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France's public debt is spiralling out of control, according to a report commissioned by the French government... The debt stands at €1,117 billion, representing 66 per cent of France's GDP ... The staggering figure encompasses the debt accumulated by the state and local authorities, as well as social and health insurance bodies, over the past few decades. However, it does not include the upcoming time bomb of civil servants' pensions. Over the past ten years, the French debt has increased its claim against GDP by over 10 percentage points. France saw the worst debt evolution among the then 15 EU...

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Tuesday announced tightened controls on immigration, part of the government's response to riots ... Marriages abroad between French citizens and foreigners will no longer be automatically recognized in France, Villepin said... The measure is to be adopted by parliament in the first half of 2006... The prime minister also said the government should be able to enforce a law outlawing polygamy. There are 8,000-15,000 polygamous families in France... Some French officials cited polygamy as one reason that youths from underprivileged Muslim households joined in the rioting, saying that children from large polygamous families...

New Hampshire‘What does it matter where this path leads, nowhere or elsewhere, if the furrow continues flowering, if the flash of lightning still inflames the night?’ writes Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister of the French Republic, in his 823-page treatise on poetry. ‘If the poet still consumes himself, he refuses the enclosures of thought, certainties, to camp in the heart of the mystery, in the living spirit of the flame.’ Few people are as camp in the heart of the mystery as the flowery-furrowed M. de Villepin, but after the last two weeks he may be less enthusiastic about all...

Voici principal measurements, in particular employment education, announced or confirmed by the Prime Minister, Domenica de Villepin, at the time of its intervention at the French National Assembly, Tuesday November 8: EMPLOYMENT - All the young people of less than 25 years, applicants for work or not, living one of the 750 significant zones, will be received in the three next months for a "maintenance deepened" by the ANPE, in the local missions or the Houses of employment. A "specific solution" will be proposed to them in the three months (formation, training course or contract). - the social recipients...

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin seemed to strike the right note in his response to the riots. But his proposals also showed up the scale of the changes called for in society, to heal the deep wounds that have been exposed. Mr de Villepin has made a start. No more evasion, and not too much rhetoric about the "values of the Republic." He has called the situation by its real name - "a crisis in France's cities." Others have called it a rebellion by an angry underclass. Mistakes admitted The French prime minister struck a balance between denouncing the...

Braced for change, looking for a leaderSep 8th 2005 | PARIS From The Economist print edition As fears grow over the president's health, his lieutenants compete to lead France out of its doldrums HOSPITALISED presidents make the French uneasy. Francois Mitterrand hid his cancer behind false medical reports for over a decade until his first operation, in 1992; he died four years later. Georges Pompidou's cancer became public only after his death from it while in office. So the news that President Jacques Chirac was to spend a full week in hospital, after a “small vascular incident” in the brain...

Barely noticed, Germany has overtaken America to become the world's biggest single exporter, shipping the hardware that powers the rising economies of Asia and eastern Europe. Its trade surplus is now greater than that of China, Japan and India combined, reaching a staggering 16.8 billion euros in June alone. The profits made by German companies are running at over 33 per cent of national income, the highest in 40 years. Eyeing a bargain, the world's canniest are already piling into German assets for the great Teutonic rebound. George Soros and fellow hedge funders are snapping up distressed banks. Britain's Terra...

BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers abandoned a closed-door meeting on the EU budget on Sunday evening without agreement and with positions hardening on the British yearly rebate and what to do about the bloc's large farm subsidies. Ministers went into the meeting having been witness to a growing Anglo-French spat as London and Paris traded insults over their respective red lines. British foreign secretary Jack Straw set the tone of the meeting by branding demands by French president Jacques Chirac that the around 4.6 billion euro annual British rebate be given up as "deluded". "The rebate is not the issue,...

Dominique de Villepin has been named as France's new prime minister after Jean-Pierre Raffarin became the first casualty of the humiliating EU referendum defeat.Jacques Chirac, French president, appointed Mr de Villepin shortly after accepting Mr Raffarin's resignation. It came two days after French voters overwhelming rejected the EU constitution. Mr Villepin had been the interior minister and is noted for leading France's opposition to the US-led war in Iraq during a spell as foreign minister.He will be charged with giving the "fresh impetus" to government policy which Mr Chirac promised after the shock defeat, a result widely seen as a...

French President Chirac Names De Villepin Prime Minister and Asks Him to Form New Government The Associated Press May. 31, 2005 - President Jacques Chirac, shaken by the defeat of the European Union constitution, appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who jetted around the globe galvanizing international opposition to the Iraq war, as prime minister to lead a new government Tuesday. Villepin, 51, moves from the Interior Ministry to replace Jean-Pierre Raffarin, dumped after voters Sunday roundly rejected Chirac's call to ratify a European Union constitution, humiliating the 72-year-old president a leading proponent of the charter. Chirac asked Villepin to...

Infighting over the EU constitution erupted in the French government, amid clear signals that Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin will lose his job if opponents of the text win a referendum next month as polls currently predict. Tensions over the continuing failure of the government's "yes" campaign spilled over at a weekly ministerial breakfast meeting with what officials described as a "very violent argument" between Raffarin and Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin. Raffarin was reportedly furious with remarks made by Villepin in a radio interview Sunday that were openly critical of the way the government has handled the run-up to the...

April 19, 2005 Chirac Cabinet tears itself apart over EU constitutionFrom Charles Bremner in Paris THE prospect of France rejecting the European constitution ignited a blazing Cabinet row yesterday after President Chirac signalled that he aims to sack Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whether the country votes “yes” or “no”. M Raffarin, whose unpopularity is deemed to be a big factor in the troubles of the “yes” campaign for the May 29 referendum, rounded on Dominique de Villepin, the Interior Minister and close ally of the President, over damning remarks that he made against his own Government. After a...

Ah, the French. How to think of them? There is an easy default answer: kindly and gratefully. After all, they helped us in the Revolutionary War, gave us Alexis de Tocqueville and the Statue of Liberty, and to this day feel a keen republican spirit in harmony with America's own. Sure, we have had our spats. But when the chips are down, you can count on France to be on our side, more or less, and to supply some great wine if it is needed. ...Before 9/11, 77% of Americans held a favorable opinion of France. By March 2003, only...

On May 9, the Toronto Star newspaper published an editorial entitled, “Donald Rumsfeld should resign now.” The demand was of course based on the media-manufactured “atrocities” of Abu Ghraib. That’s odd, I thought. I couldn’t recall ever seeing an American newspaper demand that an official of a foreign country resign. “Bush has apologized for the abuse, which he called ‘abhorrent.’ He says the soldiers responsible will be punished. But his words are not enough. They will not erase the anger raging throughout the Arab world, as well as across the United States, for the indignities inflicted upon the prisoners. Nor...

PARIS, March 31 — Desperate to recover from a humiliating electoral defeat for the governing party, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin turned his cabinet upside down on Wednesday, putting France's flamboyant foreign minister in charge of law and order and its law-and-order interior minister in charge of the economy. In other moves, the ministers of finance, national education, culture, health and the environment and several deputy ministers were fired. The cabinet shake-up came three days after President Jacques Chirac's conservative party was decisively defeated by the left-leaning opposition in regional elections and a day after Mr. Chirac decided not to fire...

They were on the wrong side of history, and today, and forever, their names live in infamy – Hitler, Goebbels, Mengele, Eichmann, and thousands, even millions more like them. You can run, but you can't hide, as per Joe Louis. Everything (to borrow a line from Pirke Avos) is recorded in a Book. Today, your words and deeds are also recorded by the memory of the Internet and television. If you are a believer, then say this: God is watching. If you are something otherwise, then say this: History is watching. Those who support and champion murderers are murderers themselves,...

PARIS (AP) - The world is a more dangerous place because of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which may have toppled Saddam Hussein but also unleashed postwar violence and an upswing in terrorism, the French foreign minister said. ``This is a belief that I have never stopped expressing,'' Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told Le Monde newspaper in an interview in its Friday edition. ``We have to look reality in the face: we have entered into a more dangerous and unstable world, which requires the mobilization of the entire international community,'' de Villepin said. Assertions by the administration of President...

Haiti Uprising Spreads As PM Seeks Help Feb 17, 9:14 PM (ET) By MICHAEL NORTON PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haiti's prime minister warned Tuesday of an impending coup and appealed for international help to contend with a bloody uprising that has claimed 57 lives. But the United States and France expressed reluctance to send troops to put down the rebellion. Aid agencies called for urgent international action, warning Haiti is on "the verge of a generalized civil war." The U.N. refugee agency met with officials in Washington to discuss how to confront a feared exodus of Haitians. On Tuesday, airlines...

French diplomats on global strike Villepin urged staff to reconsider French diplomats staged their first-ever strike on Monday in a protest over planned budget cuts. Some embassasies and consulates were closed, while others offered much-reduced staffing levels and services. Missions in Italy and Pakistan were badly hit, and Jakarta ambassador Renaud Vignal declared himself on strike while remaining at his desk. Trades unions are protesting against moves to cut jobs and costs in the diplomatic service. Employees do not understand how the president and government can proclaim their grand ambitions for France... while the human and financial resources available to...

Oct. 4, 2003 US, UK, France condemn Haifa attack By ASSOCIATED PRESS Advertisement US President George W. Bush on Saturday called the attack in Haifa "a despicable act of terrorism." At least 19 people were killed when a Palestinian woman blew herself up at a beach-front restaurant in Haifa in one of the deadliest attacks in three years. "I condemn unequivocally the vicious act of terrorism committed today in Haifa," Bush said in a statement. "This murderous action, aimed at families gathered to enjoy a Sabbath lunch, killed and injured dozens of men, women, and children." He added: "This despicable...