Chirac in crisis talks after crushing defeat | Guardian

[Ediacara]

Chirac in crisis talks after crushing defeat
Policy changes, full-scale cabinet reshuffle and new prime minister on the cards in France

Jon Henley in Paris
Tuesday March 30, 2004
The Guardian

Jacques Chirac was in crisis talks with his key advisers yesterday as the French right struggled to absorb an electoral hammering as crushing as the landslide that swept it to power two years ago.

The president's office said Mr Chirac was "working on decisions he will take over the next few days", thought certain to include big policy changes and a full-scale cabinet reshuffle likely to cost the prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, his job.

"Can Raffarin manage to cling on after such a monumental debacle?" asked a leading commentator, Marie-Eve Malouines. "Can he push ahead with the government's planned reforms? Above all, can Chirac afford not to unceremoniously ditch his prime minister and call a halt to the reforms?"

More at the Guardian

[rpannier]

1. Regardless...

of his stance on the war, I prefer the Socialists.

[burrowowl]

2. Amen

Chirac is bit fascist around the edges.

[minkyboodle]

3. agreed

[burrowowl]

8. He is a corporatist whore

and is under investigation!
He is not Le Pen, but a more sophicated version version there of and VGE got whopped in Auvergne.
Granted I have a soft spot for good old Arlette.
I love when my sister (a Democrat) tells people my sister is a Socalist! (but only by default, I'm actually an anarchist in the true sense, if all adult are responsible humanist and liken to JC, Buddha, Ghandi, MLK, etc., we don't need no ARCHY.)

[lerenard]

5. Could you elaborate?

Why? Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's attempted reforms were to try to save social security and get the budget deficit under control. I think the deficit is projected to rise to 7% in a few years, way above the 3% mandated by the EU. The reforms proved unpopular, obviously, but aren't they needed? In what way do you think the Socialist would do a better job of it?

[burrowowl]

9. Would you believe

that the same corporate-type interests (like Thomson weapons divisions, though state-owned) bleed the French economy like our militaro-industrial complex. And in the mid-80's workers, engineers, professionals (under Mitterand too) were bitching about Thomson, in general, liking financial instruments better than actuall investment in machine tools and manufacturing (Satre in L'Espit around late 60's spoke about Multi-national Corps becoming more powerful than governments).

[peterh]

4. ditto

:P

oops...should've been a reply to #1

[seemslikeadream]

6. bush and Chirac

[burrowowl]

7. WoW!

Valery Giscard D'Estaing defeated in Auvergne and Brittany goes LEFT!
The Outre-mer or territories in the Carribean go very Left!
YES! Corsica still a bit up in the air. The cartoon in Le Monde with Alsace being the only saving factor for Chirac's party (UDF) and I love the socialist wave (rose petals) washing out Chirac's sand castle.
Voter turn out was around 65% as compared to the first round of 62%.
The metropolitan area 50,1% compared to 40,3%. Chirac is warned that he should lay off compromising what we would call entitlements, like Social Security, etc.
From the Le Monde link in the Guardian article.