Laura said:I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.
What is known about Hollande, his cronies, history?
Dirty tricks have always played a part in French presidential debates. In the legendary encounter between Valerie Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterand, VGE tied to put off his challenger by repeatedly dropping references to the town where the President kept his not-so-secret mistress; Mitterand in turn put a folder on the table in front of him with 'diamonds' written on it and tapped it from time to time, suggesting he had material to share about VGE's involvement in the Bokassa diamond scandal. It later transpired the file was empty, a stage prop.
Last night there was a bit of that. François Hollande mentioned Mme Bettencourt, which was a way of reminding people of charges that she funded Nicolas Sarkozy's past campaigns. And they discussed Dominique Strauss Kahn, the spectacular affair that overturned French politics last year and cleared the way for M Hollande's candidacy. Mr Sarkozy suggested that Mr Hollande knew about DSK's private life; he was Pontiius Pilate for washing his hands of it. "You had information, I didn't," Mr Hollande shot back. Sarko's smile said he knew this was rubbish, but chose to let it go. The potential for damage on both sides is considerable.
But why was Sarko smiling? Perhaps he was thinking about a current source of gossip among French politicians and journalists that hasn't made the front pages, namely the birthday party on Saturday night for socialist bigwig Julien Dray at the J'Ose (I dare) nightclub. It has lots of spicy elements, not least that the venue is a former clip joint in the Rue St Denis, the capital's historic red light district, and is surrounded by sex shops. It helps too that Mr Dray was the subject of a judicial inquiry into alleged embezzlement. But the detail that has everyone chortling and the socialists reddening is an unwise encounter between Mr Hollande's campaign team, who were there in force, and none other than DSK, now a socialist pariah and a source of constant embarrassment to the French left. Segolene Royal, who was there, walked out when she heard that DSK was in the room. She has described him as 'undesirable' and an 'insult to women'. But others weren't so smart: Manuel Valls, Mr Hollande's communications chief, and Pierre Moscovici, Mr Hollande's campaign director who is tipped as a possible future foreign minister, have tied themselves in knots trying to explain whether or not they chatted to DSK. The charge is they spoke to him at length, which raises questions about propriety given that DSK is the subject of various legal procedures. There's also a lot of indignant steam on the right about the number of left wing journalists who were there (given the incestuous relations between journalists and Camp Sarko, that's a bit overdone).
Of course, little of this will make big headlines. And it's come too late. Last night's debate looks to have sealed the deal for Mr Hollande who, it should be stressed, wasn't there. But at the very least it tells us that the DSK business continues to trouble the socialists, and could still come and cause the future president difficulties.
Adaryn said:Laura said:I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.
What is known about Hollande, his cronies, history?
Pro-zionist/Israel, pro-intervention in Libya. Probably like a French white Obama. He was chosen in a hurry by default to replace DSK, who had been appointed by the PTB to become the new president but was taken out due to being a perv. Hollande promised the immediate withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan - let's just see what he does. Even if he's "sincere", he won't be able to do much anyway, since presidents are just puppets of the real power elite in Bruxelles. To his credit, he "seems" more human than Sarkozy, which is not difficult.
Let's see if Sarko really removes himself from political life as he "promised" he would if he lost.
"Francois Hollande, if elected, will commit to a new law on sexual harassment being written up and registered as quickly as possible in the parliamentary agenda."
What did they know?
Some hard questions for France’s elite after Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest
NEARLY two weeks after Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest in New York on charges of attempted rape and sexual assault, the French are still reeling. Talk about the scandal fills the airwaves and front pages, and not only because it disqualifies from next year’s presidential election the man who many thought would win. The affair, and reactions to it, raise awkward questions about French attitudes to class, women, justice and the political elite.
Everybody knew, but nobody said anything. This appears to be what the torrent of commentary amounts to. The argument is complex, not least because although Mr Strauss-Kahn’s womanising in Paris was legendary, he has been publicly accused of sexual aggression only once: by Tristane Banon, a writer, who said she had to fight him off on the floor when she went to interview him in 2002. She did not press charges at the time, and her lawyer says she will not do so, for now.
What has emerged is a portrait of a political culture in which seduction bordering on harassment is rife. “Sexual harassment is not accepted in the workplace in France—except in politics,” says a former colleague of Mr Strauss-Kahn. “Powerful male politicians put the women they work with under immense pressure.” Cosy ties between politicians and journalists, who—like Mr Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair, an ex-television presenter—often marry each other, contribute to an attitude among the elite that their sophisticated mores can police themselves. Privacy laws, and implicit threats of retribution, prop up the culture of self-censorship. Few harassment claims against politicians reach court.
Yet if Mr Strauss-Kahn’s encounters did overstep the line, the media were not the only complicit party. Fingers are being pointed at the Socialist Party itself. “What exactly did Socialist leaders know about DSK’s private life?” asked Libération, a leftish newspaper, in a damning editorial. Anne Mansouret, Ms Banon’s mother and herself a Socialist politician, said this week that François Hollande, an ex-party boss, knew about the assault and even comforted her daughter at the time. Mr Hollande, a strong runner for the Socialist presidential nomination, replied that he had “no knowledge” of the gravity of the charges.
Yet it stretches credulity for the party to say that it had no inkling. Ms Mansouret now says that she regrets advising her daughter at the time not to press charges. In 2008 another Socialist politician, Aurélie Filippetti, declared that she had decided never to be in a closed room with Mr Strauss-Kahn after he hit on her in a “heavy-handed” way. This week Le Monde reported that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s team had compiled documentary evidence of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s activities. “Everyone turned a blind eye,” says one Socialist who knows him well, “because he was a dream candidate.”
On the left in particular, there seems to be a prevailing code under which to refuse sexual advances, even when unwelcome, is somehow bourgeois. Many grandees reacted to Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest with horror, not at the accusations, but at the humiliation of an untried powerful figure. Bernard-Henri Lévy, a philosopher who once defended Roman Polanski’s right not to be jailed in America for unlawful sex with a minor, railed against the judge who “pretended to take [DSK] for a subject of justice like any other”. “Nobody died,” snorted Jack Lang, a Socialist ex-culture minister. Few had a good word for the hotel maid; some treated her claims with equal disdain. One left-wing editor, Jean-François Kahn, even dismissed the encounter as a “troussage de domestique”, a reference to an aristocratic entitlement to extract sexual favours from domestic staff. All this leaves the troubling impression of an elite that believes itself exempt from ordinary rules (although both Mr Lang and Mr Kahn apologised for their comments).
In protest, a set of women’s groups organised a weekend march, with banners declaring “We are all chambermaids”. “Sexism in France is prevalent, and rape cases are underreported,” says Linda Ramoul, one of the organisers. “The political elite is totally disconnected.” The business also plays into the hands of Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, who has been one of the few to insist on a “presumption of sincerity” for the chambermaid, and who has railed against the “complicit silence” of the elite about Mr Strauss-Kahn’s “pathological” behaviour.
Could the DSK affair change such attitudes? Possibly, but do not bet on it. This week two ex-employees filed charges of sexual harassment against Georges Tron, a junior minister in Mr Sarkozy’s government; Mr Tron called the allegations “nonsense”. It remains to be seen if the claims go anywhere, but they do not help the right. As it is, Mr Sarkozy has not enjoyed a bounce in the aftermath of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. Polls had suggested the president would have struggled against Mr Strauss-Kahn. Now they say that against either Mr Hollande or Martine Aubry, the Socialists’ leader, he would fare little better.
Gawan said:Adaryn said:Laura said:I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.
What is known about Hollande, his cronies, history?
Pro-zionist/Israel, pro-intervention in Libya. Probably like a French white Obama. He was chosen in a hurry by default to replace DSK, who had been appointed by the PTB to become the new president but was taken out due to being a perv. Hollande promised the immediate withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan - let's just see what he does. Even if he's "sincere", he won't be able to do much anyway, since presidents are just puppets of the real power elite in Bruxelles. To his credit, he "seems" more human than Sarkozy, which is not difficult.
Let's see if Sarko really removes himself from political life as he "promised" he would if he lost.
Let's watch him closely, short time ago the sex harassment law was dropped, where Hollande claimed:
"Francois Hollande, if elected, will commit to a new law on sexual harassment being written up and registered as quickly as possible in the parliamentary agenda."
And maybe Sarko is already packing for a cloister :P?
Pashalis said:somehow I have the feeling that the work of you guys on SOTT and others may have played a role in the non election of Sarkozy now.
maybe the PTB found it to risky to put him again into office after what we and others have discovered and distributed about his false flag ...
just thinking out loud....
Adaryn said:Laura said:I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.
What is known about Hollande, his cronies, history?
Pro-zionist/Israel, pro-intervention in Libya. Probably like a French white Obama.
Gawan said:Let's watch him closely, short time ago the sex harassment law was dropped, where Hollande claimed:
"Francois Hollande, if elected, will commit to a new law on sexual harassment being written up and registered as quickly as possible in the parliamentary agenda."
And maybe Sarko is already packing for a cloister :P?