The final first-round votes have been announced by the Constitutional Court of Senegal, confirming a second round vote between incumbent Abdoulaye Wade and former prime minister Macky Sall, as predicted in recent days.
Daily Archives: March 1, 2012
Make that the Camerkozy campaign
Just three months ago, the video shown above from yet another EU summit set tongues wagging on both sides of the English Channel: was French President Nicolas Sarkozy so angry with UK Prime Minister David Cameron that he’d brush past his outstretched hand?
Cameron had just exercised the United Kingdom’s first-ever veto of a European Union fiscal treaty that would have brought the EU countries into greater fiscal policy alignment (presumably toward more austerity, as favored by Cameron, Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel). Although the remaining 26 EU countries signed up to a “compact” of the EU countries (sans the UK), the exercise of the veto was very much in keeping with the UK’s longtime role as Europe’s most stubborn citizen, much to the anguish of Sarkozy and the rest of Europe.
So it may be surprising to see that Cameron did not meet with frontrunning Parti socialiste presidential candidate François Hollande during his trip to London this week, and even more surprising to read Cameron’s very pro-Sarkozy statements to Le Figaro last week, in which Cameron made clear that he is strongly supporting Sarkozy’s reelection bid, with an endorsement that’s very nearly as strong as the endorsement Merkel provided earlier in February: Continue reading Make that the Camerkozy campaign
Hollande in Paris-on-the-Thames
Frecnh presidential frontrunner François Hollande went to London yesterday, campaigning in a city with som many French residents that it’s often called Paris-on-the-Thames. A clip from The Guardian above shows Hollande meeting with the UK Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband at King’s College, London.
Traditionally, most French voters based in the UK have been based in London and, in particular, the City of London, home to London’s financial industry, one of the world’s centers of global finance. With over 400,000 French residents, it is home to more French citizens than all but Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, and typically, those French voters have leaned to the right.
But that may be changing. With a more subdued financial industry and ever-closer links across Europe, French citizens in London these days are less likely to be global bankers than everyday people studying, teaching or working outside the City. Continue reading Hollande in Paris-on-the-Thames