Like all former French presidents, 57-year-old Sarkozy, whose fondness for the symbols of wealth led to him being nicknamed President Bling Bling, is to receive Euros 6,000 every month as "pension".

The new president has presented himself as a socialist who wants to change the course of the country away from the influence of the rich elite. He does, however, have quite a few obstacles in his path, the most apparent being that of Germany and the European Commission, which remind Mr. Hollande that the austerity measures are part of binding contracts to which France must adhere and that he has no option but to follow them.

François Hollande hasn’t even been sworn into office and already he’s backpeddling on his campaign promises. Here’s the story from Reuters:

“France’s Socialist president-elect Francois Hollande may use a summer audit of state finances to water down his generous campaign promises rather than risk a backlash from financial markets against stubbornly high deficits and rising debt.

Advisers say he could even freeze some spending if the review turns up any nasty surprises, soothing investors who are worried he has become the figurehead for a fight against German-imposed austerity in the euro zone.” (“France’s Hollande may roll back spending promises”, Reuters)

Raising the spectre of a Greek exit, the German chancellor said “solidarity for the euro” was threatened by the ongoing political crisis in Athens.

Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil. The FTSE-100 index of Britain’s major companies fell by two per cent to 5465, with bank shares hit particularly hard.

The cost of Spanish government borrowing also hit a record high since the single currency was introduced because of concerns that the crisis will spread.

Today, François Hollande, the new French president, will be sworn in and, in an indication of the concern gripping Europe, will almost immediately travel to Berlin to hold talks with Mrs Merkel that will be dominated by Greece’s plight.

When I returned last week to a grey, cold, rainswept Heathrow, after a brief visit to Australia on rather sad family business, I naturally wanted to know what had been going on while I was away. It hardly said much for our democracy that Boris Johnson should have owed his “triumphant” re-election as Mayor to the support of just 16.8 per cent of those Londoners eligible to vote – while Labour owed its “victory” in council elections to just 12 per cent of the potential voters. The Greek and French election results heralded another sharp downward lurch in the slow-motion collapse of the euro.

Nicolas Sarkozy could face questioning in a raft of party financing and corruption cases when he leaves the Elysée next week and loses his presidential immunity.

France's new president Francois Hollande has made a thinly-veiled attack on David Cameron by claiming Britain treats Europe 'like a self-service restaurant'.

The new Socialist president-elect made his aggressive position towards the UK clear while outlining plans for his first meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron.

The German government on Monday ruled out reworking the European Union’s fiscal pact despite calls to do so by French president-elect Francois Hollande.

“It is not possible to renegotiate the fiscal pact,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference.

He noted that 25 of the 27 EU member states had already signed the accord imposing strict budgetary discipline in March after major wrangling.

France's presidential election has Wall Street and the global markets worried – and for good reason. The election of Socialist party leader Francois Hollande to France's top job this coming Sunday would introduce an air of instability into the global economy at a time when it desperately needs a steady hand.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had agreed to fund French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign – to the tune of 50 million euro, a new report says.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

And look at what Ghaddafi and Libyans got in return from Sarkozy

Dominique Strauss-Kahn accuses enemies linked to Nicolas Sarkozy of destroying bid for French presidency

In the heat of France's presidential election campaign, the French government insisted Thursday that if the European Union didn't back its tougher line to fight illegal immigration it would lead to the demise of the continent's borderless travel zone.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said many of the EU nations back the principle of a Franco-German proposal that includes a reintroduction of national border controls for a month, if a country is faced with a sudden surge of illegal immigration.

6. Hollande says he will renegotiate your favorite fiscal pact to produce more growth. Tell him that you, too, are in favor of that. The Germans are not masochists!

Air France demanded to know the religion of a passenger on a flight from Nice to Tel Aviv and removed her because she is not a Jew.

The 15 April incident, confirmed by an Air France official, may violate international and European law by subjecting prospective passengers to illegal religious discrimination...

Just imagine if a country demanded that Air France question passengers about their religion in order to exclude Jews. And imagine if Air France willingly complied.

How could an unemployed auto body worker who was on welfare have paid for the guns, much less a 2010 trip that saw him visit Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly other Middle Eastern nations? Even for the petty criminal Merah appears to have been, plane tickets, housing and food would have been a small fortune. France’s newspaper of record, Le Monde, has called this a “gray area” which needs further investigation.

How could the brother of a man accused in 2007 of smuggling Islamic jihadists into Iraq get the necessary visas to visit these hotspots? Merah was even on the FBI’s no-fly list in the United States.

Following a sweep of arrests of suspected Islamic militants, French President Nicolas Sarkozy compared the fatal attack outside a Jewish school in Toulouse to the trauma of 9/11.

The trauma was “very deep in our country,” said Sarkozy, who is facing an uphill reelection battle. He added that it was “a bit like the trauma that followed in the U.S. and New York after 9?11.”

I hope and pray that the Toulouse ‘s murder won’t be repeated. But I know too well that this won’t happen as long as Israel continues to murder Palestinians, torment them, steal their land, and narrow their horizons.

The Israeli Yet (Hebrew edition) published a few hours ago an interview with retired Israeli police commissioner, Major General Assaf Hefetz. Hefez is highly critical of the French police’s recent operation in Toulouse. According to the Israeli Major General, the French waited for too long (32 hours). He contends that the French police should have been more assertive and far more aggressive. I hope that you have a hard stomach to read how Israel would handle a similar situation.

They should have implemented the ‘pressure cooker tactics’ says Hefetz-

“massive fire at the walls of the house, throwing grenades around the building followed by bulldozer erasure of the building walls till the suspect turns himself.”

But, as everyone should know by now, few, if any, Western presidents and prime ministers are elected on the basis of genuine public opinion, even if people like Sarkozy allow themselves that delusion. In reality, elections are all about spin, and the spin is provided by wealthy lobbying groups, organisations and individuals who have a vested interest in seeing a particular type of candidate prevail.

Speaking in a press conference straight after the end of the siege in Toulouse, the French president said anyone regularly visiting websites "justifying terrorism" or "preaching hatred and violence" would be prosecuted.

Israeli press reported this evening that French gunman Mohamed Merah had been on a trip to Israel in the past.

According to the report, Merah's passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is unknown. Israeli analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or preparing for a terror attack.

However, I won’t rule out the possibility that Merah was actually trained by Israeli forces. Marah may have conducted a false flag operation. By way of deception is, after all, the Mossad’s motto.

The recent horror in southern France where 3 Jewish children were gunned down in front of their school has brought to light a zionist attitude that Jewish blood is more valuable than anyone else’s.
*
I stated on Tuesday; Tragedy has once again struck as innocent children were gunned down outside their school in southern France. When ANY innocent person is murdered it is a tragedy, no matter where, no matter when, especially if the victim is a child.
My post can be read HERE
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The same can be said about the torture and violence Palestinian children face in Israeli prisons, if these kids were Jewish it would be headline news throughout the world…..

Paris: Just a few weeks ago, Mohamed Merah partied at a nightclub, and an acquaintance noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Another friend said the former car body shop worker liked to talk about "cars, bikes, girls and sports”.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Merah had been to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and had carried out his killings in revenge for French military involvement abroad.

In Pakistan, an intelligence official who declined to be identified said Merah had never been arrested there. "We have no information about him," the Pakistani official said.

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy was criticised yesterday for comparing the killing of three children and a rabbi in a shooting attack in France to the situation in Gaza.

At the “Palestine refugees in the changing Middle East” conference in Brussels, Baroness Ashton, described the murders in Toulouse as a “terrible tragedy”, but she then added: “When we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives.”

Seemingly some prominent Jewish and Israeli leaders couldn’t agree less. For them Jewish suffering exceeds all other suffering and Palestinian’s in particular.

A 50-year mystery over the 'cursed bread' of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.

At the moment, the man, who has been identified as Mohammed Merah, 24, a French citizen of Algerian origin, resident in Toulouse, is shut in a flat surrounded by the police special forces.

Bruce Friedman, a former Los Angeles man charged with running a $200 million real estate investment fraud scheme, died in a French prison while appealing his extradition, an official said Tuesday.

Thirteen French officers have been captured by Syrian forces according to the Lebanon-based Daily Star newspaper, the first mainstream media outlet to report on rumours of Western troops on the ground.

The Constitutional Court of France has repealed a law criminalizing denial of the so-called "Armenian genocide", which was adopted by the country's Senate.

During the assault on the rebel stronghold in the Homs district of Bab Amr, the Syrian army took more than 1,500 prisoners, mostly foreigners. Of these, a dozen French nationals requested the status of prisoner of war, refusing to give their identity, rank and unit of assignment. One of them is a Colonel working for the DGSE transmission service.

I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.

"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war -- what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"

"In war? How?"

France suspended its training operations in Afghanistan and threatened to withdraw its entire force from the country early, after an Afghan wearing an army uniform shot and killed four French troops Friday and wounded others.

The French parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee published an unprecedented report two weeks ago accusing Israel of implementing "apartheid" policies in its allocation of water resources in the West Bank.

Palestine solidarity activists staged protests on Christmas Eve at Lacoste clothing stores in several French cities to protest the censorship and expulsion of Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from a prestigious art competition sponsored by the French luxury clothing firm.

The scandal led last week to the cancelation of the 2011 Lacoste Elysée Prize by the Musée de L’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland.

At actions in Paris, Lyon, Lille and Bordeaux, activists picketed stores, handed out flyers and told Christmas shoppers about Lacoste’s censorship, calling on them to boycott the company. Protestors held signs and prints of Sansour’s censored work and called out slogans condemning Lacoste’s “racism” against Palestinians.

Turkey has recalled it ambassador from Paris in protest at a French bill making the denial of the Armenian genocide a criminal offence. France's lower house of parliament approved the bill, which makes it a crime to deny the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Turkish Ottoman forces amounted to a genocide during World War I.

Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah denied on Monday any role in an attack which wounded five French U.N. peacekeepers last week, a day after France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe blamed Syria and Hezbollah for the bombing.

France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Sunday Paris believed Syria was behind attacks on its troops in Lebanon last week.

Ratings agency Egan-Jones on Wednesday cut its rating on debt issued by the Republic of France by one notch, citing a 21 percent increase in the country's debt in the last two fiscal years, which it called a "disastrous trend."

The Seven Step Mainstream Media Country Destruction Guide

1. First, they start by targeting a country ripe for “Regime Change”, and brand it a “rogue state”; then...

2. They arm, train, finance local terrorist groups through CIA, MI6, Mossad, Al-Qaeda (a CIA operation), drug cartels (often CIA operations) and call them “freedom fighters”; then...

3. As mock UN Security Council Resolutions are staged that rain death and destruction upon millions of civilians, they call it “UN sanctions to protect civilians”; then...

4. They spread flagrant lies through their “newsrooms” and paid journalists, and call it "the international community’s concerns expressed by prestigious spokespeople and analysts…” then…

The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said today that "it is as a Jew" he had " participated in the political adventure in Libya ", in the first National Convention organized by the Representative Council of Jewish Organizations de France (CRIF). "I wore my flag in fidelity to my name and my loyalty to Zionism and Israel," he said. CRIF held in Paris its first national convention, entitled "Tomorrow the Jews of France", with the participation of Many intellectuals, political scientists, sociologists and researchers.

On Monday, 14 November 2011, the French Consul in the Gaza Strip, Majdi Jameel Yaseen Shaqqoura, 44, and his two children were wounded in an Israeli attack on the Palestinian Navy site in the southwest of Beit Lahia, located in northern Gaza. They were in their home when they were injured by shrapnel. Additionally, as a result of the same attack the consul’s wife suffered from hemorrhage that led to a miscarriage.

Reports that Germany and France have begun talks to break up the eurozone amid fears that Italy will be too big to rescue.

France apparently is the first country to officially recognise the Palestinian Occupied Territories as a nation. This is definitely an indication that Palestine will soon be recognised as a State.

“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama during a frank exchange where the U.S. president took him to task for backing a Palestinian request for membership of the UN cultural heritage agency UNESCO, Haaretz reported.

...

Obama reportedly responded: “You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day.”