French Minister's Ambitions ring alarm-bells in the Elysée

[Flagg]

FRENCH MINISTER'S AMBITIONS RING ALARM-BELLS IN THE ELYSEE


PARIS, Jan 14 (AFP) - He is France's most popular politician; he is permanently in the public eye parading his roster of successes as minister of the interior; he is young, able and ambitious. But Nicolas Sarkozy has one problem: he is on collision course with the president.
On Wednesday French newspapers chose as their story of the day the ill-concealed state of warfare that has broken out between Jacques Chirac and the man who would replace him.
"Sarkozy lays siege to the Elysee," ran the front page of the left-wing Liberation. "Why Sarkozy is doing all he can to get himself fired," blazoned the popular daily Le Parisien, while the pro-government Le Figaro asked: "Is Sarkozy going too far?"
At the heart of the mounting tension lies the 49 year-old minister's manifest desire to take over at the next presidential elections in 2007.
http://www.ttc.org/pa40115a.htm

[mobuto]

1. Sarkozy is a nut

He's the French John Ashcroft, only without the charm. The one positive in my book is that he's opposed by xenophobes and racists for being of Hungarian descent.

I guess his status as outsider has led to one important realization: that France cannot simply ignore its racial divide. He has come out in favor of Affirmative Action to combat the ever-present but rarely talked about racial discrimination.