Word: megret
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...most recent victory came last February in the industrial town of Vitrolles, whose 40,000 residents, some 20% of foreign origin, have been devastated by unemployment. Bruno Megret, 48, the Front's No. 2 leader, now wields de facto power there. (His wife Catherine officially ran in his place after he was disqualified for overspending on his campaign. ) Megret, a cold technocrat who hopes to succeed the aging Le Pen as party leader, was set back by his failure to win a parliamentary seat. But he is determined to make Vitrolles a showcase both for his own administrative skills...
Against that backdrop of intimidation, members of the victorious Megret team began to turn the city into a laboratory for their ideas. They first had to sop up a $10 million budget deficit. The main savings came from slashing subsidies to local cultural and sports associations and firing 147 contract employees, most of whom worked with the immigrant community. Choosing enforcement over crime prevention, they nearly doubled the local police force from 36 to 60 officers. "The police have a new attitude," says Deputy Mayor Hubert Fayard. "Before, they weren't respected. Now they will seek contact. If they...
Ahmed Sarhane, the fired Vitrolles guard, has found another way to respond: the French justice system. He is taking the National Front to court on three separate charges: attempted murder, defamation (Catherine Megret, herself the granddaughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, referred to him on TV as a "delinquent") and illegal firing. Sarhane is asking $100,000 in damages and severance pay but says he doesn't really care about the money. "I want them convicted, even if they only have to pay one symbolic franc," says Sarhane, a muscular former karate instructor. "People have to know what they...
PARIS: The far-right National Front party won a fourth city hall in southern France Sunday, raising concerns that its xenophobic message resonates with a growing number of recession-plagued French. Catherine Megret, who is married to the party's chief ideologue and second-in-command Bruno Megret, was elected mayor of the Marseilles suburb Vitrolles (pop. 39,000). She beat incumbent Socialist Jean-Jacques Anglade as a stand-in for her husband who had been disqualified in an earlier ballot. The NF already rules three other cities in southern France: Toulon, Orange and Marignane, another Marseilles suburb. Record unemployment...