Word: chirac
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...past couple of weeks saw the mighty French republic brought to its knees by little more than a mob of angry teenagers. In characteristically French style, President Jacques Chirac hopelessly tried to reassure his countrymen with lofty rhetoric: “Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the Republic, and we can all expect the same rights...
...seems evident, if there was any doubt before, that the Chirac political era is coming to an end. The French public cannot have failed to realize it as they watched the President on television last week drawing lessons, finally, from the revolt in the banlieues. For more than two weeks, while cars and public buildings burned, while police and firemen were attacked, Chirac remained reticent. He looked startlingly out of touch with the chaos around him, and acted as if he was not on the front line, not the wielder of executive power, not the guarantor of the nation...
...month ago, he would have been labeled a fool, a Cassandra, or, more likely, a racist. The truly frightening thing about the current situation in France is that a fringe figure like Jean-Marie Le Pen sounds the most realistic about the extent of the problem. While de Villepin, Chirac, and even the hardheaded Sarkozy sound conciliatory, spinning the riots as a passing phenomenon, Le Pen notes that rather obvious fact that the recent riots are “just the start” of conflicts caused by “massive immigration from countries of the Third World?...
That left the stage open for Sarkozy, who is already running hard to succeed Chirac as President in 2007. As his colleagues dithered, Sarkozy, the son of Hungarian immigrants, thrust himself to the center of the crisis. He proudly states that he has been out in the banlieues every night since the trouble began. While de Villepin, who is seen as Sarkozy's main rival in 2007, struck a conciliatory tone, Sarkozy called last week for the immediate deportation of any foreign citizens convicted of taking part in the violence. He pointedly rejected the idea that government neglect...
...when I'm shaving." Sarkozy has based his appeal on a vow to cause a "rupture" with the way France has been run for the past 30 years. He criticizes France's 35-hr. workweek and calls for economic liberalization instead of the traditional welfare-state model to which Chirac, de Villepin and the socialist opposition pay fealty. At the same time, not all his positions are easily swallowed by the right. He has advocated a more aggressive policy of "positive discrimination" for immigrant populations and has even advocated giving foreigners the right to vote in local elections...