style of Chirac's TV speeches,
the reaction has varied from the usual insults (but wittily put,
it delighted me to read Parisien slang in response to the high french of the text)
and from others a reminder that (quote "France is ungovernable" unquote).
Oh yes. that old chestnut. That old canard...
Every country is ungovernable which is why
the most intelligent and brilliant are & always have been anarchists.
But behind it all was a certain respect for mr Chirac. & guess what?
I share that respect. That is why in the introduction to this article I wrote
"Very clever man is Mr. Chirac, very clever.I reckon it's on account of him not watching telly,
and avoiding the richer heavier sauces at the antonine carâme suppers".
At that time in the "meta-narrative" I was making prolonged references to
the culinary traditions of Europe, of which of course Antoine Carâme
was one of the most important proponents and historical didactic characters.
He's the man responsible for the rich food your elected and in the case of
Dominque de Villepin non elected
leadership eat on a regular basis whilst talking about
there not being enough money about to give you or your parents
or your kids these things - social welfare, pensions, health care, housing.

I made these references for a reason, and the reason seems to me to be well put
at this comment
http://indymedia.ie/article/70042#comment109383 which rounded up
the international reaction to the failed project of the EU constitution.
Which I and many others had objected to and campaigned against
for the very good reasons that it did nothing to guarantee these things :-
social welfare, pensions, health care, housing.

Lets put it very simply for a moment.
in posh ruler economic leader speak.
The sort they use at the WEF.

The Freedom of Capital enjoyed at the height of the XIX empires,
when a young and rash Kaiser Billy dropped "the pilot" Bismarck,
( c/f http://indymedia.ie/article/75208 )
did not exist for the majority of the XX century.
It had already eclipsed in the ten years prior to WW1 for various reasons,
one of which was the Boer war. In fact we have only globally enjoyed
such "freedom of Capital" for the last 8 years.
I don't think I have to point out to the reader that the freedom of capital
enjoyed by the European empires relied on social and political systems
which completely disregarded the rights and aspirations of the poorest
of their own national fellow citizens or to be more accurate "subjects".
And that imperial wealth and commerce had flourished on the enslavement
of those others who lived in hot countries.

Let us note, that return of liquid global wealth,
has been associated with the return of the global military industrial complex,
and most significantly a wish on the part of the ruling class to "turn the clock back"
on the rights and aspirations of the poorest of their own national fellow citizens,
who for some reason best known to themselves still want :-
social welfare, pensions, health care, housing.

Yet at the same time, the ruling class has become ever more distant
and anonymous, being represented at our national level of "TV consciousness"
by an emergent for the most part newly enriched administrative elite,
where the 3 academic disciplines - Law, IT and Economics take precendence.
They argue (it appears effectively) that there is not enough money about
to give us what we demand, but at the same time, for the first time since the 1890s
they enjoy domestic servants.

I respect Chirac for his opposition to Bush and containment of Le Pen's FN,
as I respected De Villepin for his eloquent opposition to the US & UK war machine.
I respect Chirac for the many times he has with a certain nobility
which is rare in this age, defended his vision of ".:. the Republic"
( "when play is delayed 11/2/03 C/F http://indymedia.ie/article/28385 )
But that is at the Macro-political level of geo-politics. & I will not for the moment
comment on my thoughts as to why he appointed De Villepin and not Sarkody
to the prime minister's job last year.

At the micro-political level of the French state,
young and old live in precarity, insecurity, deprivation, poverty and uncertainty.
Newly arrived Migrants and third generation integrants endure
racism, criminalisation, disregard, police brutality, slum housing, penury and neglect.
Whilst at the same time the mediocre count
more Carâmbe suppers, more holidays, better cars, more luxury, longer lives
and of course the last word -

servants

© iosaf mac diarmada.
(syndicalised in translation 4/4/06)