Now we know the shape of Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet. Several key changes catch the eye, among them some influential allies of Brown – while ten of the 23 members of the final Blair Cabinet have either resigned, or been demoted/sacked. As expected, Brown’s replacement as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) is Alistair Darling, [...]

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Tony Blair formally resigned as UK Prime Minister earlier today, before the Queen invited Gordon Brown to begin forming a new government. Prime Minister Brown entered 10 Downing Street shortly afterwards (more on that to come €¦). Blair’s last act as Prime Minister was to face his final “Prime Minister’s Questions” in the House of [...]

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According to Anne Applebaum, the changes in leadership in Central and Eastern Europe, and in France and Germany, have led to a flipping of feelings toward America. Donald Rumsfeld’s”Old Europe” has seen conservatives Angela Merkel elected in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy elected in France, both with stronger American pro-American orientations than their predecessors. And now [...]

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The Prime Minister office just issued a recommendation inviting employees of the various French Ministries not to use BlackBerries anymore. The reason is national security: informations exchanged between French officials could be intercepted by the Americans through the NSA, which has infrastructures in the UK. Most of the people working for government, or at least [...]

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According to a study conducted by the private consulting firm Hay Groupe and published in the french newspaper”La Tribune”,”golden parachutes” of French CEOs when they leave their position are the highest in Europe even if their income levels are in the European average. According to the study, French CEOs would”double their basic salary and yearly [...]

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The new French government has been announced this morning, after the results of the second round of parliamentary elections. It is now composed of 15 Ministers and 16 Secretaries of state, among which 11 women and 3 representatives of”visible minorities” (and these last 3 are women by the way). In terms of political balance, you [...]

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It is a measure of how low expectations have sunk that France’s Socialist Party (PS) is celebrating after winning scarcely more than a third of the seats in the country’s newly elected National Assembly. Pollsters had been forecasting electoral oblivion; instead, the PS merely received a drubbing at the hands of President Sarkozy’s victorious UMP. [...]

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It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The resurgent Conservative Party under David Cameron sensed that Tony Blair’s departure from office was a huge opportunity. With Gordon Brown taking over as Prime Minister when Blair resigns on 27 June, they argued, the Labour government would be pulled further to the left, away from the political [...]

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The second and final round of French parliamentary elections took place yesterday, and results are interesting : if, as expected, Sarkozy’s party (UMP) got a clear majority within the Parliament, the Socialists got a rather good result compared to the gloomy projections  of one week ago. The President Party got 314 seats, the Socialists 185 [...]

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The first round of French parliamentary elections took place yesterday: an abstention rate close  to 40%, which means  the lowest participation since 1958 for this kind of election. So apparently, people did not feel  as concerned by this vote as they did early May when they elected Nicolas Sarkozy as new President with a 85% [...]

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