Poland and France to the polls

There are two elections taking place in Europe today.

Across the Channel,the French socialists are voting for who will stand against Nicholas Sarkozy in next year's presidential election.

Frontrunner,Francois Hollande whose former wife and Presidential candidate last time round,Segolene Royal,appears to be going head to head with Martine Aubry, daughter of former European Commission chief and architect of the Euro Jacques Delors.

The socialists have not been in the Elysee palace since 1992 and were dealt a blow eralier in the summer when the man considered to be the favourite Dominic Strauss Khan was found in an uncompromising poistion in a New York Hotel.

Opinion polls suggest Hollande, a witty if unexciting party veteran who has never been a government minister, will not only win the primary but is sufficiently popular to defeat Sarkozy by a comfortable margin if the two face off in the presidential battle next April.

Meanwhile in Poland,one of the few countrys to actually register growth in the European community, Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist and pro-EU party in the lead, but facing a tough challenge from Law and Justice, the conservative and nationalistic party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Kaczynski is a former Prime Minister and brother of Lech who, died in a plane crash in Russia in 2010 along with 95 other people.

He has repeatedly pinned the blame on Tusk amd the Russians for that crash.

Voters in this country of 38 million will elect 460 lawmakers to the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, and 100 to the Senate.

How French soldiers were used as guinea pigs

A fascinating piece in the Times yesterday by Charles Bremner in which he reveals how French soldiers were subjected to nuclear testing and the effects of radiation

Several hundred young conscripts were used as guinea-pigs in the "Green Desert Rat" test in 1961, said the report, quoted by Le Parisien and Agence France-Presse. They were told to dig foxholes a few miles from the blast. After it, men with little protection advanced on foot to within a few hundred yards of its explosion point and armoured vehicles stopped at 300 yards. "It appeared from the results that at 800 yards from point zero and outside the fall-out zone, the combatant was physically able to continue fighting,"

Is France turning back the clock to 68?

I have been living full-time in Paris for the past four years and reporting from the city for nearly 20. I have, therefore, become accustomed to frequent street protests. But I have never seen anything quite like the anger that has been building up during demonstrations over the past few months against the government of Nicolas Sarkozy. The most recent of these was a protest I attended in Montparnasse on 14 May, which was led by hospital staff angry at proposed health service reforms.

Andrew Hussey writes in the New Statesman and worries that a repeat of May 1968 may be on the way.

2009 may also have its own version of Danny the Red

Olivier Besancenot, a 35-year-old postman from the outskirts of Paris. Besancenot’s boyish good looks, fashionable clothes and fluently easy manner on television have made him the nation’s favourite revolutionary. Until February of this year, he was a leading figure in the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (the LCR, or Revolutionary Communist League). In what is now looking like a very smart piece of PR, the LCR was then dissolved, re-emerging as the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA, or New Anti-Capitalist Party), a much broader coalition, formed with the aim of contesting the European parliamentary elections in early June.

Mandelson harks back to the macro management days

Peter Mandelson's interview in this morning's FT throws up the fact that the business secretary is impressed with the French industrial policy.

Talking to Peggy Hollinger after meeting business leaders in Paris he says that

“We have something to learn from continental practice without falling into the pitfalls of second-guessing business,”

adding that France

was better at “setting strategic goals and objectives”, as it had done in the energy sector by promoting nuclear power, in transport by creating the infrastructure for high-speed trains and in the aerospace industry.

This is bound to open up the debate that Mandelson will try to revert to a policy of greater state intervention in the economy,maybe even along the lines of macro management.

Lazy French days

Oh to be in France

Charles Bremner describes the situation that Nicholas Sarkozy is up againstwhen trying to instill a work ethic on the French people.Remember that he was elected on the promise of getting the workforce to work longer hours

President Sarkozy may preach the doctrine of "working more to earn more", but his country has seized the chance to enjoy what the headline in le Parisien newspaper called "Five days of happiness". The long spring break has been made possible by the lucky timing of two public holidays for the nation that already enjoys more vacation days than any other. Last Thursday, May 8, was the holiday marking victory in World War Two and today is Pentecost (Whitsun in Britain). Friday was supposed to be a working day but schools in the Paris area and many other regions stayed shut -- so people took the day off, enjoying what is known as le pont, or bridge.
Many even managed nearly 10 days because there was another unofficial pont on Friday May 2, after the May Day holiday fell on a Thursday. Half of France either took that Friday or last Friday or both, according to a poll.

As Charles points out

Each unofficial day off costs the economy about 1.8 billion euros, according to the experts. If France worked as much as the British, they would add about one percent to gross domestic product, they say