Word: raffarin
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...There is a rich irony in the fact that the French government seems to be as opposed to Brussels' dictates as the Swedes, at least when it comes to economics. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin scorned the European Commission's warnings about his country's disdain for the E.U.'s 3% cap on budget deficits. Earlier this month Raffarin said his duty was to France and not to the E.U.'s "mathematics." At least the French and Germans have each other. Most of the French government flew to Berlin for a joint cabinet meeting on Thursday, and they...
...forgotten, left to fend for themselves or die alone. It's a national reckoning that is not coming easily. The immediate flush of media attention last week centered on the sexier political debate over the slow and initially dismissive reaction by the conservative government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, much of which was on holiday as the death toll mounted. Raffarin has refused to accept any blame, while President Jacques Chirac was bizarrely silent - and on vacation in Canada - for the duration of the heat wave. When he finally addressed the crisis in televised remarks last Thursday, Chirac avoided...
...some 50 people have died of heat-related illnesses in the Paris region in the past four days. He criticizes the General Directorate for Health for characterizing the deaths as natural. AUG. 12 Pelloux says some 100 people across France have died from the heat. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, vacationing in Combloux, a village in Haute-Savoie, dismisses criticism of his handling of the crisis as "partisan polemics." The heat wave peaks as thermometers hit 42.6C in the Provençal town of Orange. AUG. 13 France's biggest undertaker, General Funeral Services (PFG), announces a 37% increase...
...fests are also expected to fold, depriving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers of their summer culture fix. The demonstrations by performance workers - from actors and choreographers to roadies - are part of a rising tide of opposition to the reforms planned by the government of conservative Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and President Jacques Chirac. In May and June, public-sector workers launched crippling nationwide strikes, and a week ago Corsicans narrowly rejected a referendum intended to launch Raffarin's effort to decentralize power to regional capitals. But as arts workers took France's beloved (and lucrative) festival season hostage...
...European Union for the next six months, who has launched this verbal weapon of mass destruction, and it has, predictably, blown up in his face. If the N word has become devalued by overuse, so has the currency of moral indignation. So when French Premier Jean-Pierre Raffarin told a gathering of center-right leaders in Strasbourg last week that his country would be heading straight for heaven if the Socialists hadn't trapped it in purgatory, all hell broke loose, so to speak. But unlike Berlusconi, who needed a full day to choke out his expression of regret, Raffarin...