French-American Foundation Weekly Brief highlights political, economic and cultural news stories related to France and French-American relations as well as trans-Atlantic and European issues.
France
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On Monday, April 30, six days before France is set to vote in runoff elections, Socialist François Hollande led 54 percent to incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 46 percent as Sarkozy, Marine Le Pen, and French labor unions all prepared rallies in Paris to commemorate May Day the next day, Paris Match and Europe 1 reported. Since Hollande edged past Sarkozy in the first round of elections on Sunday, April 22, the two have fought to muster support by debating everything from the economy to the role of the European Union, relations with economic powerhouse Germany and the role of Islam and immigration in France, as covered by the Financial Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, BBC and CNN. Hollande, acknowledging the voting power of the far-right National Front, whose candidate Marine Le Pen took third place in the first round, commented on Friday, April 27, on the need for immigration control and the value of the nation’s ban of the burqa. He also quickly pounced on newly released data showing that French unemployment had increased for the 11th consecutive month, according to Reuters and the AP. NPR explored the possibility that Nicolas Sarkozy could be the latest European leader to exit amid backlash against fiscal conservatism and austerity.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Monday, April 30, that he intends to file a suit against media outlet Mediapart for articles claiming that his 2007 campaign benefitted from €50 million in contributions from the regime of then Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, the New York Times and le Télégramme reported. Prosecutors announced the same day they were launching an investigation into the legitimacy of the reports released on Saturday, April 28, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ouest-France looked at the lawsuits Sarkozy has brought forth against media outlets for disparaging coverage.
French officials called on Colombian FARC rebels to release Romeo Langlois, a freelance reporter from France 24, after Colombian officials announced on Sunday, April 29, that Langlois had suffered a bullet wound and went missing while accompanying a government mission to destroy cocaine labs the day before, CBS and le Courrier International reported. Foreign Minister Alain Juppé said that France would hold the leftist rebel group responsible for the life of Langlois, believed to have been taken hostage by FARC rebels, according to Reuters and le JDD.
Jerome Kerviel’s lawyer announced on Friday, April 27, that the rogue trader would appeal his 2010 three-year sentence for illegal transactions that cost Société Générale €4.9 billion, claiming the financial institution obtained the verdict, which assigned sole responsibility to Kerviel, under false pretenses, the San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters and l’Express reported. Société Générale quickly responded by saying that it would file a countersuit against Kerviel for false accusation, saying the company would further explore such a suit after Kerviel’s appeal begins on June 4, according to Europe 1 and le Point.
United States
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A Commerce Department report released on Friday, April 27, indicated that growth in the U.S. had slowed in the first quarter of 2012, at 2.2 percent down from 3.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, as seen in 20 Minutes and the LA Times. Lower than the expected 2.5 percent growth to GDP, the actual growth was supported by job creation, residential spending and consumer spending, according to le Figaro, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times.
A spokesman for Republican primary candidate Newt Gingrich announced that the former Speaker of the House would end his presidential campaign either Tuesday or Wednesday, May 1 or 2, and is subsequently expected to endorse Mitt Romney as the candidate to face off with incumbent President Barack Obama, la Tribune and CNN reported. After winning five primaries on Tuesday, April 24, the presumed candidate campaigned alongside Senator Kelly Ayotte in her native New Hampshire this week, as the senator is seen as one of the 10-15 potential vice-presidential candidates, according to le Nouvel Observateur, US Today and MSNBC.
President Barack Obama was on the campaign trail this week at universities in three key states, calling on Congress to prevent student loan rates from doubling from 3.4 to 6.8, as they are set to do in July, while the Republican-led House passed legislation that would prevent the rate hike by taking funds from healthcare funds, putting Democrats and Republicans in line for a political showdown, France 24, Europe 1 and the LA Times reported. Despite a previous threat from Obama to veto such a measure, the bill, which passed the House 215-195 on Friday, April 27, with predominantly Republican support, would take $5.9 billion away from healthcare programs, according to the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times.
U.S. officials said that the country faced no specific threat as the one-year anniversary approaches, on Wednesday, May 2, of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy Seals. This operation was the subject of campaign quarrels led President Barack Obama who questionned whether Mitt Romney would have been prepared to send special operations forces into Pakistan to seek the notorious figure, CNN, the Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor reported. In celebrating the success in ridding the world of the terrorist mastermind, the White House released new documents on Monday, April 30, showing that bin Laden had been concerned about the continued existence of his terrorist organization, showing he had even considered changing the name of al Qaeda, according to le Monde and le Nouvel Observateur.
Business & Economics
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Standard & Poor’s downgraded the sovereign-debt credit rating of Spain from A to BBB+ on Thursday, April 26, the day before the troubled nation’s statistics office reported that unemployment for the first quarter of 2012 had reached 24.4 percent, its highest level in 18 years, AFP and Bloomberg reported. The continued difficulty brought the Euro Zone under greater tension, but the news was not as catastrophic as was expected, as the downgrade had already been reflected in investor fears about Spain well before, as covered by the Wall Street Journal. As the nation officially entered a recession on Monday, April 30, as it did in 2009, Spanish leaders insisted that bailout funds would not be required as it would emerge from its economic plight through continued austerity, according to Libération and the Christian Science Monitor.
Spain’s return to recession, as well as uncertainty leading up to elections in both France and Greece, drove the Euro to a two-week low, dropping to $1.3251 on Monday, April 30, down from $1.3258 on Friday, April 27, the Economic Times and Reuters reported. European markets, as well as those across the globe, stalled early in the week as investors await news from a European Central Bank meeting on Thursday, May 3, at which monetary policy for May will be announced. Also causing concern are the upcoming elections in Greece, which could determine that nation’s compliance with the austerity measures put in place to bring the nation back from financial ruin, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel risks losing her principal European ally if polls showing Socialist François Hollande ahead of President Nicolas Sarkozy prove true, according to the Washington Post and le Point.
Both Barclays and Credit Suisse were confronted with shareholder discontent over executive remuneration as both financial institutions held their annual shareholder meetings on Friday, April 27, Reuters and la Tribune reported. As hecklers protested outside Barclays’ meeting in London, 27 percent of the shareholders, up from six percent last year, voted against the proposed compensation package for Chief Executive Bob Diamond, which was eventually approved at $28.7 million in pay, bonus and deferred shares for 2011. 21 percent of shareholders voted to oust Alison Carnwath, who heads the bank’s bonus-determining committee, according to the Washington Post and le Monde. A week after shareholders of Citigroup voted against a compensation package for its executives, 31.6 percent of shareholders for Credit Suisse voted against the proposed executive pay for that company on Friday.
The International Labor Organization released its annual “World of Work” report on Monday, April 30, warning that unemployment across the globe would reach 202 million people, up 6 percent from 2011, le Monde reported. The work cited the austerity movement sweeping the globe in the wake of the financial crisis starting in 2008, which the ILO said has failed to spur growth and create job opportunities. The report speculated that unemployment would continue to grow to 207 million in 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal and les Echos.
International
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Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was found guilty by an international tribunal of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sierra Leone during the nation’s civil war between 1996 and 2002, making him the first head of state to be convicted of such crimes since the Nuremberg Trials following World War II, le Nouvel Observateur and the New York Times reported. The Atlantic and Libération explored the particularity of this case, in which Taylor was convicted of “aiding and abetting” such crimes in a nation neighboring his own and for crimes he encouraged in his own nation years before, while looking at the political implications of the first conviction of a head of state in more than a half century.
Famed Chinese dissident figure Chen Guangcheng escaped house arrest last week before calling, on Friday, April 27, for an investigation into abuse he claimed his family and he experienced while under house arrest. This as the emblematic blind lawyer was reported to be in hiding at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, according to CNN, NPR and the Christian Science Monitor. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to China for a pre-scheduled economic summit of the world’s two largest economies, the case has overshadowed these bilateral efforts as Clinton and President Barack Obama have called for greater human rights in a markedly vague response to the events, according to AFP and the New York Times.
A politically tense week for China, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, April 25, that Bo Xilai, a former head of the Communist Party in Chongqing, had been involved in a wiretapping scheme that reached as high as President Hu Jintao. This after being dismissed in March as his wife, Gu Kailai, was under investigation in the suspected murder of a British businessman, le Figaro and BBC reported. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao used Bo’s departure as an opportunity to call for reforms, such as Western-style liberalization and an end to corruption, according to the Washington Post and le Monde.
Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, April 28, that an investigation had not determined who was responsible for four explosions the day before in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk that left at least 30 injured, as political factions debated whether the attacks were terrorist actions or were related to the imprisonment of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko for abuse of power, the Washington Post, la Croix and RFI reported. As the Euro 2012 soccer cup is set to be held in Poland and Ukraine in six weeks, uncertainty about the nation grew even more. The European Union had already expressed concern about the incarceration of Tymoshenko, who started a hunger strike April 20, claiming she had been mistreated in prison, as covered by AFP and Bloomberg.
The day after Norwegian General Robert Mood arrived in Syria to assume his duties as head of the United Nations military observer mission there, at least three suicide bombings hit the northwestern city of Idlib on Monday, April 30, killing at least 20 people, predominantly security forces, le Nouvel Observateur and le Parisien reported. These attacks came after two others left about 10 dead in Damascus on Friday, April 27, and a series of attacks over the weekend caused 70 deaths, according to the LA Times. As the movement against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad shifts toward suicide bombings, the Christian Science Monitor explored the adoption of jihadist tact