Word: bruny
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...former Red Brigades member Italy has convicted of murder. Amid accusations of justice denied, the Italian Association of Terrorism Victims says its members will travel to Paris on Saturday to denounce the reversal, which was at least partly the work of the President's Italian-born wife, Carla Bruni...
...victims of extreme leftists who terrorized Italy during the 1970s and 1980s weren't outraged enough by Sarkozy's climb-down on Petrella, their fury was presumably further stoked at learning the back story of the move: Sarkozy's Italian-born wife, Carla Bruni, and her sister, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, had lobbied the President not to extradite the gravely ill Petrella to Rome - it even fell to the sisters to personally break the news of that reprieve to the former terrorist. "We could not let this woman die," Bruni told the daily Libération Monday in explaining her intervention...
...While that may be laudable in humanitarian terms, Bruni's defense of a convicted Red Brigade terrorist struck some as the summit of hypocrisy and indecency. As a child in the 1970s, Bruni fled Italy with her wealthy industrialist Bruni-Tedeschi family to take haven in France in fear they might be selected as targets by leftist terrorists during Italy's "years of lead." Roberto Della Rocca, who survived seven shots fired at him in 1980 by the Genovese faction of the Red Brigades, would not comment on the First Lady's role, saying that it is Sarkozy who must...
...Evidence that the support the Bruni sisters added - aided by wider French public opinion sympathetic to Petrella's cause - had begun softening Sarkozy's position became clear as the summer advanced. Even as he wrote Italian authorities in July promising to deliver Petrella once her French administrative appeals had been exhausted, Sarkozy urged clemency in light of the prisoner's perilous health - a suggestion swiftly rebuffed by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome. Less than a month later, a French appeals court ordered Petrella's release from custody at the request of French justice officials...
...clearly drawn to the endless challenges of foreign policy. His rising popularity in France suggests that a majority of French citizens are pleased with their President's diplomatic record. They enjoy his charismatic presence on the world scene, reinforced by the beauty and distinction of his wife, Carla Bruni. Sarkozy's audacious Union for the Mediterranean summit in July 2008 in Paris, and his high visibility in his current six-month stint as President of the European Council, stand in striking contrast to the leaden final years of François Mitterrand's second term, or to the two mandates...