Word: alaine
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...economic reality leaves politicians precious little wiggle room, and parties have to think twice before promising to bail out troubled companies or increase spending to stimulate the economy. "The crisis among the opposition coincides with economic turmoil in which the margins for maneuver are limited," says French political commentator Alain Duhamel. "Opposition parties can't identify what they could or would do differently if they were in power...
...country - costing the government j590 million. As it has in the past, the SVP is making immigration (legal and otherwise) a hot-button issue. But this time around the party is breaking out of its traditional elderly, agrarian base to attract younger and more liberal voters - like Pierre-Alain Favre, a 42-year-old computer programmer from Geneva who has always voted for more moderate parties. "Every night I see African drug dealers on the streets and I'm getting sick of it," he says. "I want these people out, so this year I'm voting...
...promised 5%; shelving vital health-insurance reform until next year - may not be sufficient to the task ahead. His goals sound radical: pension reform, rationalizing the health care system, loosening labor markets, sweeping decentralization. But Raffarin is wary of risking social upheaval by moving too fast - when Prime Minister Alain Juppé did so in 1995, it triggered the crisis that resulted in his government's ouster. And Raffarin's critics ignore some significant achievements. Though economic liberals and some business leaders say it doesn't go far enough, pension reform at the very least is signed and sealed. Raffarin...
...Stability and Growth Pact. Raffarin has dismissed the pact as "mathematics," but smaller states that have done their fiscal homework aren't amused. Yet making France pay a fine during an economic slump could hurt its neighbors, too. "We're ready to do what the Commission demands," Budget Minister Alain Lambert said last week, "as long as it bears no risk of pushing France into recession." The great hope for Raffarin is one that he admits remains largely outside his ken: a return to growth, starting in the U.S. and Japan and hopefully spreading to Europe by the beginning...
...music?the jingling of cash registers?can be heard in the city's restaurants, which are now reporting a post-SARS boom. Almost every week, there's a splashy opening of a hot new place. The next big debut: the InterContinental hotel's Spoon, managed by French chef Alain Ducasse...