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France's far-right National Front (FN) appears to have made big gains in the first round of regional elections, estimates show. They put the FN ahead in at least six of 13 regions in mainland France. The elections are the first electoral test since last month's Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed. The centre-right Republicans party led by former President Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to be in second place ahead of the governing Socialist Party.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has changed his party's name from Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) to The Republicans. Members of France's main opposition party voted to support the rebranding on Friday, with 83% of members approving the move. The move has sparked widespread debate in France, with critics arguing that all French people are Republicans......

For the first time in Major League Baseball -- or in any major professional sport, actually -- a game official has come out as gay. It's veteran MLB umpire Dale Scott. Outsports.com has a lengthy feature on Scott, so definitely hop over there if interested in the full version. The basics are that Scott has long been out to colleagues but it wasn't made public. He was profiled in Referee Magazine back in October and sent them a photo to use with Scott and Michael Rausch, Scott's domestic partner of 28 years. The two were recently married.

As political encores go, former President Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t quite get the warm embrace from his party that many French had expected in his return to public life on Saturday. The hard-charging Gaullist who once made headlines for reviving France’s U.S. ties, helping depose Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and marrying a former supermodel while in office won a race for leader of France’s main conservative party—but with a margin of victory that was smaller than many had predicted. Sarkozy’s victory as chief of the Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP, was a crucial first step on his road to...

France's far-right National Front was projected to win European Parliament elections in France on Sunday with 25 percent of the vote, with exit polls putting Francois Hollande's Socialists in a lowly third place behind the center-right UMP.

A senatorial report proposes a junk-food tax on products that cause cardiovascular diseases. The tax aims specifically at soft drinks, which currently benefit from low taxes. EurActiv France reports. Similar to steps taken by other European countries, a new junk-food tax is doing the rounds in the French parliament. […] The senators who led the report, Yves Daudigny (socialist) and Catherine Deroche (UMP), encourage talk of “contribution to public health” and not the frequently used term “behavioral taxation”. …

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy's hopes of a political comeback got a boost on Tuesday after a fundraising campaign he spearheaded to avert a financial crisis for his conservative UMP party raised 8.3 million euros in less than a month. The national drive to refill the UMP coffers -- dubbed "Sarkothon" by the media -- underscores Sarkozy's continued star appeal among centre-right voters despite his loss of the presidency to Socialist Francois Hollande in May 2012. With the UMP's finances now largely repaired, Sarkozy can more easily prepare for a possible presidential bid in 2017. For this, he will have...

 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,...

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...

  François Hollande may have been elected France’s president only a month ago, but the fate of his presidency will rest largely on the results of legislative elections that begin Sunday and conclude a week later. Mr. Hollande, a Socialist, barely won over a deeply unpopular Nicolas Sarkozy, in part by remaining vague about his policies. That tactical vagueness has continued through this campaign for the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, which is to a great extent a continuation of the presidential campaign. Mr. Hollande has been presenting himself as a “normal” president, unveiling an amateurish-looking official portrait that...

At a cabinet meeting last week, the French government issued a decree creating a general secretariat to serve France’s upcoming turn at the rotating presidency of the G-8 and G-20 economic summit groups. Workaday stuff, seemingly, coming alongside directives concerning the functions of the French Coast Guard and the purview of the minister in charge of rural and territorial affairs. But if you think big — and the French and their president, Nicolas Sarkozy, can think grandiose (as in organizing “a new international monetary order”) — then this was the first official and annunciatory clash of cymbals in the short...

PARIS, March 23, 2010 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy sacked one minister and reshuffled his government after a humiliating defeat by the left in regional elections, but faced more pressure Tuesday from planned strikes. Sarkozy replaced Labour Minister Xavier Darcos with Budget Minister Eric Woerth in a key change as the increasingly unpopular president limbered up for contested pension reforms. But France's unions have joined forces to organise strikes in dozens of cities Tuesday to protest unemployment, wages, the high cost of living - and plans to change the pension system, the next major government reform project. The minor...

France's Socialist-led left defeated Nicolas Sarkozy's conservatives in the first round of regional elections Sunday, according to partial official results, in a new blow to the increasingly unpopular president. Many voters blame Sarkozy and the governing conservatives for failing to protect jobs amid France's worst economic downturn since World War II, and for not keeping their promise to make the country prosper in the face of growing global competition. With more than 81 percent of votes counted, candidates from the Socialist and other leftist parties won 53.6 percent of the overall vote, according to the Interior Ministry. Sarkozy's conservative UMP...

The governing party of President Nicolas Sarkozy is bracing for a crushing defeat in regional elections this Sunday and next, as voters appear determined to use the last nationwide ballot before the 2012 presidential elections to send a sharp warning to the Élysée Palace. Almost all opinion polls indicate that the opposition Socialist Party and its allies are headed for a clean sweep of the 22 regional councils in mainland France in the two-round contest. At first glance, the gloomy outlook for Mr. Sarkozy is somewhat of a conundrum. France has resisted the economic crisis better than its neighbors, and...

President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-Right UMP group and the Greens were the two big winners in France's European parliamentary elections, near complete results showed. But with 93 per cent of ballots counted, the opposition Socialists appeared to have suffered serious losses –plunging the already weak party into further disarray. With just under 28 per cent of the vote, the UMP was the first ruling party in France to come out on top in EU elections since 1979, in a major boost to the president, whose approval ratings have been poor in recent months. It was a huge improvement on the 2004...

FRENCH SOCIALISTS HIT BY NEW ELECTION DRUBBING Received Sunday, 10 June 2007 19:05:00 GMT PARIS, June 10, 2007 (AFP) - France's Socialists faced a new humiliation after a dismal showing in round one of a parliamentary election Sunday set to deliver a huge majority to President Nicolas Sarkozy. Reeling from the defeat of their presidential candidate Segolene Royal last month, the Socialists, already in a minority in the National Assembly, look set to lose up to half their 149 seats, projections said. Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party and its allies were on course to secure between 383 and 501 of the...

French conservatives were headed for a parliamentary landslide after a first round legislative election on Sunday, bolstering President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to implement wide-ranging reforms. ADVERTISEMENT A jubilant right said voters had decided to give Sarkozy the tools to carry out his pledge to boost growth, cut taxes and slash unemployment, but the left and centrists said a crushing right-wing majority was unhealthy and threatened democracy. Abstention looked set to hit a record of about 39 percent, against just 16 percent in the presidential election, reflecting deep voter fatigue after months of electioneering and a widespread feeling the centre-right was...

Projections after the first round of France's parliamentary elections suggest President Nicolas Sarkozy's party is heading for a landslide. Although most seats will not be decided until next week's second round, polling firms said Mr Sarkozy's UMP party would win at least 383 of the 577 seats. Analysts say a big majority would allow the new president to press ahead with his sweeping economic reforms. Turnout is reported to have reached a record low, at around 61%. That contrasted with a turnout of 84% at the presidential election a month ago. "Many people seem less interested in the parliamentary elections...

Many adults in France will support their governing party in tomorrow’s legislative election, according to a poll by BVA released by Orange. 42 per cent of respondents would vote for the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in the National Assembly ballot, unchanged since late May. In addition, 28 per cent of respondents would back the centre-left Socialist Party (PS), the Left Radical Party (PRG), or the Citizen’s Republican Movement (MRC). The Democratic Movement (MD) is third with eight per cent, followed by the far-right National Front (FN) or the National Republican Movement (MNR) with five per cent. Support is...

President Chirac of France is preparing to throw Europe into confusion and put Britain on the spot by backing moves to keep the European constitution alive if it is rejected in Sunday’s referendum. French diplomats say that M Chirac is expected to urge other countries to proceed with ratification because France does not want to be seen to be blocking the European project. Any attempt to persuade other countries to go ahead will dash the hopes of those in the British Government who believed that a French rejection would make a British referendum unnecessary. British ministers argue that it will...