Party feud helping Royal, Chirac told

Backbenchers from France's ruling centre-right party pleaded with their leaders yesterday to end a feud that was undermining their campaign to beat Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate, to the presidency next spring. President Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, his Prime Minister, were the main targets of the MPs from the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) because of their hostility to Nicolas Sarkozy, the popular party leader... The 51-year-old Interior Minister is the favourite for the candidacy among a big majority of MPs and of 77 per cent of the Gaullist party's supporters, according to an Ipsos poll yesterday... However, Mr de Villepin and Michèle Alliot-Marie, the Defence Minister, and protege of Mr Chirac, have indicated in the past week that they were thinking of running... Pro-Sarkozy MPs are outraged over the way that Mr Chirac's camp seems to be subordinating the UMP's presidential chances to its distaste for their bete noire, who took control of the party in 2004... The Ipsos poll showed that only 6 per cent of UMP supporters preferred Mr Villepin, whereas 17 per cent backed Ms Alliot-Marie.

Party feud returns to haunt Sarkozy's presidential bid
by Angelique Chrisafis
Thursday November 23, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
The prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, who is close to Mr Chirac, has taken to attacking Mr Sarkozy's policies on a daily basis, creating the damaging spectacle of a head of government publicly rounding on his next in line and party leader. First he needled him about "fishing in the waters" of the extreme right, then he criticised his views on delinquency and said his positive discrimination plan was a "dead end". Michele Alliot-Marie, the defence minister and potential challenger for the party's nomination, wrote Mr Sarkozy a letter leaked to Le Parisien newspaper complaining of the "real difficulty" of proper debate within the party. Mr Chirac's wife even suggested her husband, who turns 74 next week, could run again for the presidency, although that is unlikely.

Only in France, a Scandal for Policy Wonks [ Segolene Royal vs teachers union ]
TIME Magazine | Wednesday, November 15, 2006 | James Graff
Posted on 11/16/2006 12:35:29 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1739424/posts

and from 2005:

Sarkozy shines amid controversy
BBC | 11/15/05 | Alasdair Sandford
Posted on 11/15/2005 3:24:35 PM EST by Pikamax
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1522624/posts

Les violences en baisse, les cotes de Sarkozy et Villepin en hausse (Sarkozy up 11%)
Le Figaro - French Language Paper | 11/16/05 | Le Figaro and AFP
Posted on 11/16/2005 11:00:58 PM EST by starbase
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1523584/posts

The Turks see some daylight regarding Chirac's gov't's demands about the Armenian genocide:

Sarkozy's Comment on Algerian Genocide: Sons don't Apologize for Their Fathers' Mistakes
Turkish Weekly
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Though first in line when it comes to demanding that Turkey face up to its dark history, namely claims of a 1915 Armenian genocide, it seems that Paris is content to take a 'let's leave history to the historians' approach when faced with its own colonial era trauma in Algeria. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has been on an official visit to France's former colony Algeria. On Monday Sarkozy placed a wreath at a monument for Algerians killed in their war for independence and on Tuesday he visited a monastery in Tibhirine where seven French monks where killed in 1996. In only eight years, 1.5 million Algerians died during their country's fight for independence between 1954 and 1962. Torture was widespread... Sarkozy, a leading candidate for the French center-right political world to run for president next year, has strongly supported France's recent notorious bill criminalizing the denial of an Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks during World War I... France passed a law last year requiring textbooks to talk about the "positive side" of French colonialism. An embarrassed Chirac quashed the law but relations have suffered.

from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, via Monsters and Critics:

Royal's triumph, party rows put Sarkozy on the defensive
by Siegfried Mortkowitz
Nov 20, 2006
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's nomination as his party's candidate for the 2007 presidential election was supposed to be little more than a coronation, a mere formality on his path to becoming head of state. But he had not counted on the stunning victory of Segolene Royal in the Socialist primary and its effects on the French electorate, and he certainly did not foresee the stubborn refusal of one faction of his political family to see him crowned... Senior government officials close to President Jacques Chirac have begun fighting a determined insurgency against him... The UMP, which Sarkozy heads, will select their candidate during a special congress on January 14, 2007. According to Villepin, until then there is time for the debate to 'evolve,' because 'new issues will emerge over the course of months.' ...These latest anti-Sarkozy salvos followed last week's raucous UMP meeting during which Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, a close Chirac ally, was loudly jeered after criticizing a number of Sarkozy's positions.

Policeman who killed soccer fan is held
Darren Tulett and Alex Duval Smith
Sunday November 26, 2006
Last night the plainclothes police officer, Antoine Granomort, was in custody after shooting dead a 24-year-old fan and wounding another, apparently with the same bullet, during an attack by Paris Saint-Germain fans on a supporter of an Israeli club, Hapoel Tel Aviv, after Thursday night's Uefa Cup match. The PSG fans shouted anti-semitic and racial epithets, and Granomort, a black officer, said he was trying to protect himself and a Hapoel fan described by officials as a French Jew... Racism is common in Paris's stadiums and yesterday hardline French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy announced the fast-tracking of new legislation to tackle racist or xenophobic groups of fans. He wants hooligans banned from matches and has championed anti-terrorism legislation that will boost video surveillance at sports grounds.
The scene of the shooting outside a branch of McDonald's. Photograph: Remy de la Mauriniere/AP

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