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It did not take long. The game is very much in play. Greek voters are being bombarded with warnings about what is at stake when they go to the polls on 25 January. There is little that is coded in these messages. When a country has been bailed out to the tune of €240bn (£187bn; $286bn) there is no such thing as non-interference in Greece's internal politics. Most of the European political establishment does not want Greece to elect the radical left party Syriza led by Alexis Tsipras. The party is currently narrowly ahead in the polls. Mr Tsipras is...

Amid skyrocketing anti-Semitism, Francois Hollande says the fight against racism and anti-Semitism will be his national cause for 2015. French President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday that the fight against racism and anti-Semitism will be his national cause for 2015, according to The Associated Press (AP). In a speech in honor of the 2015 year, Hollande pointed out "the rising, worrying threats" of terrorism and fundamentalism and urged the French not to succumb to fear. France has seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitism in recent years, and it flared particularly in 2014 and during  Operation Protective Edge, with violent protests in...

PARIS (AP) — It was supposed to force millionaires to pay tax rates of up to 75 percent: "Cuba without the sun," as described by a critic from the banking industry. Socialist President Francois Hollande's super tax was rejected by a court, rewritten and ultimately netted just a sliver of its projected proceeds. It ends on Wednesday and will not be renewed. And that critic of the tax? He's now Hollande's economy minister, trying mightily to undo the damage to France's image in international business circles. The tax of 75 percent on income earned above one million euros ($1.22 million)...

Representatives of Eurosceptic and far-right groups from Italy to Bulgaria gathered at the National Front party conference in Lyon at the weekend to warn France and Europe of a “neo-Ottoman” onslaught of Islam-preaching, benefit-stealing migrants. Digging through the history books, Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), warned that “Arab armies plundered Lyon in 725 and are now busy doing the same in Iraq and Syria”. Strache went on to blast Europe’s mainstream parties for, among other things, stoking “mass immigration, ideological terror, gay marriage and gender theory”. The Austrian far-right leader was one of seven foreign...

Someone obviously read Obama’s handbook on governing. Crisis-hit France is “sick”, the country’s new economy minister said.“France is sick. It’s not well. We have to describe the situation as it is,” Emmanuel Macron told French radio.Added to its economic woes, the country is weighed down by a political crisis that has seen President Francois Hollande plumb record lows in opinion polls and a shock cabinet reshuffle in August to purge dissenters.The government’s unpopularity “is due to a lack of results”, said Macron. But President Hollande, the garden gnome of European politics, has the cure. More Global Warming ecoscam spending. French...

Conservatives won French Senate elections Sunday to take control of parliament’s upper house, handing President François Hollande’s Socialists a new setback. The far-right National Front party also gained its first two Senate seats in the balloting. The Senate press office said a final count will await tallies from all of France’s overseas holdings—not likely until Monday, but it was already clear that the conservatives were back in control of the 348-seat chamber. …

WASHINGTON - There can be only one response to the barbaric beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic State terrorists. We must hunt them down and kill them. President Obama said as much in his brief remarks in the wake of the terrorists' grisly video that showed Foley's execution by a masked jihadist who spoke with a British accent and is believed to be a British citizen. The United States will "do what we must to protect our people," Obama said Wednesday. "We will be vigilant and we will be relentless" in bringing them to justice. No sooner had...

President Francois Hollande on Monday pleaded with the French to be proud of their country in an attempt to boost confidence at a time of enduring gloom over record unemployment and faltering growth. Speaking in a televised interview on France's national Bastille Day holiday after a military parade commemorating World War I, Hollande tried to persuade the country that his reforms were the right way forward despite opposition within his own ranks. "There is a sort of illness which is not serious but can be contagious, where we are always deploring and denigrating. You have to be proud!" he said,...

France will miss its European Commission debt targets this year and in 2015 because of its excessive taxation of companies and high spending on healthcare and pensions, the EU’s executive said today (2 June). Under EU law, governments must not run budget deficits higher than 3% of economic output or gross domestic product (GDP). If they do, they fall under the excessive deficit procedure, which could lead to fines. […] European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro Olli Rehn blamed France’s expected failure on weaker growth forecasts for 2015 and the fact that some stability measures were...

Amid Economy Disaster, French Socialists Get Crushed in Election 02 April 2014 With France's economy falling apart under Socialist President Francois Hollande, the French voted this weekend for change — real change — in massive numbers. ... Full Article:http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/17964-amid-economy-disaster-french-socialists-get-crushed-in-election

France's socialist prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault resigned yesterday. Joined by his entire government following meltdown in local elections .. Resignation is huge blow to France's social President Francois Hollande. Last night, Hollande admitted mistakes and said priority was to cut taxes ... last night socialist President Francois Hollande – whose rule has become synonymous with a 75 per cent top rate of income tax – admitted to mistakes and said his priority was now to cut taxes. The government’s resignation is a huge blow to the president, who was elected to a five-year term in 2012 but whose first two...

Posted a blank of this photo over the weekend, here are 14 of the best/favorite captions people came up with.

In the wake of tens of thousands of people participating in pro-traditional family protests in France and throughout Europe, French President François Hollande backed down from submitting a new family-law bill to parliament that would make legal “assisted procreation for lesbian couples” and “surrogate motherhood for gay men” who want children. The demonstrations were led by La Manif Pour Tous (Protest for Everyone), a fast-growing coalition of groups that has organized massive rallies against same-sex marriage legislation throughout Europe. As Edward Pentin reports at Newsmax, Jean-Pierre Delaume-Myard, a spokesman for La Manif Pour Tous – who is himself gay –...

Earlier this week President Obama and the First Lady hosted French President Francois Hollande at the White House for an official state dinner. It was quite the affair with caviar, quail eggs, rib-eye and chocolate-malted ganache. In case you don't remember, Hollande is a full blown French socialist who deeply believes the only way to help the poor is by demonizing and soaking the rich. Hollande is currently moving forward with his plan in France to tax millionaires 75 percent after receiving approval from a court. President Obama holds similar views and has repeatedly told the rich they need to...

Very few political cartoons make me laugh out loud. Even when I look back at the all-time favorites that I included in my political cartoonist contest, most of them are on that list because they make a very effective and clever point about public policy. Though I do recall being very amused by Glenn McCoy’s cartoon on media bias, Chip Bok’s war-on-women cartoon, and Robert Ariail’s cartoon about Greece and the euro. But I don’t think any of them made me laugh as much as this gem by Scott Stantis. I don’t even know what it struck me as being...

Obama recently had a state dinner with France's President François Hollande, who gave an applause line in the picture below. What did he say?Leave a comment and I'll post the best/favorites in a couple of days.

Acknowledging "enormous frustration," President Obama said Tuesday that his administration "continues to explore every possible avenue" to help resolve the nearly 3-year-old Syrian civil war, although he again said he had no plans for military intervention. Appearing with French President Francois Hollande, a reliable partner in his foreign policy agenda, Obama called Syria a "crumbling" state and worried that conditions there have destabilized the region. The president also expressed frustration in another area of close cooperation with France, threatening to come down "like a ton of bricks" on businesses that would trade with Iran while international talks continue over its...

February 11, 2014 Al Sharpton shows off his French at White House dinner Eddie Scarry From a White House pool report on the state dinner taking place at the White House Tuesday evening for French President François Hollande: Al Sharpton said he’s been practicing his French and he offered some at the press’ urging. “Oui oui oui.” Sharpton is one of dozens of celebrity guests attending the dinner. Others include singer Mary J. Blige, who will also perform, comedienne Mindy Kaling and Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert.

Truth be told, despite the best efforts by the French and British media to sell their wares, one can hardly call it Gayetgate. Indeed, the president of France, François Hollande, 60, has a mistress, actress Julie Gayet [1], now 41, whom he met about two years ago, even before being elected. Two weeks ago, Closer, a gossip weekly, published a seven-page report that included pictures of the president paying a visit to Gayet’s love nest, an apartment located on Rue du Cirque, one block away from Elysée Palace, the French head of state’s residence in central Paris [2]. However,...

A protest in Paris against French President Francois Hollande turned on Sunday to an anti-Semitic demonstration and ended in clashes between police and protesters. […] The march was organized by a group of some 50 small and mainly right-wing organizations and, while it failed to attract bigger anti-Hollande movements, Kol Yisrael radio reported that it was attended by neo-Nazi movements and Muslim extremists. The demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli slogans, used the “quenelle” anti-Semitic gesture that was invented by controversial comic Dieudonné and sang the anthem of the Nazi collaborators during World War II, according to Kol Yisrael. …