Two a penny

.France’s ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin assailed President Nicolas Sarkozy as he went on trial for charges of plotting to smear his arch-rival and torpedo his bid for the presidency.
“I am here as a result of one man’s will.
“I will come out of this a free man and exonerated,” Mr de Villepin told reporters before entering the courtroom where in 1793 Marie Antoinette was sentenced to the guillotine. I am here as a result of the dogged determination of one man, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also President of the French republic,” he said as he arrived at the Paris court with his wife and children.”
The ex-prime minister and foreign minister faces charges of conspiring to defame Mr Sarkozy in 2004 when the pair were in a fierce battle to win their right-wing party’s nomination and succeed President Jacques Chirac. “I know that truth will prevail.
One name on the bogus list was that of Mr Sarkozy, then France’s ambitious finance minister who suspected Mr de Villepin, Mr Chirac’s chosen heir, of planning to use the fake document to wreck his presidential bid.
The case centres on a list – later found to have been fabricated – of account holders at the Clearstream financial clearing house in Luxembourg who allegedly took bribes from the sale of French warships to Taiwan.
The suave career diplomat whose stirring speech against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 drew applause at the United Nations is accused of complicity in defamation and using forgeries, dealing in stolen property and breach of trust.
The 55-year-old Mr de Villepin, who denies any wrongdoing, faces up to five years in jail and a 45,000-euro fine if convicted.
Mr de Villepin’s lawyers went on the offensive at the outset of the hearings, asking the court to strip Mr Sarkozy of his status as a civil plaintiff to ensure their client gets a fair trial.
Dubbed France’s political trial of the decade, the judicial drama features a who’s who of big names in French politics, industry and intelligence circles, beginning with Mr Sarkozy, who is a civil plaintiff in the case.
Mr Sarkozy registered as a plaintiff in 2006 to gain access to the case files and secure his right to seek damages, as have 39 others including Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund.
“We want to be tried through a fair procedure,” said defence lawyer Henri Leclerc.
“We’ll see in light of the testimony and hearings whether or not Nicolas Sarkozy has hijacked this case,” Mr Herzog told reporters.
Representing Mr Sarkozy, who was not present at the trial, lawyer Thierry Herzog argued that the president had a constitutional right to launch legal action and that he had done so openly.
The Clearstream trial has become a new clash between Mr de Villepin and Mr Sarkozy, whose mutual hatred is legendary in French political circles. .
Judges are expected to take several months to reach a verdict after the trial ends on October 23.
Mr de Villepin is scheduled to take the stand next week.
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AFP – Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin goes on trial Monday for allegedly plotting a smear campaign against President Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s most politically-charged case in years.

Dubbed the trial of the decade, the judicial drama features a cast of powerful players in politics, industry and intelligence circles, beginning with Sarkozy, who is a civil plaintiff in the case.

More on Clearstream

&raquo Special Report on France&#039s trial of the decade
&raquo Who&#039s who in the trial
&raquo How a finance trial turned into a major political scandal
&raquo A glossary of terms in the Clearstream saga

A suave diplomat best remembered for leading the charge against the Iraq war at the United Nations, Villepin is accused of conspiring to slander Sarkozy at a time when the pair were waging a vicious battle to succeed Jacques Chirac as president.

One name on the bogus list was that of Sarkozy, then Chirac’s ambitious finance and interior minister, who suspects the president’s chosen heir Villepin of using the list to try to torpedo his bid for the presidency.

The case dates back to 2004 and centres on a list — later proved to have been fabricated — of account holders at the Clearstream financial clearing house who allegedly received kickbacks from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan.

The trial is shaping up as a showdown between the two men, whose mutual hatred is legendary in French political circles.

Villepin, 55, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and maintains that the case would have never gone to trial had it not been for Sarkozy’s meddling in the judicial process.

But it will also cast light on the murky dealings of French intelligence and of one of the world’s top aerospace companies, EADS.

Also on trial are management consultant Florian Bourges, accused of stealing Clearstream documents, and journalist Denis Robert, who broke the story.

A former EADS vice president and Villepin ally, Jean-Louis Gergorin is also on trial as is the former head of an EADS research center, Imad Lahoud, who has reportedly confessed to falsifying the list.

In the weeks leading up to the trial, Villepin has waged a media offensive, accusing Sarkozy of being a bit twisted for insisting that the Clearstream affair was a plot to sabotage his bid for the presidency.

Villepin faces up to five years in jail and a 45,000-euro (66,000-dollar) fine if convicted of complicity in slander, complicity in the use of forgeries, dealing in stolen property and breach of trust.

Some day, he will have to explain his relentlessness, Villepin said last week.

Sarkozy reportedly vowed to hang up whoever did this on a butcher’s hook. This is not without consequences for the office of president, on the human and political level. This is not without consequences for the office of president, on the human and political level. .

General Philippe Rondot, a former intelligence official whose notes — seized by investigators — detail secret meetings that appear to incriminate Villepin, is to testify in early October.

This is the trial of an era, said Robert, the investigative journalist among the five defendants.

Villepin himself is expected to take the stand next week, defending himself in the exact Paris courtroom where Marie Antoinette was sentenced to the guillotine in 1793.

We see that inside domestic intelligence circles there was a rift between those who were loyal to Villepin and those who were close to Sarkozy, he told AFP.

It is the trial of a kind of French political practice, where spooks and the powers that be use the legal system as a political tool.

The hearings at the Paris criminal court are scheduled to run until October 23.

Villepin’s trial comes five years after another prime minister, Alain Juppe, was convicted of corruption in an illegal party financing scheme and given a 14-month suspended sentence and a one-year ban on holding public office.

Clearstream trial – Dominique de Villepin – France – Nicolas Sarkozy

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&raquo Hosni is opposed to the barbaric acts perpetrated by Israel, not to the Israeli people who want to live in peace with their neighbours – Ahmed Gamal el-Din Mohammed, communications worker, Cairo
Reuters – Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who said last year he would burn Israeli books, won a comfortable lead in the first round of voting in UNESCO election of a new director-general on Thursday.

Hosni bid for the United Nations culture agency top post has stirred a political storm, with accusations of anti-Semitism and press censorship in Egypt.

With 22 votes out of 57 expressed, he did not carry the majority needed to win in the first round so voting will go to a second round on Friday.

The Bulgarian candidate Irina Gueorguieva Bokova finished second with eight votes. There was one abstention.

All nine candidates are allowed to run in the second, third and fourth rounds but if it goes to a fifth round there must only be two. Austrian EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and the Russian and Ecuadorean candidates got seven votes each.

There is no clear cut candidate tonight so there will be a second round tomorrow, said UNESCO spokeswoman Sue Williams.

Apology

If we don&rsquot bring in the Muslim world, it will be understood as a signal against them, and that will be difficult for us, Sishir Das, a member of the Malaysian delegation, told Reuters in the UNESCO foyer.

Earlier on Thursday at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, backers hailed Hosni as a man of peace who would improve ties with Muslim countries.

Asked last year about Israeli books in Egyptian libraries, Hosni was quoted as telling a member of parliament: Let burn these books if there are any, I will burn them myself before you. He has never been controversial, he has always been considered a man of peace.

Other activists have since piled into the row, accusing Hosni of colluding in censorship and violation of press freedom in Egypt, and pressuring UNESCO members not to vote for him.

Hosni this year apologised for the comment and some prominent activists such as French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld have accepted his regrets and supported him.

Hosni is culture minister in a country that doesn&rsquot respect freedom of speech, Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary-general of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, told Reuters.

Hosni is culture minister in a country that doesn&rsquot respect freedom of speech, Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary-general of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, told Reuters. UNESCO declined to comment on the case.

Egypt delegation at UNESCO said Hosni would not comment until after the vote.N.

Horse-trading

The outcry creates a difficult situation for governments who like to use top U.

France is backing Egypt, a key ally in its drive for a Mediterranean Union. posts in diplomatic horse-trading.

The United States is reportedly working behind the scenes to prevent Hosni from winning the vote. Other European countries such as Germany have refrained from taking sides. .

A painter who has served as culture minister for two decades, Hosni was long viewed as a front-runner.

In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but it has resisted warmer relations.

In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but it has resisted warmer relations.

anti-Semitism – Egypt – elections – UNESCO

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AFP – An Algerian jailed for life for links to a wave of bomb attacks on the Paris metro that killed eight people in 1995 appeared in a French court on Wednesday to appeal his conviction. .

The most spectacular attack was on the Saint-Michel station in the heart of the capital that left eight people dead and 150 injured.

He is fighting a 2007 ruling that concluded he acted for the militant Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in funding three attacks on metro stations in which 200 people were also injured.

If he had something to say he would have said it in the first trial, Mireille Glorion, whose 24-year-old daughter Sandrine died in the Saint-Michel attack, said before the hearing began. The others, on the Musee d’Orsay and Maison-Blanche metro stations, left dozens injured.

Ramda was extradited from Britain in December 2005 after a 10-year legal battle.

He’s a manipulator and we could well have done without a second trial that is going to plunge us all back into this drama, she said.

Ramda, who will turn 40 on September 29, denies any connection with the bombings, for which two other men — Boualem Bensaid and Ait Ali Belkacem — are serving life sentences. He had already been sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by a separate French court on other charges related to the bombings.

In the latest appeal trial, his defence lawyers are expected to again argue that Algerian secret services manipulated events and set French investigators on false trails for domestic political reasons.

He was convicted in 2007 of channelling funds from London to the two perpetrators of the bomb plot, based on evidence that included a bank payment slip bearing his fingerprints.

Ramda’s lawyers have also said they will ask for testimony from Jean-Louis Debre, who was France’s defence minister at the time of the metro bombings.

Algeria in the 1990s was in the throes of a brutal conflict, sparked by scrapped elections in 1992, that pitted Islamists against government forces and killed tens of thousands.

In 1993 Ramda was sentenced to death in absentia in Algiers after being convicted of a bomb attack on the city’s airport which killed nine people the year before.

Investigators believe that in the early 1990s Ramda was a leading GIA operative in Europe, in regular touch with the group’s leader in Algeria Jamel Zeitouni who wished to punish France for its support of the Algiers government.

His supporters argued against his extradition to France on the grounds that he might be unlawfully sent back to Algeria to face the death penalty, which the French authorities denied.

He fled to Britain where he was kept under surveillance and was arrested in November 1995, but he evaded extradition for many years through a series of legal appeals.

His appeal trial is expected to last a month.

The delays were a source of friction between Britain and France, which accused the government in London of taking a soft line on Islamist terrorism.

France – justice – Paris

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AFP – A French court on Tuesday blocked a decision to allow a Qatari prince to modernise a pristine 17th-century mansion, one of the gems of historic Paris, a lawyer for a residents’ group said.

Locals went to court to block the work by Prince Abdullah Bin Abdullah Al-Thani, brother of Qatar’s emir, who bought the Hotel Lambert on the Ile Saint Louis, an island on the River Seine and a UNESCO heritage site, in 2007.

Built in the 1640s at the eastern tip of the island, not far from Notre Dame Cathedral, the Hotel Lambert was designed for a rich financier by the architect Louis Vau, who went on to oversee a major expansion of the Chateau de Versailles for Louis XIV.

The judge agreed to suspend the permit given to the prince in June by the culture ministry to turn the delapidated mansion into a family residence, said Michel Huet, lawyer for the Paris Historique association fighting the plans.

Prince Abdullah acquired the hotel from the Rothschild banking family for some 60 million euros (86 million dollars) in 2007, and with his son Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani commissioned French architects to restore and convert it.

Rich with history, the mansion’s uses over the years ranged from a hideaway for the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire and his lover, to a political headquarters for Polish exiles in the following century.

But even then, critics feared the proposals — which still involved destroying a staircase, putting in new elevators and an underground car park — would wreck one of Paris’ best-preserved mansions.

His plans for the building were watered down after months of talks between the French state, Paris city hall and heritage defence groups before approval was granted in June. .

Tuesday’s ruling does not challenge the restoration part of the prince’s plans, which plans for key rooms to be renovated in keeping with the original, but it blocks the wider 40-million-euro plan to modernise the building.

But it is still considered one of the finest examples of mid-17th-century domestic French architecture, complete with mural paintings by Charles Le Brun and other masters of the day.

France – French culture – justice – UNESCO

.Former Tour de France green jersey winner Baden Cooke is aiming to give fresh impetus to his once blossoming career after signing a one-year deal with Team Saxo Bank.
Cooke, 30, raced alongside fellow Australian Brad McGee at Francaise des Jeux for four years but suffered misfortune when moving to the Unibet team in 2006, which folded after two years.
Saxo Bank, the team of Swiss ace Fabian Cancellara and Luxembourg’s famous Schleck brothers Andy and Frank, have a good record of helping get the best out of the riders whether young or old. I believe the team can make him develop to a new level and I have no doubt that he would be a definite benefit to our troupe for the (one-day) classics.
And team owner Bjarne Riis said: “Baden Cooke is a very exciting rider.”
McGee is now a sporting director with the team following his retirement last year.
“He comes with very warm recommendations from Bradley McGee, and I am convinced that he is going to fit perfectly into the team.
After moving from Unibet to Barloworld for the 2008 season, Cooke signed for Belgian outfit Vacansoleil for 2009.
“Throughout the years I have seen good colleagues become even better and decidedly take a great leap in their careers after a switch to Team Saxo Bank, and I hope I can do the same and enjoy the power and inspiration which is on the team,” he said.
But he belives that joining Saxo Bank, considered one of the most professional teams in the peloton, can bring the best out of him yet. .
“Bradley (McGee) knows me better than anyone within the sport and it is thanks to him I now get the chance to becoming a part of Team Saxo Bank.”
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“I still believe that I have my best years ahead of me

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Some 23 employees at France Telecom have committed suicide in the past 18 months.

On Friday, a 32-year-old worker threw herself to her death from her office window. Two days earlier another employee attempted suicide after hearing he was being downgraded to a position of less responsibility.

On Saturday, Darcos said factors at work that have an impact on mental health must be better dealt with, adding that he will be sending the government’s chief work inspector to France Telecom’s next health and safety committee meeting.

French Employment Minister Xavier Darcos is due to meet France Telecoms’s CEO Didier Lombard on Tuesday to discuss the issue. .

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde also called for an emergency meeting of France Telecom’s board of directors. There needs to be a strong message sent out to all the employees, followed by specific instructions across the hierarchy so that these issues can be taken properly into account.

And Didier Lombard said Thursday that negotiations would begin with unions on stress issues at France Telecom, and said 100 new human resources employees would be recruited so that management could be closer to employee issues.

France Telecom’s human resources director Olivier Barberot has acknowledged that the organisation’s restructuring programme had led to employees suffering.

Unions have lambasted the company’s obsession with profits and called for radical solutions to prevent further suicides.

Unions fired up

The latest suicide has fired up unions, who called over the weekend for the state, which remains a major shareholder in the organisation, to take greater responsibility for France Telecom’s employees.

The issue of restructuring, which unions blame for employee discontent, remains unresolved.

France Telecom is undergoing a huge restructuring programme in order to keep pace in an increasingly competitive internet and mobile communications market.

Olivier Barberot, in an article for the Journal de Dimanche Sunday newspaper, said that halting the restructuring programme was unimaginable, while promising to improve support measures for those employees who lose their positions.

Olivier Barberot, in an article for the Journal de Dimanche Sunday newspaper, said that halting the restructuring programme was unimaginable, while promising to improve support measures for those employees who lose their positions.

France – suicide – telecommunication – Xavier Darcos

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy attended a ceremony on Friday to honour two French soldiers killed in an explosion last week in Afghanistan. The ceremony took place at the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment headquarters at Vannes in Brittany.

The second soldier died of wounds at a US military base in Germany, two days after the attack.

One of the soldiers was killed and nine others seriously injured when a roadside bomb exploded during a reconnaissance mission north of the Afghan capital Kabul last Friday. .

The latest death brings to 31 the total number of French soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

Afghanistan – France – French military – Nicolas Sarkozy – Taliban
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More foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year than in any other since US forces ousted the Taliban from Kabul following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States

.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched plans for a carbon tax to encourage industry and households to cut energy consumption.
The levy, initially set at 17 euros ($29) per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, will translate into a rise in the price of fuel for cars, domestic heating and factories.
“The gravest challenge that we face is climate change.. .
In the works for months, the tax has caused a political furore in France, with disagreements within the ruling party on how exactly it would work and objections from opposition critics who say it will hurt the poor at a time of economic hardship. Every one of our compatriots must feel concerned,” Mr Sarkozy said in a televised speech aimed at winning over a sceptical public.
The government has been under suspicion of seeking ways to increase its revenues in a year when fiscal income has plunged as a result of the recession, causing the budget deficit to balloon.
Those households too poor to pay income tax would receive “green cheques” from the state to compensate them for higher energy bills.
Mr Sarkozy rejected that criticism, pledging that the carbon levy would not increase the burden on households because the rise in fuel bills would be offset by cuts in income tax. An opinion poll by Ifop for the magazine Paris Match, published this week, found that 65 per cent of people were hostile to the tax.
Mr Sarkozy faces an uphill battle to convince voters to accept the plan.
The system will differentiate between people who live in urban areas with good public transport and those who live in rural areas and are more dependent on cars.
“The aim of ecological fiscal policy is not to fill state coffers but to incite French people and companies to change their behaviour,” Mr Sarkozy said, adding that households that keep energy consumption low could end up better off financially. The rural households will get more money back from the state, he said. The rural households will get more money back from the state, he said. Mr Sarkozy argued that with 80 per cent of electricity produced in France coming from nuclear plants which have low emissions, it would make no sense to increase the price of power.
A notable exception will be electricity.
Starting at 17 euros per tonne of CO2, the tax will rise over time, Mr Sarkozy said, though he did not say by how much or by when.
“What would be the point of, on the one hand, encouraging French people to acquire electric cars or solar panels and on the other hand to tax them more for those?” he said.
Some Nordic countries introduced similar carbon taxes in the 1990s and have reported that the measures helped cut emissions without crippling growth. It will be introduced in the 2010 budget, he said.
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. France will be the biggest European economy so far to adopt such a system

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AFP – The upcoming trial of former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin took a new twist Sunday with fresh revelations that the top politician knowingly plotted to smear President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Villepin goes on trial on September 21 on charges of conspiring to slander Sarkozy in the so-called Clearstream affair, a complex case dating back to 2004 when the two men were locked in a bitter rivalry for the French presidency.

The former prime minister and foreign minister, who led the charge against the US invasion war of Iraq at the United Nations, has denied any wrongdoing and struck back, accusing Sarkozy of meddling.

Lahoud told French investigators in December that he had added Sarkozy’s name to a bogus list of Clearstream account holders who had allegedly received kickbacks from arms sales to Taiwan, the Journal du Dimanche reported.

But a leading newspaper at the weekend quoted an affidavit from a key defendant, Imad Lahoud, as saying that Villepin was behind the conspiracy targeting Sarkozy.

Lahoud said he knew that Villepin was in contact with former EADS vice president Jean-Louis Gergorin, a key player in the scandal who has admitted to leaking the false Clearstream list to investigators in 2004.

By doing this, I was contributing to sidelining Nicolas Sarkozy, Lahoud, a former employee of European aerospace giant EADS, told investigators, according to the report.

I knew that Jean-Louis Gergorin was in contact with Dominique de Villepin and that the conspiracy against Nicolas Sarkozy was planned with Dominique de Villepin’s knowledge, said Lahoud.

It is rather odd to take such interest in the testimony of a man who often changes his story, Metzner said.

Responding to the revelations described as a small bombshell by the newspaper, Villepin’s lawyer Olivier Metzner noted that Lahoud’s deposition took place in December, a month after the case was closed and sent to trial.

If convicted, Villepin faces a sentence of up to five years in jail.

The trial before a Paris criminal court is shaping up as a clash between Sarkozy loyalists and supporters of Villepin, who was former president Jacques Chirac’s protege — within France’s ruling right-wing UMP party. Sarkozy is a civil plaintiff in the case.

In the runup to his trial, Villepin has floated the idea of challenging Sarkozy for the party nomination for the 2012 presidential vote and has become one of his most vocal opponents. .

Villepin, Lahoud, Gergorin and two other defendants are to stand trial in the case, with hearing scheduled to last until October 21