Two a penny

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The Clearstream trial, dubbed France trial of the decade, featured a role reversal Tuesday, with French investigating judge, Renaud van Ruymbeke, sitting not on the bench but on the witness stand.

Van Ruymbeke was the judge presiding over the 2001 investigation into a scandal in which French politicians allegedly received kickbacks as a reward for assisting with the sale of French frigates to the Taiwanese government. The money for the kickbacks was supposedly laundered through Clearstream, a Luxembourg-based financial concern.

The judge involvement in the case took an odd turn in 2004, when he became the recipient of the falsified material, which had been sent to him anonymously by Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former vice-president of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company.

&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
&raquo From Ben Barka to Elf, justice turns a blind eye to political elites
The frigate investigation went nowhere, as van Ruymbeke was repeatedly denied access to information. By sending me lists anonymously Gergorin allowed me to verify whether the lists were real or fake, said Van Ruymbeke. .

Contradictory testimony marks trial

The four anonymous letters and a CD-ROM, which the judge received in 2004, contained lists of names of people allegedly holding secret bank accounts with Clearstream.

Judge Ruymbeke dismissed the case in October 2008 because of the lack of information, but his role continues in his capacity as witness. It included Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then jockeying with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to run as their party’s candidate to succeed President Jacques Chirac.

On Monday, key witness General Philippe Rondot appeared in court to discuss his notes, which claim that de Villepin clearly mentioned Sarkozy in connection to Clearstream at a meeting held on January 7, 2004.

The Clearstream trial, which began September 21, has been marked by contradictory testimony.

Clearstream trial – Nicolas Sarkozy
. This, however, contradicts de Villepin statements last week, when he took the stand and flatly denied the notes were an accurate reflection of the conversation

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Freelance journalist Denis Robert is in the witness box Tuesday at the Paris Criminal Court in a trial that has rocked the French political world to its core.

Robert will be questioned on the Clearstream files that came into his possession in 2001, before they were faked to include names of high-profile figures in French politics, including current French President Nicolas Sarkozy , who were accused of taking illegal kickbacks from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.

&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
Robert is accused of having handled stolen information and breach of trust.

Bourges was part of an audit mission looking into the accounts at Clearstream just after Robert had investigated the company for possible money laundering.

Also giving evidence is a former intern at accounting firm Arthur Andersen Florian Bourges , who is accused of stealing the offending list from Clearstream and passing it on to Robert. He was told to keep it to himself.

During the audit Bourget noticed certain anomalies, specifically relating to accounts dated 2016 alongside names of non-existent clients.

At the end of the audit, Bourges kept copies of accounts he had seen, including a list of more than 33,000 accounts which he passed on to Robert.

De Villepin is accused of conspiring to include Sarkozy on the Clearstream list when the two men were vying for their party’s nomination to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac.

The case has exposed bitter acrimony between Dominique de Villepin , a former French prime minister, and current French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

As the trial began on Monday, de Villepin, flanked by his wife and children, insisted that the case was being propelled by Sarkozy’s personal animosity towards him.

Case being ‘propelled by Sarkozy’

De Villepin, who vigorously denies the allegations, faces up to five years in jail and a &euro45,000 fine if convicted. I am here because of the dogged determination of one man, Nicolas Sarkozy.

I am here because of one man’s will, he said upon arriving at court.

I will come out of this a free man and exonerated, he told reporters.

I will come out of this a free man and exonerated, he told reporters.

De Villepin’s lawyer, Henri Leclerc, has asked that the court strip Sarkozy of his status as a civil plaintiff, arguing that his client cannot get a fair trial against a sitting head of state.

President of the Republic as civil plaintiff

Lawyers for both sides are facing off over whether Sarkozy’s involvement in the case is allowed under the French constitution.

But Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, argues that the president is a civil party like any other.

We want to be tried according to fair procedures, Leclerc said on Monday.

Sarkozy insists he only wants the truth to come out.

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 , now the head of the International Monetary Fund. It is high time that we get rid of all of these political manoeuvrings, once and for all. .

Clearstream trial – Dominique de Villepin – France – Nicolas Sarkozy

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AFP – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed confidence Tuesday an agreement would be reached at next week’s G20 summit after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to curb bankers’ bonuses.

I am convinced that there is sufficient common ground for us to reach an agreement at Pittsburgh, Brown told reporters after a working dinner with Sarkozy at the Elysee presidential palace.

The coming week is a vital week for the world economy.

We are in agreement on almost all of the package, Sarkozy said.

Both leaders want greater regulation of the financial sector in the wake of the global financial collapse, but Sarkozy has gone further than the British leader in his calls to clamp down on bankers’ bonuses.

Sarkozy said he spoke by telephone with US President Barack Obama earlier in the day, and he too wants to move things forward.

Pittsburgh must be a success, he said, adding that the September 24-25 meeting in the northeastern US city could be a success for everybody or a failure for everybody. .

We are working on bonuses and how to deal with this problem where high bonuses have appalled everyone across the world.

We are working on financial supervision regulation, Brown said.

European leaders are to meet Thursday in Brussels to coordinate their positions ahead of the next meeting of the Group of 20, the world’s biggest developed and emerging economies.

Sarkozy’s chief of staff, Claude Gueant, warned Monday that the French leader was ready to walk out of the summit if no progress is achieved on curbing bankers’ bonuses.

Bonuses – Gordon Brown – Nicolas Sarkozy

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AFP – French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a panel of the world’s top economists said on Monday that countries need to find ways to measure happiness and well-being alongside raw economic growth.

Welcoming a report that he commissioned from a panel including Nobel Prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, Sarkozy said France would pioneer the new techniques and urge other countries to follow suit.

The experts’ report was released at a time when many economies are beginning to emerge from recession but unemployment is continuing to rise and consumer confidence is still too shaky to drive a strong recovery.

France will fight for all international organisations to modify their statistical methods.

Across the whole world, citizens think that we’re lying to them, that the figures are false and, worse, that they’re being manipulated, Sarkozy warned, calling for a new measure for economic performance.

In February last year, Sarkozy asked Stiglitz — a former White House advisor and World Bank chief economist — and 21 other international experts to find new ways to measure growth taking into account social well-being. France will urge its European partners to set an example and will therefore modify its own systems, he said.

There’s no single number that can capture anything as complex as our society, Stiglitz told in an interview to launch the report.

Currently, growth is measured as a percentage increase or decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is a measure of the value of goods and services generated in a country and has long been seen by many as a crude benchmark.

So what we argue for is the need for an array of carefully-chosen numbers, with a better understanding of the role of each of those numbers.

GDP was originally created as a measure of economic activity but has increasingly become used as a measure of societal well-being.

As an example of how GDP could be misleading as a quality of life index, the report said an increase in fuel consumption would boost growth figures even if it only reflected more unproductive traffic jams and pollution.

The economist said that in the runup to last year’s credit crunch, many world policy makers had sought to follow the American growth model because it had produced impressive GDP increases for the United States. It wasn’t designed for that and it doesn’t measure that, Stiglitz said.

Even if the financial sector were working perfectly, the problem is that Americans’ wealth has been devastated, they’ve been very hard hit, he said. .

One of the first experts to welcome the report was the secretary general of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, Angel Gurria, who said that his body was ready to help create a new array of indicators.

If countries had focused instead on plans to increase the median income of households, they might have protected themselves better from the crisis and improved the general well-being of their populations, the report suggests.

We need better measures of people’s expectations and levels of satisfaction, of how they spend their time .

Economic resources are not all that matter in people lives, he said…

The report recommends GDP growth be used simply to measure market activity and that new systems take into account environmental health, safety and education — what Bhutan already calls its Gross National Happiness. and we need to broaden the range of assets that we consider important to sustain our well-being.

This data should be recorded in such a way as to enable policy makers to evaluate the population’s level of well-being and make plans to increase it.

Countries should publish an annual report, much like a corporation does, and the figures given should include measures of household buying power and of inequality between genders, age groups and social classes, the report said.

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Economic growth – economy – France – Nicolas Sarkozy

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AFP – Supporters of Martine Aubry rigged the vote that saw her defeat former presidential candidate Segolene Royal in the race to lead the French Socialist Party, a new book alleged Wednesday.

Aubry won the November 2008 internal party poll by only 102 votes, and authors Antonin Andre et Karim Rissouli claim they have proof that her team stuffed ballot boxes and forged result slips to the tune of 1,000 votes.

But Royal appeared to be ready to use the claims to revive her own complaints about the election, promising that she would make a solemn declaration on the scandal in the coming days.

Francois Lamy, an Aubry adviser and Socialist lawmaker, dismissed the pair’s book — entitled Hold-ups, cons and betrayals — as without interest and a cut and paste job of things already said and written. We knew there was cheating, but not on this scale and with this level of organisation, Royal said on France 2 television.

I felt a shock when I thought of the thousands of party members who saw their votes stolen.

The gloves are coming off.

Extracts from the book published on the website of the news weekly Le Point recount in detail how on the night of the second round of voting a senior Aubry aide called a local party secretary to order him to rig the contest.

Royal was defeated by Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s 2007 presidential election, after which her Socialist Party fell into bitter infighting. Stuff the ballot boxes, he said, according to the authors’ account.

Aubry was the choice of the party’s old guard to take over the party last year, but Royal has retained the loyalty of many younger activists and still hopes to lead the left into the 2012 election. .

France – Martine Aubry – Socialist Party

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In an interview with major Brazilian newspaper O Globo on Sunday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy put the sale of French fighter jets into the context of developing relations between the two nations. On his way to attend Brazil independence celebrations, the French president told the newspaper that the relationship between Brazil and France is not one of supplier and client, but one of partners. In December, he announced his support for Brazil bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, an elite club of which France is already a member. . At that time, the two leaders also shared strategies on combating illegal gold mining and trafficking in their border region. The previous February, Sarkozy was in Brazil to inaugurate the construction of a bridge to French Guiana. On Thursday, the Senate in Brasilia sealed a 6.

This time, however, Brazil is sending its strongest signal yet of being ready to accept France overtures.

Brazil’s military later approved the acquisition of 36 French-manufactured Rafale fighter jets.1-billion-euro deal in which France will help Brazil build 50 helicopters and a nuclear-propelled submarine. The French aviation firm Dassault said it would let Brazil access decades of technological secrets behind the Rafale. To sweeten its bid and fend off the challenge from competitors, France offered to share highly sensitive military information with Brazil.

However, analysts say that Brazil may not be so interested in developing ties with Paris in particular, but rather more generally with Europe and beyond. Until last month, US bidder Boeing had refused to add a technology package to its proposal. The United States is traditionally Brazil strongest ally. [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel was tremendously well-received in Brazil at the beginning of this year, Christian Girault, a Latin American geopolitics specialist at France National Centre for Scientific Research, told FRANCE 24.

Brazil wants the latest technology, and wants more than anything to be able to build [the fighters] themselves, says them Brazil correspondent Marc Burleigh. But now [Brazil] is looking to diversify its partners&hellip because the economic crisis has dented the prestige of the United States.

France was also eager to sell its jewel fighter jet for financial reasons. Brazil sees itself as a rival to the US politically, economically, and now militarily. Hundreds of Rafales are already in service in the French military. The country had invested close toly 40 billion euros in the plane development, but as yet has not exported a single unit. The French president was accompanied by representatives of a number of other leading French companies, including GDF Suez and Alstom.

Dassault executives were not the only ones hoping to reap the benefits of Sarkozy’s trip. Alstom, which also manufactures high-speed trains, is in the race for a contract to help build a high-speed rail link between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Alstom, which also manufactures high-speed trains, is in the race for a contract to help build a high-speed rail link between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Talk of economic and military cooperation is set against a backdrop of celebrations for the anniversary of Brazil’s independence. As this year’s guest of honour, Sarkozy attended the independence day parade in Brasilia on Monday. The French president is, in fact, returning an honour Lula was present at France Bastille Day festivities back in July.

Brazil – France – independence – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – military – Nicolas Sarkozy

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A French embassy employee detained in Tehran on espionage charges has been released from prison but she will still face prosecution, a statement from the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday.

Sarkozy office greeted the release of French-Iranian national Nazak Afshar with great joy and relief.

&raquo Focus: Is Iran using Reiss as a pawn?

Afshar, employed at the French embassy cultural section, will face prosecution at a mass trial in connection with widespread public protests that erupted in the weeks following the disputed June 12 re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

France has dismissed the charges as baseless and has called for both women release .

A second French national, 24-year-old teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss, remains behind bars, accused of spying and involvement in a Western plot to destabilise the Iranian regime. France criticised Iran for failing to inform its embassy in advance that either woman would be appearing in court, which French authorities say flouted international regulations and the rules of consular protection.

The two women appeared in court on Saturday along with several other detainees.

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A diplomatic source told on Saturday that it was surprising to know Reiss was in the court, saying he had learned it from television only that morning.

Reiss was initially accused of spying for taking a photograph of a demonstration in Isfahan and emailing it to a friend in Tehran. We were not informed previously, he said.

Iran ambassador to France, Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi, told French radio station RFI on Tuesday that the Iranian authorities had offered to let Reiss stay in the French embassy pending her trial if the French government promised she would remain there, but that Paris had declined to respond to the offer. According to Iran state-run IRNA news agency, Reiss admitted in court that she had filed a report on protests in the city of Isfahan at the cultural department of the French embassy in Tehran. We refute them categorically, the ministry said in a statement.

The French foreign ministry denied the allegation, saying that Miraboutalebi comments suggesting the French authorities were not doing everything they could for Reiss release were incorrect.

Presumption of innocence

Miraboutalebi said that France had been told not to publicise Reiss case in the media, and warned against jumping to conclusions before her trial.

Presumption of innocence

Miraboutalebi said that France had been told not to publicise Reiss case in the media, and warned against jumping to conclusions before her trial.

As in France, the Iranian judiciary is totally independent, he added. In other words, they took the place of the Iranian judges.

The EU presidency said the prosecution of the three was an act against the whole European Union .

The EU presidency had joined Britain and France in calling upon the Iranian authorities to release Afshar, Reiss and Hossein Rassam, an Iranian political analyst employed by the British embassy who has been detained since late June. .

Tehran has responded strongly to Western criticism of the mass trial of the detained protesters, vowing to resist what it called foreign intervention in its domestic affairs

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Florence Cassez, a 34-year-old French woman jailed in Mexico for kidnapping, will serve her 60-year sentence in Mexico, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on Monday. Her plea to be repatriated to serve the sentence had been backed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mexico’s ambassador to France, Carlos de Icaza, told them that this was a legal matter, not a political one.. There are no conditions to offer a transfer. Mexican law does not authorise lowering sentences in some cases.. Kidnapping and murder have the same prison sentence in Mexico.

The detainee family and her lawyer claimed that the International Strasbourg Convention, signed by Mexico, would allow Cassez to be transferred to a French jail.

During an earlier official visit, Sarkozy had asked Calderon to consider letting Cassez serve her sentence in France.

Calderon said Monday that the committee had determined that it was impossible to return Cassez to France under the convention. At French insistence, Mexico set up a committee of legal experts from France and Mexico to study the transfer. The victims, including an eight-year-old girl, were being held for ransom.

The Zodiac gang

Cassez was arrested in December 2005, when police launched an assault on a ranch where three people were being held hostage. .

She was caught with her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, whom Mexican justice considers the head of the Zodiac kidnapping gang.

Another gang member arrested on May 5, David Orozco Hernandez, said that the French woman was actually a leader of the Zodiac gang and actively took part in kidnappings and retrieving ransoms. She met him in 2004 while working in a hotel in Mexico, she said, where Israel Vallarta introduced himself as a car salesman.

Several Mexican politicians and the news media have expressed outrage at the prospect of French authorities&rsquo further cutting Cassez jail term, saying it would send a message of leniency to foreign criminals.

Calderon is under popular pressure to crack down on kidnappings, a lucrative activity for criminal gangs in Mexico, where 8,000 people are kidnapped every year.

France – Mexico – Nicolas Sarkozy
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Cassez was initially sentenced to 96 years in jail, but a Mexican appeal court cut her term to 60 years

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AFP – China Monday strongly condemned authorities in Paris for making Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen, saying it was a grave interference in Sino-French ties. .. can only create serious damage to cooperation between Paris and relevant cities in China and has created grave interference in relations between China and France, said a statement faxed to by China’s foreign ministry..

The Paris council decided in March 2008 to make this award out of regard for the Dalai Lama’s qualities and the fight he is leading for dialogue and peace, Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe told guests at the award ceremony.

The Dalai Lama was made an honorary citizen of the French capital on Sunday following a March 2008 decision by the city’s council to award him the title.

The news comes amid shaky relations between China and France.

China had also warned Paris in May not to make more errors on Tibet by conferring the honour on the Dalai Lama.

The two countries have only just patched up ties after French President Nicolas Sarkozy incurred China’s wrath for meeting the Dalai Lama in Poland in December, leading Beijing to cancel a key EU-China summit.

China accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for Tibet — a claim he denies — and regards any official meeting with him as meddling in its internal affairs.

We oppose Paris’ disregard of the Chinese side, express strong dissatisfaction and firmly oppose its determination to grant the Dalai with the so-called title of ‘honorary citizen’, the ministry said Monday.

We ask Paris to stop any acts of interference in China’s internal affairs, to adopt effective measures, immediately rectify its mistake, and avoid going too far on the wrong path, it said.

The Chinese foreign ministry acknowledged in its statement Monday that relations with France had recently improved thanks to efforts on both sides.

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in Dharamsala in India since 1959, when China took full control of Tibet, began a European tour in Denmark last Friday and has also visited Iceland and the Netherlands.

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in Dharamsala in India since 1959, when China took full control of Tibet, began a European tour in Denmark last Friday and has also visited Iceland and the Netherlands

.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has unveiled a 10-year, 35-billion euro ($64 billion) project to transform Paris into a green metropolis.
At the heart of the plan is a 130-kilometre automatic metro line looping around the city, linking a series of new economic and technology centres and more flexible planning laws that would allow as many as 70,000 new housing units a year.
The “Greater Paris” project has been billed as one of the biggest redevelopments of the French capital since the 19th century planning chief Baron Haussmann reshaped the centre into today’s city of broad boulevards. .
“What I’m proposing is certainly ambitious and difficult,” Mr Sarkozy said in a speech.”
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