Word: raffarin
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...Back To Work French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced a relaxation of the country's controversial 35-hour workweek, lifting the ceiling on annual employee overtime from 180 to 220 hours...
...government leaders at a summit on Dec. 17 - has focused the minds and unstopped the pens of critics around Europe. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican's conservative theologian, warned that admitting Muslim Turkey to the E.U. would threaten the Continent's "cultural richness." French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin pointedly asked in the Wall Street Journal: "Do we want the river of Islam to enter the riverbed of secularism?" Austrian E.U. Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler opined that Turkey was culturally "oriental," geographically "Asian" and that accession would open "a geostrategic Pandora's box." Frits Bolkestein, the Dutch E.U. Commissioner...
...system the best anywhere. Today its health-insurance scheme is in critical condition, and hemorrhaging money: this year it will rack up €12.9 billion more in costs than it takes in, mostly through payroll taxes. Reforms launched earlier this summer by the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin only begin to address the problem. Before the next presidential election, in 2007, the government says it will force through almost €10 billion in savings by cutting back on reimbursements for visits to specialists, favoring generic rather than brand-name drugs (per capita, the French are the world...
...result of "employees struggling, rage in their hearts, to save their jobs." Does the Bosch move mean France's 35-hour week is dead? Technically, no. The concession Bosch squeezed out of its workers falls within guidelines hammered out last year by the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin that allow for unions and companies to reach their own agreements. And for now, President Jacques Chirac says he favors "more negotiated flexibility" for the workweek, but opposes changing the 35-hour law. (His Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has gone further, calling the law "perverse" and arguing it should...
...romped, taking almost one-third of the vote - double their 1999 result The ruling Liberals paid for backing the Iraq war. Euro-skeptics did badly, bucking the anti-E.U. trend France Discontent with President Jacques Chirac's government helped propel the opposition Socialists to victory PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin's reform program could be a casualty of the ruling conservatives' loss Germany The Christian Democrats' big win bodes well for three state elections in September The ruling Social Democrats' worst-ever loss in a national vote ratchets up the pressure on Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government Ireland...