Word: socialists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...government took a more nuanced - if short-lived - approach to religion in the following decades. In 1988, South Korea expanded economic ties with its neighbor, bringing in more foreigners on business and exchange trips; the following year Pyongyang hosted the World Festival of Youth and Students, a massive socialist festival that attracted 22,000 people from 177 countries. With an influx of foreigners, the government saw a need to build four state-run churches in Pyongyang in the following years, though critics maintain they're facades to show the world that it supports freedom of religion. "[Foreign missionaries] are allowed...
...dismissed the growing criticism from the right as "café clap-trap." In doing so, he has not only shown the same defiant pugnacity that has become his boss's trademark, but has also become Sarkozy's most effective political operative handling an explosive issue. "Once he bolted the Socialist Party, Besson's very political existence depended not only on joining Sarkozy's cause, but hanging on to his coat-tails as high as they'd take him," says a former adviser to conservative politicians who requested anonymity. "No one else would dirty themselves with this nasty, divisive electoral ploy...
...French newsweekly Marianne calls him "the most hated man in France." A Socialist legislator recently compared him to Pierre Laval -the wartime French official who most enthusiastically collaborated with the nation's Nazi occupiers. Such contempt isn't usually directed at someone in a rather anonymous cabinet role. But Eric Besson, the Minister for Immigration, Integration and National Identity, is different: he's currently overseeing a national debate on French identity that detractors on both the left and the right say stigmatizes minorities and immigrants. And yet, despite the fierce criticism and controversy, he's the cabinet member President Nicolas...
...Marianne headline attests, there's something in Besson that just about everyone in France can detest. A former Socialist party official, Besson is considered the consummate traitor by the left after defecting from the 2007 presidential campaign of Ségolène Royal over strategy differences and throwing his support behind Sarkozy, the conservative candidate. Since then, he's embraced his new right-wing faith with the zealousness of a convert, making many long-time conservatives uncomfortable. Chief among his more hard-line moves has been the decision to hold an ongoing series of town hall meetings across France...
Sarkozy stalwarts note he's only halfway through a five-year term - often a difficult period for a President. Things may look brighter by the time the 2012 election rolls around. Or maybe not. France's Socialist Party remains dysfunctional and divided, it's true, but recent polls suggest that Dominique Strauss-Kahn - a socialist who currently heads the International Monetary Fund in Washington - would beat Sarkozy were a vote held today...