French Presidential election

The story of François Fillon’s suits tells you why the French establishment may be facing the guillotine

| Readers 1187

Assuming you are a conservative minded Catholic would you vote for this man as your natural champion? With only a week before the first round of voting, the revelation by the investigative website Mediapart will further embarrass the conservative candidate, who lost his place as frontrunner in opinion polls after being placed under investigation for allegedly giving his British wife a “fake” job as his parliamentary assistant. Mr Fillon received three suits costing €13,000 from Robert Bourgi, a Franco-Lebanese lawyer, …

Read more…

Hollande wins in France…

| Readers 52

According to reported early estimates Socialist Francois Hollande has been elected as France’s new president, early estimates say. He got about 52% of votes in Sunday’s run-off, according to projections based on partial results, against 48% for centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The Guardian’s live-blog will have further updates. As for what it means for the fiscal pact, and the wider Euro crisis, I think the results in Greece may prove to be more significant. Exit polls in the Greek parliamentary election …

Read more…

Sarkozy: “I did not know she voted in France…”

| Readers 9

At the Guardian’s Politics Blog, Michael White has some fun with reports that Nicolas Sarkozy has enlisted Frau Bundeskanzlerin in his French presidential re-election campaign.  Although this post’s title quote, from the Wall Street Journal blogs, suggests he may already be having second thoughts…  ANYhoo…  From Michael White’s post We can assume that pollsters have advised Sarko that the pluses of being identified positively with the much-admired German economy will outweigh the risks . Marine Le Pen, the National Front (NF) …

Read more…