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~* IN MEMORIAM DAVID SWENINGSEN *~ Long time FReeper "Bruinbirdman", aka bbm. David Keith Sweningsen, passed away on June 9, 2013, in Las Vegas. bbm was a veteran and a patriot, and a prolific poster on Free Republic. Please post your memories of Bruinbirdman on this thread. He was a long time donor to Free Republic, and I'm sure any donation, large or small in his name would be greatly appreciated. May he rest in peace. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. Cincinna from the obituary: Dave Sweningsen, 66, beloved son, brother and uncle, of Boulder City, passed...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel housekeeper who accused him of sexually assaulting her last year have quietly reached an agreement to settle a lawsuit she brought against him stemming from the case, which made international headlines.  French media reported Friday that Strauss-Kahn, 63, former head of the International Monetary Fund, would pay $6 million to Nafissatou Diallo, who accused him of attacking her at a Manhattan hotel.   The parties are scheduled to appear next week before Justice Douglas E. McKeon in State Supreme Court in the Bronx. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, was arrested in May 2011 after Ms. Diallo, an immigrant from...

 After more than a week of wrangling over the outcome of its hotly contested party election, the leadership of France’s center-right opposition party on Monday confirmed Jean-François Copé, a right-leaning protégé of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, as the party’s new chief, staring down a last-minute legal challenge from his centrist rival, François Fillon.  The disputed election has sown confusion and embarrassment across France and in particular within the already bruised party, known as the U.M.P. The drawn-out battle, which has played out on live television and via social media networks, follows Mr. Sarkozy’s loss in the presidential race in May,...

A bitter election battle to succeed Nicolas Sarkozy as new leader of France’s main centre-Right party, UMP, has gone down to the wire in a contest that could decide whether or not the group swings farther Right. Jean-Francois Cope, the party’s firebrand secretary-general, was more than 3,000 votes ahead of the moderate Francois Fillon, with some 155,000 ballots counted from the election among the party’s 300,000 members. With the outcome still unclear, the surprise of the night was the higher-than-expected score of Mr Copé, 48, who was expected to finish well behind Mr Fillon, 58. Last night members of the...

Both candidates have claimed victory in the race to become France's next opposition leader, in a contest marred by allegations of vote-rigging. Hundreds of votes are said to separate right-wing candidate Jean-Francois Cope and ex-PM Francois Fillon. As the neck-and-neck result emerged, supporters of both UMP candidates made accusations of vote fraud. The party has been without a leader since Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in the May presidential election. Mr Cope has been secretary general of the conservative UMP since 2010 while his rival was prime minister for five years during Mr Sarkozy's presidency. More than 50% of the party's...

French President Francois Hollande has said he will end homework as part of a series of reforms to overhaul the country’s education system. And the reason he wants to ban homework?  He doesn’t think it is fair that some kids get help from their parents at home while children who come from disadvantaged families don’t. It’s an issue that goes well beyond France, and has been part of the reason that some Americans oppose homework too. Hollande’s reform plans include increasing the number of teachers, moving the school week from four days to 4 1/2 days, overhauling the curriculum and...

France on Monday unveiled a package of reforms designed to increase access to abortion, including 100 percent reimbursement of medical costs by the state social security system. At present French women are only able to claim back between 70 and 80 percent of the costs, which average between 200 and 450 euros depending on whether the abortion is induced by medication taken at home or carried out by surgical procedure in a clinic. The change to full reimbursement was included in the 2013 social security budget unveiled on Monday. In a statement the government said the move was "necessary to...

Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday asked a French appeal court to dismiss charges that the disgraced former IMF chief helped procure prostitutes for sex parties. The court in the northern town of Douai deferred a ruling until November 28 after a closed-door hearing, lawyers said. Strauss-Kahn admits attending orgies in France and the United States but claims he did not know the women involved were being paid to take part. He was not present at Wednesday's hearing. The case, known as the "Carlton affair" in France, centers around allegations that business leaders and police officials in Lille operated a...

France's President Francois Hollande showed a fine understanding of American politics Tuesday when he refused to endorse a US presidential candidate.  Asked by a reporter at the UN General Assembly in New York whether he backed Democratic incumbent Barack Obama or his Republican rival Mitt Romney for the White House, a smiling Hollande shot back: "Who do you think?" "Are you aware that Mitt Romney never ceases to attack socialist Europe at his campaign rallies?" asked Hollande, Europe's most powerful socialist leader. "Yes, that's why I'll be careful not to say anything at all on this subject because, as you'd...

France is set to ban the words "mother" and "father" from all official documents under controversial plans to legalise gay marriage. The move, which has outraged Catholics, means only the word "parents" would be used in identical marriage ceremonies for all heterosexual and same-sex couples. The draft law states that "marriage is a union of two people, of different or the same gender". It says all references to "mothers and fathers" in the civil code – which enshrines French law – will be swapped for simply "parents". Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told France's Catholic newspaper La Croix: "Who is to...

Leading rabbi makes Vichy comparisons after Marine Le Pen, of the third-largest French political party, suggests giving ‘headscarf ban’ a Jewish twist  French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen on Friday suggested Jews should be banned from wearing the kippa, or ritual head-covering for Jewish males, in public places. Le Pen heads the nationalist Front National (FN) party, the third-largest in France. She is the youngest daughter of French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, formerly the party’s president. Her suggestion comes less than two years after France banned the wearing of full Muslim veils in public. In response to Le Pen’s suggestion,...

 Valérie Trierweiler once called Ségolène Royal “the crazy woman of Poitou” and asked members of her partner’s communication team to keep them at arm’s length.    Ms. Trierweiler is the current partner of President François Hollande, and Ms. Royal is his former partner and mother of his four children  are depicted in recently published books as fierce rivals, and their animosity has been at the center of extensive media attention in France. Since 2007, when Nicolas Sarkozy took office in the middle of a marital breakdown, French politics has taken on aspects of a soap opera, complete with shifting couples...

  Francois Hollande will celebrate 100 days since his election as French president on Tuesday knowing his honeymoon with the electorate is over and that life is not going to get easier any time soon.   Record unemployment and an economy headed back into recession provide a sombre backdrop to an event Hollande will mark by interrupting his summer break to visit police officers in a village where two of their female colleagues died in a shootout in June. The village, Pierrefeu-du-Var, is located close to the Fort de Bregancon presidential retreat where Hollande has been on holiday with his glamorous journalist...

  After performing for only 45 minutes, the pop star incurred the wrath of concertgoers who gathered in front of the Paris concert venue to demand their money back. French fans took Madonna’s “Express Yourself” lyrics seriously on Thursday night when they booed and expressed anger at the singer for cutting her show at famed Paris concert hall l’Olympia short after around just 45 minutes. After Madonna left the stage, fans remained in their seats booing and yelling insults like “salope,” the French word for “slut.” PHOTOS: Madonna's Iconic Career and Life in Pictures Madonna took the stage around 10:15 p.m....

  The new French president, François Hollande, said Saturday that he had told those close to him to keep their private lives private and to resolve their conflicts away from the news media. Mr. Hollande, who campaigned for France’s highest office on a pledge to be “a normal president,” has been embarrassed by the evident strain between his partner, Valérie Trierweiler, and his four children, whom he fathered with a former Socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal. “Private affairs are resolved in private,” Mr. Hollande said in a 45-minute, nationally televised interview on the French national holiday Bastille Day. “And I have...

If you believe the French weekly Le Point, Thomas Hollande, the 27-year-old lawyer and son of President François Hollande and his former partner, Ségolène Royal, blasted his father’s current partner in an interview for “putting private life in the public domain” by backing a political opponent of his mother. If you believe Thomas Hollande, on the other hand, there was no such interview, just a conversation with a young woman who twisted his words. “I deny giving an interview to Le Point,” he told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday evening. “The comments reported, some of which are distorted or out of...

French police have raided the home and offices of the former president Nicolas Sarkozy as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal campaign-financing by France's wealthiest woman. Police searched the mansion rented by Carla Bruni in a chic gated community in the west of Paris early on Tuesday morning. She and Sarkozy have lived there since their marriage, in 2008. Detectives also searched the office of the legal firm where Sarkozy is a partner and the office he moved into after losing the presidential election to the Socialist François Hollande in May. The couple were not present as they...

The French government is considering extending the television licence fee to include computer screen owners to boost revenues for public-sector broadcasting operations, the culture minister said on Saturday. President François Hollande's Socialist government aims to raise an extra €7.5bn (£6bn) this year through tax rises included in an amended budget bill to be unveiled next week. "Is it necessary to extend the fee to [computer] screens when you do not have a television? It is a question we're asking ourselves, but obviously it would be a fee per household and you would not have to pay an [additional] fee if...

Despite the euro crisis becoming increasingly dire as European governments scramble to patch up the broken banking system in Spain and shore up sovereign debt and budget deficits, French citizens still overwhelmingly want to go on vacation this summer. According to an l’Institut Français d’Opinion Publique (IFOP) poll, 73 percent of French citizens — a sizeable increase from last year — are still considering going on vacation this summer, with nearly a quarter saying that vacations of “three weeks” are ideal. If you thought the French weren’t belt-tightening, however, you’d be wrong. More French citizens seem to prefer shorter vacations...

Valérie Trierweiler, France’s new First Lady got her way when Ségolène Royal, François Hollande’s former partner of 30 years, crashed out of parliamentary elections to a dissident she controversially backed. Valérie Trierweiler sparked a political storm and private drama by firing off a Twitter message wishing “good luck” to the Socialist dissident rival of Ségolène Royal, 58, mother of Mr Hollande’s four children who was fighting for a seat in the constituency of western La Rochelle. Mr Hollande had backed Miss Royal for the seat reportedly without informing his new partner, who then is said to have sent the now...