Tag: french elections

Turkey has warned France of grave consequences should the French Senate pass a bill today (19 December) that would penalise denial of the massacre of over 1 million Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire.

A New York judge dropped all criminal sexual assault charges against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn yesterday (23 August), leaving him free to return to France and attempt to rebuild his shattered career.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, formerly a high-profile humanitarian activist, said he had considered resigning over the controversy sparked by the expulsions of Roma from France to their home countries, Bulgaria and Romania. Even Prime Minister François Fillon admitted he had "differences" with President Nicolas Sarkozy over his immigration policy.

French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux hinted that his centre-right UMP party's campaign ahead of the 2009 European elections would support a protective agenda during a debate on 4 December.

Joachim Schild and Julia Simon (Institute of Political Science at the University of Trier in Germany) take a close look at the partly opposed partly similar approaches of the two final candidates for the French presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) and Ségolène Royal (PS), and to what extent European policy is part of their election campaigns.

Presidential hopefuls, left and right, are steering clear of crucial EU debates in a campaign marked by calls for increased protection from Europe, says Philippe Herzog in an interview with EurActiv.

As expected after his overwhelming victory in the general elections, French interim Prime Minister Raffarin has been reappointed to lead the next centre-right government.

The first round of the French parliamentary elections on 9 June has been won by the centre-right coalition of President Jacques Chirac.

A poll, conducted by Ipsos, indicates that the center-right could win 41 per cent of the votes in the first round of the French general elections on 9 June (versus 39 per cent of votes for the Socialists). According to the same poll, the extreme-right Front National could win up to 12 per cent of the votes.

On Sunday 5 May, French citizens re-elected Jacques Chirac as their new President, in the second round of the elections. Mr Chirac (RPR) crushed the extreme-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen (Front National) by an overwhelming majority of 81,9 per cent of the votes (vs. 18,04 per cent for Mr Le Pen) - the highest score ever obtained by a candidate in France.

On the first of May, just four days before the second round of the presidential elections, more than a million people have demonstrated all over France against the rise of the extreme right Front National.

In the second round of the French presidential elections on 5 May, the current President, Jacques Chirac, will run against the far-right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, after the latter's surprise victory over the Socialist candidate, the Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, in the first round on 21 April.

Three days before the first round, the French presidential campaign is characterised by a lack of differences between the positions of the conservatives and the socialists. The same is true of the two main candidates' (Lionel Jospin and Jacques Chirac) views on the European Union and its future.

France's Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, announced he would stand in the French presidential election on 21 April, challenging President Jacques Chirac for the second time. The Socialist leader Jospin was defeated by the conservative Chirac in the second round of voting in the 1995 election.