Word: socialists
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...winding up 12 years as President and was Paris' mayor for 18 years before that; its inauguration offers him a rare respite from the political failures that have plagued his final years in office. Chirac himself decided in 1999 to award the museum project to Nouvel, a Socialist voter who had been an outspoken critic of Chirac's urban policies. It was a felicitous choice: Stéphane Martin, the museum's president, who has worked closely with Nouvel since then, says, "We have never gotten mad at one another, which in the French tradition of such collaborations is remarkable...
...course? It seems almost churlish to ask. So much wealth has been created in the last two decades that Spaniards appear largely immune to the "declinism" that plagues France, Italy and Germany. The two main political parties, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's ruling Socialists and Mariano Rajoy's conservative Popular Party (PP), spit and scream over everything from Franco's legacy to gay rights; last week the PP broke off all relations with the government to protest what Rajoy called its "ignominious" dealings with the banned Batasuna party to negotiate an end to the Basque...
...Royal didn't stop there. Earlier this week she took a hefty swing at the most iconic achievement of the last Socialist government: the introduction of the 35-hour work week. Royal said it had led "to a worsening situation for the most fragile people, especially women in low-qualification jobs" while giving middle-management employees longer vacations...
...party leaders believe there's a Socialist line to be toed, and Royal's stylish stilettos are out of bounds; even Hollande has voiced some concern. Perennials like Fabius and former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who both think it's finally their turn to accede to a presidential candidacy, have been hoping that Royal's blatant appeal to the center will alienate party members, who will select the Socialist candidate in two rounds of voting next fall. "S?gol?ne may win the first round," says one source close to Strauss-Kahn, "But we're hoping everyone else will join...
...party faithful may not be all that faithful anymore: Socialist ranks have swelled by 40% in recent months, and the new members are younger, less working-class, better educated and more likely to be female than the old ones. Having waited months for the S?gol?ne bubble to burst, her Socialist adversaries are instead watching it settle in comfortably for the summer. As for Royal herself, she has taken to wearing summery white, perhaps not an entirely subliminal counterpoint to the dirty politics du jour in her party and the conservative ruling government as well...