Tuesday, November 23, 2010

FrancePolitics: Cabinet reshuffle: French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, veers to Christian Democrats

Shay Riley, editor of Booker Rising blog (Nov22,2k10), grabs a note for us from the Financial Times (UK).


France:   
Centrists attack Sarkozy 
for shifting to a more conservative stance 

French centrists ain't feeling French President Nicolas Sarkozy's cabinet reshuffle. From the Financial Times (Britain):  "Earlier in his presidency, Mr Sarkozy was accused of gimmickry by members of his own party for appointing ministers who were young, inexperienced or left-leaning. Now Mr Sarkozy is facing criticism from former allies and opponents alike for reverting to narrow factionalism. Mr [Hervé] Morin [who heads the New Centre party allied to President Sarkozy's center-right UMP party] said the new government looked like 'an RPR election campaign team', a reference to the old Gaullist party of Jacques Chirac, subsumed into the UMP. Jean-Marie Bockel, another ejected minister, said the reshuffle amounted to a 'closing of ranks around one political family in the governing party'. Mr. [Jean-Louis] Borloo [who is the former defense minister] wants to try to rally the various centrist factions with a view to mounting his own presidential bid in 2012." "Mr Sarkozy’s reshuffle could renew old rivalries between the Gaullists and the more [classically] liberal Christian [D]emocrat wing, which in the past have often divided the centre-right and kept it out of the Elysée palace. However, the flip-side of Mr Sarkozy’s rightwing shift is that it may provide greater political clarity ahead of the 2012 election to voters who have been confused by the president’s numerous U-turns and mixed messages."

Mr Riley is himself an astute observer of political spectrums, and spotted this detail regarding the factionalism that persists between the Gaullists and the Christian Democratic wing of the umbrella party, UMP.  Another section of the Christian Democrats never joined under the UMP umbrella, and I'm presently uncertain as to whether they support the Sarkozy govt in the French Parliament.

-- Politicarp

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