Nicolas Sarkozy

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à La Mutualité

La chronique de Laurent Gerra devant Nicolas Sarkozy (réalisation Gaya Bécaud)

Eurozone Enters 2013 Amid Tensions Between France, Germany

UMP - Réaction de JF Copé suite au rejet des comptes de campagne de Nicolas Sarkozy

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à la Concorde

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy au Trocadéro

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à Longjumeau

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à Clermont-Ferrand

Interview de Nicolas Sarkozy, 29/01/2012

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33rd G8 summit
The 33rd G8 summit took place at Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm in the old Duchy of Mecklenburg in the Northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on the Baltic Coast. The group of eight leaders met together from 6 to 8 June 2007. The locations of previous G8 summits to have been hosted by Germany include: Bonn (1978, 1985); Munich (1992) and Cologne (1999).
The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally included in summits since 1981. The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.

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35th G8 summit
The 35th G8 summit took place in the city of L'Aquila, Abruzzo, on July 8–10, 2009. It was moved from the Sardinian seaside city of La Maddalena as part of an attempt to redistribute disaster funds after the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake.
The locations of previous summits to have been hosted by Italy include: Venice (1980); Venice (1987); Naples (1994) and Genoa (2001). The G8 Summit has evolved beyond being a gathering of world political leaders. The event has become an occasion for a wide variety of non-governmental organizations, activists and civic groups to congregate and discuss a multitude of issues. The Iranian government has made a formal complaint to the Italian government about "violent suppression of justice-seeking protesters by the Italian police." The G8 is developed in the military Academy of the Guardia di Finanza.
The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally invited to summits since 1981 and participates in all but political discussion and talks. The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.

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Ajaccio
Coordinates: 41°55′36″N 8°44′13″E / 41.9267°N 8.7369°E / 41.9267; 8.7369
Ajaccio (Latin: Adiacium; French: Ajaccio, [aʒaksjo]; Corsican: Aiacciu [aˈjattʃu]; Italian: Ajaccio, [aˈjattʃo]), is a commune on the island of Corsica in France. It is the capital and largest city of the region of Corsica and the prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud.
The geopolitical arrangements of the commune are slightly different from those typical of Corsica and France. Usually an arrondissement includes cantons and a canton includes one to several communes including the chef-lieu, "chief place", from which the canton takes its name. The city of Ajaccio is one commune, but it contains six cantons, Cantons 1–6, and a fraction of Canton 7. The latter contains five other communes: Bastelicaccia, Alata, Afa, Appietto and Villanova, making a total of six communes for the seven cantons of Ajaccio.
Each canton contains a certain number of quartiers, "quarters". Cantons 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 are located along the Gulf of Ajaccio from west to east, while 4 and 5 are a little further up the valleys of the Gravona and the Prunelli Rivers. These political divisions subdivide the population of Ajaccio into units that can be more democratically served but they do not give a true picture of the size of Ajaccio. In general language, "greater Ajaccio" includes about 100,000 people with all the medical, educational, utility and transportational facilities of a big city. Up until World War II it was still possible to regard the city as being a settlement of narrow streets localized to some part of the harbor or the Gulf of Ajaccio; such bucolic descriptions do not fit the city of today, and travellogues intended for mountain or coastal recreational areas do not generally apply to Corsica's few big cities.

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Argenteuil
Coordinates: 48°57′00″N 2°15′00″E / 48.9500°N 2.2500°E / 48.9500; 2.2500
Argenteuil (French pronunciation: [aʁʒɑ̃tœj]) is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 12.3 km (7.6 mi) from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil.
Argenteuil is the second most populous commune in the suburbs of Paris (after Boulogne-Billancourt) and the most populous one in the Val-d'Oise department, although it is not its prefecture, which is shared between the communes of Cergy and Pontoise.
The name Argenteuil is recorded for the first time in a royal charter of 697 as Argentoialum, from a Latin/Gaulish root argento meaning "silver", "silvery", "shiny", perhaps in reference to the gleaming surface of the river Seine, on the banks of which Argenteuil is located, and from a Celtic suffix -ialo meaning "clearing, glade" or "place of".
Argenteuil was founded as a convent in the 7th century (→ Pierre Abélard, Convent of Argenteuil). The monastery that arose from the convent was destroyed during the French Revolution.

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Belgium
Belgium (ⁱ/ˈbɛldʒəm/ BEL-jəm), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish (about 60%), and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons (about 40%), plus a small group of German-speakers. Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.

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Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

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Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42°45′N 25°30′E / 42.75°N 25.5°E / 42.75; 25.5
Bulgaria ⁱ/bʌlˈɡɛəriə/ (Bulgarian: България, IPA: [bɤ̞ɫˈɡarijɐ]), is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
Prehistoric cultures began developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history was marked by the presence of the Thracians, and later by the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian ethnicity and state dates back to the First Bulgarian Empire, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five hundred years. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 resulted in the Third Bulgarian State, recognised in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections. After 1990 Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.

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Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival (French: Le Festival International du Film de Cannes or just Festival de Cannes), is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is the world's most prestigious and publicized film festival. The invitation-only festival is held annually (usually in May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.
The 2012 Cannes Film Festival took place from May 16 to May 27, 2012. The President of the Jury was the Italian film director Nanni Moretti.
The Cannes Film Festival has its origins in the late 1930s when Jean Zay, the French Minister of National Education, on the proposal of Philippe Erlanger and with the support of the British and Americans,^{[clarification needed]} set up an international cinematographic festival. In 1947, the festival was held as the "Festival du film de Cannes", where films from sixteen countries were presented. Moreover, the principle of equality was introduced, so that the jury was to be made up only of one representative per country. Also, this year the festival was held at the made-for-the-occasion Palais des Festivals, although the roof was unfinished and blew off during a storm. The festival was not held in 1948 and 1950 on account of budgetary problems. In 1951, owing to better relations between France and Italy, the Cannes Festival was moved to Spring, while the Mostra remained in Autumn.

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Columbia university
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is an American private Ivy League research university located in New York City, New York, United States. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the university operates seven Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Santiago and Nairobi.
The university was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. After the American Revolutionary War, King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. The University now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees, and in 1896 it was further renamed Columbia University. That same year, the university's campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its location in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (0.13 km²). The university encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.

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France
France (English ⁱ/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km² (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km² / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.

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Gaza
Gaza (Arabic: غزة‎ Ġazzah, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈɣazːa]), also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories. Inhabited since at least the 15th-century BCE, Gaza has been dominated by several different peoples and empires throughout its history. The Philistines made it a part of their pentapolis after the Ancient Egyptians had ruled it for nearly 350 years. Under the Romans and later the Byzantines, Gaza experienced relative peace and its port flourished. In 635 CE, it became the first city in Palestine to be conquered by the Rashidun army and quickly developed into a centre of Islamic law. However, by the time the Crusaders invaded the city in the late 11th-century, it was in ruins. In later centuries, Gaza experienced several hardships—from Mongol raids to floods and locusts, reducing it to a village by the 16th-century when it was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. During the first half of Ottoman rule, the Ridwan dynasty controlled Gaza and under them the city went through an age of great commerce and peace.

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Italy
Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

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La Courneuve
Coordinates: 48°55′56″N 2°23′48″E / 48.9322°N 2.3967°E / 48.9322; 2.3967
La Courneuve is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 8.3 km (5.2 mi) from the center of Paris.
The history of La Courneuve begins as the rest of the region with the invasion of European tribes and the eventual conquering of the area by the Romans. During the Middle Ages, the area was like many small villages. With its proximity to Paris, the area became a fashionable country destination, with a number of gentry residing there and two notable châteaux, Sainte-Foi and Poitronville. Towards the end of Napoleon's reign, the entire area experienced large population growth. This along with improved methods of farming eventually transformed the area into the major legume producer for the Paris region.
In 1863, the first major industrial enterprise was introduced and the area soon became a strange mix of factories and farmlands. Industrial estates were juxtaposed against bean plantations and that would continue until after World War II.

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Libya
Libya (Arabic: ‏ليبيا‎ Lībyā), Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the third largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
As a result of the Libyan civil war, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in existence for 34 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by a transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.

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MILAN
MILAN (French: Missile d´infanterie léger antichar; English: Anti-Tank Light Infantry Missile, "milan(e)" is French and German for "kite bird") is a European anti-tank guided missile. Design of the MILAN started in 1962. It was ready for trials in 1971, and was accepted for service in 1972. It is a wire guided SACLOS (Semi-Automatic Command to Line-Of-Sight) missile, which means the sight of the launch unit has to be aimed at the target to guide the missile. The MILAN can be equipped with a MIRA thermal sight, to give it night-firing ability.
MILAN is a French and German missile that has been license-built by Italy, Spain, Britain and India. As it is guided by wire by an operator, this missile can avoid most countermeasures (flares and chaffs). The drawbacks are its short range, the exposure of the operator, and that it requires a skilled and well-trained operator.
The later MILAN models have tandem HEAT warheads. This was done to keep pace with developments in Soviet Armour technology. Soviet tanks began to appear with explosive reactive armor, which could defeat earlier ATGMs. The smaller precursor HEAT warhead penetrates and detonates the ERA tiles, paving the way for the main HEAT warhead to penetrate the armor behind.

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NATO
Coordinates: 50°52′34.16″N 4°25′19.24″E / 50.8761556°N 4.4220111°E / 50.8761556; 4.4220111
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.

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Paris
Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508
Paris (ⁱ/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). As of January 2008 the city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297 and a metropolitan population of 12,089,098, and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the International Chamber of Commerce or the European Space Agency. Paris is considered one of the greenest and most liveable cities in Europe. It is also one of the most expensive.

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Riyadh
Riyadh (/rɨˈjɑːd/; Arabic: الرياض‎ transliterated Ar Riyāḍ pronounced [ʔɑrːiˈjɑːdˤ], English: The Gardens) is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to 5,254,560 people, and the urban center of a region with a population of close to 7 million people. The city is divided into 15 municipal districts, managed by Riyadh Municipality headed by the mayor of Riyadh, and the Riyadh Development Authority, chaired by the Governor of Riyadh Province, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz. The current mayor of Riyadh is Abdul Aziz ibn Ayyaf Al-Miqrin, appointed in 1998. Riyadh has the largest female university in the world, the Princess Nora bint Abdulrahman University.. It has been designated as Beta World City.
During the Pre-Islamic era, the settlement at the site was called Hajr (Arabic: حجر‎), and was reportedly founded by the tribe of Banu Hanifa. Hajr served as the capital of the province of Al Yamamah, whose governors were responsible for most of central and eastern Arabia during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras. Al-Yamamah broke away from the Abbasid Empire in 866 and the area fell under the rule of the Ukhaydhirites, who moved the capital from Hajr to nearby Al Kharj. The city then went into a long period of decline. In the 14th century North African traveller Ibn Battuta wrote of his visit to Hajr, describing it as "the main city of Al-Yamamah, and its name is Hajr". Ibn Battuta goes on to describe it as a city of canals and trees with most of its inhabitants belonging to Bani Hanifa, and reports that he continued on with their leader to Mecca to perform the Hajj.

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Spain
Spain (ⁱ/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España, pronounced: [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 square kilometres (194,610 sq mi), it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France, and the fourth largest country in Europe after Russia, Ukraine and France.

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Strasbourg
Strasbourg (French pronunciation: [stʁazbuʁ]; Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking, explaining the city's Germanic name. In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 638,670 inhabitants in 2006, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (aire urbaine) (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.
Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine.

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Syria
Syria (/ˈsɪriə/ ( listen) SIRR-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية‎ Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎ al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, 87% of the Syrian population is Muslim, while the other 10% is Christian, which includes mainly Arab Christians but also Assyrians and Armenians. Major ethnic minorities in Syria include Kurds (9%), Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens and Circassians. The majority of the population is Arab (90%).

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TF1
Coordinates: 48°50′1.9″N 2°15′38.3″E / 48.833861°N 2.260639°E / 48.833861; 2.260639
TF1 is a national French TV channel, controlled by TF1 Group, whose major share-holder is Bouygues. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. It's also considered as the most viewed television channel in Europe (since the British television ITV1 had lost this title). Flagship series include CSI, The Voice and House M.D.
TF1 originally stood for Télévision Française 1 (French Television 1). Since its privatisation in 1987, the abbreviation is no longer expanded, so as to avoid confusion with the government-owned channel France Télévisions^{[citation needed]}.
The channel is part of the TF1 Group of mass media companies, which also includes the news channel LCI and Eurosport, the largest European sports network. Together with France Télévisions, TF1 co-managed the international French news channel France 24 but has since sold its share. TF1 had possessed the satellite-network TPS, which have been sold to the Canal + Group.

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Toulon
Coordinates: 43°08′N 5°55′E / 43.13°N 5.92°E / 43.13; 5.92
Toulon (French pronunciation: [tu.lɔ̃]; Provençal Occitan: Tolon in classical norm or Touloun in Mistralian norm), italian language: Tolone, is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence.
Toulon is an important centre for naval construction, fishing, wine making, and the manufacture of aeronautical equipment, armaments, maps, paper, tobacco, printing, shoes, and electronic equipment.
The military port of Toulon is the major naval centre on France's Mediterranean coast, home of the French Navy aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle and her battle group. The French Mediterranean Fleet is based in Toulon.
Archaeological excavations, such as those at the Cosquer Cave near Marseilles, show that the coast of Provence was inhabited since at least the Paleolithic era. Greek colonists came from Asia Minor in about the 7th century BC and established trading depots along the coast, including one, called Olbia, at Saint-Pierre de l'Almanarre south of Hyères, to the east of Toulon. The Ligurians settled in the area beginning in the 4th century BC.

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Tunisia
Tunisia (US ⁱ/tuːˈniːʒə/ two-NEE-zhə or UK /tjuːˈnɪziə/ tew-NIZ-iə; Arabic: تونس‎ Tūnis pronounced [ˈtuːnɪs]), officially the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: الجمهورية التونسية‎ al-Jumhūriyyah at-Tūnisiyyah), is the northernmost country in Africa. It is an Arab Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area is almost 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 sq mi), with an estimated population of just under 10.7 million. Its name is derived from the capital Tunis located in the northeast.
Tunisia is the smallest country in North Africa. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline.
Tunisia has relations with both the European Union—with whom it has an association agreement—and the Arab world. Tunisia is also a member of the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, and the African Union. Tunisia has established close relations with France in particular, through economic cooperation, industrial modernization, and privatisation programs.

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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.

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Vichy France
Vichy France,Vichy Regime, Vichy Government, or simply Vichy are common terms used to describe the government of France which collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944, during the Second World War. It officially called itself the French State (État Français) and was headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who proclaimed the government following the 1940 allied defeat against Axis Powers.
The Vichy regime maintained some legal authority in the northern zone of France (the Zone occupée), which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, but was most powerful in the unoccupied southern "free zone", where its administrative centre of Vichy was located. In November 1942 the southern zone was also occupied and fully subjected to German rule.
Pétain collaborated with the German occupying forces in exchange for an agreement to not divide France between the Axis Powers. Vichy authorities aided in the rounding-up of Jews and other "undesirables", and at times, Vichy French military forces actively opposed the Allies. Much of the French public initially supported the new government despite its pro-Nazi policies, seeing it as necessary to maintain a degree of French autonomy and territorial integrity.

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Élysée Palace
The Élysée Palace (French: Palais de l'Élysée, pronounced: [palɛ də lelize]) is the official residence of the President of the French Republic, containing his office, and is where the Council of Ministers meets. It is located near the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
Important foreign visitors are hosted at the nearby Hôtel de Marigny, a palatial residence. The Élysée has gardens, in which the president hosts a party on the afternoon of Bastille Day. François Hollande, the President of France since 2012, resides at the palace.
The heavily guarded mansion and grounds are situated at 55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré at its intersection with Avenue de Marigny. A monumental gate with four Ionic columns, flanked by windowless walls topped by a balustrade, opens onto a large rounded courtyard. The majestic ceremonial courtyard imparts the necessary degree of grandeur to the house. The main residence house is constructed in the French classical style. An entrance vestibule is aligned with the ceremonial courtyard and gardens. There is a long central building, a great — or State — apartment divided down the middle by a large salon that opens out onto the garden. This building is also has a central three-storey section, and two single-floor wings: the Appartement des Bains to the right, and the Petit Appartement (private apartments) to the left. The French-style garden has a central path aligned with the central building, patterned flowerbeds and alleys of chestnut trees edged with hedgerows.

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Abel Servien
Abel Servien, marquis de Sablé et de Boisdauphin, comte de Roche-Servien and comte de La Roche des Aubiers (November 1, 1593 – February 17, 1659) was a French diplomat who served Cardinal Mazarin and signed for the French at the Treaty of Westphalia. He was an early member of the noblesse de robe in the service of the French state.
Abel Servien was born at the château of Biviers, near Grenoble, the son of Antoine Servien, procurator-general of the estates of Dauphiné.
He succeeded his father in that office in 1616, and in the following year attended the assembly of notables at Rouen convoked by the young Louis XIII. In 1618 he was named councillor of state and in March 1624 was called to Paris, where he found favor with Cardinal Richelieu. He displayed administrative ability and great loyalty to the central government as intendant in Guienne in 1627, where his executive qualities came to the fore, and where it became clear that he had broken with his background in the parlements to become a trusted follower of Richelieu. In 1628 he negotiated the boundary delimitation with Spain. In 1629 he was with the army of the king and cardinal in the War of the Mantuan Succession, where he remained behind at Turin to work on the peace negotiations, after the royal party had returned to France; thus by 1631 he came to know Mazarin, whom he was able to introduce to Richelieu. Servien was one of the signatories of the Treaty of Cherasco and of the treaties with the Duke of Savoy (1631–1632).

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Achille Fould
Achille Fould (November 17, 1800 – October 5, 1867) was a French financier and politician.
Born in Paris, the son of a successful Jewish banker, he was associated with and afterwards succeeded his father in the management of the business. As early as 1842 he entered political life, having been elected in that year as a deputy for the department of the Hautes-Pyrénées. From that time to his death he actively busied himself with the affairs of his country. He readily acquiesced in the revolution of February 1848, and is said to have exercised a decided influence in financial matters on the provisional government then formed. He shortly afterwards published two pamphlets against the use of paper money, entitled, Pas d'Assignats I and Observations sur la question financière.
During the presidency of Louis Napoleon he was four times minister of finance, and took a leading part in the economic reforms then made in France. His strong conservative tendencies led him to oppose the doctrine of free trade, and disposed him to hail the coup d'état and the new empire. On January 25, 1852, in consequence of the decree confiscating the property of the Orléans family, he resigned the office of minister of finance, but was on the same day appointed senator, and soon after rejoined the government as minister of state and of the imperial household. In this capacity he directed the Paris exhibition of 1855. The events of November 1860 led once more to his resignation, but he was recalled to the ministry of finance in November of the following year, and retained office until the publication of the imperial letter of January 19, 1867, when Émile Ollivier became the chief adviser to the emperor. During his last tenure of office he had reduced the floating debt, which the Mexican War had considerably increased, by the negotiation of a loan of 300 million francs (1863).

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Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe is a philosopher and political scientist. He was born in Cameroon in 1957. He obtained his Ph.D. in History at the University of Sorbonne in Paris, France, in 1989. He subsequently obtained a D.E.A. in Political Science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in the same city. He has held appointments at Columbia University in New York, Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Duke University and Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal.
Mbembe is currently a member of the staff at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a contributing editor of the scholarly journal Public Culture. He also has an annual appointment as a visiting faculty member in the department of English at Duke University. His main research topics are African history and politics and social science. Although he is called a postcolonial theorist, namely due to the title of his first English book, he has thoroughly rejected this label more recently, because he sees his project as one of both acceptance and transcendence of difference, rather than of return to an original, marginal, non-metropolitan homeland.

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Achille Peretti
Achille Peretti (13 June 1911 – 14 April 1983), was a French politician.
Peretti was born in Ajaccio. A lawyer by profession, he was a member of the French resistance, and was in charge of security of Charles de Gaulle's government in Algiers.
After the war, Peretti pursued a business career. A member of the French parliament from 1958 to his death, he became chairman of the National Assembly in 1969 when Jacques Chaban-Delmas was nominated as prime minister. After the right-wing coalition's narrow victory in the 1973 elections, he had to step down and was replaced by Edgar Faure.
Peretti was the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1947 until his death. He was succeeded by Nicolas Sarkozy who had become his political protégé.

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Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers (French: [lwi adɔlf tjɛʁ]; 1797–1877) was a French politician and historian. He was a leading historian of the French Revolution, with a multivolume history that argued that the republicanism of the Revolution was the central theme of modern French history. Thiers served as a prime minister 1836, 1840 and 1848. He was a vocal opponent of Emperor Napoleon III, who reigned 1848-1871. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to power and suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871. From 1871 to 1873 he served initially as Head of State (effectively a provisional President of France), then provisional President. He lost power in 1873 to Patrice de Mac-Mahon, Duke of Magenta, who became full President of the Republic.
His father was a locksmith; his mother belonged to the family of the Chéniers. The youth was well educated, first at the lycée of Marseille, and then in the faculty of law at Aix-en-Provence. Here he began his lifelong friendship with François Mignet, and was called to the bar at the age of twenty-three. He had, however, little taste for law and much for literature; and he obtained an academic prize at Aix for a discourse on the marquis de Vauvenargues. In 1821 he moved to Paris, and was quickly introduced as a contributor to the Le Constitutionnel. In each of the years immediately following his arrival in Paris he collected and published a volume of his articles, the first on the salon of 1822, the second on a tour in the Pyrenees. He was very well paid by Johann Friedrich Cotta, the part-proprietor of the Constitutionnel.

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Aimé Lepercq
Aimé Marie Antoine Lepercq (2 September 1889 – 9 November 1944) was a French soldier, industrialist and political figure.
Born in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône, as the eldest of nine children, he graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1911, and then the École des Mines.
Lepercq fought in World War I, in which he was wounded three times and decorated for valor five times, becoming Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1915 and receiving the British Armed Forces Military Cross. After the war, he worked as an administrator of industrial properties for the Škoda company in Czechoslovakia.
On the outbreak of World War II, Lepercq fought in the artillery during the battle of France, and continued to fight despite orders to no longer do so, until the actual Compiègne armistice of June, 1940. After a brief internment by the Germans, he returned to civil life as an industrial administrator, but was fired in 1943 for speaking out against the collaborationist administration and the Vichy regime, regarding the Service du travail obligatoire and deportations of Frenchmen to German labor camps.

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Alain Juppé
Alain Marie Juppé (French: [alɛ̃ ʒype]; born 1945) is a French politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2012. He also served as Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac and the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs from 2010 to 2011. He had previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995, and as Minister of the Budget and Spokesman for the Government from 1986 to 1988.
In December 2004, Juppé was convicted of mishandling public funds. His political career was subsequently suspended until he was re-elected as Mayor of Bordeaux in October 2006. He served briefly as Minister of State for Ecology and Sustainable Development in 2007, but resigned in June 2007 after failing in his bid to be re-elected in the 2007 legislative election. He remains the Mayor of Bordeaux. On 10 May 2012 Juppé along with the rest of the cabinet, including Prime minister François Fillon quit following the defeat of President Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election. As a result a new cabinet was appointed by François Hollande after he was sworn in as President and Laurent Fabius succeeded him as foreign minister.

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Alain Madelin
Alain Madelin (born 26 March 1946 in Paris) is a French politician and a former minister of that country.
Madelin, a strong supporter of laissez-faire economics, was a candidate in the 2002 French presidential election as the leader of the Démocratie Libérale party, where he scored 3.91% on the first round. Following the election, he became a member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
He was minister of Industry in Prime Minister Jacques Chirac's cabinet from 1986 to 1988, a minister of Business in Prime Minister Édouard Balladur's cabinet from 1993 to 1995, and a minister of Economy and Finances in Prime Minister Alain Juppé's cabinet. He resigned after only four months, citing economic policy differences with Alain Juppe.
He was a member of the National Assembly from 1978 to 2007 as representative for Ille-et-Vilaine's fourth circumscription. The district includes the town of Redon, where he was mayor from 1995 until 2001.
Madelin unsuccessfully ran in 1996 for president of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), and was defeated by François Léotard. He was elected as leader of the Parti Républicain, a part of the UDF coalition, which he renamed Démocratie Libérale. In 1998, Démocratie Libérale split from the UDF. Madelin's obtained slightly less 4% if the vote in the 2002 presidential election and merged his party into the UMP. After 2002, although his former supporter Jean-Pierre Raffarin became Prime minister, and as a result of the end of Démocratie Libérale, Madelin's influence in French national politics dwindled.

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Alain Poher
Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher (French: [alɛ̃ pɔɛʁ]; 17 April 1909 – 9 December 1996) was a French centrist politician, affiliated first with the Popular Republican Movement and later with the Democratic Centre. He served as a Senator for Val-de-Marne from 1946 to 1995. He was President of the Senate from 3 October 1968 to 1 October 1992 and, in that capacity, served twice as the country's interim president. Candidate in the 1969 presidential election, he was defeated by Georges Pompidou in the second round.
Poher was born in Ablon-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne.
He graduated from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris and later studied law. On 19 August 1938 he married Henriette Tugler, with whom he had one daughter, Marie-Agnès.
His political career began in 1938, when he became a junior executive officer in the Ministry of Finance.
Later he served on several positions before entering Senate:
A longtime ally and political protege of Schumann, Poher was elected to the Senate in 1952, where he remained for over 40 years (until 1995). As Senator he continued to serve in some governments and his home town mayor. Like Schuman, he was known for strongly pro-European integration positions, having served as President of the European Parliament (1968–1969).

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Albert Pintat
Albert Pintat Santolària (born 23 June 1943) was the head of government of Andorra fom 27 May 2005 to 5 June 2009.
Pintat graduated from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in 1967, majoring in economics.
He is a member of the Liberal Party of Andorra and was the foreign minister of Andorra from 1997 to 2001. He also served as Ambassador to the European Union (1995 to 1997) and to Switzerland and the United Kingdom (2001 to 2004).
He held the position of head of government since being appointed by the General Council on 27 May 2005 until 5 June 2009.

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Aldo Moro
Aldo Moro (Italian pronunciation: [ˈaldo ˈmɔːro]; September 23, 1916 – May 9, 1978) was an Italian politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years.
A leader of Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy, DC), Moro was considered an intellectual and a patient mediator, especially in the internal life of his party. He was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, by the left-wing Red Brigades (BR), and killed after 55 days of captivity.
Moro was born in Maglie, in the province of Lecce (Puglia), into a family from Ugento. At 4, he moved with his family to Milan, but they soon moved back to Puglia, where he gained a classical high school degree at Archita lyceum in Taranto. Till 1939 he studied Law at the University of Bari, an institution where he was later to hold the post of ordinary professor of philosophy of Law and Colonial Policy (1941) and of Criminal Law (1942).

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Alexandre Millerand
Alexandre Millerand (French: [alɛksɑ̃dʁ milʁɑ̃]; 1859–1943) was a French socialist politician. He was President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924 and Prime Minister of France 20 January to 23 September 1920. His participation in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, alongside the marquis de Galliffet who had directed the repression of the 1871 Paris Commune, sparked a debate in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and in the Second International about the participation of socialists in "bourgeois governments".
Born in Paris, he was educated for the Bar, and made his reputation by his defence, in company with Georges Laguerre, of Ernest Roche and Duc-Quercy, the instigators of the strike at Decazeville in 1883; he then took Laguerre's place on Georges Clemenceau's paper, La Justice. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Seine département in 1885 as a Radical Socialist. He was associated with Clemenceau and Camille Pelletan as an arbitrator in the Carmaux strike (1892). He had long had the ear of the Chamber in matters of social legislation, and after the Panama scandals had discredited so many politicians his influence grew.

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Alexandre Ribot
Alexandre-Félix-Joseph Ribot (French pronunciation: [alɛksɑ̃dʁ ʁibo]; 7 February 1842 – 13 January 1923) was a French politician, four times Prime Minister.
Ribot was born in Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais. After a brilliant academic career at the University of Paris, where he was lauréat of the faculty of law, he rapidly made his mark at the bar. He was secretary of the conference of advocates and one of the founders of the Sociéte de legislation comparée. During 1875 and 1876 he was successively director of criminal affairs and secretary-general at the ministry of justice. In 1877 he entered politics, playing a conspicuous part on the committee of legal resistance during the Brogue ministry; in the following year he was returned to the chamber as a moderate republican member for Boulogne, in his native département of Pas-de-Calais.
His impassioned yet reasoned eloquence gave him an influence which was increased by his articles in the Parlement in which he opposed violent measures against the unauthorized congregations. He devoted himself especially to financial questions, and in 1882 was reporter of the budget. He became one of the most prominent republican opponents of the Radical party, distinguishing himself by his attacks on the short-lived Gambetta ministry. He refused to vote the credits demanded by the Ferry cabinet for the Tongking expedition, and helped Georges Clemenceau overthrow the ministry in 1885. At the general election of that year he was a victim of the Republican rout in the Pas-de-Calais, and did not re-enter the chamber till 1887.

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Anatole de Monzie
Anatole de Monzie (22 November 1876, Bazas, Gironde – 11 January 1947, Paris) was a French administrator, encyclopaedist (Encyclopédie française), political figure and scholar. His father was a tax collector in Bazas, Gironde where Anatole - a name he disliked from an early age - was born in 1876. A nurse mishap resulted in an accident where the child Anatole lost the proper use of his leg and he remained crippled for the rest of his life. He never married but had several affairs. A brilliant mind, he studied in Agen before attending the Collège Stanislas, a famous catholic school in Paris, where he became friend with writer to be Henry de Jouvenel and catholic activist Marc Sangnier.
He studied law and started to practice but finally chose politics. He was chef de cabinet of education minister Joseph Chautemps in 1902. At about the same time, he started a career as a local politician in the Lot, a forlorn and backwater, yet charming, department in the south west of France. Successively, and very often simultaneously, he became counsellor, general, mayor of Cahors (the local prefecture), deputy and senator. Soon commanding a huge following among the local voters, pleased by his culture, his easy access to government and proficiency in handing out public sector jobs, he made of the Lot a lifelong stronghold.

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Andreas Papandreou
Andreas G. Papandreou (Greek: Ανδρέας Γ. Παπανδρέου); 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Greece (21 October 1981, to 2 July 1989, and 13 October 1993, to 22 January 1996).
His assumption of power in 1981 influenced the course of Greek political history, ending an almost 50-year long system of power dominated by conservative forces; the achievements of his successive governments include the official recognition of the Greek Resistance against the Axis, the establishment of the National Health System and the Supreme Council for Personnel Selection (ASEP), the passage of Law 1264/1982 which secured the right to strike and greatly improved the rights of workers, the constitutional amendment of 1985–1986 which strengthened parliamentarism and reduced the powers of the unelected President, the conduct of an assertive and independent Greek foreign policy, the expansion in the power of local governments, many progressive reforms in Greek Law, and granting permission to the refugees of the Greek Civil War to return home in Greece. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) which he founded and led, was the first non-communist political party in Greek history with a mass-based organization, and introduced an unprecedented level of political and social participation in Greek society. In a poll conducted by Kathimerini in 2007, 48% of those polled called Papandreou the "most important Greek Prime Minister". In the same poll, the first four years of Papandreou's government after Metapolitefsi were voted as the best government Greece ever had.

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André Philip
André Philip (28 June 1902 – 5 July 1970) was a SFIO member who served as an Interior Minister for the Free French during the Second World War. He also served as a finance minister in 1946 and part of 1947.

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André Tardieu
André Pierre Gabriel Amédée Tardieu (French: [ɑ̃dʁe taʁdjø]; 1876–1945) was three times Prime Minister of France (3 November 1929 – 17 February 1930; 2 March – 4 December 1930; 20 February – 10 May 1932) and a dominant figure of French political life in 1929–1932.
Tardieu was a graduate of the elite Lycée Condorcet. He was accepted by the even more prestigious École Normale Supérieure, but instead entered the diplomatic service. Later, he left the service and became famous as foreign affairs editor of the newspaper Le Temps. He founded the conservative newspaper L'Echo National in association with Georges Mandel.
In 1914 Tardieu was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from the département of Seine-et-Oise, as a candidate of the center-right Democratic Republican Alliance (Alliance Démocratique - AD). He retained this seat till 1924. From 1926 to 1936, he represented the département of Territoire de Belfort.
When World War I broke out, Tardieu enlisted in the army, serving as an infantryman till 1916. He then returned to politics. He served as Georges Clemenceau's lieutenant in 1919 during the Paris Peace Conference and as Commissioner for Franco-American War Cooperation. On 8 November 1919, he became Minister of Liberated Regions, administering Alsace and Lorraine, serving until Clemenceau's defeat in 1920.

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Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel, German: [aŋˈɡeːla doʁoˈteːa ˈmɛʁkl̩] ( listen); née Kasner (born 17 July 1954) is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany.
A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as the deputy spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the German reunification. Following reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinets. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.
After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

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Anker Jørgensen
Anker Jørgensen (born 13 July 1922) is a former Danish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. He led or represented the Social Democratic Party for well over 30 years.
Anker Henrik Jørgensen was born on 13 July 1922 in a rich area of Copenhagen to Johannes Albert Jørgensen and Maria Jørgensen. He was brought up by close members of his family. In 1948 he married Ingrid Kvist Pedersen (17 August 1922 – 18 October 1997) whom he remained married to until her death in 1997. They had 4 children. Throughout this period, he lived in the working-class area of Sydhavnen, an inner city district of Copenhagen.
He began his political carer early, and in 1950 he became a member of a trade union. He led the Danish Workers Union, SiD, between 1968 and 1972. Whilst he was chairman of the Danish Workers Union, he was elected to the Parliament of Denmark for the first of many times in 1964.
In 1972, he succeeded Jens Otto Krag as Prime Minister of Denmark following the European Union Referendum of that year. He would hold this position for 14 months until the election when he would be succeeded by liberal Poul Hartling.

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Anne Fulda
Anne Fulda (born 1963) is a French journalist working for Le Figaro in the politics department since 1982. She is a specialist of French politics and in particular of French right-wing politics. She wrote a book about Jacques Chirac in 1997. She was allegedly the mistress of the current French President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2005 to 2006.

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Antoine Pinay
Antoine Pinay (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃twan pine]; 30 December 1891, Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise, Rhône – 13 December 1994, Saint-Chamond, Loire) was a French conservative politician. He served as Prime Minister of France in 1952.
As a young man, Pinay fought in World War I and injured his arm so that it was paralyzed for the rest of his life.
After the war, he managed a small business and in 1929 he was elected mayor of Saint-Chamond (Loire).
He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1936, running as a conservative. On 10 July 1940 he voted to give full constitutional power to the Maréchal Philippe Pétain, leading to the creation of the Vichy Regime. In 1941, Antoine Pinay was appointed to the Conseil National of the Vichy Regime. He was also awarded the Francisque. During the Occupation, Antoine Pinay remained mayor of Saint-Chamond, although he had been urged by General Georges to move to Algiers, in order to better protect the residents of this city. Yet, trying to associate him with Vichy is inappropriate : he resigned from the Conseil National within a few months and refused any official position with the Vichy regime, such as the préfecture de l'Hérault offered by Laval. Besides, he gave several hundreds of identity papers to help Jews and Résistance members flee from France to Algiers or Switzerland. An official commission in 1946 recognized his long lasting opposition to the Nazis and the help he gave to the Résistance and let him totally free of any charge.

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Antoni Martí
Antoni Martí Petit (born November 10, 1963) is an Andorran architect and politician who is the country's head of government since 11 May 2011, following a parliamentary election in 2011. He is a member of the Democrats for Andorra.
In the parliamentary election held on 3 April 2011, the Democrats for Andorra defeated the incumbent Social Democrats with an absolute majority making Martí prime minister. Martí fought on an anti-income tax platform.

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António Guterres
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, GCC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐ̃ˈtɔniu ɡuˈtɛʁɨʃ]; born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician, a former prime minister and President of the Socialist International. Currently he is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
António Guterres was born and raised in Portugal's capital, Lisbon, son of Virgílio Dias Guterres (b. São José, Lisbon, 21 October 1913) and wife Ilda Cândida de Oliveira (b. Fundão, Donas, 12 February 1923). As a young child he already showed the abilities which would later garner him the award for Best High School Student for the year of 1965. He continued his studies at IST, where he pursued degrees in physics and electrical engineering. During his college years Guterres was never involved in the student opposition to the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and, from 1968, Marcelo Caetano. Instead, he dedicated himself to his studies and to meetings of the JUC (Catholic University Students Movement). In 1971 he graduated and started an academic career as Assistant Professor.

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Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐˈniβɐɫ kɐˈvaku ˈsiɫvɐ]; born 15 July 1939), is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006.
He was previously Prime Minister of Portugal from 6 November 1985 to 28 October 1995. His tenure of ten years was the longest of any Prime Minister since Salazar, and he was the first Portuguese Prime Minister to have won an absolute parliamentary majority under the current constitutional system (which was established after the country's redemocratization following the Carnation Revolution).

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Arlette Laguiller
Arlette Yvonne Laguiller (born March 18, 1940) is a French Trotskyist politician. Since 1973, she has been the spokeswoman and the best known leader and perennial candidate of the Lutte Ouvrière (LO) political party. Known to most French people simply by her first name, Laguiller is committed to the cause of the Communist revolution.
Born at Les Lilas, Seine-Saint-Denis, France, Arlette joined Lutte Ouvrière in 1968, and became the leader of a 1974 bank workers' strike that began with actions of employees at Crédit Lyonnais.
She has been a frequent candidate for the French Presidency, starting with the election of 1974, and continuing through those of 1981, 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. During most of these, Laguiller was the only female candidate. Her best result was in 2002 when she came in fifth place and received 5.72% of the vote. In December 2005, Laguiller announced that she would run for President for the sixth and final time in 2007. After finishing a distant ninth in 2007's first round of voting (487,857 votes, totaling 1.33% of the popular vote), for the first time since 1981 she endorsed the Socialist Party candidate (Ségolène Royal) for the second round. In the past, Laguiller and LO have often refrained from openly supporting the Socialist Party and taken a neutral stance in the second round.

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Armand Fallières
Clément Armand Fallières (French pronunciation: [aʁmɑ̃ faljɛʁ]; 6 November 1841 – 22 June 1931) was a French politician, president of the French republic from 1906 to 1913.
He was born at Mézin in the département of Lot-et-Garonne, France, where his father was clerk of the peace. He studied law and became an advocate at Nérac, beginning his public career there as municipal councillor (1868), afterwards mayor (1871), and as councillor-general of the département of Lot-et-Garonne (1871). Being an ardent Republican, he lost this position in May 1873 upon the fall of Thiers, but in February 1876 was elected deputy for Nérac. In the chamber he sat with the Republican Left, signed the protestation of 18 May 1877, and was re-elected five months later.
In 1880 he became under-secretary of state in the department of the interior in Jules Ferry's ministry (May 1880 to November 1881). From 7 August 1882 to 20 February 1883 he was minister of the interior, and for a month (from 29 January 1883) was prime minister. His ministry had to face the question of the expulsion of the pretenders to the throne of France, owing to the proclamation by Prince Napoléon (January 1883).

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Auguste Burdeau
Auguste-Laurent Burdeau (10 September 1851 – 12 December 1894) was a French politician.
He was the son of a laborer at Lyon. Forced from childhood to earn his own living, he was enabled to secure an education by bursarships at the Lycée at Lyon and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.
In 1870 he was at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, but enlisted in the army, and was wounded and made prisoner in 1871 (during the Franco-Prussian War). In 1874 he became professor of philosophy, and translated several works of Herbert Spencer and of Schopenhauer into French.
His extraordinary aptitude for work secured for him the position of chef de cabinet under Paul Bert, the minister of education, in 1880s. In 1885 he was elected deputy for the département of the Rhône, and distinguished himself in financial questions. He was several times minister, and became minister of finance in the cabinet of Casimir-Perier (from 3 November 1893 to 22 May 1894). On the 5 July 1894 he was elected president of the chamber of deputies. He died on the 12 December 1894, said to be worn out with overwork.

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Axel Kahn
Axel Kahn (born 1944) is a French scientist and geneticist. He is the brother of the journalist Jean-François Kahn. He was a member of the French National Consultative Ethics Committee from 1992 to 2004 and worked in gene therapy. He first entered the INSERM with a specialization in biochemistry. He was named in 2002 as a counsellor for biosciences and biotechnologies matters by the European Commission. Head of French laboratories specialized in biomedical sciences between years 1984 and 2007, he has been elected as the President of the University Paris Descartes in December 2007, where he was the sole candidate.
Kahn is known in France for his appearances in the media where he attempts to explain genetics and ethics to the public. He uses the title of professor, while he is not. As a civil servant, he was the head of the committee in charge of genetically modified crops for Europe. According to the journalist Hervé Kempf, he was paid by the company Rhône-Poulenc after having supported GMC culture in France. Rhône-Poulenc was then the company pushing hardest for GM crops to be grown in France.

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Azouz Begag
Azouz Begag, (Arabic: عزوز بقاق ‎) (born 5 February 1957 in Lyon, Rhône, France) is a French writer, politician and researcher in economics and sociology at the CNRS. He was the delegate minister for equal opportunities of France in the government of French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) till 5 April 2007. He resigned to support the moderate centrist candidate François Bayrou, one of the two UMP ministers to do so.
Begag has written approximately 20 literary books for adults and children, as well as songs. Furthermore, he is the scriptwriter of the French movie Camping à la ferme ("Camping at the farm"), where he exposed his vision of "three levels of riches" multiculturalism in today's French society : the advantages of its relatively new multiethnicity due to a new non-European immigration mixed with the basis of its historical and natural multiculturality whether coming from the riches of its several regional cultures and languages or from the successful integration of previous waves of European immigration during its history.

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Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

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Bernard Arnault
Bernard Arnault (pronounced: [bɛʁnaːʁ aʁno]) (born 5 March 1949) is a French business magnate best known as the chairman and CEO of the LVMH, the largest luxury-products company in the world. According to Forbes magazine, Arnault is the world's 4th and Europe's richest person, with a 2011 net worth of US$41 billion. He has also been named by Forbes as "the fashion person of 2011".
In 2007 Arnault was named Commander of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order. The same year, he was featured in Time magazine’s annual Time 100 issue as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault was born March 9, 1949, in Roubaix. His father Jean Leon Arnault was a manufacturer, owner of a civil engineering company, Ferret-Savinel. After graduating from the Maxence Van Der Meersch High School in Roubaix, Bernard Arnault was admitted to the École Polytechnique (X1969) from which he graduated with an engineering degree in 1971.
Bernard Arnault has been married twice, and is the father of five children. As the director for LVMH, his daughter Delphine Arnault is actively involved in the management of the luxury group. His son Antoine Arnault is Head of Communications for Louis Vuitton. His second wife, Hélène Mercier, is a pianist from Quebec. The couple has three sons. His nephew Harry Seaman is also involved in LVMH, overseeing sales and he is currently researching in the U.K.

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Bernard Kouchner
Bernard Kouchner (born 1 November 1939) is a French politician, diplomat, and doctor. He is co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Médecins du Monde. From 2007 until 2010 he was the French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the right-wing Fillon government under president Nicolas Sarkozy, although he had been in the past a minister in socialist governments.
Kouchner was born in Avignon to a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, he began his political career as a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), from which he was expelled in 1966 for attempting to overthrow the leadership. On a visit to Cuba in 1964, Kouchner spent the night fishing and drinking with Fidel Castro. In the protests of May 1968, he ran the medical faculty strike committee at the Sorbonne. Kouchner has three children (Julie, Camille and Antoine) by his first wife, Évelyne Pisier, a professor of law, and one child, Alexandre, by his present wife Christine Ockrent, a television journalist. He worked as a physician for the Red Cross in Biafra in 1968 (during the Nigerian Civil War). He co-founded Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in 1971, and then, due to a conflict of opinion with MSF chairman Claude Malhuret, the Doctors of the World ('Médecins du Monde') in 1980. What made him co-found Médecins Sans Frontières was his experience as a physician for the Red Cross during the Nigerian Civil War that took place in Biafra, 1968. Kouchner worked as a humanitarian volunteer during the Siege of Naba’a refugee camp in Lebanon in East Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War taking risks that "other foreign aid workers weren’t, even worked closely with the Shia cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr."

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Bertie Ahern
Patrick Bartholomew "Bertie" Ahern (born 12 September 1951) is a former Irish politician who served as Taoiseach of Ireland from 26 June 1997 to 7 May 2008.
Ahern served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 2011 and he represented the constituency of Dublin Central. Before he became Taoiseach, he served in the governments of Charles Haughey and Albert Reynolds as Minister for Labour (1987–91) and Minister for Finance (1991–94). He also served briefly as Tánaiste after the break-up of Albert Reynolds' coalition government.
In 1994, Ahern was elected sixth leader of Fianna Fáil. Under Ahern's leadership Fianna Fáil led three coalition governments. After Éamon de Valera, Bertie Ahern's term as Taoiseach is the longest. Ahern resigned as Taoiseach on 6 May 2008 and was succeeded by the then Minister for Finance Brian Cowen.
Ahern was born in Drumcondra, Dublin. This is an area within the Dublin Central constituency where he has lived all his life. Ahern is the youngest of five children of Con Ahern and Julia Ahern (née Hourihane), both natives of County Cork. Con Ahern and Julia Hourihane were married in October 1937 and settled at Church Avenue, Drumcondra, where they resided for the rest of their lives. The other four children are Maurice, Kathleen, Noel and Eileen. In Dublin, Ahern's father worked as a farm manager at All Hallows College, Drumcondra. Ahern's brother Noel is also involved in politics and represented Dublin North–West in Dáil Éireann.

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Bettino Craxi
Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi (pronounced [betˈtiːno ˈkraksi]) (24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.
Craxi led the 2nd longest-lived government of Italy during the republican era (after the 2nd Silvio Berlusconi cabinet), and had strong influence in Italian politics throughout the eighties; for some time, he was a close ally of two key figures of Christian Democracy, Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlani, in a loose cross-party alliance often dubbed CAF (from the first letter of the surname Craxi-Andreotti-Forlani). Craxi had a firm grasp on a party previously troubled by factionalism, and tried to distance it from the communists and to bring it closer to Christian Democrats and other parties; his objective was to create an Italian version of European reformist socialist parties, like the German SPD or the French Socialist Party. The Italian Socialist Party reached its post-war apex when it increased its share of votes in the general election of 1987. However, the Italian Socialist Party never outgrew the much larger Italian Communist Party, whose highly charismatic leader, Enrico Berlinguer, was a fierce adversary of Craxi's policies throughout the years.

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Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received four Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one Golden Globe. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.
Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with A River Runs Through It (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1994), and Legends of the Fall (1994). In 1995, he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys, the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later, Pitt starred in the cult hit Fight Club. He then starred in the major international hit Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been Troy (2004) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Pitt received his second and third Academy Award nominations for his leading performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In addition, Pitt owns a production company, Plan B Entertainment, whose productions include The Departed (2006), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Moneyball, which garnered a Best Picture nomination.

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Brice Hortefeux
Brice Hortefeux (born 11 May 1958) is a French politician. He was Minister of the Interior, Overseas Territories and Territorial collectivities. He was previously Minister for Labour, Labour Relations, the Family, Solidarity and Urban Affairs and Minister-Delegate for Local Government at the Ministry of the Interior and was a Member of the European Parliament.
Hortefeux was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine but was raised in Auvergne. He is one of the most loyal political allies, and personal friend, of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He is the godfather of one of Nicolas Sarkozy's sons.
On 18 May 2007, he was appointed as the first Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Cooperative Development in the government of Prime Minister François Fillon. As such he has boosted the numbers of illegal immigrants forcibly repatriated from France, extended the network of detention centres (established also outside the larger conurbations in smaller cities such as Blois) and modified the rights of individuals and organizations which visit them.

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Bruno Le Maire
Bruno Le Maire (born 15 April 1969) was the French Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing from 2009 to 2012.
Bruno Le Maire was born on 15 April 1969 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration.
From 2002 to 2004, he worked as an advisor to Dominique de Villepin in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2004, he moved to the Ministry of the Interior. In 2005, he became the political advisor to the Prime Minister. From 2007 to 2008, he was a member of the National Assembly of France, representing the Eure department. From December 2008 to 2009, he served as Secretary of State in charge of European Affairs in the François Fillon government.
Since 2008, he has served as a political advisor for the Union for a Popular Movement. He also serves as a council member of Evreux. In June 2009, he became the new Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fishing.
He is a member of the Long-Term Investors Club. From 2007 he was Secretary General of the Permanent Platform of Atomium Culture. Currently he is member of the Advisory Board.

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Carla Bruni
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (born Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi, Italian pronunciation: [ˈkarla dʒilˈbɛrta ˈbruːni teˈdeski]; 23 December 1967) is an Italian-French songwriter, singer, actress, and former model. She has been married to Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of the French Republic, since February 2008.
Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi was born in Turin, Italy, and is heiress to the fortune created by the Italian tyre manufacturing company CEAT, founded in the 1920s by her grandfather Virginio Bruni Tedeschi. The company was sold in the 1970s to Pirelli (the brand lives on via its former subsidiary in India, founded in 1958). The family moved to France in 1975, reportedly to escape the threat of kidnapping by the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary group active in Italy in the 1970s. Bruni grew up in France from age seven and attended boarding school in Switzerland. She went to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at 19 to become a model.
She is legally the daughter of Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini and industrialist and classical composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi. However, in 2008 Bruni told Vanity Fair that her biological father is Italian-born, Brazilian grocery magnate Maurizio Remmert. At that time, Remmert was a 19-year old classical guitarist, and his affair with Borini lasted six years. Her sister is actress and movie director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. She had a brother, Virginio Bruni Tedeschi (1959–4 July 2006), who died from complications of HIV/AIDS.

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Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; French: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen); 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.
He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. As the war progressed de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime. Despite earning a reputation for being a difficult man to do business with, by the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile, but although he insisted that France be treated as a great independent power by the other Allies, the Americans in particular remained deeply suspicious of his motives. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.

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Charles Duclerc
Charles Théodore Eugène Duclerc (French: [ʃaʁl dyklɛʁ]; 1812–1888) was a French journalist and politician of the Third Republic. He was a member of the editorial board of the National newspaper. Duclerc served as Minister of Finance from May through June in the Provisional government of France. Later served as prime minister from 1882 to 1883 in the third Republic.
Duclerc was born in Bagnères-de-Bigorre and he died in Paris.
Changes

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Charles Dupuy
Charles Alexandre Dupuy (French: [ʃaʁl dypɥi]; 1851–1923) was a French statesman, three times prime minister.
He was born in Le Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire, Auvergne, where his father was a minor official. After a period as a professor of philosophy in the provinces, he was appointed a school inspector, thus obtaining a practical acquaintance with the needs of French education. In 1885 he was elected to the chamber as an Opportunist Republican. After acting as "reporter" of the budget for public instruction, he became minister for the department, in Alexandre Ribot's cabinet, in 1892. In April 1893 he formed a ministry himself, taking as his office that of minister of the interior, but resigned at the end of November, and on 5 December was elected president of the chamber. During his first week of office an anarchist, Vaillant, who had managed to gain admission to the chamber, threw a bomb at the president, and Dupuy's calm response --"Messieurs, la séance continue" – gained him much credit.

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Charles Haughey
Charles James "Charlie" Haughey (16 September 1925 – 13 June 2006) was Taoiseach of Ireland, serving three terms in office (from December 1979 to June 1981, March 1982 to December 1982, and March 1987 to February 1992). He was also the fourth leader of Fianna Fáil (from 1979 until 1992). Haughey was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Teachta Dála (TD) in 1957 and was re-elected in every election until 1992, he represented the Dublin North-East constituency from 1957 until 1973. The constituency lines were redrawn under the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974 in an attempt to secure re-election for the sitting Fine Gael-Labour Party government in the 1977 election and Haughey represented Dublin-Artane in 1977, this constituency was abolished in 1981 and most of Haughey's electoral area was moved into the reformed Dublin North-Central constituency which he served from 1981 until his retirement in 1992. Haughey also served as Minister for Health and Social Welfare (1977–1979), Minister for Finance (1966–1970), Minister for Agriculture (1964–1966) and Minister for Justice (1961–1964). He also served as a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice during the early years of his parliamentary career.

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Charles Pasqua
Charles Pasqua (born 18 April 1927) is a French businessman and Gaullist politician. He was Interior Minister from 1986 to 1988, under Jacques Chirac's cohabitation government, and also from 1993 to 1995, under the government of Edouard Balladur. He was first elected deputy of the UDR Gaullist party in 1968, ten years after having founded the Service d'Action Civique (SAC) organisation. Counsellor of Jacques Chirac alongside Marie-France Garaud, he was in charge of the organisation of Chirac's campaign for the 1981 presidential election, won by the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS), François Mitterrand (1981–1995). As such, he is considered to be Chirac's mentor in politics. However, he broke with Chirac before the 1995 presidential election, supporting against him the candidacy of Edouard Balladur for the neo-Gaullist party, the Rally for the Republic (RPR). He created in 1999 the euro-sceptic Rally for France and European Independence (RPF) party and allied himself with Philippe de Villiers's Movement for France (MPF) party for the 1999 European elections. President of the General Council of the Hauts-de-Seine from 1988 to 2004, he broke with de Villiers after his success at these elections, arriving second after the Socialist Party. President of the Union for Europe of the Nations at the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, he was re-elected Senator of the Hauts-de-Seine in 2004 on the list of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP, successor to the RPR), a function which he had already held from 1977 to 1986, then from 1988 to 1993, and finally from 1995 to 1999.

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Christian Frémont
Christian Frémont (born 1942) was the chief of staff for Nicolas Sarkozy. He has also been the French Representative to Andorra since September 2008.

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Christian Pineau
Christian Pineau (French pronunciation: [kʁistjɑ̃ pino]; b. 14 October 1904 Chaumont-en-Bassigny, Haute-Marne, France, d. 5 April 1995, Paris) was a noted French Resistance fighter.
Pineau was born in 1904 in Chaumont-en-Bassigny in France's Haute-Marne department. His father-in-law was the writer Jean Giraudoux, who was married to Pineau's mother. Later, Christian Pineau would say that was Giraudoux who gave him his love of writing.
A World War II French Resistance leader and a close ally of Charles de Gaulle, Pineau was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and survived Buchenwald concentration camp.
Pineau represented the Sarthe department as a Socialist in the French National Assembly from 1946 to 1958. After the war, he served as a minister in French governments, 1945–1958. He was minister of supply in Charles de Gaulle's government (1945) and minister of public works (1947–1950) in various governments. He was finance minister for a short time in 1948. Pineau was designated as prime minister by president Coty after the February 1955 resignation of Pierre Mendès-France, but the National Assembly refused to ratify his cabinet by 312 votes against 268; his prime ministership lasted for two days between 17 and 19 February 1955.

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Christian Sautter
Christian Sautter (born 9 April 1940) is a French politician. He served as Minister for Economics, Finance, and Industry from 1999 to 2000 as part of Lionel Jospin's "Plural Left" government.

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Christine Albanel
Christine Albanel (born 24 June 1955 in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne) is a French civil servant. From May 2007 to June 2009 she was France's Minister for Culture and Communication in François Fillon's government.
Albanel is agrégé in classical Letters. In 1982, she joined the administration of the city of Paris, and followed Jacques Chirac – working in his cabinet – when he became Prime Minister in 1986 and French President in 1995.
In 2000, she became Conseiller d'État.
She became president of the museum and domain administration of the Palace of Versailles in 2003.
In 2007, she was appointed Minister of Culture in François Fillon's government. While in this position, she proposed a new law (the HADOPI law) with the objective to reduce music and video piracy over the Internet, along the same 'graduated penalty' lines of thinking that previous ineffective 'DADVSI' law. This move generated huge debate as several Presumption of innocence key liberty and law principles were sacrificed for the sake of efficiency, while most experts in Internet technology^[who?] said the attempt was anyway doomed as grossly underestimating the complexity of any reliable control system.

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Christine Boutin
Christine Boutin (born 6 February 1944) is a French politician and a major Christian democratic figure in France. She served as a member of the French National Assembly representing Yvelines, from 1986 until 2007, when she was appointed Minister of Housing and Urban Development by President Nicolas Sarkozy. She was a candidate in the 2002 French presidential election, in which she scored 1.19% on the first round of balloting.
Boutin is the leader of the Christian Democratic Party (Parti Chrétien-démocrate), a social conservative Christian-democratic party, which is associated with the greater UMP union party, led by Nicolas Sarkozy.
Boutin was born in Levroux, Indre. She entered politics in 1977 as a city counciller for Auffargis, in 1980 she was elected mayor. Boutin was elected to the National Assembly in 1986.
In 1993, Boutin founded the anti-abortion NGO Alliance pour les droits de la vie (ADV) (English: Alliance for Human Life), considered the largest pro-life organization in France. The same year, she became a consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Family headed by Cardinal Lopez-Trujillo. In 1998, Boutin became somewhat famous because of a five hour speech in opposition to the PACS domestic partnership plan, arguing that its adoption by the government would encourage homosexuality. She held a Bible during the speech, an image which would later become associated with her.

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Christine Lagarde
Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (née Lallouette; born 1 January 1956) is a French lawyer who has been the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund since 5 July 2011. Previously, she held various ministerial posts in the French government: she was Minister of Economic Affairs, Finances and Industry and before that Minister of Agriculture and Fishing and Minister of Trade in the government of Dominique de Villepin. Lagarde was the first woman ever to become Minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy, and is the first woman to ever head the IMF.
A noted antitrust and labour lawyer, Lagarde made history by becoming the first female chair of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. On 16 November 2009, the Financial Times ranked her the best Minister of Finance in the Eurozone.
On 28 June 2011, she was named as the next MD of the International Monetary Fund for a five-year term, starting on 5 July 2011, replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Her appointment is the 11th consecutive appointment of a European as head the IMF. In 2011, Lagarde was ranked the 9th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.

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Claude Bouthillier
Claude Bouthillier, Sieur de Fouilletourte (1581 – 13 March 1652), French statesman, began his professional life as an advocate. In 1613 he was councillor in the Parlement of Paris, and in 1619 became councillor of state and a secretary to the queen-mother, Marie de Medici.
The connection of his father, Denis Bouthillier (died 1622), with Cardinal Richelieu secured for him the title of secretary of state in 1628, and he was able to remain on good terms with both Marie de Medici and Richelieu, in spite of their rivalry. In 1632 he became Superintendent of Finances. But his great role was in diplomacy.
Richelieu employed him on many diplomatic missions, and the success of his foreign policy was due in no small degree to Bouthillier's ability and devotion. In 1630 he had taken part at Regensburg in arranging the abortive treaty between the emperor and France. From 1633 to 1640 he was continually busied with secret missions in Germany, sometimes alone, sometimes with Father Joseph. Following Richelieu's instructions, he negotiated the alliances which brought France into the Thirty Years' War.

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Claude de Bullion
Claude de Bullion (13 October 1569 – 22 December 1640) was a French aristocrat and politician who served as a Minister of Finance under Louis XIII from 1632 to 1640. He was a close ally of Cardinal Richelieu.
He became a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris in 1594 and an advisor in 1595. In 1605, he became Maître des Requêtes, and in 1606 he joined the Parliament of Grenoble as State Councillor and Chairman.
In 1611 he bought the lordship of Bolt and later bought the lordship of Maule. In 1612, Seigneur de Bonnelles named him special ambassador to the Court of Turin. He bought Château de Wideville fr:Château de Wideville in 1620 and built the famous gardens and ponds there. His holdings became known as Bullion in 1621. He also possessed the lordships of Fervaques, Gallardon of Montlouet, Atilly, and Longchesne. In 1639, he bought Château d'Esclimont, and his was known as creator of Louis d'Or. He later built a hotel in Paris that contained two galleries.
In 1632 he became Minister of Finance under Louis XIII, concurrently with Claude Bouthillier. de Bullion was also named Lord Chancellor of The Order of the Holy Spirit from 1633 to 1636.

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Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice ( /ˌkɒndəˈliːzə/; born November 14, 1954) is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush. Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state, as well as the second African American (after Colin Powell), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright). Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term, making her the first woman to serve in that position. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999. Rice also served on the National Security Council as the Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor to President George H.W. Bush during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification.
Following her confirmation as Secretary of State, Rice pioneered the policy of Transformational Diplomacy, with a focus on democracy in the Greater Middle East. Her emphasis on supporting democratically elected governments faced challenges as Hamas captured a popular majority in Palestinian elections, and influential countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt maintained authoritarian systems with U.S. support. While Secretary of State, she chaired the Millennium Challenge Corporation's board of directors.

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Costas Simitis
Konstantinos Simitis (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Σημίτης) (born 23 June 1936), usually referred to as Costas Simitis or Kostas Simitis, was Prime Minister of Greece and leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) from 1996 to 2004.
Costas Simitis' family has roots in Ilida (municipality).^{[citation needed]} Ηe was born in Piraeus to Georgios Simitis, a Professor at the School of Economic and Commercial Sciences, and to his wife Fani (née Christopoulou). He studied Law at the University of Marburg in Germany and economics at the London School of Economics. He is married to Daphne Arkadiou (b. 1938)and has two daughters, Fiona and Marilena. His brother Spiros Simitis is a prominent jurist specializing on data privacy in Germany. He currently resides in the Kolonaki district of Athens.
In 1965 he returned to Greece and was one of the founders of the "Alexandros Papanastasiou" political research group . In 1967, after the military coup of 21 April, this group was transformed into Democratic Defense, an organization opposed to the military regime. Simitis escaped abroad after planting bombs in the streets of Athens (in later years he acknowledged his activities on Greek MEGA TV channel) in order to avoid being jailed and became a member of the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), led by Andreas Papandreou. He also took up a position as university lecturer in Germany. He returned to Athens in 1974 and was one of the co-founders of PAK's successor, the PASOK. In 1977 he took up a lecturer's post at the Panteion University.

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Cécilia Attias
Cécilia María Sara Isabel Attias (née Ciganer-Albéniz, previously Martin and Sarkozy) (born 12 November 1957) was the second wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy until October 2007.
She married Richard Attias, Executive Chairman of The Experience, an events management company, on 23 March 2008, in New York's Rockefeller Center.
Cecilia Attias was born Cécilia María Sara Isabel Ciganer-Albéniz. Her elderly father, André Ciganer (born Aron Chouganov) was a Moldovan Jewish immigrant born in Bălţi, Bessarabia in 1898 of Russian and Romanian Jewish lineage, she believed that he was of Roma origin, because of the "Ciganer" surname; however it was later revealed that he was not. He left home at the age of 13, just before the First World War. Ciganer moved to Paris, where he became a furrier. In 1937 he married Spanish-Belgian Diane Albéniz de Swert, a daughter of Alfonso Albéniz Jordana, a Spanish diplomat who played with Real Madrid in the early 1900s. Her maternal great-grandfather was the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz.

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Daniel Vaillant
Daniel Vaillant (born 19 July 1949 in Lormes, Nièvre) is a French Socialist politician.
Close to Lionel Jospin, Vaillant held several ministerial portfolios in his cabinets: Minister of the Relations with Parliament from 1997 to 2000 and Interior Minister from 2000 to 2002. He also supported Jospin as candidate for the Socialist Party in the 2007 presidential election; a candidacy which eventually did not materialize.
As of 2009, he is mayor for the 18th district of Paris (first election 1995) and a member of the Assemblée Nationale.
In October 2009, he proposed to decriminalize the personal use of cannabis through control of production and import, as is the case with alcohol.

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David Beckham
David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English association footballer who plays for Los Angeles Galaxy. He has played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, Milan, and the England national team for which he holds the appearance record for an outfield player.
Beckham's career began when he signed a professional contract with Manchester United, making his first-team debut in 1992 aged 17. During his time there, United won the Premier League title six times, the FA Cup twice, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He left Manchester United to sign for Real Madrid in 2003, where he remained for four seasons, clinching the La Liga championship in his final season with the club. In January 2007, it was announced that Beckham would leave Real Madrid for the Major League Soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy, signing a five-year contract with them on 1 July 2007. While a Galaxy player, he spent two loan spells in Italy with Milan in 2009 and 2010. On 20 November 2011, he joined an elite group of players to have won three league titles in three different countries, when Los Angeles won their third MLS Cup.

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Dilma Rousseff
Dilma Vana Rousseff (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈdʒiwmɐ χuˈsɛf] born 14 December 1947) is the 36th and current President of Brazil. She is the first woman to hold the office. Prior to that, in 2005, she was also the first woman to become Chief of Staff to the President of Brazil, appointed by then President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The daughter of a Bulgarian entrepreneur, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972 and reportedly tortured.
After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with Carlos Araújo, who would be her partner for 30 years. Both helped found the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in Rio Grande do Sul, participating in several of the party's electoral campaigns. She became the Secretary of the Treasury of the city of Porto Alegre in the Alceu Collares administration, and later the Secretary of Energy of the State of Rio Grande do Sul under both Collares and Olívio Dutra administrations. In 2000, after an internal dispute in the Dutra cabinet, she left PDT and joined the Workers' Party (PT).

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Dominique Voynet
Dominique Voynet (born 4 November 1958 in Montbéliard, Doubs département, France) is the mayor of Montreuil and a member of Europe Écologie–The Greens. She was a French senator for the département of Seine-Saint-Denis.
Dominique Voynet trained as a doctor, specifically as an anaesthetist. During her studies in the late 1970s, she began participating in environmental activism. She fought against the establishment of nuclear reactors in Fessenheim and Malville, and the deforestation of the Vosges area on behalf of the Belfort Association for the Protection of Nature.
She also became a member of Amnesty International and the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT). In her student years, she was a broadcaster for an independent radio station, "Radio ondes rouges" (Red Radio Waves). Her pacifist and environmental efforts continued with her membership of Front de lutte antimilitariste (FLAM, "Front for the Antimilitarist Struggle") and Friends of the Earth.
Politics tempted her at this time, however the issues that were dear to her – social efforts, peace and environmentalism – were not represented in France by any party at the time. For this reason, she became one of the founding members of The Greens in France.

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Dries van Agt
Andreas Antonius Maria "Dries" van Agt (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈdris fɑn ˈɑxt]; born February 2, 1931) is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from December 19, 1977, until November 4, 1982.
He previously served as Minister of Justice from July 6, 1971 until September 8, 1977 in the Cabinets Biesheuvel I, II and Den Uyl. And Deputy Prime Minister from May 11, 1973 until September 8, 1977 in the Cabinet Den Uyl. He resigned as Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister to become the first Christian Democratic Appeal Party leader and the first Parliamentary leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal in the House of Representatives which he served from May 26, 1977 until December 19, 1977 and a Member of the House of Representatives from June 8, 1977 until December 19, 1977. Van Agt became Prime Minister of the Netherlands, leading the Cabinets Van Agt I, II and III. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for his Third cabinet.

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Edgar Faure
Edgar Faure (French: [ɛdɡaʁ foʁ]; 1908–1988) was a French politician, essayist, historian, and memoirist.
Faure was born in Béziers, Languedoc-Roussillon. He trained as a lawyer in Paris and became a member of the Bar at 27, the youngest lawyer in France to do so at the time. While living in Paris, he became active in Third Republic politics, and joined the Radical Party.
During the German occupation of World War II, he joined the French Resistance in the Maquis, and in 1942 fled to Charles de Gaulle's headquarters in Algiers, where he was made head of the Provisional Government of the Republic's legislative department. At the end of the war he served as French counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials.
In 1946, he was elected to the French Parliament as a Radical. While the popularity of his party declined to less than 10 per cent of the total vote, none of the other parties was able to gain a clear majority. As such, early on, Faure’s party often played a disproportionately important role in the formation of French governments. In this, he led the cabinet in 1952 and from 1955 to 1956. Faure was a leader of the more conservative wing of the party, opposing the party's left under Pierre Mendès-France.

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Emmanuelle Mignon
Emmanuelle Mignon was the French Representative to Andorra from June 2007 to September 2008. Mignon later served as cabinet secretary for Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Ernest Picard
Louis Joseph Ernest Picard (24 December 1821 – 13 May 1877) was a French politician.
He was born in Paris. After taking his doctorate in law in 1846 he joined the Parisian bar. Elected to the corps législatif in 1858, he became a follower of Émile Ollivier. As Ollivier moved towards the government standpoint, Picard, one of the members of the group known as Les Cinq, veered more to the left.
In 1868 he founded a weekly democratic journal, L'Electeur libre, and in 1869 was elected both for Hérault and Paris, electing to sit for the former. From 4 September 1870 he held the portfolio of finance in the government of National Defence. In January 1871 he accompanied Jules Favre to Versailles to arrange the capitulation of the Paris Commune, and in the next month he became minister of the interior in Adolphe Thiers's cabinet.
Attacked both by the monarchist and the republican press, he resigned in May. Later in the year he was sent as ambassador to Brussels, where he remained for two years. On his return to Paris he resumed his seat in the Left centre, and in 1875 became life senator. He died in Paris.

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Eva Joly
Eva Joly (French pronunciation: [eva ʒɔli]; born Gro Eva Farseth, 5 December 1943) is a Norwegian-born French magistrate («Juge d'instruction») and politician for Europe Écologie–The Greens. She represented this party as a candidate for the presidency of France in the 2012 elections.
Born in Grünerløkka, Oslo, she moved to Paris at 20 to work as an au pair. There she married the son of the family that employed her, Pascal Joly (now deceased) and adopted her middle name 'Eva', which is easier to pronounce in French.
Working as a secretary, she took her legal education at night school and became a magistrate when she was 38. Joly specialised in financial affairs, and in 1990 she joined the High Court of Paris as an investigating judge.
Here she quickly made a mark with her tireless crusade against corruption, in particular taking on, among others, former minister Bernard Tapie and the bank Crédit Lyonnais. Her most famous case, however, was that of France’s leading oil company – Elf Aquitaine. In the face of death threats, she carried on the case to uncover several cases of fraud, leading to the conviction of tens of persons involved in the oil business. In 2001, she received for this work the award for integrity from the non governmental organisation Transparency International.

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Felipe González
Felipe González Márquez (born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish socialist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996.
Felipe was born in Seville, son of a farmer who had a small dairy. He has a sister named Lola González y Márquez, married to Francisco Germán Palomino y Romera, by whom she has two sons, Felipe and Germán Palomino y González. He studied Law at Seville University and started his career as attorney specialising in labour. While at the University he met members of the socialist trade union Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) that was clandestine at the time. He also contacted members of the PSOE and started taking part in the party's clandestine activity. During that time he adopted the nom de guerre Isidoro and moved to Madrid. He was elected Secretary General of the Party at the Suresnes Congress, in France.

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Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga (26 July 1928 – 17 August 2010) was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari.
Cossiga was born in Sassari in the north of Sardinia. He started his political career during World War II. His name is now usually pronounced Italian pronunciation: [kosˈsiːɡa], but it was originally pronounced Italian pronunciation: [ˈkɔssiɡa], with the stress on the first syllable, meaning "Corsica". He was the cousin of Enrico Berlinguer.
He was a minister several times for the Democrazia Cristiana party (DC), notably during his stay at Viminale (Ministry for internal affairs) where he re-structured the Italian police, civil protection and secret services. In 1977, when Cossiga was minister of internal affairs, police squads organized by Cossiga shot against a demonstration in Rome, killing student Giorgiana Masi. Cossiga for many years stated that she was killed by her companions.

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Francis Mer
Francis Mer (25 May 1939, in Pau) is a French businessman, industrialist and politician. A former alumnus of the Ecole polytechnique, he was hired in 1970 by the Saint-Gobain group. In 1982, he became chairman of the board of Pont-à-Mousson SA. In the 1980s, he joined the Saint-Simon Foundation think-tank.
Following the 1986 legislative elections and the nomination of the conservative Jacques Chirac as Prime Minister, he was nominated as president of the new Usinor group. He was reelected to his position in 1995, upon the group's privatization, and renamed the group Arcelor in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he was Minister of Finances in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's conservative government.
Since 2005, he seats on the board of directors of Vale Inco, which benefited from an important tax rebate to exploit a nickel mine in New Caledonia, while he was Minister of Finances.
In June 2009, he became chairman of the board of Safran.

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François Baroin
François Baroin (born 21 June 1965 in Paris) is a French politician, who served as Finance Minister from 2011 to 2012, following a stint as Minister of the Budget in the François Fillon III government. He is a long-time ally of Jacques Chirac and, currently, the mayor of Troyes.
Baroin, a lawyer, was Minister for Overseas Territories from June 2005 to March 2007 and was briefly Minister of the Interior from March to May 2007. He replaced Nicolas Sarkozy on 26 March 2007 as Interior Minister when Sarkozy left the Government to pursue his presidential candidacy.
On 29 June 2011 François Baroin was appointed Minister for the Economy, Finance and Industry, replacing Christine Lagarde following her appointment as Director General of the International Monetary Fund.
He was the partner of the journalist Marie Drucker until they separated in 2008. In 2009, he was connected with Michèle Laroque.
Governmental functions
Ministre of Economy, Finance and Industry : 2011-2012.
Government's Spokesman : 2010-2011.

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François Bayrou
François Bayrou (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa bajʁu] is a French centrist politician, president of the Democratic Movement, who was a candidate in the 2002, 2007 and 2012 French presidential election.
François Bayrou was born on 25 May 1951, in Bordères, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a village located between Pau and Lourdes. He is the oldest son of farmers Calixte Bayrou and Emma Sarthou. He first went to secondary school in Pay, then he transferred to Bordeaux.
François Bayrou has six children from his marriage (his wife Élisabeth "Babette" was 19 years old at the time of marriage). The family still lives on the farm in Bayrou's birthplace. Bayrou studied literature at university, and at the age of 23, sat the "agrégation", the highest qualifying level for teachers in senior high schools and universities in France. His father was killed in a tractor accident at that time.
Prior to embarking on his political career, Bayrou taught history in Béarn in the French Pyrenees. He is the author of over a dozen books on politics and history, including one on King Henry IV of France. François Bayrou's hobby is raising horses. A practising Roman Catholic, he is nonetheless a fervent supporter of France's system of laïcité.

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François Fillon
François Charles Armand Fillon (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa fijɔ̃]; born 4 March 1954) is a French lawyer and politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 17 May 2007 to 15 May 2012. He was appointed by President Nicolas Sarkozy on 17 May 2007. As a member of the UMP, Fillon became Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Minister of Labour in 2002 and undertook controversial reforms of the 35-hour working week law and of the French retirement system. He became Minister of National Education in 2004 and proposed the much debated Fillon law on Education. In 2005, he was not included in the new government headed by Dominique de Villepin, but was elected Senator for the Sarthe Département. His role as a political advisor in Nicolas Sarkozy's successful race for President led to his becoming Prime Minister. Fillon resigned upon Sarkozy's defeat to François Hollande in the 2012 presidential elections.
Fillon was born in Le Mans, Sarthe. His father is a civil law notary, while his mother, Anne Fillon, is a celebrated historian and his youngest brother, Dominique, is a talented pianist.

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François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ɔlɑ̃d]; born 12 August 1954) is the 24th President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He previously served as the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008 and as a Deputy of the National Assembly of France for Corrèze's 1st Constituency from 1988 to 1993 and then again from 1997 to 2012. He also served as the Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008 and the President of the General Council of Corrèze from 2008 to 2012.
He was elected President of France on 6 May 2012, defeating the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, and was inaugurated on 15 May. He is the second Socialist President of the Fifth French Republic, after François Mitterrand who served from 1981 to 1995.
Hollande was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Upper Normandy, to a middle-class family. His mother, Nicole Frédérique Marguerite Tribert (1927–2009), was a social worker, and his father, Georges Gustave Hollande, an ear, nose, and throat doctor who "had once run for the extreme right in local politics." The surname "Hollande" is "believed to come from Calvinist ancestors who escaped Holland (the Netherlands) in the 16th century and took the name of their old country." Hollande was raised Catholic but quietly rebelled against the strict religious brothers chosen by his father to educate him. The family moved to Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, when Hollande was 13.

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François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (French: [fʁɑ̃swa mɔʁis mitɛˈʁɑ̃] ( listen); 26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the first figure from the left elected President under the Fifth Republic.
Reflecting family influences, Mitterrand started political life on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under the Vichy Regime in its earlier years. Subsequently, however, he joined the Resistance, moved to the left, and held ministerial office repeatedly under the Fourth Republic. He opposed de Gaulle's establishment of the Fifth Republic. Although at times a politically isolated figure, Mitterrand outmanoeuvred rivals to become the left's standard bearer in every presidential election from 1965 to 1988, except 1969. Elected President in the May 1981 presidential election, he was re-elected in 1988 and held office until 1995.

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François Piétri
François Piétri (8 August 1882 – 17 August 1966) was a minister in several governments in the later years of the French Third Republic and was French ambassador to Spain from 1940 to 1944 under the Vichy regime.
Born in Bastia, Corsica to Antoine-Jourdan Piétri, a lawyer and préfecture councilman, and Clorinde Gavini, the daughter of a French National Assembly member. Piétri graduated from the elite Collège Stanislas in 1899 and moved on to the École libre des sciences politiques for his university education. He was selected for the French Civil Service in 1906 as an auditor (Inspecteur des finances) and progressed through the ranks to the post of Directeur général des finances du Maroc - Director of Finances for Morocco - a role he filled from 1917 to 1924.
In 1924, Piétri was elected to the National Assembly and remained in office there until 1942. During that time, he occupied a number of responsibilities, including:
He remained involved in French politics during the Nazi occupation of France, becoming the Vichy ambassador to Spain from 1940 to 1944.

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Fredrik Reinfeldt
John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced [ˈfreːdrɪk ˈrajnˌfɛlt] ( listen); born 4 August 1965) is the Prime Minister of Sweden, leader of the liberal conservative Moderate Party and former President of the European Council.
A native of Stockholm County, Reinfeldt joined the Moderate Youth League in 1983, and by 1992 had risen to the rank of chairman, a position he held until 1995. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1991, representing his home constituency. Following the 1994 defeat of the Moderate-led coalition government, Reinfeldt adopted a critical stance against the party leadership under Carl Bildt, which resulted in isolation within the party. However, following a change of leadership in 1999 and a bad result in the 2002 election, Reinfeldt gradually gained influence within the Moderate Party.
Reinfeldt was elected party leader on 25 October 2003, succeeding Bo Lundgren. Under his leadership, the Moderate Party has transformed its policies and oriented towards the centre, branding itself "the New Moderates" (Swedish: Nya moderaterna). Following the general elections held on 17 September 2006, Reinfeldt was elected Prime Minister by the new parliament on 5 October and presented his cabinet the following day. Together with the three other political parties in the centre-right Alliance for Sweden, Reinfeldt presides over a coalition government with the support of a narrow majority in the parliament. At the age of 41, he was the third youngest person to become Prime Minister of Sweden. After the 2010 election Reinfeldt's government was reduced to a minority government but also becoming the first centre-right government since before World War II to be re-elected, making Reinfeldt the first Moderate politician elected to two consecutive terms as Prime Minister. He is also the longest-serving Moderate Prime Minister in Swedish history.

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French Directory
The Directory (French: Directoire exécutif) was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate. The period of this regime (2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799), commonly known as the Directory (or Directoire) era, constitutes the second to last stage of the French Revolution.
The Directory era itself is further split into two eras, the First Directory and the Second Directory, divided by the Coup of 18 Fructidor. Directoire style is the refers to the Neoclassical styles in the decorative arts and fashion that characterize the period.
The directory system of government was also used in several French client republics and modern Switzerland; see directorial system.
Under the French Constitution of 1795, qualified property holders elected 750 legislators, who divided themselves into the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients. This bicameral legislature had a term of three years, with one-third of the members renewed every year. The Ancients held a suspensory veto, but possessed no initiative in legislation.

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Frédéric Mitterrand
Frédéric Mitterrand (born 21 August 1947 in Paris), a Franco-Tunisian citizen, was the French Minister of Culture and Communication. Throughout his career, he has been an actor, screenwriter, television presenter, writer, producer and director.
Born in Paris, he is the nephew of François Mitterrand, who was the President of France from 1981 to 1995, and the son of engineer Robert Mitterrand (1915–2002) and Edith Cahier, the niece of Eugène Deloncle, the co-founder of "La Cagoule".^{[citation needed]}
He went to the Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris and studied history and geography at the Paris West University Nanterre La Défense, and political science at Sciences Po. He taught economics, history and geography at EABJM from 1968 to 1971. In 1978, he was a film critic at J'informe. From 1971 to 1986, he ran several art film cinemas in Paris (Olympic Palace, Entrepôt and Olympic-Entrepôt). He also had roles in a number of films, and was in the 1980s active as a producer and director in TV productions.

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Frédéric Nihous
Frédéric Nihous (born August 15, 1967) is a French politician from the Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Traditions party. He was a candidate for the 2007 French presidential election, but was eliminated in the first round of balloting. He was second to last, with 1.15% of votes (420 645 votes).
Born in Valenciennes, his origins are in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, in Northern France, but he currently lives in the Pyrénées Atlantiques, in south-western France. He was the Secretary General for CPNT starting in 1999 in the European Parliament. In 2002 he was the director of the presidential campaign of Jean Saint-Josse (founder of CPNT). After the election he became the parliamentary assistant to Saint-Josse, and controlled the political direction of the party.
He is a husband and father of two.

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Félix Faure
Félix François Faure (30 January 1841 – 16 February 1899) was President of France from 1895 until his death.
Félix François Faure was born in Paris, the son of a small furniture maker. Having started as a tanner and merchant at Le Havre, he acquired considerable wealth, was elected to the National Assembly on 21 August 1881, and took his seat as a member of the Left, interesting himself chiefly in matters concerning economics, railways and the navy. In November 1882 he became under-secretary for the colonies in Ferry's ministry, and retained the post till 1885. He held the same post in Tirard's ministry in 1888, and in 1893 was made vice-president of the chamber.
In 1894 he obtained cabinet rank as minister of marine in the administration of Charles Dupuy. In the following January he was unexpectedly elected President of the Republic upon the resignation of President Casimir-Perier. The principal cause of his elevation was the determination of the various sections of the moderate republican party to exclude Henri Brisson, who had had a plurality of votes on the first ballot, but had failed to obtain an absolute majority. To accomplish this end it was necessary to unite the party, and unity could only be secured by the nomination of someone who offended no one. Faure answered perfectly to this description.

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Félix Gaillard
Félix Gaillard d'Aimé (French: [feliks ɡajaʁ]; 1919–1970) was a French Radical politician who served as Prime Minister under the Fourth Republic from 1957 to 1958. He was the youngest head of a French government since Napoleon.
A senior civil servant in the Inland Revenue Service, Gaillard joined the Resistance and served on its Finance committee. As a member of the Radical Party, he was elected deputy of Charente département in 1946. During the Fourth Republic, he held a number of governmental offices, notably as Minister of Economy and Finance in 1957.
He became Prime Minister in 1957, but, not unusually for the French Fourth Republic, his term of office lasted only a few months. Gaillard was defeated by the French National Assembly, in March 1958, after the bombing of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef, a Tunisian village.
President of the Radical Party from 1958 to 1961, he advocated an alliance of the center-left and the center-right parties. He is representative of a generation of young politicians which the political rise was stopped by the advent of the Fifth Republic.

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Félix Gouin
Félix Gouin (French: [feliks ɡwɛ̃]; 1884–1977) was a French Socialist politician, member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
Félix Gouin was born in Peypin, Bouches-du-Rhône, the son of school teachers. He studied law in Aix-en-Provence.
In 1940 he was among the minority of parliamentarians refusing to grant full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain.
During the war, he was part of the central committee which reconstituted the Human Rights League and also co-founded the Brutus Network, a Socialist Resistance group.
In 1946, he then succeeded Charles de Gaulle as head of the French Provisional Government. Gouin's tenure as prime minister was arguably most notable for seeing the enactment of France’s first ever compulsory, amply funded retirement and worker’s compensation laws.

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Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald (9 February 1926 – 19 May 2011) was an Irish politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland, serving in office from July 1981 to February 1982 and again from December 1982 to March 1987. FitzGerald was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1965 and was subsequently elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD in 1969. He served as Foreign Affairs Minister from 1973 to 1977. FitzGerald was the leader of Fine Gael between 1977 and 1987.
He was the son of Desmond FitzGerald, the first Minister for External Affairs of the nascent Irish state following independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. At the time of his death, FitzGerald was the President of the Institute of International and European Affairs, had a column in The Irish Times and made occasional appearances on television programmes.
Garret FitzGerald was born in Dublin in 1926 into a very politically active family. His mother Mabel McConnell had worked for Under-Secretary for Ireland, James Macmahon decoding messages sent from London. Each day between 2:30 and 3:30 she would pass any information acquired to either Joe McGrath, Liam Tobin or Garret's father, Desmond.Desmond FitzGerald was the London-born and raised. He was Minister for External Affairs at the time of his son's birth. FitzGerald senior, whose father had emigrated as a labourer from Skeheenarinky in County Tipperary, had been active in Sinn Féin during the Irish War of Independence, and had been one of the founders of Cumann na nGaedheal. The party was formed to support the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which created the Irish Free State.

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Gaston Doumergue
Pierre-Paul-Henri-Gaston Doumergue (French pronunciation: [ɡastɔ̃ dumɛʁɡ]; Aigues-Vives, Gard, 1 August 1863 – 18 June 1937 in Aigues-Vives) was a French politician of the Third Republic.
Doumergue came from a Protestant family. Beginning as a Radical, he turned more towards the political right in his old age. He served as Prime Minister from 9 December 1913 to 2 June 1914. He held the portfolio for the colonies through the ministries of Viviani and Briand until the Ribot ministry of March, 1917, when he was sent to Russia to persuade the Kerensky government not to make a separate peace with Germany and Austria. He was elected the twelfth President of France on 13 June 1924, the only Protestant to hold that office. He served until 13 June 1931, and again was Prime Minister in a conservative national unity government, following the riots of 6 February 1934. This government lasted from 6 February to 8 November 1934.
He was widely regarded as one of the most popular French Presidents, particularly after highly controversial Alexandre Millerand, who was his predecessor. Doumergue was single when elected, and became the first President of France to marry in office.

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Gaston Thorn
Gaston Egmond Thorn (3 September 1928 – 26 August 2007) was a Luxembourg politician who served in a number of high-profile positions, both domestically and internationally. Amongst the posts that he held were the 20th Prime Minister of Luxembourg (1974–79), President of the United Nations General Assembly (1975), and the seventh President of the European Commission (1981–85).
Thorn was born in Luxembourg City. While still at school he engaged in resistance activities during the German occupation, and spent several months in prison. After the war he studied law in Montpellier, Lausanne and Paris, and practised law in Luxembourg before entering politics in 1959, representing the liberal Democratic Party. He was Chairman of the Democratic Party from 1961.
Thorn was Foreign Minister and Foreign Trade Minister of Luxembourg from 1969 – 1980, Prime Minister from 1974 – 1979 and Minister of Economics from 1977 to 1980. He was also a member of the European Parliament from 1959 – 1969, and President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1975 – 1976.

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Georges Bidault
Georges-Augustin Bidault (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ bido]; 5 October 1899 – 27 January 1983) was a French politician. During World War II, he was active in the French Resistance. After the war, he served as foreign minister and prime minister on several occasions before he joined the Organisation armée secrète.
Bidault was born in Moulins, Allier. He studied in the Sorbonne and became a college history teacher. In 1932 he helped to found the Catholic Association of French Youth and the left-wing anti-fascist newspaper l'Aube. He had a column in the paper and, among other things, protested against the Munich Agreement in 1938.
After the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the French army. He was captured during the Fall of France and was briefly imprisoned. After his release in July 1941, he became a teacher at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon and joined the Liberté group of French Resistance that eventually merged with Combat. Jean Moulin recruited him to organize an underground press and the Combat underground newspaper.

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Georges Bonnet
Not to be confused with the French Socialist Georges Monnet
Georges-Étienne Bonnet (22/23 July 1889 – 18 June 1973) was a French politician and leading figure in the Radical-Socialist Party.
Bonnet was born in Bassillac, Dordogne, the son of a lawyer. He studied law and political science at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques and Sorbonne, and then went to work as an auditeur at the Conseil d'état. In 1911, he launched a political career after marrying Odette Pelletan, the granddaughter of Eugene Pelletan. Bonnet's wife, often known as Madame Soutien-Georges, ran a salon, and had great ambitions for her husband; one contemporary reported that Madame Bonnet was "so wildly ambitious for her husband that when a new ministry was being formed he was afraid to go home at night unless he had captured a post for himself". Many privately mocked Bonnet for the way in which his wife dominated him.
The moniker "Madame Soutien-Georges" directed towards her was a French pun on the word for brassière (soutien-gorge) and was both a reference to Bonnet and to the size of her breasts. In 1914, Bonnet joined the French Army and in 1918 served as director of demobilization. During his service in World War I, Bonnet was a much-decorated soldier who won the Croix de guerre medal for bravery under fire. In 1919, Bonnet served as a secretary to the French delegation at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and wrote a book, Lettres á un Bourgeois de 1914, that called for widespread social reforms.

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Georges Cochery
Georges Charles Paul Cochery (1855–1914) was the son of Louis-Adolphe Cochery.
He was deputy of his father's département of the Loiret from 1879 till 1885, deputy from 1885, five times president of the Budget Commission, minister of finance (1895–1898) and vice-president of the chamber (1898–1902), and again finance minister in the Briand Cabinet, 1909.

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Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pɔ̃pidu]; 5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.
He was born in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France. After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended Senegalese future poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure with a degree of Agrégation in literature.
He first taught literature at the lycée Henri IV in Paris until hired in 1953 by Guy de Rothschild to work at Rothschild. In 1956, he was appointed the bank's general manager, a position he held until 1962. Later, he was hired by Charles de Gaulle to manage the Anne de Gaulle Foundation for Down's Syndrome (de Gaulle's daughter Anne had Down's Syndrome).
He served as prime minister under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 16 April 1962 to 21 July 1968, and to this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. His nomination was controversial because he was not a member of the National Assembly. In October 1962, he was defeated by a vote of non-confidence, but de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly. The Gaullists won the legislative election and Pompidou was reappointed as Prime Minister. In 1964, he was faced with a miners' strike. He led the 1967 legislative campaign of the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic to a narrow victory. Pompidou was widely regarded as being responsible for the peaceful resolution of the student uprising of May 1968. His strategy was to break the coalition of students and workers by negotiating with the trade-unions and employers (Grenelle conference). Until this crisis, he was the Prime Minister of a quiet and prosperous France.

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Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (commonly rendered Schroeder)([ˈɡɛɐ̯haɐ̯t fʁɪts kʊʁt ˈʃʁøːdɐ] ( listen); born 7 April 1944) is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor he served as Premier of Lower Saxony (1990–1998). Following the 2005 federal election, which his party lost, after three weeks of negotiations he stood down as Chancellor in favour of Angela Merkel of the rival Christian Democratic Union. He is currently the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG, after having been hired as a global manager by investment bank Rothschild.
Schröder was born in Mossenberg, today an outlying centre of Blomberg, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia. His father, Fritz Schröder, a lance corporal in the Wehrmacht, was killed in action in World War II in Romania on 4 October 1944, a few months after Gerhard's birth. His mother Erika worked as an agricultural laborer so that she could support herself and her two sons.

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Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti (Italian pronunciation: [ˈʤuːljo andreˈɔtti]; born January 14, 1919) is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior (1954 and 1978), Defense Minister (1959–1966 and 1974) and Foreign Minister (1983–1989) and he has been a senator for life since 1991. He is also a journalist and author.
He is sometimes called Divo Giulio (from Latin Divus Iulius, "divine Julius", an epithet of Julius Caesar). The movie Il Divo tells about Andreotti's links with the Mafia and won the Prix du Jury at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Andreotti was born in Rome into a family from Segni. He studied law in Rome, during which time he was member of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI, or Italian Catholic University Federation), which was then the only Catholic university association allowed by the Fascist government. Its members included many of the future leaders of the Italian Democrazia Cristiana (or DC, the Christian Democracy party). In July 1939, while Aldo Moro was president of FUCI, Andreotti became director of its magazine Azione Fucina. In 1942, when Moro was enrolled in the Italian Army, Andreotti succeeded him as president of FUCI, a position he held until 1944.

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Guy Canivet
Guy Canivet (born 23 September 1943 in Lons-le-Saunier) is a French judge.
As of 2005^[update], he is president of the Court of Cassation and as such is the highest judge in France.
On 22 February 2007, Jean-Louis Debré, president of the French National Assembly, appointed Guy Canivet to the Constitutional Council of France, replacing Jean-Claude Colliard.

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Guy Verhofstadt
Guy Verhofstadt (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɣiː vərˈɦɔfstɑt] ( listen); born Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt, 11 April 1953) is a Belgian politician, who served as the 47th Prime Minister of Belgium from 1999 to 2008. Since 2009, he has served as a Member of the European Parliament and leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
Born in 1953 in Dendermonde, he became president of the Flemish Liberal Student's Union (1972–1974) while studying law at the University of Ghent. He quickly became the secretary of Willy De Clercq, who was at that time the president of the Flemish liberal party (Party for Freedom and Progress, PVV). In 1982, at age 29, he became president of the party. In 1985 he was elected into the Chamber of Deputies, and became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget under Prime Minister Wilfried Martens. Because of his economic views and his young age, he became known as "Baby Thatcher". Another nickname from that era is "da joenk", a Brabantian dialect expression meaning "that kid" (in a pejorative sense, referring to his rather iconoclastic and immature style).

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Gérard Schivardi
Gérard Schivardi (born 17 April 1950) is a French politician. He contended in the French presidential election of 2007 under the colours of the Workers' Party (Parti des Travailleurs) of Trotskyist legacy. He came last in the first round of balloting on 22 April, obtaining 0.34% of the popular vote (123,540 votes).
Schivardi was born in 1950 in Narbonne. He is married and a father of two. Schivardi has been a master craftsman mason since 1970, and is still in activity as of 2007.
From 1973 to 1988, he was president of the syndicate of the masons of Aude.
In 1975 he joined the Socialist party. In 1989, he was elected in the city council of Mailhac; in 1995 he became second deputy mayor. He was elected mayor of Mailhac in 2001. He advocated strong public services and increased power and independence of communes, denouncing what he called the "forced intercommunality".
In 2002, Schivardi met Daniel Gluckstein, who convinced him to support his campaign.
In July 2003 he was elected representative of the Canton of Ginestas and resigned form the Socialist Party. He then turned "Independent socialist", and was not a member of a political party afterwards, until he joined the Independent Workers' Party (POI) in 2008.

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Göran Persson
Hans Göran Persson (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈʝœːran ˈpæːʂɔn]) (born 20 January 1949) was the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. He was Minister for Finance from 1994 to 1996.
Conceding defeat in the September 2006 general election, he announced that he would resign as party leader, and Mona Sahlin was elected to succeed him as party leader in March 2007. Since August 2007 he has worked as a part time corporate lobbyist for the JKL Group.^{[citation needed]}
Persson was born in Vingåker in Södermanland, Sweden, in a working-class home. He has in recent years revealed that he wanted to become a priest as a young man; however, he applied to the college in Örebro where he took courses in social science (mainly sociology). He completed 80 college credits (120 ECTS credits) in the subject before he left the college in 1971 without graduating. According to himself he had at the time almost completed an education in social and political sciences.^{[citation needed]} As the college later received credentials as a full university, the renamed Örebro University gave him an honorary PhD in medicine in February 2005, an award that provoked some controversy.

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Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈkoːl]; born 3 April 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany between 1982 and 1990 and of the reunited Germany between 1990 and 1998) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck and oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Kohl is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the German reunification and, together with French President François Mitterrand, the Maastricht Treaty, which contributed to the creation of the European Union.
Kohl and Mitterrand were the joint recipients of the Karlspreis in 1988. In 1998, Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet. In 1996, he won the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation.

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Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmʊt ˈʃmɪt]; born 23 December 1918) is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. He is the oldest surviving German Chancellor and the last surviving person to have been solely Chancellor of West Germany (Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of both West Germany and reunified Germany). He is also the oldest living Federal German Minister, after the death of his Interior Minister Werner Maihofer.
Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg, as son of two teachers. He studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. He was conscripted into military service and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. After brief service on the Eastern Front he returned to Germany in 1942 to work as a trainer and advisor at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. Also in 1942, on 27 June, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore "Loki" Glaser (3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010), with whom he fathered two children: Helmut Walter (26 June 1944–February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne (b. 1947), who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the artillery on the Western Front. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath and was a prisoner of war until August. During his service in World War II Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross.

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Henri de Schomberg
Henri de Schomberg, Comte de Nanteuil (1575–1632), was a Marshal of France during the reign of Louis XIII.
Schomberg was born at Paris. Superintendent of Finances from 1619 to 1622. He became Marshal of France in 1625.
In 1628, Schomberg rescued Toiras in the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré with an army of 6,000 men and some cavalry. Together with Toiras he pursued the retreated English army of the Duke of Buckingham, with great loss being sustained by the latter.
Henri de Schomberg commanded Royal troops against the Huguenot rebellions, at the Siege of Privas.
In 1632 he defeated Henri II de Montmorency at the battle of Castelnaudary (1 September 1632).
One of his daughters married the prince de Guéméné.

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Henri Queuille
Henri Queuille (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi køj]; 31 March 1884 in Neuvic, Corrèze – 15 June 1970, Paris) was a French Radical politician prominent in the Third and Fourth Republics. After World War II, he served three times as Prime Minister.
He was the son of a noblewoman.
Changes:

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Herman Van Rompuy
Herman Achille Van Rompuy (pronounced [ˈɦɛɾmɑn vɑn ˈɾɔmpœy] ( listen); born 31 October 1947) is the first long-term and full-time President of the European Council (until the Treaty of Lisbon, the position had rotated among the prime ministers of the member states for six months each, since then they choose a President of their meetings for a 2½ year period, renewable once). This is an unelected position. A Belgian politician of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party, Van Rompuy served as the 49th prime minister of Belgium from 30 December 2008 until his predecessor (Yves Leterme) succeeded him on 25 November 2009. He has the Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold.
On 19 November 2009 Van Rompuy was elected by the members of the European Council as the first full time President of the European Council under the Treaty of Lisbon. He was appointed to chair the institution for the period starting from 1 December 2009 until 31 May 2012, though he only took up his position officially on 1 January 2010. On 1 March 2012 Herman Van Rompuy was re-elected by the heads of state or government of the 27 EU member states. His second term will last two and a half years, from 1 June 2012 to 30 November 2014.

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Hervé Gaymard
Hervé Gaymard (born 31 May 1960 in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Savoie) is a French politician and a member of UMP conservative party. He served as the country's Minister of Finances from 30 November 2004 until his resignation on 25 February 2005.
Gaymard attended the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and then at the École nationale d'administration, graduating from the latter in 1986. After that he worked as a civil servant in a number of finance-related positions.
He was elected as a local councillor in Savoie's canton de Moûtiers in 1994. He later served on the departmental council of Savoie, and in 1999, became its president. He was appointed to the finance ministry in November 2004, and was forced to resign barely 12 weeks later, on Friday, 25 Feb 2005.
He is married to Clara Lejeune, daughter of geniticist Jérôme Lejeune. A Catholic, he is the father of eight children: Philothée, Bérénice, Thaïs, Amédée, Eulalie, Faustine, Jérôme-Aristide, Angélico.
Gaymard's resignation as Minister of Finances came after the satirical and investigative newspaper Le Canard enchaîné disclosed on 16 Feb 2005 that the government was funding an exclusive apartment for Gaymard and his family (his wife and his 8 children). The duplex apartment, located in the exclusive "Golden Triangle" neighbourhood off Paris' Champs-Élysées, reportedly had an area of 600 m² (6460 sq ft) and cost the state a monthly rental of €14,000. Aside from the luxuriously high rent, the state was also funding $3,300 a month for maintenance and three parking spaces, $42,000 to renovate the apartment and the parking area, and $16,000 in real estate fees.

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Hervé Morin
Hervé Morin (born 17 August 1961 in Pont-Audemer, Eure) is a French politician, leader of the New Center party (center-right) and a former French Minister of Defence.
He was elected as a representative in the French National Assembly on 16 June 2002, in the 3rd constituency of Eure, Normandy. He was the president of the group UDF in the National Assembly. After the UDF's candidate for the 2007 presidential election, François Bayrou, didn't make it to the 2nd round, he hinted that he attempted to create an alliance with the Socialist Party and decided to found a new political party: the Democratic Movement (or MoDem). Consequently, Morin, who is of the center-right and an ally of the presidential election's winner, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it an organisation within the presidential majority in the National Assembly. It is now called New Centre and he is the leader.
After the creation of the UMP, he took the presidency of the UDF group at the National Assembly, from 2002 to 2007. While Morin was joining the government as minister of Defence in July 2007, Marc Vampa New Centre replaced him as representative.

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Hippolyte Passy
Hippolyte Passy (1793–1880) was a French economist. He was twice Minister of Finance in the government of Louis-Philippe of France.

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Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (Arabic: محمد حسني السيد مبارك‎, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [mæˈħæmːæd ˈħosni ˈsæjjed moˈbɑːɾˤɑk], Muḥammad Ḥusnī Sayyid Mubārak; born 4 May 1928) is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
Mubarak was appointed Vice President of Egypt in 1975, and assumed the presidency on 14 October 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar El Sadat. His almost thirty-year presidency made him Egypt's longest-serving ruler since Muhammad Ali Pasha. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in the Egyptian Air Force, serving as its commander from 1972 to 1975 and rising to the rank of air chief marshal.
Mubarak was ousted after 18 days of demonstrations during the 2011 Egyptian revolution when, on 11 February, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and transferred authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. On 13 April, a prosecutor^[which?] ordered Mubarak and both his sons to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power. He was then ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder of peaceful protestors during the revolution. These trials officially began on 3 August 2011. Egypt’s military prosecutors then also proclaimed that they are investigating Mubarak's role in the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat.

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Hubert Haenel
Hubert Haenel (born 20 May 1942) is a French politician and a member of the Senate of France. He represents the Haut-Rhin department and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement Party.
On February 24, 2010, he was nominated to the Constitutional Council of France by the President of the French senate Gérard Larcher.

wn.com/Hubert_Haenel
Hungarian people
Hungarians, also known as Magyars (Hungarian: magyarok), are a nation and ethnic group who speak Hungarian and are primarily associated with Hungary. There are around 14-15 million Hungarians, of whom 10 million live in today's Hungary (as of 2011). About 2.2 million Hungarians live in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the 1918-1920 dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Treaty of Trianon, and are now parts of Hungary's seven neighbour countries, especially Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. Significant groups of people with Hungarian ancestry live in various other parts of the world, most of them in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada and Australia. Unlike the Hungarians living on the former territory of pre-1918-20 Kingdom of Hungary, only some of the ethnic Hungarians in other areas preserve the Hungarian language and traditions. The Hungarians can be classified into several subgroups according to local linguistic and cultural characteristics; subgroups with distinct identities include the Székely, the Csángó, the Palóc, and the Jassic people.

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Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (Spanish pronunciation: [iˈsak alˈβeniθ]) (29 May 1860, Camprodon – 18 May 1909, Cambo-les-Bains) was a Spanish pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms. However, many of his works have been transcribed by Miguel Llobet and others for guitar, and many of his pieces such as Asturias (Leyenda), Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz, Cordoba, Cataluña, and the Tango in D are amongst the most important pieces for classical guitar.
Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz (a customs official) and his wife Dolors Pascual, Albéniz was a child prodigy who first performed at the age of four. At age seven, after apparently taking lessons from Antoine François Marmontel, he passed the entrance examination for piano at the Paris Conservatoire, but he was refused admission because he was believed to be too young.

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Jack Lynch
John Mary "Jack" Lynch (15 August 1917 – 20 October 1999) was the Taoiseach of Ireland, serving two terms in office; from 1966 to 1973 and 1977 to 1979.
Lynch was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Cork in 1948, and was re-elected at each general election until his retirement in 1981. He previously served as Minister for Finance (1965–1966), Minister for Industry and Commerce (1959–1965), Minister for Education (1957–1959), Minister for the Gaeltacht (1957) and as a Parliamentary Secretary. He was the third leader of Fianna Fáil from 1966 until 1979, succeeding the hugely influential Seán Lemass. Lynch was the last Fianna Fáil leader to secure (in 1977) an overall majority in the Dáil. Historian and journalist T. Ryle Dwyer has called him "the most popular Irish politician since Daniel O'Connell."
Prior to his political career Lynch had a successful sporting career as a dual player of Gaelic games. He played hurling with his local club Glen Rovers and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1950. Lynch also played Gaelic football with his local club St. Nicholas' and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1946. He is widely regarded^{[by whom?]} as one of the greatest dual players of all-time.

wn.com/Jack_Lynch
Jacques Barrot
Jacques Barrot (born 3 February 1937 in Yssingeaux, Haute-Loire) is a French politician, who has served as European Commissioner for Justice (2008–2010), after four years as Commissioner for Transport (2004–2008) and Commissioner for Regional Policy for eight months (2004). He is also one of five vice-presidents of the 27-member Barroso Commission. He previously held various ministerial positions in France, and is a member of the right-wing political party UMP. He was officially approved in his post by the European Parliament on 18 June 2008 with a vote of 489 to 52 with 19 abstentions.
Barrot was a European Commissioner between April 2004 and, serving as Commissioner for Regional Policy in the Prodi Commission before being selected as a Vice-President and Commissioner for Transport in the Barroso Commission.^{[clarification needed]}
He was convicted in a French court of embezzlement in 2000. The case involved the diverting of £2 million of government money to his party. He received an eight month suspended prison sentence. His conviction was automatically erased by a 1995 presidential amnesty.

wn.com/Jacques_Barrot
Jacques Cheminade
Jacques Cheminade (French pronunciation: [ʒak ʃəminad]; born August 20, 1941 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a French political activist. He is the head of the LaRouche movement in France.
After graduating from the HEC Paris, law school, and the École nationale d'administration, Cheminade became a career officer in the Directorate of Foreign Economic Relations of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry, a position he held until 1981.
Cheminade met Lyndon LaRouche in early 1974 in New York, where he was a commercial attaché to the French embassy from 1972 to 1977. He compares this encounter to Socratic midwifery. According to a 1976 FBI document, he was then a "rank and file member" in the National Caucus of Labor Committees, a political organization directed by Lyndon LaRouche which had founded its own "intelligence units" in 1971, where he "work[ed] in the International Intelligence Section" (see document, left). His return to France in 1977 was motivated by a desire to devote himself "full time to political activities and the advocacy of Mr. LaRouche's ideas and policies".

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Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac ( /ʒɑːk ʃɨˈræk/; French pronunciation: [ʒɑk ʃiʁak]; born 29 November 1932) is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 (making him the only person to hold the position of Prime Minister twice under the Fifth Republic), and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, a term at Harvard University and the École nationale d'administration (ENA), Chirac began his career as a high-level civil servant, and soon entered politics. He subsequently occupied various senior positions, including Minister of Agriculture, Minister of the Interior, Prime Minister, Mayor of Paris, and finally President of the French Republic.
Chirac's internal policies included lower tax rates, the removal of price controls, strong punishment for crime and terrorism, and business privatisation. He also argued for more socially responsible economic policies, and was elected in 1995 after campaigning on a platform of healing the "social rift" (fracture sociale). After less statist policy when he was Prime Minister (1986–1988), he changed his method. Then, his economic policies, based on dirigisme, state-directed ideals, stood in opposition to the laissez-faire policies of the United Kingdom, which Chirac famously described as "Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism". Chirac is the second-longest serving President of France (two full terms, the first of seven years and the second of five years), after François Mitterrand. As President, he also served as an ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the French Légion d'honneur.

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Jacques Delors
Jacques Lucien Jean Delors (born 20 July 1925) is a French economist and politician, the eighth President of the European Commission and the first person to serve three terms in that office (between January 1985 and December 1994). He is the father of Martine Aubry, the leader of the Socialist Party of France.
Born in Paris in a family originating from Corrèze, Delors first held in the 1940s-1960s a series of posts in French banking and state planning with the Banque de France. As a member of the French Confederation of Christian Workers, he participated in its secularization and the foundation of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour. In 1969, he became social affairs adviser to the Gaullist Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas, a move which was presented as part of Chaban's outreach to the centre-ground and first attracted media attention to Delors personally .
In 1974, Delors joined the French Socialist Party, with other left-wing Christians. He was one of the rare members of the party to be openly religious, thus challenging its long-standing secular tradition. He served in the European Parliament from 1979 to 1981, becoming chairman of its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Under President François Mitterrand, Delors served as Economics and Finance Minister from 1981–1983, and Economics, Finance, and Budget Minister from 1983–1984. He advocated a pause in the social policies, a clear acceptance of the market economy, and an alignment with European social democracy. Critically, he held the line on France's membership of the European Monetary System (EMS), giving priority to monetary stability over left-wing spending priorities. Mitterrand flirted with the idea of naming him Prime Minister^{[citation needed]}, but never made this appointment.

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Jacques Laffitte
Jacques Laffitte (24 October 1767 – 26 May 1844) was a French banker and politician.
Laffitte was born at Bayonne, one of the ten children of a carpenter.
He became clerk in the banking house of Perregaux in Paris. He was made a partner in the business in 1800, and in 1804 succeeded Perregaux as head of the firm. The house of Perregaux, Laffitte et Cie. became one of the greatest in Europe. Laffitte himself became regent (1809), then governor (1814) of the Bank of France and president of the Chamber of Commerce (1814). He raised large sums of money for the provisional government in 1814 and for King Louis XVIII of France during the Hundred Days. It was with him that Napoleon deposited five million francs in gold before leaving France for the last time.
Rather than permit the government to appropriate the money from the bank, Laffitte supplied two million from his own pocket to cover the arrears of the imperial troops after the Battle of Waterloo. He was returned by the département of the Seine to the Chamber of Deputies in 1816, and took his seat on the left. He spoke chiefly on financial questions; his known Liberal views did not prevent Louis XVIII from insisting on his inclusion on the commission on the public finances.

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Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker (30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804) was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.
Necker was born on September 30, 1732 in Geneva, then an independent republic. His father was a native of Küstrin in Neumark (Prussia, now Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Poland), and had, after the publication of some works on international law, been elected as professor of public law at Geneva, of which he became a citizen. Jacques Necker was sent to Paris in 1747 to become a clerk in the bank of Isaac Vernet, a friend of his father. By 1762 he was a partner and by 1765, through successful speculations, had become very wealthy. Soon, he co-founded, with another Genevese, the famous bank of Thellusson, Necker et Cie. Peter Thellusson (also known as Pierre Thellusson) superintended the bank in London (his son was made a peer as Baron Rendlesham), while Necker was managing partner in Paris. Both partners became very rich by loans to the treasury and speculations in grain.

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Jacques Santer
Jacques Santer (born 18 May 1937 in Wasserbillig) is a Luxembourg politician.
He was finance minister of Luxembourg from 1979 until 1989, and the 22nd Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1984 to 1995, as a member of the Christian Social People's Party, which has been the leading party in the Luxembourg government since 1979. As Prime Minister of Luxembourg he also led the negotiations on the Single European Act, which effectively set aside the 20-year old Luxembourg Compromise.
Santer became the ninth President of the European Commission in 1995 as a compromise choice between the United Kingdom and a Franco-German alliance, after the Franco-German nominee Jean-Luc Dehaene was vetoed by British prime minister John Major. Santer selection was barely ratified by a European Parliament upset with the process for which Commission presidents are selected.
In the same year, 1995, Santer became the first recipient of the Vision for Europe Award.
Allegations of corruption concerning individual EU-commissioners led to an investigation into administrative failings (incompetence and malpractice) by an independent group of experts. Despite clearing most commissioners, the report stated that they had not found a single person showing the slightest sense of responsibility. Because the implicated commissioners refused to resign and because the President of the European Commission did not have the power to dismiss individual commissioners, Santer and his entire commission resigned on 15 March 1999, the very day of the report's publication (see Santer Commission: Resignation).

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James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was a British Labour politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Commonly known as Jim Callaghan (and nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim"), Callaghan is the only person to have served in all four of the Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.
Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967 during a turbulent period in the British economy in which he had to wrestle with a balance of payments deficit and speculative attacks on the pound sterling. In November 1967, the Government was forced to devalue the pound sterling despite having already denied this would be done, both publicly and to the House of Commons. Callaghan offered to resign, but was persuaded to swap his ministerial post with Roy Jenkins, becoming Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970. In that capacity, Callaghan took the decision to use the Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government.

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Jan Peter Balkenende
Jan Pieter "Jan Peter" Balkenende (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjɑn ˈpetər ˈbɑlkənˌɛndə] ( listen)) (born May 7, 1956) is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from July 22, 2002 until October 14, 2010.
He previously served as a Member of the House of Representatives from May 19, 1998 until July 22, 2002. After then CDA Party leader and Parliamentary leader in the House of Representatives Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stepped down after a internal power struggle, between him and then CDA Party Chair Marnix van Rij. Balkenende succeed him in both positions, and became the CDA Lijsttrekker for the Dutch general election of 2002. The CDA became the surprising winner of the election, gaining 14 seats (from 29 to 43) and becoming the largest party in the House of Representatives. This success was in part owed to Balkenende and to his neutral attitude in the debate with LPF leader Pim Fortuyn, for not having participated in the supposed ‘demonization’ by the political Left. Fortuyn was assassinated during the national election campaign on May 6, 2002.

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Janez Janša
Ivan Janša (born 17 September 1958), baptized and best known as Janez Janša, is a Slovenian politician who has been Prime Minister of Slovenia since February 2012. He served as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2008, and has led the Slovenian Democratic Party since 1993. Janša was Minister of Defense from 1990 to 1994, holding that post during the Slovenian War of Independence (June–July 1991).
Born to a Roman Catholic working-class family of Grosuplje, he was called Janez (a version of the same name, known as John in English) since childhood. His father was a member of the Slovenian Home Guard from Dobrova near Ljubljana who had escaped Communist retaliation due to his young age. Janez graduated from the University of Ljubljana with a degree in Defence Studies in 1982, and became a trainee in the Defence Secretariate of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. In his younger years, he was a member of the League of Communists and one of the leaders of its youth wing. He became president of the Committee for Basic People's Defence and Social Self-Protection of the Alliance of Socialist Youth of Slovenia (ZSMS).

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Jaume Bartumeu
Jaume Bartumeu Cassany (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈʒawme baɾtuˈmew]) (born 10 November 1954) is an Andorran lawyer and politician, who served as head of government from 2009 to 2011. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party (PS) in June 2000, in which he held the position of first secretary between 2000 and 2004. He was the leader of the opposition at the General Council between 2005 and 2009.
In May 2008, he was designated candidate for head of government at the 2009 General election by his party.
In the parliamentary election held on April 26, 2009, Bartumeu's party was the clear winner with a 45,03% of the national list vote and the majority in 4 of the 7 parishes, giving to the Social Democratic Party a relative majority of 14 seats out of 28. He was therefore the only candidate that could achieve the necessary majority to be invested head of the government of Andorra during the parliamentary vote held on May 29, 2009. Following the ApC's decision to abstain, however, he failed to be elected in that session (he received 14 votes and Joan Gabriel of the Reformist Coalition 11; 15 were required); another vote was set for 3 June 2009. He was confirmed on 3 June 2009 with a simple majority of 14 votes, and took office on 5 June 2009.

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Jean Arthuis
Jean Arthuis (born October 7, 1944 in Saint-Martin-du-Bois, Maine-et-Loire) is a French politician and member of the Senate of France. He has held various ministerial positions, especially regarding finances, and is now head of the Finance Commission of the French Senate.
He is the President of the Centrist Alliance political party and is a member of the Centrist Union Senate group.
He is president of the general council of the Mayenne département.

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Jean de Boullonges
John Boullongne, Count de Nogent (1690–1769) was a French magistrate and politician.
Adviser to the parliament of Metz, then superintendent of finance, State Councilor, member of the Royal Council of Finance, he became controller general of finance on 25 August 1757, replacing Francois Marie Peyrenc de Moras. He remained in that position until 4 March 1759.

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Jean du Thiers
Jean de Thiers, seigneur de Beauvoir (died 1559) was Minister of Finance for Henry II of France, and a Secretary of State.
He was a great humanist and protector of the poet Joachim du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard.
He bought Château de Beauregard, Loire Valley, in 1545, for 2,000 gold ecus. Jean de Thiers was the real builder of the castle. He incorporated the old house in the new building and built in Renaissance style, the central gallery which connected the two buildings.
From 1553, he appealed to many foreign artists who were working for King Henry II. The painter Nicolò dell'Abbate decorated with frescoes. Francesco Scibec da Carpi carved woodwork of the study, "the Cabinet of Jingle Bells" at the foot of the windows of the south wing. He showed a collections of rare plants.

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Jean Sarkozy
Jean Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa (hun: nagybócsai Sárközy János) (born 1 September 1986) is the son of the former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli. Jean is a regional councillor in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine, France and registered as a 1st year Law student at Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University in 2007. He is a backroom activist for his father's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), a center-right party.
Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to parachute David Martinon, his presidential spokesman, into the mayorship of Neuilly-sur-Seine where the president had formerly served as mayor. Jean Sarkozy was asked to persuade the voters to support his father's choice. After a poll showed that Martinon was not very popular and would lose the election, Jean Sarkozy publicly broke rank and said it was impossible to continue backing his father's mayoral choice. He and other politicians from the UMP party decided to campaign on their own ticket. Martinon stepped down as the party's candidate for mayor. Jean Sarkozy announced he was running for office himself as the UMP candidate for regional councillor in the electoral district of Neuilly-Sud. He was born, brought up and now lives in Neuilly-Sud. He faced three other candidates, Marie Brannens from the Socialist Party, and candidates from the Democratic Movement (MoDem) and the Front National.

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John Bruton
John Gerard Bruton (born 18 May 1947) is an Irish politician who served as Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland from 1994 to 1997. A minister under two taoisigh, Liam Cosgrave and Garret FitzGerald, Bruton held a number of the top posts in Irish government, including Minister for Finance (1981–1982 and 1986–1987), and Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism (1983–1986). He became leader of Fine Gael in 1990 and served as Taoiseach from 1994 until 1997, leading the Rainbow Coalition government of Fine Gael–Labour Party–Democratic Left.
Bruton was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a TD for Meath in 1969, and served continuously until his retirement from domestic politics in 2004. He served as the Ambassador of the European Union to the United States from 2004–2009, and is a former Vice-President of the European People's Party (EPP).
John Gerard Bruton was born to a wealthy, Catholic farming family in Dunboyne, County Meath and educated at Clongowes Wood College.
Oliver Coogan notes in his Politics and War in Meath 1913–23 that Bruton's granduncle was one of the farmers in south Meath who prevented the traditionally Anglo-Irish ascendency hunt from proceeding in the area during the Irish War of Independence.

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John Major
Sir John Major, KG, CH, PC, ACIB (born 29 March 1943) is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He held the posts of Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001.
Despite Thatcher's "notorious" assertion that "she expected to continue in control as a backseat driver," Major's mild and consensual style was seen as complete contrast to Thatcher's forceful and confrontational manner. Early in his term, he presided over British participation in the First Gulf War (March 1991) and negotiated "Game, Set and Match for Britain" at the Maastricht Treaty (December 1991). Despite the British economy then being in recession he led the Conservatives to a fourth consecutive election victory, winning the most votes in British electoral history in the 1992 general election, albeit with a much reduced majority in the House of Commons. He is to date, the last Conservative leader to win an outright majority in a general election.

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Joop den Uyl
Johannes Marten den Uijl, known as Joop den Uyl (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjoːp dɛn ˈœyl]; August 9, 1919 – December 24, 1987) was a Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA). He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from May 11, 1973 until December 19, 1977.
He previously served as a Member of the House of Representatives from November 6, 1956 until June 5, 1963. He became Minister of Economic Affairs from April 14, 1965 until November 22, 1966 in the Cabinet Cals. He became the Labour Party Party leader on September 13, 1966 and served as the Parliamentary leader in the House of Representatives from February 15, 1967 until May 11, 1973 and again a Member of the House of Representatives from February 23, 1967 until May 11, 1973. Den Uyl became Prime Minister of the Netherlands, leading the Cabinet Den Uyl.
After his prime-ministership, Den Uyl remained in active politics and returned as the Parliamentary leader in House of Representatives from January 16, 1978 until September 10, 1981 and a Member of the House of Representatives from January 16, 1978 until September 11, 1981. He became Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Minister for Suriname and Netherlands Antilles Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister from September 11, 1981 until May 29, 1982 in the Cabinet Van Agt II. After the fall of this cabinet, Den Uyl again became the Parliamentary leader in the House of Representatives from September 7, 1982 until his resignation as Parliamentary leader and as the Labour Party Party leader on July 21, 1986, he was succeeded in both positions by Wim Kok. He served as a Member of the House of Representatives for the last time from September 16, 1982 until his death on December 24, 1987.

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Joseph Caillaux
Joseph-Marie–Auguste Caillaux (French pronunciation: [ʒɔzɛf kajo]; 30 March 1863 Le Mans – 22 November 1944 Mamers) was a major French politician of the Third Republic. The leader of the Radicals, he favored a policy of conciliation with Germany during his premiership from 1911 to 1912, which led to the maintenance of the peace during the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911. He and his ministers were forced to resign on January 11, 1912, after it was revealed that he had secretly negotiated with Germany without the knowledge of President Fallieries.
In 1914 he resigned as Minister of Finance after his wife Henriette shot Gaston Calmette, the editor of Le Figaro newspaper when he threatened to print a letter written by Caillaux that was political dynamite. She was acquitted, however, and Caillaux became the leader of a peace party in the Assembly during World War I. This led to his arrest and trial for treason in 1918. Again rehabilitated after the war, Caillaux served at various times in the left wing governments of the 1920s.

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Joseph Marie Terray
Joseph Marie Terray (December 9, 1715, Boën – February 18, 1778) was a Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV of France, an agent of fiscal reform, cut short by his death.
Terray, tonsured but not a priest, was appointed in 1736 an ecclesiastical counsellor in the Parlement of Paris, where he specialized in financial matters. In 1764 he was made abbot in commendam of the rich abbey of Molesme. The support of his uncle, physician in ordinary to the duchess of Orléans, mother of the Regent, eventually rendered him rich, enabling him to set aside his former circumspect style of life and openly seat his mistresses at his table. His genuine capacity attracted the attention of Louis XV's chancellor, René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, who made him controller general in December 1769. His first big venture was helping Mme du Barry's partisans to bring down the minister of foreign affairs, Étienne François, duc de Choiseul the very next year by demonstrating that the government could not afford to go to war with Great Britain. "Intelligent, plain-speaking, hard-working and rich", Terray spent the next few years stabilizing the finances of the country by repudiating part of the national debt, suspending payments on the interest on government bonds, and levying forced loans. These reforms aroused mass protest among nobles and commoners alike, which forced Maupeou to strip the Parlements of their political power in 1771, so that further reforms could be enacted.

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José Bové
Joseph (José) Bové (born June 11, 1953 in Talence, Gironde) is a French farmer and syndicalist, member of the alter-globalization movement, and spokesman for Via Campesina. He was one of the twelve official candidates in the 2007 French presidential election. On 7 June 2009, he was elected to the European Parliament as a member of Europe Écologie, a coalition of French environmentalist political parties.
Bové was born in Talence, near Bordeaux, but raised in many different places, both inside and outside France, including the United States. Bové speaks English fluently, having followed his parents to Berkeley, California at the age of three, when they were invited to be researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
Bové attended a Jesuit secondary school near Paris (from which he was expelled for being "faithless"). While at university, he associated with anarchists and pacifists. When asked to serve in the army, he fled France.
In 1976 Bové joined a movement protesting the proposed expansion of a military camp on the Larzac plateau, which would have displaced sheep farmers. He joined a band of peasants occupying the threatened territory and illegally building a sheep barn. The protest eventually succeeded and the military plan was cancelled. As a result of that experience he became a sheep farmer, producing Roquefort cheese on the Larzac.

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José María Aznar
José María Alfredo Aznar López (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse maˈɾia aθˈnar] ( listen); born 25 February 1953) served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation and is also a member of the Club de Madrid.
Aznar, born in Madrid in 1953, was the son of Manuel Aznar Acedo, army official, journalist and radio broadcaster, and grandson of Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, a prominent journalist during the Franco era. Both father and grandfather held governmental positions during the years of Spain under Franco. He studied law at the Complutense University of Madrid, graduating in 1975, becoming a Spanish Tax Authority inspector in 1976.
As a teenager, Aznar was a member of the Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas (FES), a Student Union supporting the Falange, Franco's one-party fascist organization. After 1977 it would become Falange Española Independiente (FEI).
After the death of Francisco Franco and the restoration of democracy, Aznar joined Alianza Popular (AP) in January 1979, a few months after his wife. In March he became the Secretary General of the party in La Rioja, occupying the post until 1980. In February 1981 he joined the AP's National executive committee. He became Assistant Secretary General in February 1982.

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José Sócrates
José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, GCIH (born 6 September 1957), commonly known as José Sócrates (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ ˈsɔkɾɐtɨʃ]), is a Portuguese politician who was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011.
For the second half of 2007, he acted as the President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union. In addition to these posts, José Sócrates was Portugal's Minister for Youth and Sports and one of the organisers of the UEFA Euro 2004 football championship in Portugal, as well as being a former Environment Minister in the governments of António Guterres.
On 23 March 2011, he submitted his resignation to the president after parliament rejected his government's austerity measures in a vote, leading to the Portuguese legislative election of 2011. After losing the election, held on 5 June 2011, he resigned as Secretary-General of the Socialist Party.
José Sócrates was born in Porto on 6 September 1957, and was registered as a newborn in Vilar de Maçada, Alijó municipality, in northeastern Portugal, since the locality was his family ancestral homeland. However, the young José Sócrates lived throughout his childhood and teen years with his father, a divorced building designer, in the city of Covilhã, Cova da Beira subregion, in central inland Portugal, in the Centro region. His parents are Fernando Pinto de Sousa (b. Vilar de Maçada, Alijó, 15 November 1926) and wife and remote relative Maria Adelaide de Carvalho Monteiro (b. Vilar de Maçada, Alijó, 8 October 1931). He has two younger siblings, António Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, born circa 1962, and Ana Maria Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, died in 1988. He is a descendant of the illegitimate daughter of António José Girão Teixeira Lobo Barbosa (Porto, Sé, 9 January 1715 – Alijó, Vilar de Maçada), Fidalgo of the Royal Household and Knight of the Order of Christ, thrice distant relative of Diogo Cão.

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Jules Armand Dufaure
Jules Armand Stanislas Dufaure (French pronunciation: [ʒyl aʁmɑ̃ dyfoʁ]; 4 December 1798 – 28 June 1881) was a French statesman.
Dufaure was born at Saujon, Charente-Maritime, and began his career as an advocate at Bordeaux, where he won a great reputation by his oratorical gifts. He abandoned law for politics, and in 1834 was elected deputy. In 1839 he became minister of public works in the ministry of Jean-de-Dieu Soult, and succeeded in freeing railway construction in France from the obstacles which till then had hampered it.
Losing office in 1840, Dufaure became one of the leaders of the Opposition, and on the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he accepted the Republic, and joined the party of moderate republicans. On 13 October he became minister of the interior under Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, but retired on the latter's defeat in the presidential election. During the Second French Empire, Dufaure abstained from public life, and practised at the Paris bar with such success that he was elected bâtonnier in 1862.

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Jules Grévy
François Paul Jules Grévy (French pronunciation: [ʒyl ɡʁevi]; 15 August 1807 – 9 September 1891) was a President of the French Third Republic and one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction. Given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is seen as the first real republican President of France.
Born at Mont-sous-Vaudrey in the Jura mountains, he became an advocate in 1837, and, having steadily maintained republican principles under the Orléans monarchy, was elected by his native department to the Constituent Assembly of 1848. Foreseeing that Louis Bonaparte would be elected president by the people, he proposed to vest the chief authority in a president of the Council elected and removable by the Assembly, or in other words, to suppress the Presidency of the Republic. After the coup d'état this proposition gained Grévy a reputation for sagacity, and upon his return to public life in 1868 he took a prominent place in the republican party.

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Lamberto Dini
Lamberto Dini (help·info) (born March 1, 1931) is an Italian politician and economist. He was the 75th Prime Minister of Italy from 1995 to 1996 and Foreign Minister from 1996 to 2001.
After studying Economics in his native city of Florence, Dini took up a post at the International Monetary Fund in 1959, where he worked his way up until he served as Executive Director for Italy, Greece, Portugal and Malta between 1976 and 1979. Then, in October 1979, he moved to the Banca d'Italia, where he served as executive until May 1994. When the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, with whom Dini had developed a rivalry, was called upon to serve as Premier, in April, 1993, Dini was widely tipped to succeed him, but was passed over (allegedly on Ciampi's instigation) in favour of Antonio Fazio.
Dini scored a comeback, though, when Silvio Berlusconi formed the Berlusconi I Cabinet in May 1994, in which Dini served as Treasury Minister. Due to a split between Berlusconi and his coalition partner Umberto Bossi, the Lega Nord leader, Berlusconi's government collapsed in December 1994, after a mere seven months in power. In January 1995, Dini was appointed Prime Minister by President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro. Though he was not noted as a left-winger, Dini, was given the confidence vote of the left-wing parties (apart from the Communist Refoundation) and by Lega Nord, whereas his erstwhile partners in the right-wing government chose to abstain whilst citing benevolence. In theory, his cabinet was a technocratic one.

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Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush (born November 4, 1946) is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in education and soon took a job as a second grade teacher. After attaining her Master's degree in Library Science at the University of Texas at Austin, she was employed as a librarian. She met George Walker Bush in 1977, and they were married later that year. The couple had twin daughters in 1981.
Bush's political involvement began with her marriage. She campaigned during her husband's unsuccessful 1978 run for the United States Congress and later his successful Texas gubernatorial campaign. As First Lady of Texas, Bush implemented many initiatives focused on health, education, and literacy. In 1999, she aided her husband in campaigning for the presidency in a number of ways, most notably delivering a keynote address at the 2000 Republican National Convention, which gained her national attention. She became first lady after her husband defeated Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election.

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Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius (French pronunciation: [loʁɑ̃ fabjys]; born 20 August 1946) is a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. He was 37 years old when he was appointed and is, so far, the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. He is now Foreign Minister since 16 May 2012.
Fabius was born in Paris, the son of Louise (née Strasburger-Mortimer; 1911–2010) and André Fabius (1908–1984). His parents were Jewish and converted to Catholicism, and Fabius was raised an assimilated Catholic. His secondary education was at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He was a graduate of institutions that are training grounds for academics (École Normale Supérieure), senior civil servants (École Nationale d'Administration) and future leaders (Sciences Po).
After his studies, he became an auditor for the Council of State. Member of the Socialist Party (PS) since 1974, he was first elected to the National Assembly in 1978 for the fourth constituency of Seine Maritime département. He quickly gained entry to the circle of François Mitterrand, the leader of the party.

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Leo Tindemans
Leonard Clemence “Leo” Tindemans (Dutch: [ˈleˑ(ɪ̯)oˑ ˈtɪndəmɑns] ( listen)) (born 16 April 1922) is a Belgian politician and the 43rd Prime Minister. He was born in Zwijndrecht.
Tindemans was affiliated with the CVP. This party is strong in the northern region of Flanders. Tindemans was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 1961 and re-elected in 1965, 1968, 1971, 1974, 1977 and 1978. From 1965 to 1973 Tindemans also served as the mayor of Edegem.
In 1968 Tindemans became minister tasked with the relations between the communities (1968–1972) during which he prepared the first constitutional reform which saw Belgium start transforming into a federal state. In 1972 he became minister for agriculture (1972–1973). In 1973 he became deputy Prime Minister and minister for the budget (1973–1974). Tindemans served as Prime Minister of two Belgian governments, from 25 April 1974 to 20 October 1978. His first cabinet was a minority government formed by the Christian-democrats and liberals. When his first government fell in 1977, Tindemans won the snap general election which followed and formed his second cabinet with the Christian-democrats, socialists and Flemish nationalists. His second government (1977–1978) fell due to the controversy surrounding the Egmont pact.

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Liam Cosgrave
Liam Cosgrave (born 13 April 1920) is a former Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach (1973–77) and as Leader of Fine Gael (1965–77). He was a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1943 to 1981.
Born in Dublin, Cosgrave was the son of W. T. Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council in the newly formed Irish Free State. After qualifying as a barrister he decided to embark on a political career. He was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1943 general election and sat in opposition alongside his father. The formation of the first inter-party government in 1948 saw Cosgrave become a Parliamentary Secretary to Taoiseach John A. Costello. He formally became a cabinet member in 1954 when he was appointed Minister for External Affairs. The highlight of his three-year tenure was Ireland's successful entry into the United Nations. In 1965 Cosgrave was the unanimous choice of his colleagues to succeed James Dillon as leader of Fine Gael. He lost the 1969 general election to the incumbent Jack Lynch, but won the 1973 general election and became Taoiseach in a Fine Gael-Labour Party government.

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Libyan civil war
The Libyan civil war (also referred to as the Libyan revolution), was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on Tuesday, 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security forces that fired on the crowd. The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing an interim governing body, the National Transitional Council.
The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and his inner circle and restricting their travel, and referred the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation. In early March, Gaddafi's forces rallied, pushed eastwards and re-took several coastal cities before attacking Benghazi. A further U.N. resolution authorised member states to establish and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, and to use "all necessary measures" to prevent attacks on civilians. The Gaddafi government then announced a ceasefire, but failed to uphold it, though it then accused rebels of violating the ceasefire when they continued to fight as well. Throughout the conflict, rebels rejected government offers of a ceasefire and efforts by the African Union to end the fighting because the plans set forth did not include the removal of Gaddafi.

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Liliane Bettencourt
Liliane Bettencourt (French pronunciation: [li.li.jan be.tɑ̃.kuːʁ], born 21 October 1922) is a French heiress, socialite, businesswoman and philanthropist. She is one of the principal shareholders of L'Oréal and, with a fortune estimated at US$23.5 billion, is one of the wealthiest people in the world.
Bettencourt was born in Paris, France, the only child of Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal, one of the world's largest cosmetics and beauty companies. Her mother died in 1927 when Liliane was 5 years old, and she formed a close bond with her father, who later married Liliane's British governess. At the age of 15, she joined her father’s company as an apprentice, mixing cosmetics and labelling bottles of shampoo.
In 1950, she married French politician André Bettencourt, who served as a cabinet minister in French governments of the 1960s and 1970s and rose to become deputy chairman of L’Oréal. Bettencourt had been a member of La Cagoule, a violent French fascist group that Liliane's father had funded and supported in the 1930s and that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. After the war, her husband, like other members of La Cagoule, was given refuge at L'Oréal despite his politically inconvenient past. Eventually, the Bettencourts settled in an Art Moderne mansion built in 1951 on rue de Delabordère in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. They had one daughter, Françoise, who was born on 10 July 1953.

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Louis Buffet
Louis Joseph Buffet (French pronunciation: [lwi byfɛ]; 26 October 1818 – 7 July 1898) was a French statesman.
He was born at Mirecourt, Vosges. After the revolution of February 1848 he was elected deputy for the department of the Vosges, and in the Assembly sat on the right, pronouncing for the repression of the insurrection of June 1848 and for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He was minister of agriculture from August to December 1849 and from August to October 1851.
Re-elected deputy in 1863, he was one of the supporters of the "Liberal Empire" of Émile Ollivier, and was finance minister in Ollivier's cabinet from January to 10 April 1870. He was president of the National Assembly from 4 April 1872 to 10 March 1875, minister of the interior in 1875, and Prime Minister of France from 1875 to 1876. Having made himself obnoxious to the Republican party, he failed to secure a reëlection to the Assembly in 1876. Then, elected senator for life (1876), he pronounced himself in favour of President MacMahon failed attempt to grasp political control on 16 May 1877.

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Louis Jules Trochu
Louis Jules Trochu (French pronunciation: [lwi ʒyl tʁɔʃy]; 12 March 1815 – 7 October 1896) was a French military leader and politician. He served as President of the Government of National Defense—France's de facto head of state—from 4 September 1870 until his resignation on 22 January 1871 (although he retained the role symbolically until the legislative elections of February 1871).
He was born at Palais (Belle-Île-en-Mer). Educated at St. Cyr, he received a commission in the Staff Corps in 1837, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1840, and captain in 1843. He served as a captain in Algeria under Marshal Bugeaud, who, in recognition of his gallantry in the battles of Sidi Yussuf and Isly, made him his aide-de-camp and entrusted him with important commissions. He was promoted to major in 1845, and to colonel in 1853. He served with distinction throughout the Crimean campaign, first as aide-de-camp to Marshal St. Arnaud, and then as general of brigade, and was made a commander of the Légion d'honneur and general of division. He again distinguished himself in command of a division in the Italian campaign of 1859, where he won the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur.

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Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur (August 12, 1872 in Roubaix, Nord – November 22, 1931 in Paris) was a French politician in the Third Republic, at first a member of the conservative Republican Federation, then of the Democratic Republican Alliance and of the Independent Radicals.
Coming from a background in the arms industry, Loucheur became Minister of Munitions in September 1917. He replaced Albert Thomas and served as munitions minister until November 26, 1918 when he became Minister of Industrial Re-construction where he remained until January 20, 1920.
He was the principal economic advisor for Georges Clemenceau at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The product of this conference was the controversial Treaty of Versailles.
Loucheur was briefly Minister of Commerce, Industry, Posts, and Telegraphs under Raymond Poincaré in 1924.
He also served as Minister of Finance in Aristide Briand's seventh Government during 1925 and 1926.
In Édouard Herriot's Second Ministry Loucheur served as Minister of Commerce and Industry and from June 1928 to February 1930.. He then served again under Poincaré as Minister of Labour, Hygiene, Welfare Work, and Social Security Provisions.

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Louis Lucien Klotz
Louis-Lucien Klotz (11 January 1868 – 15 June 1930) was a French journalist and politician. He was the French Minister of Finance during World War I.
Louis-Lucien Klotz was born in Paris to Alsatian Jewish parents, He was the nephew of Victor Klotz (1836-1906), a wealthy silk dealer. After completing his legal education, he enrolled as an advocate at the Cour d'Appel in Paris. In 1888, at the age of twenty, he founded Vie Franco-Russe, an illustrated paper intended to increase popular support for the Franco-Russian Alliance. In 1892 he became editor of Voltaire, and campaigned against the reactionary policy of Jules Ferry. In 1895, he founded Français Quotidien, a patriotic daily paper devoted to national defense, into which Voltaire was later merged.
Klotz was an unsuccessful candidate for the National Assembly from his Paris district in the 1893 election. He ran for office and lost again a few years later. Then in the 1898 election, he ran for the Assembly from Montdidier as a Radical Socialist. This time he was elected by an overwhelming majority. He retained this seat until 1925.

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Luc Chatel
Luc Marie Chatel is a French politician born on August 15, 1964 in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He was Minister of National Education from June 2009 to May 2012, overseeing a difficult transition in the conditions under which new secondary teachers begin their careers. This change of policy was inherited from the previous minister Xavier Darcos.
He previously was the Secretary of State (junior minister) for Consumer Affairs and Tourism from June 2007 to March 2008, and additionally Government’s Spokesman from June 2009 until November 2010.
He is a widower after his wife was found dead on January 22, 2012 from suicide..
Governmental functions
Electoral mandates
National Assembly of France
Regional Council
Municipal Council
Community of Communes Council
Political function

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Lucien Lamoureux
Lucien Lamoureux, PC, OC (August 3, 1920 – July 16, 1998) was a Canadian politician and Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons from 1966 to 1974. He is the second longest-serving occupant of that office.
After graduating with a law degree from Osgoode Hall in 1945, Lamoureux worked as a political aide to Lionel Chevrier, a Canadian Cabinet minister in the government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. In 1954, he left Chevrier's office to establish a law practice in Cornwall, Ontario.
Lamoureux was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1962 election as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP). In 1963, he became Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons and decided to stop attending meetings of the Liberal caucus in order to maintain impartiality. Following the 1965 election, Prime Minister Lester Pearson nominated him to the position of Speaker of the House of Commons.
Lamoureux served as speaker during two minority governments, 1965–1968 and 1972–1974, experiences that required him to maintain authority and neutrality in a situation where no party had control of the House.

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Léon Blum
André Léon Blum (French pronunciation: [leɔ̃ blym]; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times Prime Minister of France.
While in his youth an avid reader of the works of the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès, Blum had little interest in politics until the Dreyfus Affair of 1894, which had a traumatic effect on him as it did on many French Jews. Campaigning as a Dreyfusard brought him into contact with the socialist leader Jean Jaurès, whom he greatly admired. He began contributing to the socialist daily, L'Humanité, and joined the Socialist Party, then called the SFIO. Soon he was the party's main theoretician.
In July 1914, just as the First World War broke out, Jaurès was assassinated, and Blum became more active in the Socialist party leadership. In August 1914 Blum became assistant to the Socialist Minister of Public Works Marcel Sembat. In 1919 he was chosen as chair of the party's executive committee, and was also elected to the National Assembly as a representative of Paris. Believing that there was no such thing as a "good dictatorship", he opposed participation in the Comintern. Therefore, in 1920, he worked to prevent a split between supporters and opponents of the Russian Revolution, but the radicals seceded, taking L'Humanité with them, and formed the SFIC.

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Léon Say
Jean-Baptiste Léon Say (June 6, 1826 in Paris – April 21, 1896 in Paris), French statesman and economist, was born in Paris.
The family was a most remarkable one. His grandfather Jean-Baptiste Say was a well-known economist. His brother Louis Auguste Say (1774–1840), director of a sugar refinery at Nantes, wrote several books against his theories. His son Horace Émile Say (1794–1860), the father of Léon Say, was educated at Geneva, and had travelled in America before establishing himself in business in Paris, where he became president of the Chamber of Commerce in 1848. His careful investigations into the condition of industry at Paris gained for him a seat in the Academy of political and moral sciences, 1857.
Léon Say thus inherited zeal for economic studies, of which he gave proof by publishing at the age of twenty-two a brief Histoire de la caisse descompte. He was at first destined for the law, next entered a bank, and finally obtained a post in the administration of the Chemin de fer du Nord. Meanwhile he became a regular contributor to the Journal des débats, where he established his reputation by a series of brilliant attacks on the financial administration of the prefect of the Seine, Haussmann.

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Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) British prime minister of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the "Iron Lady", which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975 Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition, as well as the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became prime minister after winning the 1979 general election.
After entering 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what she perceived as Britain's precipitous national decline. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership.

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Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen (French pronunciation: [ma.ʁin lə.pɛn]; born Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen; 5 August 1968) is a lawyer by profession, a French right-wing politician and the president of the Front National (FN), the third-largest political party in France, since 16 January 2011. She is the youngest daughter of the French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, former president of the FN and currently its honorary chairman.
She joined the FN in 1986, its Executive Committee in 2000 and was a vice-president of the FN for eight years (2003–2011). She currently is an ex-officio member of the FN Executive Office, Executive Committee and Central Committee.
She has been a regional councillor since 1998 (Île-de-France: 2004–2010, Nord-Pas-de-Calais: 1998–2004, 2010–present), a Member of the European Parliament since 2004 (Île-de-France: 2004–2009, North-West France: 2009–present) and was a municipal councillor in Hénin-Beaumont, Pas-de-Calais for three years (2008–2011).
In 2010, she was a candidate for the leadership of the FN set up by Jean-Marie Le Pen on 5 October 1972. She successfully succeeded him during the FN congress in Tours, Indre-et-Loire. On 16 January 2011, she was elected with 67.65% (11,546 votes) as the second president of the Front National.

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Martin Bouygues
Martin Bouygues, born 1952, is chairman and chief executive officer of the French company Bouygues; founded by his father Francis in 1952. In 2006 he was listed at the worlds 214th richest person, and a billionaire.
Since 2010 - Skolkovo Foundation Council member.

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Martine Aubry
Martine Aubry (French pronunciation: [maʁtin obʁi]; née Delors; born 8 August 1950) is a French politician. She has been the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste, or PS) since November 2008 and Mayor of Lille (Nord) since March 2001. Her father, Jacques Delors, served as Minister of Finance under President François Mitterrand and was also President of the European Commission.
Aubry joined the PS in 1974 and was appointed Minister of Labour by Prime Minister Édith Cresson in 1991, but lost her position in 1993 after the Right won the legislative elections. However, she became Minister of Social Affairs when Lionel Jospin was appointed Prime Minister in 1997. She is mostly known for having pushed the popular 35-hour workweek law, known as the "Loi Aubry", reducing the nominal length of the normal full-time working week from 39 to 35 hours, and the law that created the Couverture maladie universelle (Universal health care coverage).
Aubry stepped down from her Cabinet post in 2001 to be elected Mayor of Lille in place of Pierre Mauroy. Aubry subsequently lost her seat in the National Assembly in the general election of 2002. In March 2008, she was reelected Mayor of Lille, with 66.55% of the votes.

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Matti Vanhanen
Matti Taneli Vanhanen ( pronunciation (help·info)) (born November 4, 1955) is a Finnish politician who was Prime Minister of Finland from 2003 to 2010. He was also Chairman of the Centre Party, and in the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. In his earlier career he was a journalist.
Vanhanen is the son of professor Tatu Vanhanen and Anni Tiihonen. He is an abstainer of alcohol and 2 meters tall.
He studied political science at the University of Helsinki, graduating as a Master of Social Sciences in 1989. He was chairman of the Centre Party Youth League from 1980 to 1983. He also served as a member of the Espoo City Council from 1981 to 1984. Vanhanen used to work as a journalist. He was an editor (1985–1988) and editor-in-chief (1988–1991) at the local newspaper Kehäsanomat. In a column in Suomenmaa (the Centre Party’s organ), he strongly condemned the Baltic Star pro-Estonian independence demonstration held in Helsinki in July 1985, calling the demonstration "provocative".

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Maurice Rouvier
Maurice Rouvier (French pronunciation: [moʁis ʁuvje]; 17 April 1842 – 7 June 1911) was a French statesman of the "Opportunist" faction. He is best known for his financial policies and his unpopular policies designed to avoid a rupture with Germany.
He was born in Aix-en-Provence, and spent his early career in business at Marseille. He supported Léon Gambetta's candidature there in 1867, and in 1870 he founded an anti-imperial journal, L'Egalité. Becoming secretary general of the prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône in. 1870-71, he refused the office of prefect. In July 1871 he was returned to the National Assembly for Marseille at a by-election, and voted steadily with the Republican party. He became a recognized authority on finance, and repeatedly served on the Budget Commission as reporter or president.
At the general elections of 1881 after the fall of the Jules Ferry cabinet he was returned to the chamber on a programme which included the separation of Church and State, a policy of decentralization, and the imposition of an income-tax. He then joined Gambetta's cabinet as minister of commerce and the colonies, and in the 1883-85 cabinet of Jules Ferry he held the same office. He became premier and minister of finance on 31 May 1887, with the support of the moderate republican groups, the Radicals holding aloof in support of General Boulanger, who began a violent agitation against the government.

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Michel Chamillart
Michel Chamillart or Chamillard (2 January 1652 – 14 April 1721) was a French statesman, a minister of King Louis XIV of France.
He was born in Paris of a family recently raised to the nobility. Following the usual career of a statesman of his time he became in turn councillor of the parlement of Paris (1676), master of requests (1686), and intendant of the generality of Rouen (January 1689). His attractive personality won the confidence of Madame de Maintenon and pleased the king. In 1690 he was made intendant of finances, and on 5 September 1699 the king appointed him Controller-General of Finances, to which he added on the following 7 January the ministry of war. From the first, Chamillart's position was a difficult one. The deficit was more than 53 million livres, and the credit of the state was almost exhausted. Chamillart lacked the intelligence and energy necessary for the situation, and was unable to moderate the king's warlike tastes, or to inaugurate economic reforms. He could only employ the usual expedients of the time—the immoderate sale of offices, the debasement of the coinage (five times in six years), reduction of the rate of interest on state debts, and increased taxation.

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Michel Charasse
Michel Charasse (born 8 July 1941) is a member of the Senate of France. He represents the Puy-de-Dôme department, and is a member of the European Democratic and Social Rally.
On February 24, 2010, The French president Nicolas Sarkozy nominated him as a member of the Constitutional Council of France.

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Michel de Marillac
Michel de Marillac (Paris, October 1563 – Château de Châteaudun, 7 August 1632) was a French jurist and counsellor at the court of Louis XIII of France, one of the leading dévots. His uncle was Charles de Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne and a member of the king's council, the Conseil du Roi. A member of the circle of Marie de' Medici, he was arrested after the Queen Mother's flight in 1631 and died in prison.
Michel de Marillac was Minister of Justice in 1626. He was appointed Superintendent of Finances on 27 August 1624, with Jean Bochart. His advice to Cardinal Richelieu advocated conservative policies abroad and limited involvement in northern Italy during the War of the Mantuan Succession, while France was occupied with suppressing Huguenots at home and countering Habsburg influence in the drawn-out Bourbon-Habsburg wars that were not resolved until 1659. His main concern was encouraging economic growth, as a balance to the threats posed by popular unrest in France and the resistance to new forms of taxation to support the war. His key proposals reforming the legal administration were embodied in the Code Michau, published in 1629, which synthesised in 430 article headings texts adopted by the États-général of 1614 and the Assemblies of Notables, 1617–26, embracing every aspect of government.

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Michel Debré
Michel Jean-Pierre Debré (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl dəbʁe]; 15 January 1912 – 2 August 1996) was a French Gaullist politician. He is considered the "father" of the current Constitution of France, and was the first Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. He served under President Charles de Gaulle from 1959 to 1962.
Debré was born in Paris, the son of the well-known Jewish professor Robert Debré, who is today considered by many to be the founder of modern pediatrics. Michel Debré himself was a Catholic. He studied at the Lycée Montaigne and then at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, obtained a diploma from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Paris. He then became a Professor of Law at the University of Paris. He also joined the École des Officiers de Réserve de la Cavalerie (Reserve Cavalry-Officers School) in Saumur. In 1934, at the age of twenty two, Debré passed the entrance exam and became a member of the Conseil d'État. In 1938, he joined the staff of the Economy Minister Paul Reynaud.

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Michel Mercier
Michel Mercier (born 7 March 1947) is a French politician and who served as Minister of Justice from 2010 until 2012.
After studying law and graduation from the Lyon IEP, he taught finance and local government law at the Faculty of Law of Lyon III.
Elected Senator from the Rhône on September 24, 1995, he was the right's official candidate in the municipal elections in 2001 in Lyon, incumbent Mayor Raymond Barre having refused to run for re-election. Arriving behind the right-wing dissident list supported by Charles Millon in his sector, the 5th arrondissement of Lyon, he decided to withdraw in favor of Jean-Michel Dubernard, who established an alliance with Charles Millon. The Socialist Gérard Collomb was elected Mayor of Lyon.
He was re-elected Senator on 26 September 2004. General councillor for the canton of Thizy, he is also President of the General Council of Rhône since February 1990. Treasurer of the UDF, he remained loyal to the opposition of François Bayrou vis-à-vis the government of Dominique de Villepin.

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Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray (born January 1, 1959 in Argentan, Orne, France) is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism and anarchism. He is a highly prolific author on philosophy with more than 50 written books.
He has gained notoriety for writing such works as Physiologie de Georges Palante, portrait d'un nietzchéen de gauche, Politique du rebelle: traité de résistance et d'insoumission, Traité d'athéologie: Physique de la métaphysique (translated into English as Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, La puissance d'exister and La Sculpture de soi for which he won the annual Prix Médicis in 1993.
His philosophy is mainly influenced by such thinkers as Nietzsche, Epicurus, the cynic and cyrenaic schools, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, and individualist anarchism.
Born to a family of Norman farmers, he graduated with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He taught this subject to senior students at a technical high school in Caen between 1983 and 2002, before establishing what he and his supporters call the Université populaire de Caen, proclaiming its foundation on a free-of-charge basis and on the manifesto written by Onfray in 2004 (La communauté philosophique).

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Michel Sapin
Michel Sapin (French pronunciation: [mi.ʃɛl sa.pɛ̃] ; born 9 April 1952) is a French politician and a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Indre department, and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche. On 16 May 2012, he became the Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Affairs in the Ayrault Cabinet.
Michel Sapin was born on April 9, 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He attended the Lycée Henri IV, followed by Paris-Sorbonne University, where he received a B.A. in History and an MPhil in Geography. He then attended the École Normale Supérieure, the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, and the École nationale d'administration.
From 1989 to 1994, he served as councillor for Nanterre. From 1995 to 2001, he was the Mayor of Argenton-sur-Creuse. He has served again as such since 2002. He served as Deputy Minister of Justice from May 1991 to April 1992, Finance Minister from April 1992 to March 1993, and Minister of Civil Servants and State Reforms from March 2000 to May 2002.

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Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (Hungarian: Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós, Hungarian pronunciation: [viteːz nɒɟbaːɲɒi horti mikloːʃ], German: Nikolaus von Horthy und Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" (Hungarian: Ő Főméltósága a Magyar Királyság Kormányzója).
Admiral Horthy was an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. He served in the Otranto Raid and at the Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917), and was its commander-in-chief in the last year of the First World War.
After Hungarian communists under Béla Kun seized power in Hungary in 1919, proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and commenced Hungary's Red Terror, a counterrevolutionary government was formed and asked Horthy to take command of its forces. In late 1919, Romanian forces invaded Hungary and later overthrew Kun's government.

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Mirek Topolánek
Mirek Topolánek (Czech pronunciation: [ˈmɪrɛk ˈtopolaːnɛk]) (born 15 May 1956) is a former prime minister of the Czech Republic and former President of the European Council. A member of the Civic Democratic Party, he was chairman of the center-right party between November 2002 and March 2010, succeeding Václav Klaus, who was elected President in 2003.
On 24 March 2009, Topolánek announced his resignation as Prime Minister – and that of his governing coalition, after it lost a no-confidence vote in the Czech House of Deputies. He remained in office until 8 May, at which point Jan Fischer took office as an independent Prime Minister leading an interim caretaker government
Mirek Topolánek attended a military high school in Opava, where he became a Socialistic Union of Youth member which he claimed to be semi-obligatory for future officers. After finishing he studied at Brno University of Technology where he received an Ing. degree in mechanical engineering. In 1996 he won a scholarship for Training Course in Management of small and medium enterprise (MIM) in Cyprus and also attended a post-graduate Course in Corporate Management (Centre for Management Training, Čelákovice CZ).

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Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي‎) (June 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi /ˈmoʊ.əmɑr ɡəˈdɑːfi/ (Arabic: مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي‎ Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī audio (help·info)) or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Gaddafi seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 and served as the country's head of state until 1977, when he stepped down from his official executive role as Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya, and claimed subsequently to be merely a symbolic figurehead. He styled himself as "Leader of the Revolution"; in 2008 a meeting of traditional African rulers bestowed on him the title "King of Kings". A leading advocate for a United States of Africa, he served as Chairperson of the African Union (AU) from 2 February 2009 to 31 January 2010.
Gaddafi replaced the Libyan Constitution of 1951 with laws based on the political ideology he had formulated, which he called the Third International Theory and published in The Green Book. After establishing the Jamahiriya (جماهيرية, "state of the masses") system in 1977, he officially stepped down from power and after that time held a largely symbolic role within the country's official governance structure. Rising oil prices and extraction in Libya led to increasing revenues. By exporting as much oil per capita as Saudi Arabia and through various welfare programs, Libya achieved the highest living standards in Africa; Libya remained debt-free.

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Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte [napoleɔ̃ bɔnɑpaʁt]) (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars. He established hegemony over most of continental Europe and sought to spread the ideals of the French Revolution, while consolidating an imperial monarchy which restored aspects of the deposed Ancien Régime. Due to his success in these wars, often against numerically superior enemies, he is generally regarded as one of the greatest military commanders of all time and his campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world.
Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of noble Genoese ancestry, and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France. He rose to prominence under the French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, he staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him emperor. In the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving every major European power.

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Napoleon III
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the emperor of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. Elected President by popular vote in 1848, he initiated a coup d'état in 1851, before ascending the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation. He ruled as Emperor of the French until 4 September 1870. He holds the unusual distinction of being both the first titular president and the last monarch of France.
Napoleon III is primarily remembered for an energetic foreign policy which aimed to jettison the limitations imposed on France since 1815 by the Concert of Europe and reassert French influence in Europe and abroad. A brief war against Austria in 1859 largely brought an end to the process of Italian unification. In the Near East, Napoleon III spearheaded allied action against Russia in the Crimean War and restored French presence in the Levant, claiming for France the role of protector of the Maronite Christians. A French garrison in Rome likewise secured the Papal States against annexation by Italy, defeating the Italians at Mentana and winning the support of French Catholics for Napoleon's regime.

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Nathalie Arthaud
Nathalie Arthaud (French pronunciation: [natali aʁto]; born February 23, 1970) is a teacher in economics in lycée and French politician and Lutte Ouvrière candidate for the 2012 presidential election. She is a native of Peyrins, Drôme, France.
In 2007, Arthaud was a teacher and spokeswoman of Arlette Laguiller's presidential bid.
During the press conference following the annual meeting of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle), December 8, 2008, Nathalie Arthaud officially designated as spokeswoman of the party.
As a new leader of Lutte Ouvrière, Arthaud led the party's campaign for the European elections in June 2009. She topped the list in the South-East constituency where she obtained 24,727 votes (0.84%).
At the regional election of 2010 in Rhône-Alpes, the party obtained 24,294 votes (1.42%).
On December 5, 2010, Arthaud was designated candidate of Lutte Ouvrière in the presidential election of 2012.
Arthaud is also an elected town councillor for Vaulx-en-Velin, in charge of youth matters.

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Nicolas Desmarets
Nicolas Desmarets, Marquis De Maillebois (September 10, 1648, Paris – May 4, 1721, Paris) was a Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XIV of France.
Desmarets was a nephew of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and therefore rose through the ranks of the financial administration rapidly. He was exiled upon Colbert's death in 1683, however, for his alleged role in a counterfeiting scheme. After returning to Paris in 1686, Desmarets published a series of memoranda that exposed the deplorable economic situation of France.
Desmarets was made director of finances in 1703 and replaced Michel Chamillart as controller general in 1708. Desmarets undertook several policies aimed at restoring France's financial status while in office, including postponing repayment of loans, securing lower interest rates on certain loans, creating a royal lottery, devaluing metal currency, and instituting a ten percent tax on income in 1710. While these measures helped France stay afloat during the War of Spanish Succession, the public debt became unmanageable, and Desmarets recommended in 1715 that the state should declare itself bankrupt. Desmarets was dismissed from office after Louis XIV's death that year.

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Nicolas Fouquet
Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (January 27, 1615 – March 23, 1680) was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He fell out of favor with the young king, probably because of his extravagant displays of wealth, and the king had him imprisoned from 1661 until his death in 1680.
Nicolas Fouquet was born in Paris, he belonged to an influential family of the noblesse de robe and, after some preliminary schooling with the Jesuits at the age of thirteen, was admitted as avocat at the Parlement of Paris. While still in his teens, he held several responsible posts, and, in 1636, when just twenty, he was able to buy the post of maître des requêtes. In 1640 he married the rich Louise Fourché, who died a year later.
From 1642 to 1650, he held various intendancies, at first in the provinces and then with the army of chief minister Cardinal Mazarin and, coming thus in touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris. During Mazarin's exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court.

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Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi] ( listen), born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as the 23rd President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).
Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.
In foreign affairs, he promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He also married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.

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Nicos Anastasiades
Nicos Anastasiades (Greek: Νίκος Αναστασιάδης; born 27 September 1946) is a Cypriot politician who is the political leader of the center-right political party DISY (the Democratic Rally). In parliamentary elections on May 22, 2011, the Democratic Rally won 20 seats, which was more than any other party but not a majority of the 56-member House of Representatives.
Anastasiades was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1981 and has been leader of his party since 8 June 1997.
He is a lawyer by profession and he is the founder of the law firm of Nicos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners.^{[better source needed]} He graduated in law from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and completed postgraduate studies in shipping law at University College London (University of London). He is a traditional supporter of ending military conscription in Cyprus.
Nikos Anastasiades with President of France Nicolas Sarkozy
Nikos Anastasiades with Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi
Nikos Anastasiades with President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso

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Olivier Besancenot
Olivier Besancenot (French pronunciation: [olivje bəzɑ̃səˈno]) (born on 18 April 1974) is a French far left political figure and trade unionist, and the founding main spokesperson of the New Anticapitalist Party (Nouveau parti anticapitaliste, NPA) from 2009 to 2011.
He was a candidate for the 2007 French presidential election, for the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), the French section of the Fourth International. He gained 1.2 million votes, 4.25%, standing as a revolutionary socialist in the 2002 presidential elections. In the first round of the 2007 presidential election, Besancenot received 4.08% of the vote, just short of 1.5 million votes, placing him fifth and eliminating him from the race.
In May 2011, Besancenot announced that he would not be standing in the 2012 presidential election. He is succeeded as main spokesperson of the NPA by Myriam Martin and Christine Poupin.
Olivier Besancenot was born on 18 April 1974 in Levallois-Perret in the Hauts-de-Seine region. His father, Michel Besancenot, was a teacher and his mother a psychologist at a school.

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Paavo Lipponen
Paavo Tapio Lipponen ( pronunciation (help·info)) (born 23 April 1941) is a Finnish politician and former reporter. He was Prime Minister of Finland from 1995 to 2003, and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Finland from 1993 to 2005. He also served as Speaker of the Parliament of Finland from 2003–2007 and was his party's nominee in the 2012 Finnish presidential election but received only 6.7% of the votes, making it the biggest defeat the Social Democratic Party has ever had in Finnish Presidential elections.
Lipponen was born in Turtola (subsequently renamed Pello), son of Orvo Lipponen and his wife Hilkka Iisalo. Paavo's maternal grandparents were Jaakko Antero Ingman/Iisalo (a distant relative of Count Adolf Fredrik Munck af Fulkila and Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim) and his wife Siiri Törnroos. Paavo Lipponen spent his childhood and youth in Kuopio.
Receiving his gymnasium diploma from the Lyceum of Kuopio in 1959, he then studied philosophy and literature at Dartmouth College for one year.

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Patrick Devedjian
Patrick Devedjian (born on 26 August 1944 in Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne) is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. A close adviser of Nicolas Sarkozy since the 1990s, he was Minister under the Prime Minister in charge of the Implementation of the Recovery Plan, a special ministerial post created for two years after the global financial crisis of 2008, since December 2008. He is of Armenian descent.
As a student at the University of Paris II, he was a member of the far-right group Occident. He was admitted to the Paris Bar in 1970. He became a militant in the Gaullist movement in 1971 and took part in the foundation of the Rally for the Republic (RPR) party in 1976.
In 1983, Devedjian was elected Mayor of Antony, a position he would hold until 2002 with re-elections in 1989, 1995 and 2001. In 1986, he also became a Deputy in the National Assembly from the Hauts-de-Seine department and was re-elected four times in 1988, 1993, 1997 and 2002. He was member of the Assembly Committee on Finance, and was rapporteur of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Committee.

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Paul Deschanel
Paul Eugène Louis Deschanel (French pronunciation: [pɔl deʃanɛl]; 13 February 1855, Schaerbeek – 28 April 1922) was a French statesman. He served as President of France from 18 February 1920 to 21 September 1920.
Paul Deschanel, the son of Émile Deschanel (1819–1904), professor at the Collège de France and senator, was born at Brussels, where his father was living in exile (1851–1859), owing to his opposition to Napoleon III. He is one of only two French Presidents (the other is Valéry Giscard d'Estaing) who were born outside France (Deschanel in Belgium, Giscard in Koblenz, Germany).
Paul Deschanel studied law, and began his career as secretary to Deshayes de Marcère (1876) and to Jules Simon (1876–1877). In October 1885, he was elected deputy for Eure-et-Loir. From the first, he took an important place in the chamber, as one of the most notable orators of the Progressist Republican group. In January 1896, he was elected vice-president of the chamber, and henceforth devoted himself to the struggle against the Left, not only in parliament, but also in public meetings throughout France.

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Paul Doumer
Joseph Athanase Paul Doumer, commonly known as Paul Doumer (French pronunciation: [pɔl dume]; 22 March 1857 – 7 May 1932) was the President of France from 13 June 1931 until his assassination.
He was born in Aurillac, in the Cantal département, in France on 22 March 1857. Alumnus of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Professor of mathematics.
He was Governor-General of French Indochina from 1897 to 1902. After returning from French Indochina, Doumer served as President of the Chamber of Deputies (a post equivalent to the speaker of parliament) from 1902 to 1905.
The Long Bien Bridge was built during his term as Governor-General and was named for him. It became a well-known landmark and target for US pilots during the Vietnam War.
He became Minister of Finance of France in 1925 when Louis Loucheur resigned.
He was elected President of the French Republic on 13 May 1931, defeating the better known Aristide Briand, and replacing Gaston Doumergue.
On 6 May 1932, he was shot in Paris at the opening of a book fair by Paul Gorguloff, a mentally unstable Russian émigré. He died at 04:37 a.m. on 7 May.

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Paul Marchandeau
Paul Marchandeau (10 August 1882, Gaillac, Tarn – 31 May 1968, Paris) was a French politician. He was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Légion d'honneur, for his actions during World War I. From 1925 until 1942, he was the mayor of Reims. During the 1930s, he was, successively, French minister of finance, minister of the interior, minister of justice, and minister of the budget.

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Paul Painlevé
Paul Painlevé (French pronunciation: [pɔl pɛ̃ləve]; 5 December 1863 – 29 October 1933) was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.
Painlevé was born in Paris.
Brought up within a family of skilled artisans (his father was a draughtsman) Painlevé showed early promise across the range of elementary studies and was initially attracted by either an engineering or political career. However, he finally entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1883 to study mathematics, receiving his doctorate in 1887 following a period of study at Göttingen, Germany with Felix Klein and Hermann Amandus Schwarz. Intending an academic career he became professor at Université de Lille, returning to Paris in 1892 to teach at the Sorbonne, École Polytechnique and later at the Collège de France and the École Normale Supérieure. He was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1900.
He married Marguerite Petit de Villeneuve in 1901. Marguerite died during the birth of their son Jean Painlevé in the following year.

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Paul Ramadier
Paul Ramadier (French pronunciation: [pɔl ʁamadje]; 17 March 1888, La Rochelle – 14 October 1961, Rodez) was a prominent French politician of the Third and Fourth Republics. Mayor of Decazeville starting in 1919, he served as the first Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic in 1947. On 10 July 1940, he voted against the granting of the full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, who installed the Vichy regime the next day. Paul Ramadier took part in the Resistance, and his name was included in the Yad Vashem Jewish memorial after the war. It was during his first ministry that the Communists were forced out of the government in May 1947, putting an end to the "tripartisme" coalition between the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), Popular Republican Movement and Communists. He then voted for the Marshall Plan, and was also in charge during the repression of the Malagasy uprising in 1947.
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Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud (French pronunciation: [pɔl ʁɛjno]; 15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. He was the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic and vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right party.
Refusing to participate in the Vichy government, he resigned and was arrested in June 1940 by Philippe Petain's administration. First held at Fort du Portalet, Reynaud was transferred to German custody in 194x and held in Germany until the end of the war. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946, he became a prominent figure again in French political life, serving in several cabinet positions. He favored a United States of Europe. He participated in drafting the constitution for the Fifth Republic and resigned from government in 1962.
Reynaud was born in Barcelonnette, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. His father had made a fortune in the textile industry, enabling Reynaud to study law at the Sorbonne. He entered politics and quickly became active.

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Pere López Agràs
Pere López Agràs (born 1971) is an Andorran politician who served as an acting Prime Minister from April 28, 2011 until May 12, 2011.

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Philibert Babou
Philibert Babou (c. 1484–1557) was a cryptographer and minister of finance for Francis I. He was appointed trésorier in 1523, with powers to collect and distribute much of the king's revenue.
The king took his wife as a mistress, and he built Château de la Bourdaisière for her.

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Philibert Orry
Philibert Orry, count of Vignory and lord of La Chapelle-Godefroy (born in Troyes on 22 January 1689 – died at La Chapelle-Godefroy on 9 November 1747), was a French statesman.
The fifth child of Jean Orry, a leading economist, Philibert Orry served as a cavalry captain during the War of Spanish Succession, before becoming a member of the Parlement of Paris, then master of requests in 1715. He was an intendant in Lille (1715-1718), Soissons (1722-1727), and Roussillon (1727-1728).
Orry was named Controller-General of Finances in 1730 and combined this function with being director general of the Bâtiments du Roi ("the king's buildings") in 1736, after the death of the duc d'Antin. Orry remained Controller-General until 1745, making him the longest continuously-serving holder of the office in the eighteenth-century.
An able economist, Orry had to restore the dixième ("tenth") tax and declared the venality of municipal officials, successfully balancing the budget in 1739-40. Applying the principles of Colbert, he sought to develop the domestic manufacture of textiles and paper, and was involved in the production of porcelain in Vincennes in 1740. He supported trade with Canada and the Indies by reforming the statutes of the Compagnie des Indes.

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Philippe de Villiers
Viscount Philippe Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon, known as Philippe de Villiers, born on 25 March 1949, is a French politician. He was the Mouvement pour la France nominee for the French presidential election of 2007. He received 2.23% of the vote, putting him in sixth place. As only the top two candidates advance to the second round of voting, he was eliminated from the race. Before and after the election, Villiers has been internationally notable for his criticism of Islam in France.
Villiers was born in Boulogne in the département of Vendée, France, the second of five children and first son of Jacques Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon (born Meurthe-et-Moselle, Nancy, 14 November 1913) and wife Edwige d' Arexy (born Loire Atlantique, Nantes, 1 July 1925). His paternal grandfather, Louis Le Jolis de Villiers, born at Brucheville on 17 October 1874, was killed in action in World War I at Saint-Paul-en-Forêt on 10 September 1914, and married on 24 October 1904 Jeanne de Saintignon (Auverre, 27 July 1880 - 25 August 1959), by whom he had five children, the youngest of whom was Philippe's father Jacques.

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Philippe Massoni
Philippe Massoni is a French prefect. He was the French co-prince's representative to Andorra from July 2002 to June 2007, replacing Frédéric de Saint-Sernin.
He had previously been chief of police for Paris.

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Philippe Poutou
Philippe Poutou (French pronunciation: [filip putu]; born 17 March 1967 in Villemomble, Seine-Saint-Denis) is a French far left political figure and trade unionist, and worker in a car factory.
He is secretary of the General Confederation of Labour at the Ford Motor Company in the région of Aquitaine, and is a worker in that industry. In 2007, he played a leading role in union negotiations with the company over the potential axing of 2000 jobs, and was a union spokesman to the media.
He led the Revolutionary Communist League in the 2007 legislative election, where it obtained 2.7% of the vote (and no seats in the National Assembly), then led its successor party, the New Anticapitalist Party, during the 2010 regional elections in his home region of Aquitaine. He obtained 2.52% of the vote.

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Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (French pronunciation: [petɛ̃]; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain (Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français), from 1940 to 1944. Pétain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state.
Because of his outstanding military leadership in World War I, particularly during the Battle of Verdun, he was viewed as a national hero in France. With the imminent French defeat in June 1940, Pétain was appointed Premier of France by President Lebrun at Bordeaux, and the Cabinet resolved to make peace with Germany. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the spa town of Vichy in central France. His government voted to transform the discredited French Third Republic into the French State, an authoritarian regime. As the war progressed, the government at Vichy collaborated with the Germans, who in 1942 finally occupied the whole of metropolitan France because of the threat from North Africa. Pétain's actions during World War II resulted in his conviction and death sentence for treason, which was commuted to life imprisonment by his former protégé Charles de Gaulle. In modern France he is remembered as an ambiguous figure, while pétainisme is a derogatory term for certain reactionary policies.

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Philippe Séguin
Philippe Séguin (21 April 1943 – 7 January 2010) was a French political figure who was President of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1997 and President of the Cour des Comptes (Court of Financial Auditors) of France from 2004 to 2010.
He entered the Court of Financial Auditors in 1970, but he began a political career in the Neo-Gaullist party RPR. In 1978, he was elected to the National Assembly as a deputy for the Vosges département. He was Mayor of Epinal between 1983 and 1997.
Representing the social tradition of the Gaullism, he was Minister of Social Affairs in Jacques Chirac's cabinet, from 1986 to 1988. After Chirac's defeat at the 1988 presidential election, he allied with Charles Pasqua and criticized the abandonment of Gaullist doctrine by the RPR executive. He accused Alain Juppé and Édouard Balladur of wanting an alignment on liberal and pro-European policies.
In 1992, he played a leading role in the No campaign against the Maastricht Treaty. On the eve of the vote he opposed President François Mitterrand in a televised debate.

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Pierre Bérégovoy
Pierre Eugène Bérégovoy (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ beʁeɡɔvwa]; 23 December 1925 – 1 May 1993) was a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1992 to 1993.
Pierre Bérégovoy was born in Déville-lès-Rouen, Seine-Maritime to a Ukrainian father (original family name Береговий in Ukrainian or Береговой in Russian) who had left the Russian Empire after the Russian Civil War, and a French mother.
He started his professional life at the age of 16 as a qualified metal worker. He got involved in politics following his activities in the French Resistance – while working at SNCF during World War II. A member of the SFIO Socialist Party and of the trade unions confederation Workers Force, he joined the staff of the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Christian Pineau, as adviser for relations with the trade unons in 1949. One year later, he became technical agent in Gaz de France.
In 1959, he left the SFIO and participated in the foundation of the dissident Unified Socialist Party (PSU). He became an adviser of Pierre Mendès-France. In 1967, with Alain Savary, he created the pro-Mendès-France Union of clubs for the renewal of the left. This group joined the renewed Socialist Party (PS) in 1969. He joined the executive group of the party behind François Mitterrand, and participated notably in the negotiations of the Common Program of the Union of the Left.

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Pierre Jeannin
Pierre Jeannin (1540–1622) was a French statesman.
He was born at Autun. A pupil of the great jurist Jacques Cujas at Bourges, he was an advocate at Dijon by 1569 and became councillor and then president of the parlement of Burgundy. He unsuccessfully opposed the massacre of St Bartholomew in his province. As councillor to Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, he sought to reconcile him with King Henry IV of France.
After the victory of Fontaine-Française (1595), Henry took Jeannin into his council and in 1602 named him intendant of finances. He took part in the principal events of the reign, negotiated the Treaty of Lyon with Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and the defensive alliance between France and the United Netherlands in 1608. As Superintendent of Finances under King Louis XIII, be tried to establish harmony between the king and the Queen Mother, Marie de' Medici.

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Pierre Magne
Pierre Magne (Livry-Gargan, Seine-Saint-Denis, 7 November 1906 – Livry-Gargan, 14 November 1980) was a French professional road bicycle racer. Magne won one stage in the 1928 Tour de France, and finished 6th in the 1930 Tour de France. Pierre Magne was the younger brother of Tour de France winner Antonin Magne.

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Pierre Moscovici
Pierre Moscovici (born September 16, 1957) is a French politician, a member of the Departmental Council of Doubs and a Member of the French Parliament. He is a member of the French Socialist Party (PS), which is part of the Party of European Socialists. He has been National Secretary of his party since 1995.
Born in Paris, he is the son of the influential Romanian-Jewish social psychologist Serge Moscovici and of the psychoanalyst Marie Bromberg-Moscovici.^[1] Pierre Moscovici obtained a DEA in economics and in philosophy, and he graduated from the École nationale d'administration (where he studied under Dominique Strauss-Kahn). He was also a president of À gauche en Europe, a group founded by Strauss-Kahn and Michel Rocard.
Initially active in the Revolutionary Communist League, he left in 1984 to join the PS and, in 1986, became secretary of the "experts' group" created by Claude Allègre.
From 1997 to 2002, he was Minister for European Affairs in the government of Lionel Jospin. On 20 July 2004, he was elected one of the 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament and was re-elected on 17 January 2007.

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Pierre Pflimlin
Pierre Eugène Jean Pflimlin (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ flimlɛ̃]; 5 February 1907 – 27 June 2000) was a French Christian democratic politician who served as the penultimate Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic for a few weeks in 1958, before being replaced by Charles de Gaulle during the crisis of that year.
Pfilimlin was born in Roubaix in the département Nord.
A lawyer and a member of the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP), he was elected deputy of département Bas Rhin in 1945. With his personal roots in Alsace, Pflimlin numbered among his MRP party colleagues the Luxembourg-born Robert Schuman; for both, relations with Germany played an important role in their political thinking.
He held some governmental offices during the Fourth Republic, notably as Minister of Agriculture (1947–1949 and 1950–1951) and as Minister of Economy and Finance (1955–1956 and 1957–1958).
In 13 May 1958, the French National Assembly approved his nomination as Prime Minister. But the same day, riots took place in Algiers. The French generals in Algeria expected him to search for a negotiated solution with the Algerian nationalists and refused to recognize his cabinet. The crisis brought Charles de Gaulle to the head of the cabinet on 1 June.

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Pierre Steinmetz
Pierre Steinmetz (born January 23, 1943 in Sainte-Colombe, Rhône) is a member of the Constitutional Council of France since 2004.

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Pierre Tirard
Pierre Emmanuel Tirard (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ tiʁaʁ]; 27 September 1827 – 4 November 1893) was a French politician.
He was born to French parents in Geneva, Switzerland. After studying in his native town, Tirard became a civil engineer. After five years of government service he resigned to become a jewel merchant. His determined opposition to the empire, culminating in 1869 in a campaign in favour of the radical candidate opposed to Ollivier, was rewarded by his election as mayor of the XIe arrondissement of Paris and as deputy for the Seine. Nominated a member of the Commune, he protested against the tyranny of the central committee, and escaped from Paris to resume his place among the extreme Left in the National Assembly at Versailles.
In 1876 he was returned for the 1st arrondissement of Paris to the Chamber of Deputies, and was re-elected next year. He specially devoted himself to finance, being for a short time president of the customs commission before his appointment as minister of agriculture and commerce in March 1879 in the Waddington cabinet. He held the same portfolio in the first Freycinet ministry (1879–1880) and in the Jules Ferry cabinet (1880–1881). He was minister of commerce in Freycinet's second cabinet (1882), of finance under E Duclerc (1882–1883), and under A Fallières (1883), retaining the same office in the second Jules Ferry ministry (1883–1885).

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Pierre Werner
Pierre Werner (29 December 1913 - 24 June 2002) was a Luxembourg politician. Pierre Werner was born in Saint-André-lez-Lille, Nord, France to parents from Luxembourg. During the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg (1940–45) Werner, working as a banker, gave clandestine support to the resistance against the occupation forces. After World War 2 he became the Controller of the banking system in his country. He attended the Bretton Woods conference which set up the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Werner entered the Luxembourg government as Finance Minister in 1953, and was 19th and 21st Prime Minister from 1959 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1984. He also served as Minister for Culture.
As Prime minister, Werner, a Christian Democrat, undertook the diversification of the national economy, hard hit by a major Europe-wide crisis in the steel industry, by attracting new industrial investments, as well as financial services to the Grand Duchy. He placed Luxembourg on the map of global satellite communications. He is remembered for having used “tripartite” social mediation (industry, labour and government) to overcome the severe steel crisis which lasted from 1979 to 1984. He placed the process of European integration at the centre of the policy of his country. With friends such as Joseph Bech, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, Werner was a determined advocate of European integration. During his terms in office, he negotiated the relocation of several European institutions to Luxembourg.

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Poul Nyrup Rasmussen
Poul Oluf Nyrup Rasmussen (Danish pronunciation: [ˈpɒʊ̯l ˈnyːˀɔb ˈʁɑsmusn̩], informally Poul Nyrup, born 15 June 1943), was Prime Minister of Denmark from 25 January 1993 to 27 November 2001 and President of the Party of European Socialists (PES) from 2004 to 2011. He was the leader of the governing Social Democrats from 1992 to 2002. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2004–09.
Rasmussen was born to a working-class family in Esbjerg in 1943. His parents were Oluf Nyrup Rasmussen and Vera Eline Nyrup Rasmussen. He was educated at the University of Copenhagen, earning a M.sc. degree in Economics in 1971. While studying he was active in the social democratic student union Frit Forum, where he met some of his future political colleagues. He paid his way through university by doing several jobs, like counting traffic and being a part-time delivery boy.
Rasmussen replaced Svend Auken, the long serving leader of the Social Democrats, after his failure to form a government with the Radikale Venstre after the 1990 election, despite good results for both parties. Many in the party felt that Auken had stuck to a too left wing agenda, scuttling a possible deal with the more centrist Radikale Venstre.

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Poul Schlüter
Poul Holmskov Schlüter (Danish pronunciation: [pʌʊ̯l hʌlmsɡʌʊ̯ slydɐ], 3 April 1929) is a Danish politician, who served as Prime Minister of Denmark from 1982 to 1993.
Born in Tønder, south Jutland, he graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1957 with a degree in law, and joined the bar in 1960. Schlüter was a member of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) for the Conservative People's Party from 1964 to 1994. He was also Chairman of the Conservative People's Party from 1974 to 1977 and from 1981 to 1993.
In 1982, after Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen was forced to resign, Schlüter cobbled together a four-party coalition and was appointed his successor. He was the first member of the Conservative People's Party to become Prime Minister, as well as the first conservative to hold the office since 1901. During his time as Prime Minister, he was named "Nordic Politician of the Year" (in 1984). He has since been granted a large number of Danish and international awards and medals.
Previously, he had served as a member of the Council of Europe from 1971 to 1974, and had headed the Danish Delegation to the Nordic Council, where he served as a member of the Council Presidium, in 1978 and 1979. He retired as Prime Minister in 1993 after an inquiry found that he had misinformed the Danish Parliament. The case was known as the Tamil Case, (in Danish: "Tamilsagen"), as it involved asylum requests from Tamil refugees.

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Rachida Dati
Rachida Dati (27 November 1965 in Saint-Rémy, Saône-et-Loire) is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament, representing Île-de-France. Before her election, she held the cabinet post of Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice. She was a spokesperson for Nicolas Sarkozy during the French presidential election of 2007. After his victory, Sarkozy appointed her to his Government on 18 May 2007.
She was elected mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris on 29 March 2008.
Dati was born to a Moroccan father, a bricklayer named Mbarek, and an Algerian mother, named Fatima-Zohra. Rachida Dati is the second child of a family of 12. She spent her childhood in Chalon-sur-Saône in Bourgogne.^{[citation needed]}
After attending Catholic school, she began work at 16 as a paramedical assistant. She then worked for three years as an accountant at Elf Aquitaine while continuing her studies in economics and business management.
After meeting Jean-Luc Lagardère in 1990, she entered the audit management team of Matra Nortel communication. She later spent a year in London at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in the records management and archiving department. In 1994, she was an auditing supervisor and secretary-general of the bureau of urban development studies at Suez (then Lyonnaise des Eaux). From 1995 to 1997, she worked as a technical advisor at the legal management division of the Ministry of Education.^{[citation needed]}

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Raoul Péret
Raoul Adolphe Péret (29 November 1870 – 22 July 1942) was a French lawyer and politician.
Raoul Péret was born in Châtellerault (Vienne), son of a magistrate. He followed his father into the law, becoming an advocate at the Court of Cassation in Paris. In 1893 he served as an aide to Justice Minister Eugène Guérin. He became a Doctor of Laws in 1895 and served as procurator of Auxerre.
He was involved in local politics from 1896, and in 1902 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, representing Vienne. He became a leading member of Chamber's Justice committee, and was reelected in 1907 and 1910. He first served in government in Gaston Doumergue's first administration (1913–1914) as secretary of state to Interior Minister René Renoult. In the reshuffle following the resignation of Joseph Caillaux, Péret became Minister of Commerce on 17 March 1914.
On the outbreak of the First World War, Péret was recalled to the French army. He served in administrative posts, but remained active in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1917 he served as Justice Minister in Paul Painlevé's short-lived first government. On its fall, he returned to the Chamber where he took over the presidency of the important budget committee. He had earlier written a book on government financial reform, Comment la France peut-elle devenir une grande puissance économique (1916).

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Raymond Barre
Raymond Octave Joseph Barre (French pronunciation: [ʁɛmɔ̃ baʁ]; 12 April 1924 – 25 August 2007) was a French centre-right politician and economist. He was a Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs under three Presidents (Rey, Malfatti and Mansholt) and later served as Prime Minister under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing from 1976 until 1981. As a candidate for the presidency in 1988, he came in third and was eliminated in the first round. He was born in Saint-Denis, in the French island of Réunion, then still a colony (it became an overseas department in 1946).
After his education, Raymond Barre was professor of economics at Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).
From 1959 to 1962, he was director of Jean-Marcel Jeanneney's staff, in the ministry of Industry and Trade. Then, in 1967, President Charles de Gaulle chose him as vice-president of the European Commission for Economic & Financial Affairs. He stayed in Brussels until January 1973, serving in the Rey, Malfatti and Mansholt Commissions. Having come back to France, he joined the cabinet as minister of the External Trade in January 1976.

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Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré (French pronunciation: [ʁɛmɔ̃ pwɛ̃kaʁe]; 20 August 1860 – 15 October 1934) was a French statesman who served five times as Prime Minister, and as President from 1913 to 1920. He was a conservative leader, primarily committed to political and social stability.
Trained in law, Poincaré was elected a Deputy in 1887, and served in the cabinets of Dupuy and Ribot. In 1902, he co-founded the Democratic Republican Alliance, the most important center-right party under the Third Republic, becoming Prime Minister in 1912 and President in 1913. He was noted for his strongly anti-German attitudes, and twice visited Russia to maintain strategic ties. At the Peace Conference, he favoured re-occupation of the Rhineland, which he was able to carry out in 1923 as Prime Minister. Throughout this period he was making highly prescient statements about Germany's likely intentions.
Born in Bar-le-Duc, Meuse, France, Raymond Poincaré was the son of Nicolas Antonin Hélène Poincaré, a distinguished civil servant and meteorologist. Raymond was also the cousin of Henri Poincaré, the famous mathematician. Educated at the University of Paris, Raymond was called to the Paris bar, and was for some time law editor of the Voltaire.

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René Coty
René Jules Gustave Coty (French pronunciation: [ʁəne kɔti]; 20 March 1882 – 22 November 1962) was President of France from 1954 to 1959. He was the second and last president under the French Fourth Republic.
René Coty was born in Le Havre and studied at the University of Caen, where he graduated in 1902, receiving degrees in law and philosophy. He worked as a lawyer in his hometown of Le Havre, specialising in maritime and commercial law.
He also became involved in politics, as a member of the Radical Party, and in 1907 was elected as a district councillor. The following year he was elected to the communal council of Le Havre as a member of the Republican Left group. He retained both of these positions until 1919. Coty also served as a member of the Conseil Général of Seine-Inférieure 1913–1942, holding the post of Vice President from 1932.
With the outbreak of the First World War, Coty volunteered for the army, joining the 129th Infantry Regiment. He fought at the Battle of Verdun. In 1923, Coty entered the Chamber of Deputies, succeeding Jules Siegfried as Deputy for Seine-Inférieure. However, by this stage of his political career he had moved away from the Radical Party, and sat as a member of the Republican Union. Between the 13th and the 23 December 1930 he served as Under-secretary of State for the Interior in the government of Théodore Steeg.

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René de Birague
René de Birague (original name: Renato Biragro; February 2, 1506 – November 24, 1583) was an Italian patrician who became a French cardinal and chancellor.
Born at Milan, he was the son of Giangiacomo Galeazzo Birago, ambassador of the duke of Milan in France, and Anna Trivulzio. Sent to papal Avignon, he cut his studies short to take up family duties at the unexpected death of his father. As a doctor of law he was admitted to the Collegio d'avvocati of Milan in 1536. After the battle of Pavia (1525), when the French and their sympathizers were expelled from Milan, he and his three brothers, Louis, Pierre and Charles, escaped to France to avoid the vengeance of Francesco II Sforza, duke of Milan. Declared a traitor by the Spanish government in Milan, his properties were confiscated in 1536 (they were partially restored in 1556).
Francis I of France named him counselor of the parlement de Paris. Later, during French control of Piedmont, he was Maestro delle Richieste of the Parliament of Turin, (1539) and its president in 1543.

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René de Longueil
René de Longueil, marquis (1658) de Maisons (1596–1677), le président de Maisons, was Surintendant des Finances under Louis XIII. He built the Château de Maisons.
He was born to a family of Parisian parlementaires of long-standing. He was councilor to the Parlement's Grand Conseil in 1618, then Premier Président de la Cour des aides in 1620. On 22 May 1622, he married Madeleine Boulenc de Crévecoeur (1609-1636) daughter of a rich magistrate of the Chambre des comptes. They had four children before Madeleine de Longueuil died prematurely; her husband did not remarry.
In 1642, René de Longueil became Président à mortier to the Parlement de Paris, a high position in the judicial hierarchy. In 1645, he was appointed governor of the châteaux of Versailles, of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and of Evreux; however, with the death of his patrons Cardinal Richelieu (1642) and Louis XIII (1643) he was forced to be reconciled with Cardinal Mazarin, distrustful of the parlementaires, in spite of his personal attachment to prince de Condé. His moderate attitude during the Fronde permitted him to come through uncompromised.

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René Mayer
René Mayer (French pronunciation: [ʁəne majɛʁ]; 4 May 1895, Paris – 13 December 1972, Paris) was a French Radical politician of the Fourth Republic who served briefly as Prime Minister during 1953. He led the Mayer Authority from 1955 to 1958.
Changes

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René Monory
René Monory (6 June 1923 – 11 April 2009) was a French centre-right politician.
René Monory was born in Loudun and began his career as the owner of a garage. He was the founder of the Poitiers Futuroscope.
Monory first became a Senator in 1968. A member of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), he was Minister of Economy and Finance (1978–1981) in the government of Raymond Barre. He was President of the Regional Council of Poitou-Charentes from March 1985 to March 1986. He later served as Minister of Education (1986–1988) in the government of Jacques Chirac. He succeeded Alain Poher as President of the Senate in 1992.
He served as President of the Senate for two terms. He was defeated for re-election to the post on 1 October 1998, withdrawing after the first round of voting; Christian Poncelet was elected in the third round.
He died in Loudun, aged 85.
Governmental functions
Electoral mandates
Senate of France
Regional Council
General Council
Municipal Council
Community of communes Council

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René Pleven
René Pleven (French pronunciation: [ʁəne pləvɛ̃]; 15 April 1901 – 13 January 1993) was a notable French politician of the Fourth Republic. A member of the Free French, he helped found the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), a political party that was meant to be a successor to the wartime Resistance movement. He served as prime minister several times in the early 1950s, where his most notable contribution was the introduction of the Pleven Plan, which called for a European Defense Community between France, Italy, West Germany, and the Benelux countries.
René Pleven was born in Rennes on 15 April 1901 as the son of a commissioned officer and director of studies at the Special Military School of St. Cyr. After studying law at the University of Paris, he failed the exam for the financial corps of the civil service, so he decided to move to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain to work there. He rose to the become a telephone company executive. In 1934, he married Anne Bompard.

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René Renoult
René Renoult (29 August 1867, Paris – 30 April 1946, Paris) was a French Minister and lawyer.
Renoult is the son of Étienne and Élisa Geranger, a female day laborer. He studied at the Faculty of Law in Paris and obtained his doctorate in 1888. He married for the first time with Blanche-Clothilde Wormser in 1910, and a second time with Henriette-Emelie-Céleste Giriat in 1937.
Renoult was member of the Radical Party. His political career started in 1911, when he became General Counselor of the Lure commune (until 1913). In 1902 he became deputy for the Haute-Saône département (until 1919). From 1920-1941 he was Senator of Var.

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Richard Attias
Richard Attias, born November 19 1959 in Fes, Morocco, is a Moroccan global influencer and events producer, founder and former chairman of PublicisLive and presently the executive chairman of Richard Attias and Associates, and the founder of The New York Forum.
Attias was born in a Jewish family. He graduated as a civil ingineer from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse, and got a master in Mathematics and Physics from the Paris University. He began his career as a sales executive at IBM France and in 1986 became the General Manager of Econocom France and Econocom Japan, a computer leasing company.
During the 1990s, Attias founded an Event Management Company and produced various global events including the Zurich Insurances,IBM, conventions and Boris Yeltsin's visit to France. Richard was awarded the contract for the signature of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) signature agreements in Marrakesh in presence of 35 heads of States and The World Economic Forum for the Middle East and North Africa summit in Casablanca.^{[citation needed]}

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Robert Badinter
Robert Badinter (born 30 March 1928 in Paris) is a high-profile French criminal lawyer, university professor and politician mainly known for his struggle against the death penalty, the abolition of which he successfully sponsored in Parliament in 1981. A member of the Socialist Party (PS), he served as Minister of Justice and then President of Constitutional Council under François Mitterrand.
He is currently a Senator for the Hauts-de-Seine département.
In 1965, along with Jean-Denis Bredin, Badinter founded the law firm Badinter, Bredin et partenaires (now known as Bredin Prat), where he practised until 1981. Badinter's struggle against the death penalty began after Roger Bontems's execution, on 28 November 1972. Along with Claude Buffet, Bontems had taken a prison guard and a nurse hostage during the 1971 revolt in Clairvaux Prison. While the police were storming the building, Buffet slit the hostages' throats. Badinter was the attorney for Bontems, and although it was established during the trial that Buffet alone was the murderer, the jury still decided to sentence both men to death. Applying the death penalty to a person who had not killed outraged Badinter to the point that he dedicated himself to the abolition of the death penalty.

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Robert Buron
Robert Buron (27 February 1910, Paris – 28 April 1973) was a French politician and Minister of Finance from 20 January 1955 to 23 February 1955 and Minister of Public Works, Transport, and Tourism during Charles de Gaulle's third term from 9 June 1958 to 8 January 1959.
Buron was born in Paris, where he also died. He was kidnapped during the 1961 Algiers putsch.

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Robert Lacoste
Robert Lacoste (born 5 July 1898 at Azerat (Dordogne) – died 8 March 1989 at Périgueux) was a French politician. He was a socialist MP of the Dordogne from 1945 to 1958 and from 1962 to 1967, then senator from 1971 to 1980.
Robert Lacoste studied at the law school in Paris, and became a civil servant and CGT trade unionist. He participated in the resistance. In 1944, he was Joint Delegate General of the French Committee of National Liberation for occupied France, and become minister for industrial production in the provisional government of general De Gaulle. A member of both houses of parliament, and socialist MP for the Dordogne, he was Minister of Industry until 1950. He was Minister of Finance and the Economy in 1956.
After Guy Mollet's visit to Algeria, greeted by colons (French-Algerian colonists) throwing tomatoes at him, Lacoste replaced general Catroux in February 1956, becoming resident minister and governor general of Algeria. He remained the minister of Algeria until May 1958. A proponent of forceful action, he played a principal role in the Algerian War. He also promoted accelerated social and economic programmes, highlighted by his efforts to "Algerianise" the administration. He increased Algeria's départements to twelve and drafted the Loi Cadre (enabling or framework law) designed to enhance internal autonomy and Muslim representation.

wn.com/Robert_Lacoste
Robert Schuman
Robert Schuman (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ ʃuman]; 29 June 1886 – 4 September 1963) was a noted Luxembourgish-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat (M.R.P.) and an independent political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building post-war European and trans-Atlantic institutions and is regarded as one of the founders of the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO.
Schuman was a man of several cultures. His father, Jean-Pierre Schuman (1837–1900), was born in Évrange, Lorraine, just across the border with Luxembourg. Jean-Pierre Schuman was a French citizen, but after Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by the German Empire in 1871, he became a German citizen. Robert's mother, Eugénie Duren (1864–1911), a Luxembourger born in Bettembourg, became a German citizen by marriage in 1884.
Schuman was born in 1886 in Clausen, a suburb of Luxembourg as a German by virtue of the principle of jus sanguinis. His mother tongue was Luxembourgish but he was taught French and Standard German at school. Since he learned French only in school (which is mandatory in Luxembourg), he spoke it with a distinct accent.

wn.com/Robert_Schuman
Rodrigo Granda
Ricardo González also known as Rodrigo Granda is a Colombian Venezuelan member of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He serves as international spokesman of the guerrilla organization.
His name became well-known because of the events that began on December 13, 2004 when he was captured in Venezuela allegedly by Venezuelan officials and transported to the Colombia-Venezuela border in Cúcuta where Colombian authorities arrested him. He had been in Caracas, Venezuela participating in a conference in representation of the FARC guerrilla, organization for which Granda is an international spokesman, for this he was dubbed as "FARC's foreign minister". His arrest created diplomatic tensions between the government of Hugo Chávez and Álvaro Uribe.
Granda was later released by the Colombian government after President of France Nicolas Sarkozy persuaded President Uribe to do so, as concession for the "humanitarian exchange" which consists in the exchange of criminals held by the government (included Granda) for hostages held by the FARC. On October 8, 2007 Granda visited FARC campsites in the mountains of Colombia and announced his return to the FARC to participate in the negotiations for a possible humanitarian exchange.

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Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi (Italian pronunciation: [roˈmaːno ˈprɔːdi] ( listen); born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008. He was also the tenth President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.
Prodi ran in 1996 as lead candidate of The Olive Tree coalition, winning the general election and serving as Prime Minister of Italy until 1998. Following the victory of his coalition The Union over the House of Freedoms led by Silvio Berlusconi in the April 2006 Italian elections Prodi was in power again. On 24 January 2008, he lost a vote of confidence in the Senate house, and consequently tendered his resignation as Prime Minister to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, but continued in office for almost four months for routine business, until early elections were held and a new government was formed.
On 14 October 2007, Prodi became the first President of the Democratic Party upon foundation of the party.

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Roselyne Bachelot
Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, generally known as Roselyne Bachelot (born 24 December 1946 in Nevers, Nièvre), is a French politician, current Minister of Solidarities and Social Cohesion, and a member of the Union for a Popular Movement, which is part of the European People's Party
She was the French Minister for Health and Sports until 14 November 2010. Since French ministers cannot be members of Parliament, she has been forced to give up her seat as Member of the European Parliament for the west of France. She used to sit on the European Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. She also was a substitute on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, a member of the delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, and a substitute for the delegation for relations with Israel.
In 2009, she stated she was shocked by statements of Pope Benedict XVI claiming that condoms promoted AIDS.^{[dead link]} She encouraged the National Assembly of France to change the legal age to purchase alcohol in France from 16 to 18; the new law took effect in July 2009.^{[citation needed]}

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Ruud Lubbers
Rudolphus Franciscus Marie "Ruud" Lubbers (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈryt ˈlʏbərs] ( listen); born May 7, 1939) is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA). He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from November 4, 1982 until August 22, 1994.
He previously served as Minister of Economic Affairs from May 11, 1973 until December 19, 1977 in the Cabinet den Uyl. He became a Member of the House of Representatives from December 22, 1977 until November 4, 1982. When the Parliamentary leader of Christian Democratic Appeal in the House of Representatives Wim Aantjes resigned of a World War II controversy, Lubbers succeed him as Parliamentary leader, he served from November 7, 1978 until November 4, 1982. When the Christian Democratic Appeal Party leader and sitting Prime Minister Dries van Agt announced his retirement, Lubbers was chosen to succeed him. Lubbers became Prime Minister of the Netherlands, leading the Cabinets Lubbers I, II and III. Lubbers was regarded by many during his time in office as an ideological heir to Margaret Thatcher. One of his campaign slogans was: "meer markt, minder overheid" (more market, less government).

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Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.

wn.com/Saddam_Hussein
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsilvjo berluˈskoːni] ( listen); born 29 September 1936) is an Italian politician and media tycoon who served three times as Prime Minister of Italy from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the controlling shareholder of Mediaset and owner of A.C. Milan. He is nicknamed Il Cavaliere (The Knight) for his knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour, which he received in 1977.
Berlusconi is the longest-serving post-war Prime Minister of Italy, and third longest-serving since Italy's unification, after Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Giolitti, holding three separate terms. Technically, he has been sworn in four times because after a cabinet reshuffle, as happened with Berlusconi in 2005, the new ministry is sworn in and subjected to a vote of confidence. He is the leader of the People of Freedom political movement, a centre-right party he founded in 2009. From November 2009 to November 2011, he was the most senior leader of the G8 countries. In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked him as the 169th richest man in the world with a net worth of US$5.9 billion.

wn.com/Silvio_Berlusconi
Ségolène Royal
Marie-Ségolène Royal (pronounced: [seɡɔlɛn ʁwajal] ( listen); born 22 September 1953), known as Ségolène Royal, is a French politician. She is the president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council, a former member of the National Assembly, a former government minister, and a prominent member of the French Socialist Party. The first woman in France to be nominated by a major party, she was the Socialist candidate in the 2007 French presidential election but lost to Nicolas Sarkozy on 6 May 2007. In 2008, Royal narrowly lost to Martine Aubry in the Socialist Party's election for First Secretary at the Party's twenty-second national congress. On 30 November 2010, Royal announced her intentions to again seek the PS nomination for President in 2012 but she lost the Socialist Party presidential primary in 2011.
Ségolène Royal was born in the military base of Ouakam, Dakar, French West Africa (now Senegal) on 22 September 1953, the daughter of Hélène Dehaye and Jacques Royal, a former artillery officer and aide to the mayor of Chamagne (Vosges).

wn.com/Ségolène_Royal
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (pronunciation: [tʰaɓɔ mbɛːkʼi]; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki. On 20 September 2008, he announced his resignation after being recalled by the African National Congress's National Executive Committee, following a conclusion by Judge Nicholson of improper interference in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), including the prosecution of Jacob Zuma for corruption. On 12 January 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal unanimously overturned Judge Nicholson’s judgment but the resignation stood.
Thabo Mbeki was the executive face of government in South Africa from 1994. During his time in office the economy grew at an average rate of 4.5% per annum. Mbeki created employment in the middle sectors of the economy and oversaw a fast growing black middle class with the implementation of BEE. This growth exacerbated the demand for trained professionals strained by emigration due to violent crime, but failed to address unemployment amongst the unskilled bulk of the population. He attracted the bulk of Africa’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and made South Africa the focal point of African growth. He was the architect of NEPAD whose aim is to develop an integrated socio-economic development framework for Africa. He also oversaw the successful building of economic bridges to BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations with the eventual formation of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum to "further political consultation and co-ordination as well as strengthening sectoral co-operation, and economic relations".

wn.com/Thabo_Mbeki
Thierry Breton
Thierry Breton (born 15 January 1955 in Paris) is a French businessman, a former Professor at Harvard Business School, and a former finance minister of France. He has been Vice Chairman and CEO of Groupe Bull, Chairman and CEO of Thomson-RCA (1997–2002), Chaiman and CEO of France Télécom (2002–2005). Today an Honorary Chairman of both Thomson and France Telecom, he is, since 2008, Chairman and CEO of Atos, one of the leading IT firms worldwide, with 75,000 employees in 42 countries. He was from 2005 to 2007 the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry in the governments of Prime Ministers Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Dominique de Villepin, Jacques Chirac being the President de la Republique.
He was born in the XIVe arrondissement of Paris. He has three children: Constance (1984), Alexandre (1985) and Severine (1988). He received a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Supélec and later graduated from the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN).

wn.com/Thierry_Breton
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV ( /ˈtɒməs ˈkruːz ˈmeɪpɒθər/; born July 3, 1962), widely known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won three Golden Globe Awards for the same movies: Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Jerry Maguire (1996), Magnolia (1999). He started his career with the movie Endless Love. Cruise's first appearance in a major film was in 1981's Taps. His first leading role was in the film Risky Business, released in August 1983. Cruise played the role of a heroic naval pilot in the popular and successful 1986 film Top Gun, and also secret agent Ethan Hunt in the series of Mission: Impossible action films.
He has starred in a variety of other successful films, including: Rain Man (1988), Days of Thunder (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004), and War of the Worlds (2005).
Since 2005, Cruise and Paula Wagner have been in charge of the United Artists film studio, with Cruise as producer and star and Wagner as the chief executive. Cruise is also known for his support of and adherence to the Church of Scientology.

wn.com/Tom_Cruise
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.
Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party used the phrases "New Labour" and "New Socialism" to define its policy, and moved away from its support of state socialism since the 1960s and created a new version of the ethical socialism that was last pursued by Clement Attlee. Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism. Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

wn.com/Tony_Blair
Valérie Pécresse
Valérie Pécresse (born 14 July 1967 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French politician. She has been deputy of the Yvelines since May 16, 2002, Minister for Higher Education and Research from May 18, 2007 to June 2011 and Minister of the Budget from then until May 2012. She was also the Government's spokeswoman.
Pécresse is the daughter of Dominique Roux (CEO of Bolloré telecom since January 2007).
Pécresse has degrees from HEC School of Management and ÉNA. She was an auditor of the Conseil d'État until 1998, when she was designated counselor of the presidence of the French Republic. She speaks French, English, Russian and Japanese.
In June 2002, she was elected deputy of the Yvelines' second constituency. She was also elected regional counselor of Île-de-France in 2004. Valérie Pécresse was a national spokeswoman of the UMP, and spokeswoman of the party in the Yvelines.
On 18 May 2007, she was designated Minister of Higher Education and Research of François Fillon's second cabinet.

wn.com/Valérie_Pécresse
Viktor Klima
Viktor Klima (born 4 June 1947) is an Austrian Social Democrat politician and businessman. He was chancellor of Austria from 1997 to 2000.
Born in Schwechat, Lower Austria, Klima started working for the then state-owned OMV oil company in 1969 and remained with the company up to the beginning of his political career in 1992, in his later years serving as a member of their management board.
Although Klima was then unknown to the majority of Austrians, in 1992 Chancellor Franz Vranitzky made him Minister of Transportation and Nationalised Industry, a position Klima held till 1996, when he became Minister of Finance for a year.
In 1997, upon Vranitzky's resignation, Klima was elected chairman of the Social Democratic party and was sworn in as Chancellor of Austria, having renewed the grand coalition between his own party (Social Democratic Party of Austria, SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), with Wolfgang Schüssel serving as his vice chancellor.
Influenced by the "Third Way" strategy of other European leaders such as Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, under Klima's chairmanship the Social Democrats played down their allegiance to Marxism and thus to their own political roots and very clearly continued their move from the political left towards the centre, frequently using spin doctors and embracing populism as a political strategy.

wn.com/Viktor_Klima
Vincent Auriol
Vincent Jules Auriol (French pronunciation: [vɛ̃sɑ̃ oʁjɔl]; 27 August 1884 – 1 January 1966) was a French politician who served as the first President of the Fourth Republic from 1947 to 1954. He also served as interim President of the Provisional Government (head of state and government) from November to December 1946, making him one of only three people (with Charles de Gaulle and Alain Poher) who were heads of state of the French Republic on two separate occasions.
Auriol was born in Revel, Haute-Garonne, as the only child of Jacques Antoine Auriol (1855—1933), a baker nicknamed Paul, and Angélique Virginie Durand (1862—1945). He earned a law degree at the Collège de Revel in 1904 and began his career as a lawyer in Toulouse. A committed socialist, Auriol co-founded the newspaper Le Midi Socialiste in 1908; he was head of the Association of Journalists in Toulouse at this time.
In 1914, Auriol entered the Chamber of Deputies as a Socialist Deputy for Muret, a position he retained until 1942. He also served as Mayor of Muret from 3 May 1925 to 17 January 1947, and as a member of the Conseil Général of Haute-Garonne from 1928 to 17 January 1947. In December 1920, after the breakup of the SFIO, Auriol refused to join the newly created SFIC and became one of the leaders of the new SFIO (the remaining socialist minority), along with Léon Blum.

wn.com/Vincent_Auriol
Wikipedia Persondata
wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
Wilfried Martens
Wilfried Martens (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈβ̞ɪlfɾiˑt ˈmɑɾtəns] ( listen); born Wilfried Achiel Emma Martens, 19 April 1936) is a Belgian politician. He was born in Sleidinge (East Flanders). Martens was the 44th Prime Minister of Belgium from 3 April 1979 to 6 April 1981 and 17 December 1981 to 7 March 1992.
Martens was a Chair of the Belgian Christian People's Party (now renamed Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V)) from 1972–79, sitting as a Deputy in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives (federal parliament) from 1974–91, and serving as a Senator from 1991 – 94.
He co-founded the European People's Party (EPP) in 1976 and has been EPP President since 1992.
From 1993 he was President of the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD), until its merger with the EPP in 1996. Martens also negotiated with Finnish conservative politician Sauli Niinistö the merger of the European Democrat Union (EDU) into the EPP (formally concluded in 2002). The successful fusion of all centre-right European organisations into the EPP – currently the largest transnational European political party with 75 member-parties from 40 countries – is widely recognised as an important achievement of his European political legacy.

wn.com/Wilfried_Martens
Wim Kok
Willem "Wim" Kok (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈʋɪm ˈkɔk] ( listen)); born September 29, 1938) is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA). He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from August 22, 1994 until July 22, 2002.
A former Trade Union Leader, Kok served as Chairman of the Netherlands Association of Trade Unions from 1972 until 1976 when it merged to form the Federation Netherlands Labour Movement, Kok served as its first Chairman from 1976 until 1986 when he left to enter politics. He was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives on June 3, 1986 after the Dutch general election of 1986. The Labour Party Party leader and Parliamentary leader of the Labour Party in the House of Representatives Joop den Uyl announced that he was stepping down after serving twenty years as Party leader. Kok was elected to succeed him and became Party leader and the Parliamentary leader in the House of Representatives on July 21, 1986 and served as opposition leader during the parliamentary period of the Cabinet Lubbers II. For the Dutch general election of 1989 Kok became the lijsttrekker and the Labour Party lost 3 seats but the following cabinet formation resulted in a coalition agreement with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) which formed the Cabinet Lubbers III. Kok became Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister serving from November 7, 1989 until August 22, 1994.

wn.com/Wim_Kok
Wolfgang Schüssel
Wolfgang Schüssel (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ ˈʃʏsəl]; born 7 June 1945) is an Austrian People's Party politician. He was Chancellor of Austria for two consecutive terms from February 2000 to January 2007. While being recognized as a rare example of an active reformer in contemporary Austrian politics, his governments were also highly controversial from the beginning, starting with the fact that he formed a coalition government with Jörg Haider's Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) on both occasions. In 2011, he retired from being an active member of parliament due to charges of corruption against members of his governments.
Born in Vienna, Schüssel attended that city's Schottengymnasium, a well known Roman Catholic gymnasium for boys, where he took his Matura exams in 1963. He went on to study at the University of Vienna, receiving a Doctorate in Law in 1968.
Schüssel was secretary of the parliamentary group of the Austrian People's Party from 1968 to 1975. From 1975 to 1991, he was Secretary General of the Austrian Business Federation, a sub-organization of the Austrian People's Party.

wn.com/Wolfgang_Schüssel
Xavier Bertrand
Xavier Bertrand (born 21 March 1965 in Châlons-sur-Marne, Marne) is a French politician and was Minister of Labour, Employment and Health. He was Minister of Health for almost two years in Dominique de Villepin's government under President Jacques Chirac, then Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Solidarity in François Fillon's second government. He played a foremost role in Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007.
Born on 21 March 1965 in Châlons-sur-Marne, in the Marne département, of the Champagne-Ardenne région of France, Xavier Bertrand is the son of Jean-Pierre Bertrand, a bank executive and of Madeleine Bedin, a bank employee.
Bertrand studied in Reims, where he obtained a masters in public law, then a Diplôme d'Études Supérieures Spécialisées (DESS) in local administration.
Insurance agent by profession, Bertrand married Emmanuelle Gontier, advisor in human resources on 11 July 1998. He is the father of three children, two of whom are twins.
He has been a member of the Grand Orient of France since 1995.

wn.com/Xavier_Bertrand
Xavier Darcos
Xavier Darcos (born 14 July 1947) is a French politician, scholar and civil servant currently serving as Minister of Labour.
An agrégé professor in literature and general inspector of the National Education system, he has been Mayor of Périgueux, a Senator, and a junior minister in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's governments.
Darcos was born on 14 July 1947 in Limoges to Jean-Gabriel Darcos and Anne-Marie Banvillet.
After getting a PhD in Latin studies from the University of Bordeaux and becoming a professor emeritus in letters and social sciences, he started teaching in 1968, first in Périgueux, then in a Bordeaux khâgne from 1982 to 1987, and finally at the lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris from 1987 to 1992.
In 1989 he became deputy to the Mayor of Périgueux. Three years later, he became a senior school inspector.
From 1993 to 1995 he was the chief of staff (directeur de cabinet) to Education Minister François Bayrou, from 1995 to 1997 advisor to Prime Minister Alain Juppé for education and culture matters, and from 1995 to 1998, along with François Bayroux and Claude Allègre, he was the president of school inspectors. From 1996 to 1999 he was also a Professor in comparative literature at the Paris IV University.

wn.com/Xavier_Darcos
Álvaro Uribe
Álvaro Uribe Vélez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈalβaɾo uˈɾiβe ˈβeles]; born 4 July 1952) is a Colombian politician who served as the 39th President of Colombia from 2002 to 2010. In August 2010 he was appointed Vice-chairman of the UN panel investigating the Gaza flotilla raid.
Uribe started his political career in his home department of Antioquia. He has held office in the Empresas Públicas de Medellín and in the Ministry of Labor and in the Civil Aeronautic. Later he held office as the mayor of Medellín in 1982, then he was Senator between 1986 and 1994 and finally Governor of Antioquia between 1995 and 1997 before he was elected President of Colombia in 2002.
Before his current role in politics Uribe was a lawyer. He studied law at the University of Antioquia and completed a post-graduate management program at Harvard Extension School. He was awarded the Simón Bolívar Scholarship of the British Chevening Scholarships programme and was nominated Senior Associate Member at St Antony's College in the University of Oxford after completing his term in office as the governor of Antioquia in 1998.

wn.com/Álvaro_Uribe
Édouard Balladur
Édouard Balladur (French pronunciation: [edwaʁ baladyʁ]; born 2 May 1929) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 29 March 1993 to 10 May 1995.
Balladur was born in İzmir, Turkey, to an Armenian Catholic family with five children and long-standing ties to France. His family emigrated to Marseille in 1935.
In 1957, Balladur married Marie-Josèphe Delacour, with whom he had four sons.
Balladur started his political career in 1964 as an advisor to Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. After Pompidou's election as President of France in 1969, Balladur was appointed under-secretary general of the presidency then secretary general from 1973 to Georges Pompidou's death in 1974.
He returned to politics in the 1980s as a supporter of Jacques Chirac. A member of the Neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) party, he was the theoretician behind the "cohabitation government" from 1986 to 1988, explaining that if the right won the legislative election, it could govern with Chirac as Prime Minister without Socialist Party President François Mitterrand's resignation. As Minister of Economy and Finance, he sold off a large number of public companies and abolished the wealth tax. He appeared as an unofficial deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet led by Chirac. He took a major part in the adoption of liberal and pro-European policies by Chirac and the RPR. After Chirac's defeat at the 1988 presidential election, a part of the RPR held him responsible of the abandonment of Gaullist doctrine but he kept the confidence of Chirac.

wn.com/Édouard_Balladur
Émile Loubet
Émile François Loubet (French: [emil lubɛ]; 1838 – 1929) was the 8th President of France.
Trained in law, he became Mayor of Montélimar, where he was noted as a forceful orator, and appointed as a Republican minister under Carnot and Ribot. As President (1899-1906), his term of office saw the successful Paris Exhibition of 1900, and the forging of the Entente with Great Britain, resolving their sharp differences over the Boer War and the Dreyfus Affair.
He was born the son of a peasant proprietor and mayor of Marsanne (Drôme). Admitted to the Parisian bar in 1862, he took his doctorate in law the next year. He was still a student when he witnessed the sweeping triumph of the Republican party in Paris at the general election in 1863, during the Second French Empire. He settled down to the exercise of his profession in Montélimar, where in 1869 he married Marie-Louise Picard. He also inherited a small estate at Grignan.
At the crisis of 1870, which brought about the Empire's end, he became mayor of Montélimar, and thenceforward was a steady supporter of Léon Gambetta. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 by Montélimar, he was one of the famous 363 who on 16 May 1877 (Seize Mai) passed the vote of no confidence in the ministry of the duc de Broglie.

wn.com/Émile_Loubet
Éric Besson
Éric Besson (born 2 April 1958 in Marrakech, Morocco) is a French politician and Minister of Industry, Energy and the Digital economy under the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, Christine Lagarde. He was previously, from 2009 to 2010, Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually-Supportive Development in the government of François Fillon.
He left the Socialist Party in 2007 to found The Progressives, a social democratic affiliate party of Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). He has been Deputy Secretary-General of the UMP since 2009.
Eric Besson was born in Morocco. His mother is from Lebanon and his father, a flight instructor in the French Air Force, was killed in a flight accident three months before Éric's birth. At 17, he settled with his family at Montélimar, France and studied at École supérieure de commerce in Montpellier, then in the Institut d'études politiques de Paris. Besson joined the French car company, Renault, then worked for Challenges, a business monthly, before joining the Vivendi foundation.

wn.com/Éric_Besson
Étienne Clavière
Étienne Clavière (27 January 1735 – 8 December 1793) was a Swiss-born French financier and politician of the French Revolution.
A native of Geneva, he became one of the democratic leaders of the Geneva Republic, and in 1782 was forced to take refuge to the Kingdom of Great Britain, after the armed interference of France, the Kingdom of Sardinia and Berne in favour of the patrician party.
There, he met other Swiss, among them Jean-Paul Marat and Étienne Dumont, but their plans for a new Geneva in Ireland —which the government of William Pitt the Younger favoured— were given up when Jacques Necker came to power in France, and Clavière, with most of his comrades, went to Paris.
In 1789, he and Dumont allied themselves with Honoré Mirabeau, secretly collaborating for him on the Courrier de Provence and also preparing speeches for Mirabeau to deliver - this association with Clavière sustained Mirabeau's reputation as a financier. He was one of the members of the abolitionist Society of the Friends of the Blacks and of the Jacobin Club.

wn.com/Étienne_Clavière

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à La Mutualité

www.lafranceforte.fr...

published: 06 May 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

La chronique de Laurent Gerra devant Nicolas Sarkozy (réalisation Gaya Bécaud)

La chronique de Laurent Gerra devant Nicolas Sarkozy (réalisation Gaya Bécaud)...

published: 20 Apr 2012

author: radiortl

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à Toulon

www.lafranceforte.fr...

published: 04 May 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à Toulouse

www.lafranceforte.fr...

published: 29 Apr 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Eurozone Enters 2013 Amid Tensions Between France, Germany

The relationship between France and Germany has long been central to the European Union. U...

published: 18 Dec 2012

author: VOAvideo

UMP - Réaction de JF Copé suite au rejet des comptes de campagne de Nicolas Sarkozy

www.ump.org...

published: 21 Dec 2012

author: ump

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à la Concorde

www.lafranceforte.fr...

published: 15 Apr 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy au Trocadéro

A cinq jours du choix historique que feront les Français pour leur avenir, lors du second ...

published: 01 May 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à Longjumeau

www.lafranceforte.fr...

published: 24 Apr 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Le 6 mai : Votez Nicolas Sarkozy

Depuis 30 ans, Nicolas Sarkozy s'est battu de toutes ses forces pour défendre les valeurs ...

published: 03 May 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy à Clermont-Ferrand

www.lafranceforte.fr...

published: 28 Apr 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Interview de Nicolas Sarkozy, 29/01/2012

Nicolas Sarkozy s'est entretenu ce dimanche 29 Janvier avec Claire Chazal (TF1), Laurent D...

published: 30 Jan 2012

author: publicsenat

Michel Guidoni parodie Sarkozy (Pas nique au FMI - 18/02/12)

L'imitateur/chansonnier Michel Guidoni parodie Nicolas Sarkozy. Extrait du spectacle "Pas ...

published: 20 Mar 2012

author: Gory Freddy

Votez Nicolas Sarkozy !

Dimanche 22 avril 2012, rassemblez-vous, faites entendre votre voix pour bâtir la France f...

published: 20 Apr 2012

author: NicolasSarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy sermonne un inconnu : la vidéo du "Fais pas le malin, toi !"

Nicolas Sarkozy a encore sermonné un inconnu, mais le président se fait plus policé. Après...

published: 22 Apr 2010

author: La Voix des Allobroges

Longest Nose Manaul Ever? yes Justin Burns

Justin Burns longest nose manual ever...

published: 20 Apr 2009

author: Nicolas Sarkozy

awesome street bmx

Facad mike hoder part...

published: 30 Apr 2009

author: Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy...

published: 06 Oct 2012

author: MAILLOT

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photo: AP / Virginie Nguyen Huang

In this Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover during fighting with the Syrian Army in Azaz, Syria.

Syria's chemical weapons safe for now: Russia

Newstrack India

23 Dec 2012

Tweet. Moscow, Dec 23 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Chemical weapons in Syria are under the control of the government, which has consolidated them in one or two locations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "As of right now, the (Syrian) government is doing all it can to safeguard those weapons," he said. "We are following all leads concerning chemical weapons," Lavrov said ... "My answer is very simple. Why use us as a postman ... pm/ ... ) .. ). ... . ....(size: 3.2Kb)

photo: Creative Commons / Giorgione

Anbetung der Hirten (Adoration of the Shepherds) (c. 1500–10), by Italian painter Giorgio da Castelfranco. Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary as a fulfillment of the Old Testament's Messianic prophecy.

Liberating Burdensome and Tortuous Beasts (An Animal Liberation Theology)

WorldNews.com

24 Dec 2012

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. A deadly silence immediately followed after a bullet penetrated the calf's skull. Against my wishes, Vic had decided against either amputating its leg or contacting a veterinarian-something he reasoned would have been too expensive. The unfortunate calf had slid down into a ravine where its hind leg, which was mangled and torn, became wrapped in barbed wire ... But it was more than a bellow ... 9....(size: 6.3Kb)

photo: AP / Musadeq Sadeq

A member of security escorts a U.S. convoy in to the Kabul police headquarters, where a an American advisor was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012.

Afghan policewoman kills US adviser in Kabul

my SA

24 Dec 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, the latest in a rising tide of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies, senior Afghan officials said. The woman, identified as Afghan police Sgt ... The woman was taken into Afghan custody shortly after the attack ... As many Afghans, the policewoman uses only one name ... Air Force Lt. Col ... Gen ... ....(size: 4.6Kb)

photo: AP / Altaf Qadri

Indian police officers baton charge protesters near the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012.

India govt to probe gang-rape, enhance punishment

Khaleej Times

23 Dec 2012

A commission will be set up to probe the gang-rape and torture of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi and measures to ensure such crimes do not recur while laws will be amended to enhance punishment for rape, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said . He also appealed the thousands of protesters on the capital’s streets, demanding justice for the victim, to withdraw ... “The government is serious on the issue. ...  . . ....(size: 2.4Kb)

photo: AP

In this released by the South Korean Defense Ministry on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, taken at unknown location in South Korea, an investigator examines a piece of debris from a rocket launched on Dec. 12, 2012, by North Korea, which was found by the South Korean navy in the Yellow Sea, off Gunsan, South Korea.

North Korea rocket launch was 'missile test'

Al Jazeera

23 Dec 2012

North Korea's launching of a rocket into space last week amounted to the test of a ballistic missile capable of carrying a half-ton payload over 10,000km, the South Korean defence ministry says. "Based on our analysis and simulation, the missile is capable of flying more than 10,000km with a warhead of 500-600kg," a defence ministry official told reporters on Sunday ... 415 Source .. Agencies. Share. Send Feedback. Featured on Al Jazeera. Jaws....(size: 18.8Kb)

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Kenneth Putney, US Man, Rescued By Vietnamese After Drifting At Sea For 8 Days

Huffington Post

24 Dec 2012

HANOI, Vietnam -- Vietnamese fishermen have rescued an American man who had been drifting at sea for eight days on a disabled yacht ... 15. He says Putney jumped onto the yacht because he feared it would be lost ... An unidentified woman dances while holding French president Nicolas Sarkozy (C) by the shoulders, as Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara (L) applauds, on May 21, 2011, upon Sarkozy's arrival at the airport in Yamoussoukro ... 68k....(size: 5.1Kb)

France checks ministers' taxes after Swiss bank report

Daily Press

23 Dec 2012

The statement was issued through Cahuzac's ministry amid weekend media reports that President Francois Hollande could be considering a government reshuffle, seven months after his May election victory against Nicolas Sarkozy. UBS AG. Nicolas Sarkozy ... Daily Press Eyewitness. Submit photos and videos from your mobile device. Your picture could be featured on Page 2 of the Daily Press. ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)

Actor stirs up French tax exile row

NZ Herald

23 Dec 2012

Film star accused of abandoning his country in its hour of need points to others who live abroad. France is discovering that, when it comes to wealthy taxpayers, you win some - and you lose some ... In an article entitled "So Gerard, are you pissed off?", Torreton, 47, wrote ... We would like to know." ... "If I said ... .. ... ... "He has been systematically attacked because of his friendship with Nicolas Sarkozy, and he's had enough," said his agent....(size: 5.9Kb)

Gérard Depardieu: lord of misrule who divides France

The Guardian

23 Dec 2012

By turns, he scandalises and enthrals. Now, the country's most famous actor is leaving home, angry at the imposition of a new 'supertax'. As he seems all set to settle in Belgium, is this really adieu from Gégé? ... Photograph ... Depardieu, who supported the previous centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy, wrote an angry au revoir to Le Journal du Dimanche complaining about the government's lack of respect and said he was off ... ....(size: 11.8Kb)

The News Matrix: Saturday 22 December 2012

The Independent

22 Dec 2012

South-east tops quality-of-life study ... The top five places are all in the South-east. Investors rush to snap up gold bars ... MORE. Malala ... MORE ... MORE ... Sarkozy campaign broke funding rules. Nicolas Sarkozy breached the official limit on the cost of his failed presidential campaign last spring, France's election finance watchdog has ruled. His centre-right UMP party would lose €11m in state subsidies if Mr Sarkozy loses his appeal on the matter....(size: 7.5Kb)

US firms fall out of love with France, survey says

France24

22 Dec 2012

The attractiveness of France as a place to do business has plummeted in the eyes of the French divisions of US businesses, a new survey suggested this week ... By FRANCE 24 (text).   ... The chief reason for the steep drop it seems, can be explained by May’s presidential election when Socialist François Hollande ousted conservative Nicolas Sarkozy from the Elysée Palace ... (FRANCE 24 with wires). FRANCE ... FRANCE ... ....(size: 8.2Kb)

Nicolas Sarkozy 'exceeded campaign spending limits'

The Independent

21 Dec 2012

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy has been found guilty of breaching the official limit on the cost of last spring's presidential campaign – threatening his party with bankruptcy. France's election finance watchdog rejected Mr Sarkozy's expenses, alleging that he had used taxpayers' money to campaign for re-election before he officially entered the race in February ... Mr Sarkozy will appeal....(size: 3.5Kb)

Sarkozy under fire over 2012 campaign spending

The Star

21 Dec 2012

PARIS (Reuters) - Election auditors believe that French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy overshot the legal spending limit during a failed bid to secure re-election, his campaign treasurer said on Friday, vowing to contest the estimate ... Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives at the Parc des Princes Stadium to attend the French Ligue 1 soccer match between Paris Sain-Germain and Olympique Lyon in Paris, December 16, 2012....(size: 2.5Kb)

Carla Bruni Sarkozy edits French Vogue

Newstrack India

21 Dec 2012

Tweet. New York, December 21 (ANI). Former First Lady of France Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is the special guest editor of the December/January double issue of French Vogue ... (ANI). Read More. France . French Guiana ... Nicolas Sarkozy ... ) .. ).. Comments. ... . . . . . .. . . .. ....(size: 2.3Kb)

Mario Monti, Italy's Prime Minister, Resigns

Huffington Post

21 Dec 2012

(AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)</em>Nicolas Sarkozy. Not only was Sarko voted out of office, the former French President also came to grips with a string of funding scandals and controversies, including <a href=""http.//www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/nicolas-sarkozy-funding-scandals_n_1505679.html">allegations</a>" that he took financial advantage of 90-year-old L'Oreal heiress, Liliane Bettencourt....(size: 11.4Kb)

Margaret Thatcher In Hospital After Bladder Operation

Huffington Post

21 Dec 2012

Turkey hopeful Irish EU presidency will speed up accession bid

Irish Times

21 Dec 2012

MARY FITZGERALD, Foreign Affairs Correspondent ... Egemen Bagis said Turkey was heartened by signals from Paris that French president François Hollande, while stopping short of endorsing Ankara’s candidacy, took a more sympathetic view than his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, who was strongly opposed to Turkey’s accession ... All but 13 are blocked by France, Cyprus and the European Commission ... Image problem ... ....(size: 3.0Kb)

photo: AP / Thibault Camus, Pool

France's President Francois Hollande gives a speech during a ceremony to honor French troops home from Afghanistan, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. Hollande has declared "mission accomplished" for French combat troops who returned home recently from Afghanistan. France still has 1,500 troops in Afghanistan repatriating equipment or working in roles like providing medical care or helping run Kabul's airport. Hollande said the numbers will decline to 500 by mid-2013.

French leader honors troops home from Afghanistan

my SA

21 Dec 2012

PARIS (AP) — President Francois Hollande on Friday declared "mission accomplished" for French combat troops in Afghanistan, hailing their 11-year military commitment even as the fight goes on for France's NATO allies ... "I say to you all. 'mission accomplished.' I also say to you. 'exemplary action'. I say to you ... U.S. President George W ... France had a peak deployment of some 4,000 troops in Afghanistan under former President Nicolas Sarkozy ... ....(size: 3.8Kb)

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"Sarkozy" redirects here. For the surname, see Sárközi (surname).

Nicolas Sarkozy

President of France
In office 16 May 2007 – 15 May 2012
Prime Minister	François Fillon
Preceded by	Jacques Chirac
Succeeded by	François Hollande
Co-Prince of Andorra
In office 16 May 2007 – 15 May 2012 Served with Joan Enric Vives Sicília
Prime Minister	Albert Pintat Jaume Bartumeu Pere López Agràs (Acting) Antoni Martí
Representative	Philippe Massoni Emmanuelle Mignon Christian Frémont
Preceded by	Jacques Chirac
Succeeded by	François Hollande
Minister of the Interior
In office 2 June 2005 – 26 March 2007
Prime Minister	Dominique de Villepin
Preceded by	Dominique de Villepin
Succeeded by	François Baroin
In office 7 May 2002 – 30 March 2004
Prime Minister	Jean-Pierre Raffarin
Preceded by	Daniel Vaillant
Succeeded by	Dominique de Villepin
President of the Union for a Popular Movement
In office 28 November 2004 – 14 May 2007
Vice President	Jean-Claude Gaudin
Preceded by	Jean-Claude Gaudin (Acting)
Succeeded by	Jean-Claude Gaudin (Acting)
President of the General Council of Hauts-de-Seine
In office 1 April 2004 – 14 May 2007
Preceded by	Charles Pasqua
Succeeded by	Patrick Devedjian
Minister of Finance
In office 31 March 2004 – 29 November 2004
Prime Minister	Jean-Pierre Raffarin
Preceded by	Francis Mer
Succeeded by	Hervé Gaymard
Minister of the Budget
In office 30 March 1993 – 11 May 1995
Prime Minister	Édouard Balladur
Preceded by	Michel Charasse
Succeeded by	François d'Aubert
Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine
In office 14 April 1983 – 7 May 2002
Preceded by	Achille Peretti
Succeeded by	Louis-Charles Bary
Personal details
Born	(1955-01-28) 28 January 1955 (age 57) Paris, France
Political party	Rally for the Republic (Before 2002) Union for a Popular Movement (2002–present)
Spouse(s)	Marie-Dominique Culioli (1982–1996) Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz (1996–2007) Carla Bruni (2008–present)
Children	Pierre (by Culioli) Jean (by Culioli) Louis (by Ciganer-Albéniz) Giulia (by Bruni)
Alma mater	Paris West University Nanterre La Défense Institute of Political Studies, Paris
Signature
Website	Official website

Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi] ( listen), born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as the 23rd President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.

Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).

Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.

In foreign affairs, he promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom^[1] and closer cooperation with the United States.^[2] During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He also married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.

On 6 May 2012, Sarkozy was defeated in the 2012 election by Socialist François Hollande by a margin of 3.2 percent, or 1,139,983 votes.^[3] After leaving the office, Sarkozy retired from political life.^[4] As a former president, Sarkozy is entitled to de jure membership in the Constitutional Council.

Personal life [link]

Family background [link]

Main article: Family history of Nicolas Sarkozy

Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa^[5] (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál [nɒɟ͡ʝboːt͡ʃɒi ʃaːrkøzi paːl] ( listen); in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő),^[6] a Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (b. Paris, 12 October 1925), whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry her French Catholic mother.^[7]^[8] They were married in the Saint-François-de-Sales church, 17th arrondissement of Paris, on 8 February 1950 and divorced in 1959.^[9]

Early life [link]

During Sarkozy's childhood, his father founded his own advertising agency and became wealthy. The family lived in a mansion owned by Sarkozy's maternal grandfather, Benedict Mallah, in the 17th Arrondissement of Paris. The family later moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of the Île-de-France région immediately west of the 17th Arrondissement just outside of Paris. According to Sarkozy, his staunchly Gaullist grandfather was more of an influence on him than his father, whom he rarely saw. Sarkozy was, accordingly, raised Catholic.^[7]

Sarkozy said that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today. He also has said that, in his early years, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier and taller classmates.^[10] "What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood", he said later.^[10]

Education [link]

Sarkozy was enrolled in the Lycée Chaptal, a well regarded public middle and high school in Paris's 8th arrondissement, where he failed his sixième. His family then sent him to the Cours Saint-Louis de Monceau, a private Catholic school in the 17th arrondissement, where he was reportedly a mediocre student,^[11] but where he nonetheless obtained his baccalauréat in 1973. He enrolled at the Université Paris X Nanterre, where he graduated with an MA in Private law, and later with a DEA degree in Business law. Paris X Nanterre had been the starting place for the May '68 student movement and was still a stronghold of leftist students. Described as a quiet student, Sarkozy soon joined the right-wing student organization, in which he was very active. He completed his military service as a part time Air Force cleaner.^[12] After graduating, he entered the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, better known as Sciences Po, (1979–1981) but failed to graduate^[13] due to an insufficient command of the English language.^[14] After passing the bar, he became a lawyer specializing in business and family law,^[14] and was one of Silvio Berlusconi's top French advocates.^[15]^[16]^[17]

Marriages [link]

Marie-Dominique Culioli [link]

Sarkozy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982; her father was a pharmacist from Vico (a village north of Ajaccio, Corsica), her uncle was Achille Peretti, the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1947-1983 and Sarkozy's political mentor. They had two sons, Pierre (born in 1985), now a hip-hop producer,^[18] and Jean (born in 1986) now a local politician in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine where Sarkozy started his own political career. Sarkozy's best man was the prominent right-wing politician Charles Pasqua, later to become a political opponent.^[19] Sarkozy divorced Culioli in 1996, after they had been separated for several years.

Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz [link]

As mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Sarkozy met former fashion model and public relations executive Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz (great-granddaughter of composer Isaac Albéniz and daughter of a Moldovan father), when he officiated at her wedding^[20] to television host Jacques Martin. In 1988, she left her husband for Sarkozy, and divorced Martin one year later. Sarkozy married her in October 1996, with witnesses Martin Bouygues and Bernard Arnault.^[21] They have one son, Louis, born 23 April 1997.

Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public occasions, with Cécilia Sarkozy acting as the chief aide for her husband.^[22] On 25 May 2005, however, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin revealed that she had left Sarkozy for French-Moroccan national Richard Attias, head of Publicis in New York.^[23] There were other accusations of a private nature in Le Matin, which led to Sarkozy suing the paper.^[24] In the meantime, he was said to have had an affair with a journalist of Le Figaro, Anne Fulda.^[25]

Sarkozy and Cécilia ultimately divorced on 15 October 2007, soon after his election as President.^[26]

Carla Bruni [link]

President Barack Obama is greeted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni at the G8 Summit dinner in Deauville, France, 26 May 2011.

Less than a month after separating from Cécilia, Sarkozy met Italian-born singer Carla Bruni at a dinner party, and soon entered a relationship with her.^[27] They married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.^[28]

The couple has a daughter, Giulia, born on 19 October 2011.^[29] It is the first time a French president has had a child while in office.^[30]

Personal wealth [link]

Sarkozy declared to the Constitutional Council a net worth of €2 million, most of the assets being in the form of life insurance policies.^[31] As the French President, one of his first actions was to give himself a pay raise: his yearly salary went from €101,000 to €240,000 (to match his European/French peers).^[32] He is also entitled to a mayoral pension as a former mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Member of National Assembly [link]

Sarkozy is recognised by both the right and left's French parties as a skilled politician and striking orator.^[33] His supporters within France emphasize his charisma, political innovation and willingness to "make a dramatic break" amid mounting disaffection against "politics as usual". Overall, he is considered more pro-United States and pro-Israeli than most French politicians.

Since November 2004, Sarkozy has been president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), France's major right-wing political party, and he was Minister of the Interior in the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, with the honorific title of Minister of State, making him effectively the number three official in the French State after President Jacques Chirac and Villepin. His ministerial responsibilities included law enforcement and working to co-ordinate relationships between the national and local governments, as well as Minister of Worship (in this role he created the CFCM, French Council of Muslim Faith). Previously, he was a deputy to the French National Assembly. He was forced to resign this position in order to accept his ministerial appointment. He previously also held several ministerial posts, including Finance Minister.

In government [link]

Sarkozy's political career began when he was 23, when he became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine. A member of the Neo-Gaullist party RPR, he went on to be elected mayor of that town, after the death of the incumbent mayor Achille Peretti. Sarkozy had been close to Peretti, as his mother was Peretti's secretary. The senior RPR politician at the time, Charles Pasqua, wanted to become mayor, and asked Sarkozy to organize his campaign. Instead Sarkozy profited from Pasqua's short illness to propel himself into the office of mayor.^[34] He was the youngest mayor of any town in France with a population of over 50,000. He served from 1983 to 2002. In 1988, he became a deputy in the National Assembly.

In 1993, Sarkozy was in the national news for personally negotiating with the "Human Bomb", a man who had taken small children hostage in a kindergarten in Neuilly.^[35] The "Human Bomb" was killed after two days of talks by policemen of the RAID, who entered the school stealthily while the attacker was resting.

At the same time, from 1993 to 1995, he was Minister for the Budget and spokesman for the executive in the cabinet of Prime Minister Édouard Balladur. Throughout most of his early career, Sarkozy had been seen as a protégé of Jacques Chirac. During his tenure, he increased France's public debt more than any other French Budget Minister, by the equivalent of €200 billion (USD260 billion) (FY 1994–1996). The first two budgets he submitted to the parliament (budgets for FY1994 and FY1995) assumed a yearly budget deficit equivalent to six percent of GDP.^[36] According to the Maastricht Treaty, the French yearly budget deficit may not exceed three percent of France's GDP.

In 1995, he spurned Chirac and backed Édouard Balladur for President of France. After Chirac won the election, Sarkozy lost his position as Minister for the Budget, and found himself outside the circles of power.

However, he returned after the right-wing defeat at the 1997 parliamentary election, as the number two candidate of the RPR. When the party leader Philippe Séguin resigned, in 1999, he took the leadership of the Neo-Gaullist party. But it obtained its worst result at the 1999 European Parliament election, winning 12.7% of the votes, less than the dissident Rally for France of Charles Pasqua. Sarkozy lost the RPR leadership.

Nicolas Sarkozy speaking at the congress of his party, 28 November 2004

In 2002, however, after his re-election as President of the French Republic (see French presidential election, 2002), Chirac appointed Sarkozy as French Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, despite Sarkozy's support of Edouard Balladur for French President in 1995.^[37] Following Chirac's 14 July keynote speech on road safety, Sarkozy as interior minister pushed through new legislation leading to the mass purchase of speed cameras and a campaign to increase the awareness of dangers on the roads.

In the cabinet reshuffle of 30 April 2004, Sarkozy became Finance Minister. Tensions continued to build between Sarkozy and Chirac and within the UMP party, as Sarkozy's intentions of becoming head of the party after the resignation of Alain Juppé became clear.

In party elections of 10 November 2004, Sarkozy became leader of the UMP with 85% of the vote. In accordance with an agreement with Chirac, he resigned as Finance Minister. Sarkozy's ascent was marked by the division of UMP between sarkozystes, such as Sarkozy's "first lieutenant", Brice Hortefeux, and Chirac loyalists, such as Jean-Louis Debré.

Sarkozy was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by President Chirac in February 2005. He was re-elected on 13 March 2005 to the National Assembly (as required by the constitution,^[38] he had to resign as a deputy when he became minister in 2002).

On 31 May 2005 the main French news radio station France Info reported a rumour that Sarkozy was to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin without resigning from the UMP leadership. This was confirmed on 2 June 2005, when the members of the government were officially announced.

First term as Minister of the Interior [link]

Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Sarkozy was the most divisive conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004.

Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes tense relationships between the general French population and the Muslim community. Unlike the Catholic Church in France with their official leaders or Protestants with their umbrella organisations, the French Muslim community had a lack of structure with no group that could legitimately deal with the French government on their behalf. Sarkozy supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private non-profit Conseil français du culte musulman ("French Council of the Muslim Faith"), an organisation meant to be representative of French Muslims.^[39] In addition, Sarkozy has suggested amending the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State, mostly in order to be able to finance mosques and other Muslim institutions with public funds^[40] so that they are less reliant on money from outside of France. It was not followed by any concrete measure.

Minister of Finance [link]

During his short appointment as Minister of Finance, Sarkozy was responsible for introducing a number of policies. The degree to which this reflected libéralisme (a hands-off approach to running the economy) or more traditional French state dirigisme (intervention) is controversial. He resigned the day following his election as president of the UMP.

In September 2004, Sarkozy oversaw the reduction of the government ownership stake in France Télécom from 50.4 percent to 41 percent.^[41]
Sarkozy backed a partial nationalisation of the large engineering company Alstom decided by his predecessor when the company was exposed to bankruptcy in 2003.^[42]
In June 2004, Sarkozy reached an agreement with the major retail chains in France to concertedly lower prices on household goods by an average of two percent; the success of this measure is disputed, with studies suggesting that the decrease was close to one percent in September.^[43]
Taxes: Sarkozy avoided taking a position on the ISF (solidarity tax on wealth). This is considered an ideological symbol by many on the left and right. Some in the business world and on the liberal right, such as Alain Madelin, wanted it abolished. For Sarkozy, that would have risked being categorised by the left as a gift to the richest classes of society at a time of economic difficulties.^[44]

Villepin government [link]

Second term as Minister of the Interior [link]

Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior with then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after their bilateral meeting in Washington, D.C., 12 September 2006

During his second term at the Ministry of the Interior, Sarkozy was initially more discreet about his ministerial activities: instead of focusing on his own topic of law and order, many of his declarations addressed wider issues, since he was expressing his opinions as head of the UMP party.

Main article: Response to the 2005 civil unrest in France

However, the civil unrest in autumn 2005 put law enforcement in the spotlight again. Sarkozy was accused of having provoked the unrest by calling young delinquents from housing projects "rabble" ("racaille") in Argenteuil near Paris, and controversially suggested cleansing the minority suburbs with a Kärcher. After the accidental death of two youths, which sparked the riots, Sarkozy first blamed it on "hoodlums" and gangsters. These remarks were sharply criticised by many on the left wing and by a member of his own government, Delegate Minister for Equal Opportunities Azouz Begag.^[45]

After the rioting, he made a number of announcements on future policy: selection of immigrants, greater tracking of immigrants, and a reform on the 1945 ordinance government justice measures for young delinquents.

UMP leader [link]

Before he was elected President of France, Sarkozy was president of UMP, the French conservative party, elected with 85 percent of the vote. During his presidency, the number of members has significantly increased. In 2005, he supported a "yes" vote in the French referendum on the European Constitution, but the "No" vote won.

Throughout 2005, Sarkozy called for radical changes in France's economic and social policies. These calls culminated in an interview with Le Monde on 8 September 2005, during which he claimed that the French had been misled for 30 years by false promises.^[46] Among other issues:

he called for a simplified and "fairer" taxation system, with fewer loopholes and a maximum taxation rate (all direct taxes combined) at 50 percent of revenue;
he approved measures reducing or denying social support to unemployed workers who refuse work offered to them;
he pressed for a reduction in the budget deficit, claiming that the French state has been living off credit for some time.

Such policies are what are called in France libéral (that is, in favour of laissez-faire economic policies) or, with a pejorative undertone, ultra-libéral. Sarkozy rejects this label of libéral and prefers to call himself a pragmatist.

Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he wanted a reform of the immigration system, with quotas designed to admit the skilled workers needed by the French economy. He also wants to reform the current French system for foreign students, saying that it enables foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order to obtain residency in France; instead, he wants to select the best students to the best curricula in France.

In early 2006, the French parliament adopted a controversial bill known as DADVSI, which reforms French copyright law. Since his party was divided on the issue, Sarkozy stepped in and organised meetings between various parties involved. Later, groups such as the Odebi League and EUCD.info alleged that Sarkozy personally and unofficially supported certain amendments to the law, which enacted strong penalties against designers of peer-to-peer systems.

Presidential campaigns [link]

2007 presidential campaign [link]

Main article: French presidential election, 2007

Ségolène Royal was Sarkozy's final opponent during the second (last) round of the 2007 presidential election.

Sarkozy was a likely candidate for the presidency in 2007; in an oft-repeated comment made on television channel France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the morning, Sarkozy commented, "Not just when I shave".^[47]

On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98 percent of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote, 69 percent participated in the online ballot.^[48]

In February 2007, Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action and the freedom to work overtime. Despite his opposition to same-sex marriage, he advocated civil unions and the possibility for same-sex partners to inherit under the same regime as married couples. The law was voted in July 2007.^[49]

Meeting in Toulouse for the 2007 French Presidential election.

On 7 February, Sarkozy decided in favour of a projected second, non-nuclear, aircraft carrier for the national Navy (adding to the nuclear Charles de Gaulle), during an official visit in Toulon with Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. "This would allow permanently having an operational ship, taking into account the constraints of maintenance", he explained.^[50]

Demonstrations and riots, Paris, May 6, 2007, following the election of Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency of the French republic.

On 21 March, President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy. Chirac pointed out that Sarkozy had been chosen as presidential candidate for the ruling UMP party, and said: "So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support." To focus on his campaign, Sarkozy stepped down as interior minister on 26 March.^[51]

During the campaign, rival candidates had accused Sarkozy of being a "candidate for brutality" and of presenting hard-line views about France's future.^[52] Opponents also accused him of courting conservative voters in policy-making in a bid to capitalise on right-wing sentiments among some communities. However, his popularity was sufficient to see him polling as the frontrunner throughout the later campaign period, consistently ahead of rival Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal.

The first round of the presidential election was held on 22 April 2007. Sarkozy came in first with 31.18 percent of the votes, ahead of Ségolène Royal of the Socialists with 25.87 percent. In the second round, Sarkozy came out on top to win the election with 53.06 percent of the votes ahead of Ségolène Royal with 46.94 percent.^[53] In his speech immediately following the announcement of the election results, Sarkozy stressed the need for France's modernisation, but also called for national unity, mentioning that Royal was in his thoughts. In that speech, he claimed "The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past. I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation."

2012 presidential campaign [link]

Main article: French presidential election, 2012

Sarkozy was one of ten candidates who qualified for the first round of voting.^[54] François Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate, received the most votes in the first round held on 22 April election, with Sarkozy coming second, meaning that both progressed to the second round of voting on 5–6 May 2012.^[55] Sarkozy lost in the runoff and conceded to Hollande. He received an estimated 48.38% compared to Hollande's 51.62%.^[56]

Political career [link]

President of the French Republic: 2007-2012.
Co-Prince of Andorra: 2007-2012.

Governmental functions

Minister of Budget and government's spokesman : 1993–1995.
Minister of Communication and government's spokesman : 1994–1995.
Minister of State, minister of Interior, of the Internal Security and Local Freedoms : 2002–2004.
Minister of State, minister of Economy, Finance and Industry : March–November 2004 (resignation).
Minister of State, minister of Interior and Planning : 2005–2007 (resignation).

Electoral mandates

European Parliament

Member of the European Parliament : July–September 1999 (Resignation). Elected in 1999.

National Assembly of France

Member of the National Assembly of France for Hauts-de-Seine (6th constituency) : 1988–1993 (became minister in 1993) / 1995–2002 (became minister in 2002) / March–June 2005 (became minister in June 2005). Elected in 1988, reelected in 1993, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2005.

Regional Council

Regional councillor of Île-de-France : 1983–1988 (Resignation). Elected in 1986.

General Council

President of the General Council of Hauts-de-Seine : 2004–2007 (Resignation, became President of the French Republic in 2007).
Vice-president of the General Council of Hauts-de-Seine : 1986–1988 (Resignation).
General councillor of Hauts-de-Seine : 1985–1988 / 2004–2007 (Resignation, became President of the French Republic in 2007).

Municipal Council

Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine : 1983–2002 (Resignation). Reelected in 1989, 1995, and 2001.
Deputy-mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine : 2002–2007 (Resignation).
Municipal councillor of Neuilly-sur-Seine : 1977–2007 (Resignation). Reelected in 1983, 1989, 1995, and 2001.

Political functions

President of the Union for a Popular Movement : 2004–2007 (resignation, became President of the French Republic in 2007). Elected in 2004.
President of the Rally for the Republic : April–October 1999.
General secretary of the Rally for the Republic : 1998–1999.
Deputy general secretary of the Rally for the Republic : 1992–1993.

Presidency [link]

Main article: Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy

On 6 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth person to be elected President of the Fifth Republic (which was established in 1958), and the 23rd president in French history. He is the first French president to have been born after World War II. Indeed, his predecessor Jacques Chirac, the president born most recently apart from Sarkozy himself, was born in 1932.

The official transfer of power from Chirac to Sarkozy took place on 16 May at 11:00 am (9:00 UTC) at the Élysée Palace, where he was given the authorization codes of the French nuclear arsenal.^[57] In the afternoon, the new President flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Sarkozy greets US first lady Laura Bush in Germany, June 2007

Nicolas Sarkozy and General Jean-Louis Georgelin, Chief of the Defence Staff, reviewing troops during the Bastille Day 2008 military parade on the Champs-Élysées, Paris

Popularity polls

Under Sarkozy's government, François Fillon replaced Dominique de Villepin as Prime Minister.^[58] Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, as his foreign minister, leading to Kouchner's expulsion from the Socialist Party. In addition to Kouchner, three more Sarkozy ministers are from the left, including Eric Besson, who served as Ségolène Royal's economic adviser at the beginning of her campaign. Sarkozy also appointed seven women to form a total cabinet of 15; one, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, is the first woman of Northern African origin to serve in a French cabinet. Of the 15, two attended the elite École nationale d'administration (ENA).^[59] The ministers were reorganised, with the controversial creation of a 'Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development'—given to his right-hand man Brice Hortefeux—and of a 'Ministry of Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Administration'—handed out to Éric Wœrth, supposed to prepare the replacement of only a third of all civil servants who retire. However, after the 17 June parliamentary elections, the Cabinet has been adjusted to 15 ministers and 16 deputy ministers, totalling 31 officials.

Shortly after taking office, Sarkozy began negotiations with Colombian president Álvaro Uribe and the left-wing guerrilla FARC, regarding the release of hostages held by the rebel group, especially Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt. According to some sources, Sarkozy himself asked for Uribe to release FARC's "chancellor" Rodrigo Granda.^[60] Furthermore, he announced on 24 July 2007, that French and European representatives had obtained the extradition of the Bulgarian nurses detained in Libya to their country. In exchange, he signed with Muammar Gaddafi security, health care and immigration pacts—and a $230 million (168 million euros) MILAN antitank missile sale.^[61] The contract was the first made by Libya since 2004, and was negotiated with MBDA, a subsidiary of EADS. Another 128 millions euros contract would have been signed, according to Tripoli, with EADS for a TETRA radio system. The Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) criticised a "state affair" and a "barter" with a "Rogue state".^[62] The leader of the PS, François Hollande, requested the opening of a parliamentary investigation.^[61]

On 8 June 2007, during the 33rd G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Sarkozy set a goal of reducing French CO₂ emissions by 50 percent by 2050 in order to prevent global warming. He then pushed forward Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn as European nominee to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).^[63] Critics alleged that Sarkozy proposed to nominate Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF to deprive the Socialist Party of one of its more popular figures.^[64]

In 2010, a study of Yale and Columbia universities ranked France the most respectful country of the G20 concerning the environment.^[65]

The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Sarkozy's party, won a majority at the June 2007 legislative election, although by less than expected. In July, the UMP majority, seconded by the Nouveau Centre, ratified one of Sarkozy's electoral promises, which was to partially revoke the inheritance tax.^[66]^[67] The inheritance tax formerly brought eight billion euros into state coffers.^[68]

Sarkozy (at left) attending the G-8 Summit in 2009

Sarkozy's UMP majority prepared a budget that reduced taxes, in particular for upper middle-class people, allegedly in an effort to boost GDP growth, but did not reduce state expenditures. He was criticised by the European Commission for doing so.

Sarkozy broke with the custom of amnestying traffic tickets and of releasing thousands of prisoners from overcrowded jails on Bastille Day, a tradition that Napoleon had started in 1802 to commemorate the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution.^[61]

Sarkozy's government issued a decree on 7 August 2007 to generalise a voluntary biometric profiling program of travellers in airports. The program, called 'Parafes', was to use fingerprints. The new database would be interconnected with the Schengen Information System (SIS) as well as with a national database of wanted persons (FPR). The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) protested against this new decree, opposing itself to the recording of fingerprints and to the interconnection between the SIS and the FPR.^[69]

On 21 July 2008, the French parliament passed constitutional reforms which Sarkozy had made one of the key pledges of his presidential campaign. The vote was 539 to 357, one vote over the three-fifths majority required; the changes are not yet finalized. They would introduce a two-term limit for the presidency, and end the president's right of collective pardon. They would allow the president to address parliament in-session, and parliament, to set its own agenda. They would give parliament a veto over some presidential appointments, while ending government control over parliament's committee system. He has claimed that these reforms strengthen parliament, while some opposition socialist lawmakers have described it as a "consolidation of a monocracy".^[70]

On 23 July 2008, parliament voted the "loi de modernisation de l'économie" (Modernization of the Economy Law) which loosened restrictions on retail prices and reduced limitations on the creation of businesses. The Government has also made changes to long-standing French work-hour regulations, allowing employers to negotiate overtime with employees and making all hours worked past the traditional French 35-hour week tax-free.^[71]

However, as a result of the global financial crisis that came to a head in September 2008, Sarkozy has returned to the state interventionism of his predecessors, declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "dictatorship of the market". Confronted with the suggestion that he had become a socialist, he responded: "Have I become socialist? Perhaps." He has also pledged to create 100,000 state-subsidised jobs.^[72] This reversion to dirigisme is seen as an attempt to stem the growing popularity of revolutionary socialist leader Olivier Besancenot.^[73]

President Nicolas Sarkozy with President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff

Nicolas Sarkozy with Cypriot opposition leader Nicos Anastasiades

France wielded special international power when Sarkozy held the rotating EU Presidency from July 2008 through December 2008. Sarkozy has publicly stated his intention to attain EU approval of a progressive energy package before the end of his EU Presidency. This energy package would clearly define climate change objectives for the EU and hold members to specific reductions in emissions. In further support of his collaborative outlook on climate change, Sarkozy has led the EU into a partnership with China.^[74] On 6 December 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, current Chairman of the European Union, met the Dalai Lama in Poland and outraged China, which has announced that it would postpone the China-EU summit indefinitely.^[75] On 3 April 2009, at the NATO Summit in Strasbourg, Sarkozy announced that France would offer asylum to a former Guantanamo captive.^[76]^[77] "We are on the path to failure if we continue to act as we have", French President Nicolas Sarkozy cautioned at the U.N. Climate Summit on 22 September 2009.^[78]

On 27 February 2011, Sarkozy did for the 10th time of his presidency a government reshuffle.^[79]

On 29 June 2011, he did an 11th government reshuffle, after the resignation of Christine Lagarde, who was appointed to head the International Monetary Fund. Five new ministers were appointed.

Middle East [link]

On 5 January 2009, Sarkozy called for a ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip Conflict.^[80] The plan, which was jointly proposed by Sarkozy and Egyptian ex-President Hosni Mubarak envisions the continuation of the delivery of aid to Gaza and talks with Israel on border security, a key issue for Israel as it says Hamas smuggles its rockets into Gaza through the Egyptian border. Welcoming the proposal, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a "ceasefire that can endure and that can bring real security".^[81]

Involvement in Libya [link]

Nicolas Sarkozy address the E-G8 Forum in Paris in 2011

In March 2011, after having been criticized for his unwillingness to support the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, and persuaded by the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to have France actively engage against the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolas Sarkozy was amongst the first Heads of State to demand the resignation of Gaddafi and his government, which was then fighting a civil war in Libya. On 10 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed to the Elysee Palace, three emissaries from the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), brought to him by Bernard-Henri Levy who mediated at the meeting. Nicolas Sarkozy promised them a no-fly zone would be imposed on Gaddafi's aeroplanes. He also promised them France's military assistance. On 17 March 2011, at the behest of France, resolution 1973 was adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations, permitting the creation of a "no fly" zone over Libya, and for the undertaking of "necessary measures" for the protection of the country's civilian population. On 19 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy officially announced the beginning of a military intervention in Libya, with France's participation. These actions of Nicolas Sarkozy were favorably received by the majority of the French political class and public opinion.^[82]^[83]^[84]

Public image [link]

Sarkozy was named the 68th best-dressed person in the world by Vanity Fair, alongside David Beckham and Brad Pitt.^[85] However, Sarkozy has also been named as the third worst-dressed person in the world by GQ,^[86] a listing that has been disputed.^[87] Beside publicizing, at times, and at others, refusing to publicise his ex-wife Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz's image,^[88] Sarkozy takes care of his own personal image, sometimes to the point of censorship—such as in the Paris Match affair, when he allegedly forced its director to resign following an article on his ex-wife and her affair with Publicis executive Richard Attias, or pressures exercised on the Journal du dimanche, which was preparing to publish an article concerning Ciganer-Albéniz's decision not to vote in the second round of the 2007 presidential election.^[89] In its 9 August 2007 edition, Paris Match retouched a photo of Sarkozy in order to erase a love handle.^[90]^[91]^[92] His official portrait destined for all French town halls was done by SIPA photographer Philippe Warrin, better known for his paparazzi work.^[93]

Former Daily Telegraph journalist Colin Randall has highlighted Sarkozy's tighter control of his image and frequent interventions in the media: "he censors a book, or fires the chief editor of a weekly."^[93] Sarkozy is reported by Reuters to be sensitive about his height (believed to be 165 cm (5 ft 5 in)).^[94] The French media have pointed out that Carla Bruni frequently wears flats when in public with him. In 2009, this was the subject of a political row, when a worker at a factory where Sarkozy gave a speech said she was asked to stand next to him because she was of a similar height (this story was corroborated by some trade union officials). The president's office called the accusation "completely absurd and grotesque", while the Socialist Party mocked his fastidious preparation.^[95]

Sarkozy lost a suit against a manufacturer of Sarkozy voodoo dolls, in which he claimed that he had a right to his own image.^[96]

La Conquête [link]

The biopic La Conquête is a 2011 film that dramatizes Sarkozy's rise to power, with candid portrayals of Sarkozy himself, Chirac and Villepin, and that was shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.^[97]

Controversies [link]

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (May 2011)

Generally, Sarkozy is strongly disliked by the Left, and is also criticised by some on the Right, most vocally by supporters of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, such as Jean-Louis Debré.^[98]^[99]

The magazine Marianne accused Sarkozy of changing opinion in an Airbus affair.^[100] The communist-leaning magazine L'Humanité accused Sarkozy of being a populist.^[101]

Many on the Left have a particular distrust for Nicolas Sarkozy; specific "anti-Sarko" movements have been started

In 2004 Sarkozy co-authored a book, La République, les religions, l'espérance (The Republic, Religions, and Hope),^[102] in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely on secular or republican values. He advocated reducing the separation of church and state, arguing for the government subsidy of mosques in order to encourage Islamic integration into French society.^[103] He opposes financing of religious institutions with funds from outside France. After meeting with Tom Cruise, Sarkozy was criticised by some for meeting with a member of the Church of Scientology, which is seen as a cult in France (see Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France).^[104] Sarkozy stated that "the roots of France are essentially Christian" at December 2007 speech in Rome. He called Islam "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilizations the world has known" at a speech in Riyadh in January 2008. Both comments drew criticism from Christians.^[105]

In the midst of a tense period and following the accidental death of an 11-year-old boy in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve in June 2005, Sarkozy quoted a local resident and vowed to clean the area out "with a Kärcher" (nettoyer la cité au Kärcher, referring to a well-known German brand of pressure-cleaning equipment), and two days before the 2005 Paris riots he referred to the criminal youth of the housing projects as voyous (thugs) and racaille, a slang term which can be translated into English as rabble, scum or riff-raff;^[106] the French Communist Party's publication L'Humanité branded this language as inappropriate.^[107]

In September 2005 Sarkozy was accused of pushing for a hasty inquiry into an arson attack on a police station in Pau, of which the alleged perpetrators were acquitted for lack of proof.^[108] On 22 June 2005 Sarkozy told law enforcement officials that he had questioned the Minister of Justice about the future of "the judge" who had freed a man on parole who had later committed a murder.^[109]

Sarkozy opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. However, he was critical of the way Jacques Chirac and his foreign minister Dominique de Villepin expressed France's opposition to the war. Talking at the French-American Foundation in Washington, D.C. on 12 September 2006, he denounced what he called the "French arrogance" and said: "It is bad manners to embarrass one's allies or sound like one is taking delight in their troubles."^[110] He added: "We must never again turn our disagreements into a crisis." Jacques Chirac reportedly said in private that Sarkozy's speech was "appalling" and "a shameful act".^[110]

Even though his former foreign minister Bernard Kouchner (excluded from the Socialist party after his inclusion in François Fillon's government) had been one of the few supporters in France of removal of Saddam Hussein from power, Sarkozy's stance on the war has not changed.

A few weeks before the first round of the 2007 presidential elections, Sarkozy said during an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray^[111] that he thinks disorders such as paedophilia and depression have a genetic as well as social basis, saying "I don't agree with you, I'd be inclined to think that one is born a paedophile, and it is actually a problem that we do not know how to cure this disease"; he also claimed that suicides among youth were linked to genetic predispositions by stating, "I don't want to give parents a complex. It's not exclusively the parents' fault every time a youngster commits suicide." These statements were criticised by some scientists, including controversial geneticist Axel Kahn.^[112]^[113] Sarkozy later said, "What part is innate and what part is acquired? At least let's debate it, let's not close the door to all debate."^[114]

On 27 July 2007, Sarkozy delivered a speech in Senegal, written by Henri Guaino, in which he made reference to "African peasants".^[115]^[116] The controversial remarks were widely condemned by Africans, who viewed them as racist.^[116]^[117]^[118] South African president Thabo Mbeki praised Sarkozy's speech, which raised criticism by some in the South African media.^[116]^[118]

On 23 February 2008, Sarkozy was filmed by a reporter for French newspaper Le Parisien having the following exchange while visiting the Paris International Agricultural Show:^[119]

While quickly crossing the hall Saturday morning, in the middle of the crowd, Sarkozy encounters a recalcitrant visitor who refuses to shake his hand. "Ah no, don't touch me!", said the man. The president retorted immediately: "Get lost, then." "You're making me dirty", yelled the man. With a frozen smile, Sarkozy says, his teeth glistening, a refined "Get lost, then, poor dumb-ass, go."^[120]

This exchange has been cause for much humour and debate regarding its propriety in the French press. It should also be noted that a precise translation into English has many possible variations.^[121]^[122]^[123]

On 28 August 2008, Hervé Eon, from Laval came to an anti-Sarkozy demonstration with a sign bearing the words Casse-toi pov' con, the exact words Sarkozy had uttered. Eon was arrested for causing offence to the presidential function and the prosecutor, who in France indirectly reports to the president, requested a fine of 1000€.^[124]^[125] The court eventually imposed a symbolic 30€ suspended fine, which has generally been interpreted as a defeat for the prosecution side.^[126] This incident was widely reported on, in particular as Sarkozy, as president of the Republic, is immune from prosecution, notably restricting Eon's rights to sue Sarkozy for defamation.^[127]

On 8 November 2009, Sarkozy posted on his Facebook page a picture supposedly showing him chipping away at the Berlin Wall during its fall. However, the dates were inconsistent and the picture was proven to be fake – and later archived footage confirmed this. This news of forgery spread in France, and later evolved into a meme, "Sarkozy Was There", where Sarkozy is photoshopped into historical events.

On 5 July 2010, following its investigations on the Bettencourt affair, online newspaper Mediapart ran an article in which Claire Thibout, an ex-accountant working for Liliane Bettencourt, accused Nicolas Sarkozy and Eric Woerth of receiving illegal campaign donations in 2007, in cash.^[128]^[129]

On 30 July 2010, Sarkozy suggested a new policy of security, and he proposed "stripping foreign-born French citizens who opted to acquire their nationality at their majority of their citizenship if they are convicted of threatening the life of a police officer or other serious crimes".^[130] This policy has been criticized for example by the US newspaper The New York Times,^[130] by Sarkozy's political opponents, including the leader of the PS, Martine Aubry,^[131] and by experts of French law, including the ex-member of the Constitutional Council of France, Robert Badinter, who said that such action would be unconstitutional.^[132]

Sarkozy was accused of nepotism for helping his son, Jean Sarkozy, try to become head of the public body running France's biggest business district EPAD.^[133]^[134]

Awards and honours [link]

French honours [link]

Legion of Honour
- Grand Cross (2007 — automatic when taking office)
- Knight (2004)
Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2007 — automatic when taking office)

Other countries [link]

Belgium: Commander of the Order of Leopold
Bulgaria: Grand Cross of Order of Stara Planina
Georgia: Saint George's Victory Order^[135]
Holy See: Proto-canon of the Papal Basilica of St. John Lateran (2007 - the post is held ex officio by the French Head of State)^[136]
Italy: Premio Mediterraneo^[137]
Spain: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (2011)^[138]^[139]
Spain: Grand Cross (2004), then, Collar (2009) of the Order of Charles III^[140]^[141]
United Kingdom: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (2008)^[142]

Notes [link]

^ David Byers (26 March 2008). "Nicolas Sarkozy calls for 'Franco-British brotherhood' as state visit begins". The Times (UK). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3624398.ece. Retrieved 26 March 2008.
^ Anderson, John Ward and Molly Moore; "Sarkozy Wins, Vows to Restore Pride in France", Washington Post, 7 May 2007
^ "Results of the French Presidential Election". http://elections.interieur.gouv.fr/PR2012/FE.html. - French Ministry of the Interior. Hollande gathered 18,000,668 votes, while Sarkozy obtained 16,860,685 votes.
^ "'I love life too much to be bitter': Sarkozy confirms he will quit politics for good and says he wants people to 'leave me alone'". 7 May 2012. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2140864/Nicolas-Sarkozy-confirms-quit-politics-good-says-wants-people-leave-alone.html.
^ It is the "westernised", or "internationalised", version of his Hungarian name, in which the given name is put first (whereas in Hungarian given names come last), and the French aristocratic particle "de" is used instead of the Hungarian aristocratic ending "-i". This "westernisation" of Hungarian names is frequent, particularly for people with an aristocratic name. Check for example the leader of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, whose Hungarian name is nagybányai Horthy Miklós, but who is known in English as Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya. The French name of Pál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa from 1948 is Paul Étienne Arnaud Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa, where the given name Pál has been translated into Paul in French, and the acute accents on the "a" of Sarközy and the "o" of Bocsa were dropped as these letters never carry an acute accent (accent aigu) in French. The trema on the "o" of Sárközy was kept, probably because French typewriters allow this combination, whereas it is impossible to write "a" or "o" with an acute accent using a French typewriter.
^ Schmemann, Serge (15 May 2007). "The New French President's Roots Are Worth Remembering". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/opinion/15tue4.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. Retrieved 28 September 2008.
^ ^a ^b "Profile: Nicolas Sarkozy". BBC News. 26 July 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3673102.stm. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "A Greek book on Nicolas Sarkozy". The European Jewish Press. http://www.ejpress.org/article/22741. Retrieved 12 April 2008.
^ "Ancestry of Nicolas Sarkozy". William Addams Reitwiesner. http://www.wargs.com/noble/sarkozy.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ ^a ^b see Catherine Nay's semi-official biography
^ Un pouvoir nommé désir, Catherine Nay, 2007
^ "Le service militaire de Sakozy". Nousnours. 22 February 1999. http://www.newsnours.com/2008/07/le-service-mili.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Augustin Scalbert, Un soupçon de vantardise sur les CV ministériels, Rue 89, 18 September 2007 (French)
^ ^a ^b See Catherine Nay's semi-official biography
^ "Berlusconi : le "bon Nicolas Sarkozy" a été mon avocat". Le Nouvel Observateur. France. 29 June 2009. http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/international/europe/20090629.OBS2316/berlusconi__le_bon_nicolas_sarkozy_a_ete_mon_avocat.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "Corfù, il vertice del disgelo "Riparte collaborazione Nato-Russia" Il Cavaliere: "Mandai il mio avvocato Sarkozy da lui per la Georgia..."". Repubblica. http://www.repubblica.it/2009/06/sezioni/politica/berlusconi-varie-2/berlusconi-russia/berlusconi-russia.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "Berlusconi al vertice Nato-Russia "Quando mandai l'avvocato Sarkozy"". L'UNIONE SARDA.it. 20 November 1948. http://unionesarda.ilsole24ore.com/Articoli/Articolo/131694. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Indrisek, Scott (7 January 2008). "Pierre Sarkozy: Hip-Hop Producer". Rhapsody Blog. http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/01/pierre-sarkozy-hip-hop-producer.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Sarkozy Closes in on his Goal: Ambition and Honesty on the French Campaign Trail Spiegel.de, 4 September 2007
^ "Cécilia Sarkozy: The First Lady vanishes". The Independent (London). 24 June 2007. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/ccilia-sarkozy-the-first-lady-vanishes-454247.html. Retrieved 31 March 2010. ^{[dead link]}
^ "Cecilia Sarkozy Biography". NetGlimse.com. http://www.netglimse.com/celebs/pages/cecilia_sarkozy/index.shtml. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Wyatt, Caroline (15 May 2007). "Sarkozy soap opera grips Paris". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6656717.stm. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "Nicolas Sarkozy divorce official". HULIQ. 18 October 2007. http://www.huliq.com/38585/nicolas-sarkozy-divorce-official. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "Globaljournalist.org". Global Journalist. http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2005/12/01/french-roast-served-up-american-style/. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Willsher, Kim (19 February 2006). "The Sarkozy saga". The Daily Telegraph (UK). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=SNKICWL0BRPGRQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/02/19/wsark19.xml&page=2. Retrieved 12 August 2007.
^ AFX News Limited (18 October 2007). "French president Sarkozy separation is 'divorce' – official UPDATE". Forbes magazine. http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/10/18/afx4234519.html.
^ France begins to grow weary with the Sarkozy soap opera. The Guardian, 13 January 2008
^ Associated Press (2 February 2008), French President Marries Former Model, ABC News
^ Samuel, Henry (20 October 2011). "Carla Bruni-Sarkozy confirms name of daughter: Giulia". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nicolas-sarkozy/8839687/Carla-Bruni-Sarkozy-confirms-name-of-daughter-Giulia.html.
^ "France's first couple welcomes their baby girl Giulia after low-profile pregnancy". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-first-couple-welcomes-their-baby-girl-giulia-after-low-profile-pregnancy/2011/10/20/gIQA1M6x0L_story.html. Retrieved 2011-10-23. ^{[dead link]}
^ "L'homme qui valait 2 millions [The man worth 2 million]" (in French). Libération (France). 11 May 2007. http://www.liberation.fr/politiques/010119057-l-homme-qui-valait-2-millions. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
^ Jon Boyle (31 October 2007). "Jokes and anger in France over Sarkozy pay rise". Reuters UK. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL3132522020071031. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
^ "French Populism", by Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2007 Edition, French version (French), English translation (English)
^ Le Parisien, 11 January 2007
^ Craig S. Smith (7 May 2007). "Sarkozy Wins the Chance to Prove His Critics Wrong". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/europe/07winner.html. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
^ Dette publique de la France (French)
^ Sauced Sarkozy Felice E. Baker, The Dartmouth Independent, 31 October 2007
^ "French Constitution, article 23". Assemblee Nationale. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/8ab.asp#TITLE%20III. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ JO associations, 28 May 2003
^ WorldWide Religious News^{[dead link]}
^ Thorel, Jerome (1 September 2004). "Le gouvernement finalise la privatisation de France Télécom" (in French). ZDNet France. http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/business/0,39020715,39169571,00.htm. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
^ "Bruxelles valide le sauvetage d'Alstom" (in French). L'Expansion (France: L'Express). 22 September 2003. http://www.lexpansion.com/art/17.363.70036.0.html. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
^ "Grande distribution : l'accord Sarkozy à moitié appliqué" (in French). L'Expansion (France: L'Express). 30 September 2004. http://www.lexpansion.com/art/2576.78716.0.html. Retrieved 18 March 2010. ^{[dead link]}
^ Martine, Gilson (20 May 2004). "ISF, la tentation des députés [press review]" (in French). Le Nouvel Observateur (France). Archived from the original on 8 February 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050208204557/http://www.nouvelobs.com/articles/p2063/a241461.html.
^ Azouz Begag, principal opposant à Nicolas Sarkozy, Le Monde, 2 November 2005 (French)
^ "Interview with ',Le Monde',, 8 September 2005". Sarkozy Blog. 19 September 2004. http://sarkozyblog.free.fr/index.php?2005/09/07/170-le-meilleur-pour-la-france. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Broadcast of "France 2", 19 November 2003
^ "Sarkozy nod for presidential run", BBC News, 14 January 2007. Retrieved 14 January 2007.
^ It was included in the paquet fiscal that has been one of the first laws passed in Parliament
^ Sarkozy pour un deuxième porte-avions français (AFP)
^ France's Jacques Chirac Backs Nicolas Sarkozy. 21 March 2007.
^ French confused over the real Sarkozy. 18 April 2007
^ Élection présidentielle de 2007—résultats définitifs French Ministry of the Interior
^ Décision du 19 mars 2012 arrêtant la liste des candidats à l’élection présidentielle - Conseil Constitutionnel
^ "Résultats de l'élection présidentielle 2012 Sarkozy lost the second round to the socialist candidate François Hollande making Hollande the new President of France.". http://elections.interieur.gouv.fr/PR2012/FE.html. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
^ http://www.france24.com/en/france/2min/20120506-france-socialist-hollande-wins-presidential-election-sarkozy
^ Samuel, Henry (17 May 2007). "Radiant Cécilia puts Sarkozy in the shade". Daily Telegraph (UK). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/17/wfra17.xml. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ Communiqué de la Présidence de la République concernant la nomination du Premier ministre. Élysée Palace, 17 May 2007
^ France's New Government – A study in perpetual motion, The Economist, 23 June 2007 (English)
^ Llama G8 a FARC contribuir a liberación de rehenes, La Cronica, 8 June 2007 (Spanish)
^ ^a ^b ^c Molly Moore, France's Sarkozy Off to a Running Start, Washington Post, 4 August 2007 (English)
^ Tripoli annonce un contrat d'armement avec la France, l'Elysée dans l'embarras, Le Monde, 2 August 2007 (French)
^ FMI: Strauss-Kahn candidat officiel de l'Union européenne, Le Figaro, 10 July 2007 (French)
^ France's Sarkozy wants Strauss-Kahn as IMF head Reuters, 7 July 2007 (English)
^ (French) La France au 7e rang mondial pour l'environnement – Le Monde
^ Les députés votent la quasi-suppression des droits de succession, Le Figaro, 13 July 2007 (French)
^ Les droits de succession (presque) supprimés, Libération, 13 July 2007 (French)
^ Droits de succession: pour une minorité de ménages aisés, L'Humanité, 7 June 2007 (French)
^ Généralisation du fichage biométrique volontaire des voyageurs dans les aéroports français, Le Monde, 8 August 2007 (French)
^ France backs constitution reform; France backs constitution reform BBC News, 21 July 2008
^ "France—The reformist president". The Economist. 24 July 2008. http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11792306. Retrieved 27 July 2008.
^ "Is Sarkozy a closet socialist?". The Economist. 13 November 2008. http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12607041. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
^ Campbell, Matthew (16 November 2008). "Carla Bruni ‘stirs the Che Guevara’ inside Nicolas Sarkozy". The Times (UK). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5162679.ece. Retrieved 25 November 2008.
^ New chapter opens in EU-China Climate Change Partnership EUbusiness.com, 29 April 2008
^ "France's Sarkozy meets Dalai Lama as China fumes". AFP. Google. 6 December 2008. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hm4uz6lCdhPdwJhNTl63SxPrkKhA. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ In March 2009 President Sarkozy who fought for equal rights rights between the french soldiers and the colonial soldiers made a tour in Africa.He visited three countries, the Rd Congo, the Congo and Gaboon.Three dictatorships were in Gaboon and the Congo he honoured monuments of colonizer Savorgnan de Brazza. "Sarkozy says France to accept Guantanamo prisoner". Houston Chronicle. 3 April 2009. Archived from the original on 3 April 2009. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chron.com%2Fdisp%2Fstory.mpl%2Fap%2Fworld%2F6357069.html&date=2009-04-03. Retrieved 3 April 2009.
^ Tom Raum (3 April 2009). "Obama, Sarkozy find common ground on Guantanamo". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 3 April 2009. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fhostednews%2Fap%2Farticle%2FALeqM5iOmBrSJce9WwmkDD2o9EU8KT0RxAD97AV7OO0&date=2009-04-03. Retrieved 3 April 2009.
^ NPR.org^{[dead link]}
^ "France's Sarkozy Confirms Government Reshuffle (Dow Jones Deutschland)". Dowjones.de. http://www.dowjones.de/site/2011/02/frances-sarkozy-confirms-government-reshuffle.html. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
^ MacDonald, Alastair (7 January 2009). "France's Sarkozy calls for Gaza ceasefire". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL012123322. Retrieved 7 January 2009.
^ "UN chief demands Gaza ceasefire". BBC News. 7 January 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7814772.stm. Retrieved 7 January 2009.
^ "La Libye, un véritable succès diplomatique pour Sarkozy?". leJDD.fr. http://www.lejdd.fr/International/Actualite/La-Libye-un-veritable-succes-diplomatique-pour-Sarkozy-285403/. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
^ [1] "No Exit" by Philip Gourevitch, 12 December 2011, New Yorker
^ Erlanger, Steven (1 April 2011). "In His Telling, One Man Made Libya a French Cause". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/africa/02levy.html?pagewanted=all.
^ French President Is Best Dressed Pol, CBS, 9 August 2007 (English)
^ Gordon Brown tops GQ worst dressed man poll, Daily Mirror, 4 January 2010 (original GQ article no longer available)
^ GQ and Sarkozy: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Edwin's Raisin, 15 January 2010
^ Frédéric Pagès, "Cécilia, dame d'enfer" in Le Canard enchaîné, 22 August 2007 (French)
^ Cécilia Sarkozy n'a pas voté... scoop censuré du JDD, Rue 89, 13 May 2007 (French)
^ Sarkozy: les poignées de l'amour, L'Express, 22 August 2007 (French)
^ Un bourrelet relance le débat sur la retouche d'images, Rue 89, 23 August 2007 (French)
^ Topless Sarkozy's love handles airbrushed away, Foreign Policy blog, 22 August 2007 (English)
^ ^a ^b Chloé Leprince, Pour le nouveau Président, la rupture commence par l'image, Rue 89, 21 August 2007 (French)
^ "Socialists say Sarkozy has "small man syndrome"". Reuters. 21 September 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2186523220070921.
^ "Sarkozy height row grips France". BBC News. 8 August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8243486.stm#graphic. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
^ "France enjoys Sarkozy's voodoo doll setback" by Katrin Bennhold, International Herald Tribune, 30 October 2008
^ "Le laughing stock? Mocking biopic of Nicholas Sarkozy to star at Cannes Film Festival", Daily Mail. 15 April 2011. Accessed 17 April 2011
^ "Cette droite qui dit "non" à Sarkozy". Marianne2007.info. http://www.marianne2007.info/Cette-droite-qui-dit-non-a-Sarkozy_a313.html.
^ "Boutin renonce à se présenter et soutient Sarkozy". La Croix. France. http://www.la-croix.com/article/index.jsp?docId=2288253&rubId=4076.
^ Marianne – Le retournement de Sarkozy sur la recapitulisation de la société Airbus, 5 March 2007
^ L'Humanité, Humanite.presse.fr, 11 June 2005
^ Sarkozy, Nicolas; Thibaud Collin, Philippe Verdin (2004). La République, les religions, l'espérance. Les éditions du Cerf. ISBN 2-204-07283-4.
^ "L'Etat Doit-Il Financer La Construction de Mosquées ?" (in French). Libres.org. 2 July 2007. http://www.libres.org/francais/actualite/archives/actualit%E9_1004/mosquees_a5_4504.htm.
^ Worldwide Religious News, 2 September 2004
^ "French President's religious mixing riles critics". Christianity Today. 23 January 2008. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/french.presidents.religious.mixing.riles.critics/16423.htm.
^ answering to a resident who addressed Sarkozy with "Quand nous débarrassez-vous de cette racaille ?" (When will you rid us of these dregs?) – "Banlieues : filmer et raconter avec Françoise Laborde, Claude Dilain, Nicolas Comte, Guillaume Biet (Les videos)" (in French). Arrêt sur images (France 5). 6 November 2005. Archived from the original on 3 July 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070703031423/http://www.france5.fr/asi/007548/10/129836.cfm.
^ "Nicolas Sarkozy pompier pyromane". L'Humanité (France). 2 November 2005. http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2005-11-02/2005-11-02-817109.
^ "Incendie de Pau : les 8 accusés acquittés" (in French). Le Nouvel Observateur. Associated Press (France). 1 October 2005. Archived from the original on 29 May 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080529212216rn_1/archquo.nouvelobs.com/cgi/articles?ad=societe/20051001.OBS0822.html&host=http://permanent.nouvelobs.com/.
^ "Nicolas Sarkozy veut faire " payer " un juge pour " sa faute "" (in French) (Fee required for full article). Le Monde. 23 June 2005. http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-665357@51-660372,0.html.
^ ^a ^b (French) Libération (18 September 2006). "Chirac juge "lamentable" l'atlantisme de Sarkozy". http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/politiques/205032.FR.php.
^ Philosophie Magazine, nr 8, April 2007; online extracts
^ L'Humanité, 4 April 2007, « Un gène ne commande jamais un destin humain »
^ Le Monde, 11 April 2007, Tollé dans la communauté scientifique après les propos de Nicolas Sarkozy sur la génétique
^ The Guardian, 10 April 2007, "Row over Sarkozy's paedophilia comment refuses to go away"
^ News24.com; 28 July 2007; Sarkozy's Africa vision under fire
^ ^a ^b ^c Chris McGreal;The Guardian (UK) 27 August 2007 Mbeki criticised for praising 'racist' Sarkozy
^ Michel Agier, l'Afrique en France après le discours de Dakar, Vacarme n°42 (French)
^ ^a ^b Achille Mbembe; Mail and Guardian (South Africa); 27 August 2007; Sacré bleu! Mbeki and Sarkozy?
^ "Premiers pas mouvementés de Sarkozy au salon de l'agriculture" (in French) (SWF). Le Parisien. France. 23 February 2008. http://videos.leparisien.fr/video/iLyROoaftL1D.html.
^ In French: Lors de sa traversée éclair du salon samedi matin, en plein bain de foule, Sarkozy croise un visiteur récalcitrant qui refuse sa poignée de main. «Ah non, touche-moi pas», prévient-il. Le chef de l'État rétorque sans détour : «Casse-toi, alors.» «Tu me salis», embraye l'homme. Le sourire se crispe. Sarkozy lâche, desserrant à peine les dents, un raffiné «Casse-toi alors, pauv'con, va».
^ Goldhammer, Arthur (25 February 2008). "Found on the web". French Politics. An American observer comments on French politics. http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com/2008/02/found-on-web.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "French supporters defend Sarkozy" Agence France-Presse, 25 February 2008
^ Crispian Balmer (26 February 2008). "Sarkozy runs afoul of critics with rank reply". National Post. Reuters (Canada): p. A2. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=334307. ^{[dead link]}
• Article noted at fpinfomart.ca, but is not available.
^ Poignard, Anne-Claire (24 October 2008). "" Casse-toi, pauvre con ! " : quatre mots à 1 000 euros" (in French) (Fee required for full article). Le Monde. http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2008/10/24/casse-toi-pauvre-con-quatre-mots-a-1-000-euros_1110685_823448.html.
^ Eon (4 September 2008). "" Casse-toi pov'con " : au tribunal pour outrage au Président" (in French). Rue 89. http://www.rue89.com/2008/09/04/casse-toi-povcon-au-tribunal-pour-outrage-au-president.
^ "" Casse-toi pov'con" : 30 euros avec sursis pour Hervé Eon". Rue89. 2008-11-14. http://www.rue89.com/2008/11/06/casse-toi-povcon-30-euros-avec-sursis-pour-herve-eon. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
^ Raphaëlle Besse Desmoulières (23 October 2008). "Le délit d'outrage est une infraction obsolète" (in French). Le Monde. http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/10/23/le-delit-d-outrage-est-une-infraction-obsolete_1110460_3224.html.
^ L'ex-comptable des Bettencourt accuse: des enveloppes d'argent à Woerth et à Sarkozy, original report, in French
^ "Financial Times article". Financial Times. 6 July 2010. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e72598de-88d5-11df-8925-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
^ ^a ^b "Casting Out the Un-French". The New York Times. 5 August 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06fri2.html?_r=1&ref=nicolas_sarkozy.
^ "Réaction : SÉCURITÉ – Aubry dénonce la "dérive antirépublicaine" de Sarkozy et de sa majorité, actualité Politique : Le Point". Le Point. France. http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/securite-aubry-denonce-la-derive-antirepublicaine-de-sarkozy-et-de-sa-majorite-01-08-2010-1221034_20.php. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
^ "Badinter rappelle à Sarkozy l'égalité de tous les Français devant la loi". Le Monde. France. http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2010/08/02/badinter-rappelle-a-sarkozy-l-egalite-de-tous-les-francais-devant-la-loi_1394701_823448.html. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
^ "Nicolas Sarkozy's son will not seek high-profile post after nepotism row : The Telegraph". The Telegraph. United Kingdom. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6410101/Nicolas-Sarkozys-son-will-not-seek-high-profile-post-after-nepotism-row.html. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
^ "France election 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy booted out of office having exhausted France". The Telegraph. United Kingdom. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9249521/France-election-2012-Nicolas-Sarkozy-booted-out-of-office-having-exhausted-France.html. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
^ "President Saakashvili Awards French President". YouTube. 2008-08-11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15euFo0Q5KE. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
^ "Basilica papale" (in Italian). Vicariatus Urbis—Portal of the Diocese of Rome. http://www.vicariatusurbis.org/?page_id=188&ID=674. Retrieved 7 August 2008.
^ "A Sarkozy il Premio Mediterraneo Istituzioni". Denaro.it. 2008-03-13. http://www.denaro.it/VisArticolo.aspx?IdArt=528878&KeyW=. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
^ "El Rey concede el Toisón de Oro a Sarkozy". elmundo.es. 25 November 2011. http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/11/25/internacional/1322232120.html. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
^ Article on "Noblesse et Royautés"
^ "Real Decreto 21/2004, de 9 de enero, por el que se concede la Gran Cruz de la Real y Distinguida Orden Española de Carlos III al señor Nicolas Sarkozy, Ministro del Interior de la República Francesa". Derecho.com. 18 January 2010. http://www.derecho.com/legislacion/boe/69720. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
^ "Noblesse et Royautés" website, Article & Photo
^ "Queen hosts French President Nicolas Sarkozy and wife Carla". News.com.au. 27 March 2008. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23439015-663,00.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.

External links [link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nicolas Sarkozy

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nicolas Sarkozy

Official websites [link]

(French) President of France
(French) Official web site of the 2012 presidential campaign
(French) Website of the UMP, Sarkozy's party
(French) Official personal website
(French) 2012 campaign website
(English) (French) Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations during the General Debate of the 63rd Session, 23 September 2008. Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the Assembly both as President of France and as President of the European Union

Press [link]

Radio France International feature Sarkozy's 90-minute address to the nation, 6 February 2009
"Hosing Sarkozy" an article in the TLS by Sudhir Hazareesingh, 28 November 2007
Interview after One Month in Office Le Figaro, 7 June 2007
Sarkozy takes over Chirac's UMP party (BBC News)
Profile: Nicolas Sarkozy (BBC News)
Nicolas Sarkozy: French Choose the American Way? by David Storobin
Vive this difference by Suzanne Fields
France's chance, The Economist, 12 April 2007
Letter From Europe- Round 1 Jane Kramer, The New Yorker, 23 April 2007
On the so-called "rupture" by Sarkozy, Mathieu Potte-Bonneville & Pierre Zaoui, Vacarme n°41, Winter 2007
Operation Sarkozy, English version of the famous article published by the Russian news magazine Profile 16 June 2008
The Bettencourt/L'Oréal scandal Radio France Internationale in English
French politics no stranger to scandals Radio France Internationale in English
L'Oréal, scandals and the far right Radio France Internationale in English
Articles and Coverage (Guardian UK)

Political offices
Preceded by Achille Peretti	Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine 1983–2002	Succeeded by Louis-Charles Bary
Preceded by Daniel Vaillant	Minister of the Interior 2002–2004	Succeeded by Dominique de Villepin
Preceded by Charles Pasqua	President of the General Council of Hauts-de-Seine 2004–2007	Succeeded by Patrick Devedjian
Preceded by Francis Mer	Minister of Finance 2004	Succeeded by Hervé Gaymard
Preceded by Dominique de Villepin	Minister of the Interior 2005–2007	Succeeded by François Baroin
Preceded by Jacques Chirac	President of France 2007–2012	Succeeded by François Hollande
Preceded by Janez Janša	President of the European Council 2008	Succeeded by Mirek Topolánek
Party political offices
Preceded by Philippe Séguin	Leader of Rally for the Republic Acting 1999	Succeeded by Michèle Alliot-Marie
Preceded by Jean-Claude Gaudin Acting	Leader of the Union for a Popular Movement 2004–2007	Succeeded by Jean-Claude Gaudin Acting
Regnal titles
Preceded by Jacques Chirac	Co-Prince of Andorra 2007–2012 Served alongside: Joan Enric Vives Sicília	Succeeded by François Hollande
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Jacques Chirac	Honorary Canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran 2007–2012	Succeeded by François Hollande

Persondata
Name	Sarkozy, Nicolas
Alternative names	Sarközy, Nicolas Paul Stéphane, de Nagy-Bocsa
Short description	23rd President of France from 16 May 2007 to 15 May 2012
Date of birth	28 January 1955
Place of birth	Paris, France
Date of death
Place of death

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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy

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Sarah Palin

Palin speaking at the 2012 CPAC in Washington, D.C.
9th Governor of Alaska
In office December 4, 2006 – July 26, 2009
Lieutenant	Sean Parnell
Preceded by	Frank Murkowski
Succeeded by	Sean Parnell
Chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
In office February 19, 2003 – January 23, 2004
Governor	Frank Murkowski
Preceded by	Camille Oechsli Taylor^[1]
Succeeded by	John K. Norman^[1]
Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska
In office October 14, 1996 – October 14, 2002
Preceded by	John Stein
Succeeded by	Dianne M. Keller
Member of the Wasilla City Council from Seat E
In office October 19, 1992 – October 14, 1996
Preceded by	Dorothy Smith
Succeeded by	Colleen Cottle
Personal details
Born	Sarah Louise Heath (1964-02-11) February 11, 1964 (age 48)^[2] Sandpoint, Idaho, U.S.
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Todd Palin (m. August 29, 1988)
Children	Track (b. 1989) Bristol (b. 1990) Willow (b. 1994) Piper (b. 2001) Trig (b. 2008)^[3]
Residence	Wasilla, Alaska
Alma mater	University of Idaho - (B.S., 1987)^[4]
Occupation	Local news sportscaster Commercial fisherman Politician Author Political commentator^[5]
Religion	Non-denominational Christian^[6]^[7]
Signature

	This article is part of a series about Sarah Palin	Sarah Palin
McCain–Palin campaign, 2008 Governorship of Alaska, 2006–2009 Early political career of Sarah Palin, 1992–2005 Political positions · Electoral history Public image · Saturday Night Live parodies Resignation of Sarah Palin Going Rogue: An American Life Sarah Palin's Alaska

Sarah Louise Palin ⁱ/ˈpeɪlɨn/ (née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies. Since January 2010, she has provided political commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska. Five million viewers tuned in for the first episode, a record for The Learning Channel.

She was elected to Wasilla City Council in 1992 and became mayor of Wasilla in 1996. In 2003, after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, responsible for overseeing the state's oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency. The youngest person and first woman to be elected Governor of Alaska, Palin held the office from December 2006 until her resignation in July 2009. She has since endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement, as well as several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. From the time of her Vice Presidential nomination in 2008, Palin was considered a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election until she announced in October 2011 that she would not run.

1 Early life and family
2 College
3 Early career and marriage
4 Early political career
5 Governor of Alaska
6 2008 vice-presidential campaign
7 After the 2008 election
8 Personal life
9 Political positions
10 Public image
11 Bibliography
12 References
13 External links

Early life and family [link]

Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho. She is the third of four children (three daughters, one son) born to Charles R. "Chuck" Heath, a science teacher and track and field coach, and Sarah "Sally" (née Sheeran), a school secretary. Palin's siblings are Chuck Jr., Heather, and Molly.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12] Palin is of English, Irish, and German ancestry.^[13]

When Palin was a few months old, the family moved to Skagway, Alaska,^[14] where her father received his teaching job.^[15] They relocated to Eagle River in 1969, and finally settled to Wasilla in 1972.^[16]^[17]

Palin played flute in the junior high band, then attended Wasilla High School where she was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes,^[7] and a member of the girls' basketball and cross country running teams.^[18] During her senior year, she was co-captain and point guard of the basketball team that won the 1982 Alaska state championship, earning the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" for her competitive streak.^[19]^[20]^[21]

College [link]

After graduating from high school, Palin enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.^[22] Shortly after arriving in Hawaii, Palin transferred to Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu for a semester in the fall of 1982, and then to North Idaho College, a community college in Coeur d'Alene, for the spring and fall semesters of 1983.^[23] (In June 2008, the Alumni Association of NIC gave her its Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.)^[23]^[24]

In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant.^[25]^[26] She finished third in the Miss Alaska pageant,^[27]^[28] playing flute in the talent portion of the contest,^[29] and receiving both the Miss Congeniality award and a college scholarship.^[19]

She attended the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, in late 1984 and early 1985, and Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska in late 1985. Palin returned to the University of Idaho in the spring of 1986, and received her bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism in 1987.^[23]^[30]^[31]^[32]

Early career and marriage [link]

After graduation, she worked as a sportscaster for KTUU-TV and KTVA-TV in Anchorage,^[33]^[34] and as a sports reporter for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman,^[35]^[36] fulfilling an early ambition.^[37]

On August 29, 1988, she eloped at age 24 with her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin. Following the birth of their first child, she helped in her husband's commercial fishing business.^[38]

Early political career [link]

Main articles: Early political career of Sarah Palin and Electoral history of Sarah Palin

City council [link]

Palin was elected to the Wasilla City Council in 1992 winning 530 votes to 310.^[39]^[40] Throughout her tenure on the city council and the rest of her political career, Palin has been a Republican since registering in 1982.^[41]

Mayor of Wasilla [link]

Concerned that revenue from a new Wasilla sales tax would not be spent wisely,^[42] Palin ran for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, defeating incumbent mayor John Stein^[43] 651 to 440 votes.^[44] Her biographer described her campaign as targeting wasteful spending and high taxes;^[19] her opponent, Stein, said that Palin introduced abortion, gun rights, and term limits as campaign issues.^[45] The election was nonpartisan, though the state Republican Party ran advertisements for Palin.^[45] Palin ran for re-election against Stein in 1999 and won, 909 votes to 292.^[46] In 2002, she completed the second of the two consecutive three-year terms allowed by the city charter.^[47] She was elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors^[48] in 1999.^[49]

First term [link]

Palin had a contretemps with the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, a local newspaper, and became involved in personnel challenges and "a thwarted attempt to pack the City Council" during her first year in office.^[50] Using income generated by a 2% sales tax that had been approved by Wasilla voters in October 1992,^[51] Palin cut property taxes by 75% and eliminated personal property and business inventory taxes.^[43]^[52] Using municipal bonds, she made improvements to the roads and sewers, and increased funding to the Police Department.^[45] She also oversaw new bike paths and procured funding for storm-water treatment to protect freshwater resources.^[43] At the same time, she shrank the local museum's budget and deterred talk of a new library and city hall.^[43]

Soon after taking office in October 1996, Palin eliminated the position of museum director^[53] and asked for updated resumes and resignation letters from "city department heads who had been loyal to Stein,"^[54] including the police chief, public works director, finance director, and librarian.^[55] Palin stated this request was to find out their intentions and whether they supported her.^[55] She temporarily required department heads to get her approval before talking to reporters, saying that they first needed to become acquainted with her administration's policies.^[55] She created the position of city administrator,^[45] and reduced her own $68,000 salary by 10%, although by mid-1998 this was reversed by the city council.^[56]

In October 1996, Palin asked library director Mary Ellen Emmons if she would object to the removal of a book from the library if people were picketing to have the book removed.^[57] Emmons responded that she would, and others as well.^[57] Palin explained that she not been proposing censorship but had been discussing many issues with her staff that were "both rhetorical and realistic in nature."^[57] No attempt was made to remove books from the library during Palin's tenure as mayor.^[58]

Palin said she fired Police Chief Irl Stambaugh because he did not fully support her efforts to govern the city.^[59] Stambaugh filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination and violation of his free speech rights.^[60] The judge dismissed Stambaugh's lawsuit, holding that the police chief served at the discretion of the mayor, and could be terminated for nearly any reason, even a political one,^[61]^[62] and ordered Stambaugh to pay Palin's legal fees.^[61]

Wasilla City Hall

Location of Wasilla, Alaska

Second term [link]

During her second term as mayor, Palin proposed and promoted the construction of a municipal sports center to be financed by a 0.5%^[45] sales tax increase and $14.7 million bond issue.^[63] Voters approved the measure by a 20 vote margin and the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex (later named the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center) was built on time and under budget. However, the city spent an additional $1.3 million because of an eminent domain lawsuit caused by the failure to obtain clear title to the property before beginning construction.^[63] The city's long-term debt grew from about $1 million to $25 million due to $15 million for the sports complex, $5.5 million for street projects, and $3 million for water improvement projects. The Wall Street Journal characterized the project as a "financial mess."^[63] A city council member defended the spending increases as being caused by the city's growth during that time.^[64]

Palin also joined with nearby communities in hiring the Anchorage-based lobbying firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh to lobby for federal funds. The firm secured nearly $8 million in earmarks for the Wasilla city government,^[65] including $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, and $900,000 for sewer repairs.^[66]

In 2008, Wasilla's current mayor credited Palin's 75 percent property tax cuts and infrastructure improvements with bringing "big-box stores" and 50,000 shoppers per day to Wasilla.^[39]

State-level politics [link]

In 2002, Palin ran for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a five-way Republican primary.^[67] Following her defeat, she campaigned throughout the state for the nominated Republican governor-lieutenant governor ticket of Frank Murkowski and Leman.^[68] Murkowski and Leman won, Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in December 2002 to assume the governorship. Palin was said to be on the "short list" of possible appointees to Murkowski's U.S. Senate seat,^[68] but Murkowski ultimately appointed his daughter, State Representative Lisa Murkowski, as his successor in the Senate.^[69]

Governor Murkowski offered other jobs to Palin, and in February 2003, she accepted an appointment to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which oversees Alaska's oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency.^[68] While she had little background in the area, she said she wanted to learn more about the oil industry, and was named chair of the commission and ethics supervisor.^[1]^[68]^[70] By November 2003 she was filing non-public ethics complaints with the state attorney general and the governor against a fellow commission member, Randy Ruedrich, a former petroleum engineer and at the time the chair of the state Republican Party.^[68] He was forced to resign in November 2003.^[68] Palin resigned in January 2004 and put her protests against Ruedrich's "lack of ethics" into the public arena^[19]^[68] by filing a public complaint against Ruedrich,^[71] who was then fined $12,000. She also joined with Democratic legislator Eric Croft^[72] in complaining that Gregg Renkes, then the attorney general of Alaska,^[73] had a financial conflict of interest in negotiating a coal exporting trade agreement.^[74]^[75] Renkes also resigned his post.^[19]^[70]

From 2003 to June 2005, Palin served as one of three directors of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group designed to provide political training for Republican women in Alaska.^[76] In 2004, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News that she had decided not to run for the U.S. Senate that year against the Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski because her teenage son opposed it. Palin said, "How could I be the team mom if I was a U.S. Senator?"^[77]

Governor of Alaska [link]

Main article: Governorship of Sarah Palin

Palin visits soldiers of the Alaska National Guard, July 24, 2007.

In 2006, running on a clean-government platform, Palin defeated incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary.^[78]^[79] Her running mate was Sean Parnell, who since leaving the state senate in 2001 had worked as a corporate lobbyist.^{[citation needed]}

In the November election, Palin was outspent but victorious, defeating former Democratic governor Tony Knowles by a margin of 48.3% to 40.9%.^[19] She became Alaska's first female governor, and, at the age of 42, the youngest governor in Alaskan history, the state's first governor to have been born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood, and the first not to be inaugurated in Juneau (she chose to have the ceremony held in Fairbanks instead). She took office on December 4, 2006, and for most of her term was very popular with Alaska voters. Polls taken in 2007 showed her with 93% and 89% popularity among all voters,^[80] which led some media outlets to call her "the most popular governor in America."^[72]^[80] A poll taken in late September 2008 after Palin was named to the national Republican ticket showed her popularity in Alaska at 68%.^[81] A poll taken in May 2009 showed Palin's popularity among Alaskans was at 54% positive and 41.6% negative.^[82]

Palin declared that top priorities of her administration would be resource development, education and workforce development, public health and safety, and transportation and infrastructure development. She had championed ethics reform throughout her election campaign. Her first legislative action after taking office was to push for a bipartisan ethics reform bill. She signed the resulting legislation in July 2007, calling it a "first step", and declaring that she remained determined to clean up Alaska politics.^[83]

Palin frequently broke with the Alaskan Republican establishment.^[84]^[85] For example, she endorsed Parnell's bid to unseat the state's longtime at-large U.S. Representative, Don Young,^[86] and she publicly challenged then-U.S. Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings. Shortly before his July 2008 indictment, she held a joint news conference with Stevens, described by The Washington Post as intended to "make clear she had not abandoned him politically."^[76]

Palin promoted the development of oil and natural-gas resources in Alaska, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Proposals to drill for oil in ANWR have occasioned national debate.^[87]

In 2006, Palin obtained a passport^[88] and in 2007 traveled for the first time outside of North America on a trip to Kuwait. There she visited the Khabari Alawazem Crossing at the Kuwait–Iraq border and met with members of the Alaska National Guard at several bases.^[89] On her return journey she visited injured soldiers in Germany.^[90]

Budget, spending, and federal funds [link]

Palin in Germany, July 2007

In June 2007, Palin signed a record $6.6 billion operating budget into law.^[91] At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the capital budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the capital budget to $1.6 billion.^[92]

In 2008, Palin vetoed $286 million, cutting or reducing funding for 350 projects from the FY09 capital budget.^[93]

Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet, a purchase made by the Murkowski administration for $2.7 million in 2005 against the wishes of the legislature.^[94] In August 2007, the jet was listed on eBay, but the sale fell through, and the plane later sold for $2.1 million through a private brokerage firm.^[95]

Gubernatorial expenditures [link]

Palin lived in Juneau during the legislative session and lived in Wasilla and worked out of offices in Anchorage the rest of the year. Since the office in Anchorage is 565 miles from Juneau, while she worked there, state officials said she was permitted to claim a $58 per diem travel allowance, which she took (a total of $16,951), and to reimbursement for hotels, which she did not, choosing instead to drive about 50 miles to her home in Wasilla.^[96] She also chose not to use the former governor's private chef.^[97] Republicans and Democrats have criticized Palin for taking the per diem and $43,490 in travel expenses for the times her family accompanied her on state business.^[98]^[99] In response, Palin's staffers said that these practices were in line with state policy, that her gubernatorial expenses are 80% below those of Murkowski, her predecessor,^[98] and that "many of the hundreds of invitations Palin receives include requests for her to bring her family, placing the definition of 'state business' with the party extending the invitation."^[96] In February 2009, the State of Alaska, reversing a policy that had treated the payments as legitimate business expenses under the Internal Revenue Code, decided that per diems paid to state employees for stays in their own homes will be treated as taxable income and will be included in employees' gross income on their W-2 forms.^[100] Palin herself had ordered the review of the tax policy.^[101]

In December 2008, an Alaska state commission recommended increasing the Governor's annual salary from $125,000 to $150,000. Palin stated that she would not accept the pay raise.^[102] In response, the commission dropped the recommendation.^[103]

Federal funding [link]

In her State of the State address on January 17, 2008, Palin declared that the people of Alaska "can and must continue to develop our economy, because we cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government [funding]."^[104] Alaska's federal congressional representatives cut back on pork-barrel project requests during Palin's time as governor; despite this, in 2008 Alaska was still the largest per-capita recipient of federal earmarks, requesting nearly $750 million in special federal spending over a period of two years.^[105]

While there is no state sales tax or income tax in Alaska, royalty revenues from the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field (consisting mostly of state-owned lands) have funded large state budgets since 1980, with the exact amounts largely dependent upon the prevailing price of petroleum. As a result, state revenues doubled to $10 billion in 2008. For the 2009 budget, Palin gave a list of 31 proposed federal earmarks or requests for funding, totaling $197 million, to Alaska's senior U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.^[106]^[107] Palin has stated that her decreasing support for federal funding was a source of friction between her and the state's congressional delegation; Palin requested less in federal funding each year than her predecessor Frank Murkowski requested in his last year.^[108]

Bridge to Nowhere [link]

Main article: Gravina Island Bridge

In 2005, before Palin was elected governor, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that contained a $442-million earmark for constructing two Alaska bridges. The Gravina Island Bridge, intended to provide a link between the Ketchikan airport on Gravina Island and the city of Ketchikan at a cost of $233 million in Federal grant money, received nationwide attention as a symbol of pork-barrel spending. As the island only has a population of 50, the bridge became known as the "Bridge to Nowhere." The public furor led to Congress removing the earmarks, but retaining the allotted funds to Alaska as part of its general transportation fund.^[109]

Palin holding a t-shirt while visiting Ketchikan during her Gubernatorial campaign in 2006; the ZIP code for the area is 99901.

In 2006, Palin ran for governor with a "build-the-bridge" plank in her platform,^[110] saying she would "not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project ... into something that's so negative."^[111] Palin criticized the use of the word "nowhere" as insulting to local residents^[110]^[112] and urged speedy work on building the infrastructure "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."^[112]

As governor, Palin canceled the Gravina Island Bridge in September 2007, saying that Congress had "little interest in spending any more money" due to "inaccurate portrayals of the projects."^[113] Alaska did not return the $442 million in federal transportation funds.^[114]

In 2008, as a vice-presidential candidate, Palin characterized her position as having told Congress "thanks, but no thanks, on that bridge to nowhere." A number of Ketchikan residents said that the claim was false and a betrayal of Palin's previous support for their community.^[114] Some critics said that her statement was misleading, as she had expressed support for the spending project and kept the federal money after the project was canceled.^[115] Palin was criticized for allowing construction of a 3-mile access road, built with $25 million in federal transportation funds set aside as part of the original bridge project, to continue. A spokesman for Alaska's Department of Transportation said that it was within Palin's power to cancel the road project, but noted that the state was still considering cheaper designs to complete the bridge project, and that in any case, the road would open up the surrounding lands for development.^[116]^[117]

Gas pipeline [link]

Predator control [link]

In 2007, Palin supported a 2003 Alaska Department of Fish and Game policy allowing the hunting of wolves from the air as part of a predator control program intended to increase moose and caribou populations for subsistence-food gatherers and other hunters.^[121]^[122] In March 2007, Palin's office announced that a bounty of $150 per wolf would be paid to the 180 volunteer pilots and gunners, to offset fuel costs, in five areas of Alaska. 607 wolves had been killed in the prior four years. State biologists wanted 382 to 664 wolves to be killed by the end of the predator-control season in April 2007. Wildlife activists sued the state, and a state judge declared the bounty illegal on the basis that a bounty would have to be offered by the Board of Game and not by the Department of Fish and Game.^[121]^[123] On August 26, 2008, Alaskans voted against ending the state's predator control program.^[124]

Public Safety Commissioner dismissal [link]

Main article: Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal

Palin dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on July 11, 2008, citing performance-related issues, such as not being "a team player on budgeting issues"^[125] and "egregious rogue behavior."^[126] Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein said that the "last straw" was Monegan's planned trip to Washington, D.C., to seek funding for a new, multimillion-dollar sexual assault initiative the governor hadn't yet approved.^[127] Monegan said that he had resisted persistent pressure from Palin, her husband, and her staff, including state Attorney General Talis J. Colberg, to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten; Wooten was involved in a child custody battle with Palin’s sister after a bitter divorce that included an alleged death threat against Palin's father.^[128]^[129] At one point Sarah and Todd Palin hired a private investigator to gather information, seeking to have Wooten officially disciplined.^[130] Monegan stated that he learned an internal investigation had found all but two of the allegations to be unsubstantiated, and Wooten had been disciplined for the others — an illegal moose killing and the tasering of his 11-year-old stepson, who had reportedly asked to be tasered.^[129] He told the Palins that there was nothing he could do because the matter was closed.^[131] When contacted by the press for comment, Monegan first acknowledged pressure to fire Wooten but said that he could not be certain that his own firing was connected to that issue;^[129] he later asserted that the dispute over Wooten was a major reason for his firing.^[132] Palin stated on July 17 that Monegan was not pressured to fire Wooten, nor dismissed for not doing so.^[125]^[131]

Monegan said the subject of Wooten came up when he invited Palin to a birthday party for his cousin, state senator Lyman Hoffman, in February 2007 during the legislative session in Juneau. "As we were walking down the stairs in the capitol building she wanted to talk to me about her former brother-in-law," Monegan said. "I said, 'Ma'am, I need to keep you at arm's length with this. I can't deal about him with you.^[133] She said, 'OK, that's a good idea.'"^[129]

Palin said there was "absolutely no pressure ever put on Commissioner Monegan to hire or fire anybody, at any time. I did not abuse my office powers. And I don't know how to be more blunt and candid and honest, but to tell you that truth. To tell you that no pressure was ever put on anybody to fire anybody." Todd Palin gave a similar account.^[134]

On August 13 she acknowledged that a half dozen members of her administration had made more than two dozen calls on the matter to various state officials. "I do now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it," she said.^[131]^[133]^[135] Palin said, "Many of these inquiries were completely appropriate. However, the serial nature of the contacts could be perceived as some kind of pressure, presumably at my direction."^[125]^[136]

Chuck Kopp, whom Palin had appointed to replace Monegan as public safety commissioner, received a $10,000 state severance package after he resigned following just two weeks on the job. Kopp, the former Kenai chief of police, resigned July 25 following disclosure of a 2005 sexual harassment complaint and letter of reprimand against him. Monegan said that he did not receive a severance package from the state.^[125]

Legislative investigation [link]

On August 1, 2008, the Alaska Legislature hired an investigator, Stephen Branchflower, to review the Monegan dismissal. Legislators stated that Palin had the legal authority to fire Monegan, but they wanted to know whether her action had been motivated by anger at Monegan for not firing Wooten.^[137]^[138] The atmosphere was bipartisan and Palin pledged to cooperate.^[137]^[138]^[139] Wooten remained employed as a state trooper.^[130] She placed an aide on paid leave due to a tape-recorded phone conversation that she deemed improper, in which the aide, appearing to act on her behalf, complained to a trooper that Wooten had not been fired.^[140]

Several weeks after the start of what the media referred to as "troopergate", Palin was chosen as John McCain's running mate.^[138] On September 1, Palin asked the legislature to drop its investigation, saying that the state Personnel Board had jurisdiction over ethics issues.^[141] The Personnel Board's three members were first appointed by Palin’s predecessor, and Palin reappointed one member in 2008.^[142] On September 19, Todd Palin and several state employees refused to honor subpoenas, the validity of which were disputed by Talis Colberg, Palin's appointee as Alaska's Attorney General.^[143] On October 2, a court rejected Colberg's challenge to the subpoenas,^[144] and seven of the witnesses, not including Todd Palin, eventually testified.^[145]

Branchflower Report [link]

On October 10, 2008, the Alaska Legislative Council unanimously voted to release, without endorsing,^[146] the Branchflower Report, in which investigator Stephen Branchflower found that firing Monegan "was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority," but that Palin abused her power as governor and violated the state's Executive Branch Ethics Act when her office pressured Monegan to fire Wooten.^[147] The report stated that "Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."^[148] The report also said that Palin "permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor's office [...] to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired."^[148]^[149]

On October 11, Palin's attorneys responded, condemning the Branchflower Report as "misleading and wrong on the law."^[150] One of Palin's attorneys, Thomas Van Flein, said that it was an attempt to "smear the governor by innuendo."^[151] Later that day, Palin did a conference call interview with various Alaskan reporters, where she stated, "Well, I’m very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing... Any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that."^[152]

Alaska Personnel Board investigation and report [link]

The bipartisan State of Alaska Personnel Board reviewed the matter at Palin's request.^[153] On September 15, the Anchorage law firm of Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen & Thorsness filed arguments of "no probable cause" with the Personnel Board on behalf of Palin.^[154]^[155] The Personnel Board retained independent counsel Timothy Petumenos, a Democrat, as an investigator. On October 24, Palin gave three hours of depositions with the Personnel Board in St. Louis, Missouri.^[156] On November 3, 2008, the State of Alaska Personnel Board reported that there was no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official had violated state ethical standards.^[157]^[158]^[159]^[160]^[161] The report further stated that the Branchflower Report used the wrong statute in reaching its conclusions, misconstrued the available evidence and did not consider or obtain all of the material evidence required to properly reach findings in the matter.^[157]

Job approval ratings, with comparisons [link]

As governor of Alaska, Palin's job approval rating ranged from a high of 93% in May 2007 to 54% in May 2009. In November 2006, the month before Palin took office, Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski’s job approval rating was 19%.^[162]

Date	Approval	Disapproval	Pollster
May 15, 2007^[163]	93%	Not reported	Dittman Research
May 30, 2007^[164]	89%	Not reported	Ivan Moore Research
October 19–21, 2007^[165]	83%	11%	Ivan Moore Research
April 10, 2008^[166]	73%	7%	Rasmussen Reports
May 17, 2008^[167]	69%	9%	Rasmussen Reports
July 24–25, 2008^[168]	80%	Not reported	Hays Research Group
July 30, 2008^[168]	64%	14%	Rasmussen Reports
September 20–22, 2008^[169]	68%	Not reported	Ivan Moore Research
October 7, 2008^[170]	63%	37%	Rasmussen Reports
March 24–25, 2009^[171]	59.8%	34.9%	Hays Research
May 4–5, 2009^[171]	54%	41.6%	Hays Research
June 14–18, 2009^[172]	56%	35%	Global Strategy Group

In April 2009, SurveyUSA reported job approval ratings for the following U.S. governors: Bob Riley (AL) 54%, Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA) 25%, Chet Culver (IA) 42%, Kathleen Sebelius (KS) 46%, Steve Beshear (KY) 47%, Tim Pawlenty (MN) 46%, Jay Nixon (MO) 56%, Bill Richardson (NM) 46%, David Paterson (NY) 25%, Ted Kulongoski (OR) 40%, Tim Kaine (VA) 50%, Christine Gregoire (WA) 40%, and Jim Doyle (WI) 35%. (Polls taken April 24–26, 2009).^[173]

Resignation [link]

Main article: Resignation of Sarah Palin

On July 3, 2009, Palin announced that she would not run for re-election in the 2010 Alaska gubernatorial election and would resign before the end of July. In her announcement,^[174] Palin stated that both she and the state had been expending an "insane" amount of time and money ($2.5 million)^[175] to address "frivolous" ethics complaints filed against her,^[175]^[176]^[177]^[174] and that her decision not to seek reelection would make her a lame duck governor.^[174] A Palin aide said Palin was "no longer able to do the job she had been elected to do. Essentially, the taxpayers were paying for Sarah to go to work every day and defend herself."^[178] Palin and her husband Todd had personally incurred more than $500,000 in legal fees defending against ethics charges brought against her as governor.^[175] Palin transferred the office of governor to Sean Parnell in Fairbanks on July 26, 2009.^[179]

An estimated 5,000 people^[180] gathered at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks to watch Palin cede her office to Sean Parnell.

In December 2010, new rules governing Alaska executive branch ethics, stemming from Sarah Palin's tenure as governor, took effect.^[181] "These include allowing for the state to pay legal costs for officials cleared of ethics violations; (and) allowing for a family member of the governor or lieutenant governor to travel at state cost in certain circumstances . . ."^[181]

2008 vice-presidential campaign [link]

Main article: John McCain presidential campaign, 2008

Palin addresses the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Several conservative commentators met Palin in the summer of 2007.^[182] Some of them, such as Bill Kristol, later urged McCain to pick Palin as his vice presidential running mate, arguing that her presence on the ticket would provide a boost in enthusiasm among the Religious Right wing of the Republican party, while her status as an unknown on the national scene would also be a positive factor.^[183]

On August 24, 2008, during a general strategy meeting, Steve Schmidt, and a few other senior advisers to the McCain Campaign, discussed potential vice presidential picks with the consensus settling around Palin. The following day, the strategists advised McCain of their conclusions and he personally called Palin, who was at the Alaska State Fair.^[184]

On August 27, she visited McCain's vacation home near Sedona, Arizona, where she was offered the position of vice-presidential candidate.^[185] According to Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain, he had previously met Palin at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington in February 2008 and had come away "extraordinarily impressed."^[186] Palin was the only prospective running mate who had a face-to-face interview with McCain to discuss joining the ticket that week.^[187] Nonetheless, Palin's selection was a surprise to many because a main criticism he had of Obama was his lack of experience, and speculation had centered on other candidates, such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.^[188] On August 29, in Dayton, Ohio, McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate.^[188]

Palin was the first Alaskan and the second woman to run on a major U.S. party ticket.^[188]

Since Palin was largely unknown outside Alaska before her selection by McCain, her personal life, policy positions, and political record drew intense media scrutiny.^[189] On September 1, 2008, Palin announced that her daughter Bristol was pregnant and that she would marry the father, Levi Johnston.^[190] During this period, some Republicans felt that Palin was being unfairly attacked by the media.^[191] Timothy Noah of Slate magazine predicted that Palin's acceptance speech would be "wildly overpraised" and might end speculation that she was unqualified for the job of vice president because the press had been beating her up for "various trivial shortcomings" and had lowered the expectations for her speech.^[192] On September 3, 2008, Palin delivered a 40-minute acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that was well received and watched by more than 40 million people.^[193] A Rasmussen poll taken immediately after the Convention found that 51% of Americans believed that the media was "trying to hurt" Palin with negative coverage, and 40% believed Palin to be ready for the Presidency.^[194]

The Palins and McCains in Fairfax, Virginia, September 2008.

During the campaign, controversy erupted over alleged differences between Palin's positions as a gubernatorial candidate and her position as a vice-presidential candidate. After McCain announced Palin as his running mate, Newsweek and Time put Palin on their magazine covers,^[195] as some of the media alleged that McCain's campaign was restricting press access to Palin by allowing only three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences with her.^[196] Palin's first major interview, with Charles Gibson of ABC News, met with mixed reviews.^[197] Her interview five days later with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity went more smoothly and focused on many of the same questions from Gibson's interview.^[198] Palin's performance in her third interview with Katie Couric, of CBS News, was widely criticized; her poll numbers declined, Republicans expressed concern that she was becoming a political liability, and some conservative commentators called for Palin to resign from the Presidential ticket.^[199]^[200] Other conservatives remained ardent in their support for Palin, accusing the columnists of elitism.^[201] Following this interview, some Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol, questioned the McCain campaign's strategy of sheltering Palin from unscripted encounters with the press.^[202]

Palin reportedly prepared intensively for the October 2 vice-presidential debate with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden at Washington University in St. Louis. Some Republicans suggested that Palin's performance in the interviews would improve public perceptions of her debate performance by lowering expectations.^[199]^[203]^[204] Polling from CNN, Fox and CBS found that while Palin exceeded most voters' expectations, they felt that Biden had won the debate.^[205]^[206]

Upon returning to the campaign trail after her debate preparation, Palin stepped up her attacks on the Democratic candidate for President, Illinois Senator Barack Obama. At a fundraising event, Palin explained her new aggressiveness, saying, "There does come a time when you have to take the gloves off and that time is right now."^[207] Palin said that her first amendment right to "call Obama out on his associations" was threatened by "attacks by the mainstream media."^[208]

Palin appeared on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" segment on October 18. Prior to her appearance, she had been parodied several times by Tina Fey, who was noted for her physical resemblance to the candidate.^[209] In the weeks leading up to the election, Palin was also the subject of amateur parodies posted on YouTube.^[210]

Controversy arose after it was reported that the Republican National Committee (RNC) spent $150,000 of campaign contributions on clothing, hair styling, and makeup for Palin and her family in September 2008. Campaign spokespersons stated the clothing would be going to charity after the election.^[211] Palin and some media outlets blamed gender bias for the controversy.^[212]^[213] At the end of the campaign, Palin returned the clothes to the RNC.^[214]

The election took place on November 4, and Obama was projected as the winner at 11:00 PM EST.^[215] In his concession speech McCain thanked Palin, calling her "one of the best campaigners I've ever seen, and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength."^[215] While aides were preparing the teleprompter for McCain's speech, they found a concession speech written for Palin by George W. Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully. Two members of McCain's staff, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, told Palin that there was no tradition of Election Night speeches by running mates, and that she would not be speaking. Palin appealed to McCain, who agreed with his staff.^[216]

After the 2008 election [link]

Rallying with Saxby Chambliss in Savannah, Georgia, December 2008

Palin was the first guest on commentator Glenn Beck's Fox News television show on January 19, 2009, commenting on Barack Obama that he would be her president and that she would assist in any way to bring progress to the nation without abandoning her conservative views.^[217]

On January 27, 2009, Palin formed the political action committee, SarahPAC.^[218] The organization, which describes itself as an advocate of energy independence,^[219] supports candidates for federal and state office.^[220] Following her resignation as Governor, Palin announced her intention to campaign "on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation."^[221] It was reported that SarahPAC had raised nearly $1,000,000.^[222] A legal defense fund was set up to help Palin challenge ethics complaints, and it had collected approximately $250,000 by mid-July 2009.^[222]^[223] In June 2010, Palin's defense fund was ruled illegal and will have to pay back $386,856 it collected in donations because it used Palin's position as governor to raise money for her personal gain. Palin subsequently set up a new defense fund.^[224]

In March 2010, Palin started a show to be aired on TLC called Sarah Palin's Alaska.^[225] The show was produced by Mark Bennett.^[226] Five million viewers tuned in for the premiere episode, a record for TLC.^[227] Palin also has secured a segment on Fox News.^[226] Two guests that she was shown to have interviewed claimed to have never met her. Guests LL Cool J and Toby Keith stated that footage shown on the segment was actually taken from another interview with someone else, but was used in Palin's segment.^[228]

On December 8, 2010, it was reported that SarahPAC and Palin's personal credit card information were compromised through cyber attacks. Palin's team believed the attack was executed by Anonymous during Operation Payback.^[229] The report was met with skepticism in the blogosphere.^[230] Palin's email had been hacked once before in 2008.^[231]

In August 2009, she coined the phrase "death panel", to describe health care reform. She stated that it would require Americans such as her parents or her child with Down syndrome, "to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."^[232] The phrase was criticized by many on both sides of the political aisle and Politifact named it the "Lie of the Year of 2009"^[233]

[edit] Going Rogue and America by Heart

Main article: Going Rogue: An American Life

Palin on the campaign trail in 2008

In November 2009, Palin released her memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, in which she details her private and political career, including her resignation as Governor of Alaska. Palin said she took the title from the phrase 'gone rogue' used by McCain staffers to describe her behavior when she spoke her mind on the issues during the campaign.^[234] The subtitle, "An American Life," mirrors the title of President Ronald Reagan's 1990 autobiography.^[235] Less than two weeks after its release, sales of the book exceeded the one million mark, with 300,000 copies sold the first day. Its bestseller rankings were comparable to memoirs by Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.^[236]^[237]^[238]

Palin traveled to 11 states in a bus, with her family accompanying her, to promote the book. She made a number of media appearances as well, including a widely publicized interview on November 16, 2009, with Oprah Winfrey.^[239] In November 2010 HarperCollins released Palin's second book, titled America by Heart.^[240]^[241]^[242] The book contains excerpts from Palin's favorite speeches, sermons and literature as well as portraits of people Palin admires, including some she met in rural America on her first book tour.^[240]

Tea Party movement [link]

Main article: Tea Party movement

Sarah Palin addressing a Labor Day rally sponsored by the Tea Party Express (Manchester, NH), September 5, 2011

On February 6, 2010, Palin appeared as the keynote speaker at the inaugural Tea Party convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Palin said the Tea Party movement is "the future of politics in America."^[243] She criticized Obama for rising deficits, and for "apologizing for America” in speeches in other countries. Palin said Obama was weak on the War on Terror for allowing the so-called Christmas bomber to board a plane headed for the United States.^[244] Palin’s speaking fee was reported to be $100,000. Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, the social networking site that sponsored the convention, did not confirm the amount paid to Palin saying he was contractually obligated not to speak about it.^{[citation needed]}

On Labor Day, September 5, 2011, Palin was the featured speaker at a Tea Party Express rally in Manchester, New Hampshire's Victory Park. New Hampshire is traditionally the host of the nation's first Presidential primary. She addressed an enthusiastic crowd that the Los Angeles Times estimated to number 1,000 but which the local New Hampshire Union-Leader newspaper reported as "at least 500". Many in the crowd chanted "Run, Sarah, run!" during her speech.^{[citation needed]}

Palin told the rally attendees that it was time to grow the Tea Party movement and it was important for them to avoid internal bickering with Establishment Republicans.^[245] She told the crowd, “The Tea Party movement is bigger than any one person and is not about any one candidate.”^[246]

"Pink Elephant" movement and 2010 endorsements [link]

In the middle of 2010, Palin flagged the launch of a new "Pink Elephant Movement."^[247] She set about endorsing a number of female GOP candidates.^[248] Her endorsement helped Georgia Gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel to take the lead in the campaign for the Republican nomination,^[249] though ultimately Handel lost the primary. Palin has endorsed several female candidates nationally. Ryan Rudominer, a spokesman for the House Democratic campaign operation has called her involvement in various U.S. House campaigns a "great thing across the board."^[250] She spoke at a May 2010 fundraiser for the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life political advocacy group and political action committee that supports pro-life women in politics, in which she coined the term "mama grizzly."^[251]^[252]

In the months ahead of the November 2010 elections, Palin selectively endorsed Republican candidates, and was a significant fundraising asset to those she campaigned for during the primary season.^[253] According to Politico, Palin's criteria for endorsing candidates was whether they had the support of the Tea Party movement and the support of the Susan B. Anthony List.^[254] In terms of success, Palin was 7-2 for Senate endorsements; 7-6 for House endorsements; and 6-3 in endorsements of gubernatorial candidates^[255] Palin's endorsement of Joe Miller in the August 24 Alaska primary election for U.S. Senator was identified as a possible pivotal moment in Miller's upset of the incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.^[256]^[257] According to Daily Beast reporter Shushannah Walshe, Christine O'Donnell's prospects of upsetting establishment Republican candidate Mike Castle "changed overnight" due to Palin's endorsement. O'Donnell defeated Castle in the September 14 primary for Joe Biden's former Senate seat in Delaware.^[258] Her O'Donnell endorsement further increased tensions between Palin and the Republican establishment: leading conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer described the endorsement as "reckless and irresponsible";^[259] party strategist Karl Rove argued that her endorsement may have cost the GOP the Delaware Senate seat;^[260] and commentators including Politico's Ben Smith posited that Palin's support of O'Donnell contributed to dashing Republican hopes of regaining control of the U.S. Senate.^[261] Palin's influence over the primaries nonetheless further increased speculation that she would seek to be the party's nominee for President in 2012,^[262] with political pundits Paul Mirengoff, David Frum, and Jonathan Chait identifying Palin as the front-runner.^[263]^[264]^[265]

Possible 2012 presidential and Senate campaign [link]

Beginning in November 2008, following Palin's high profile in the presidential campaign, there was an active "Draft Palin" movement.^[266] On February 6, 2010, when Fox News asked her if she would be running for president in 2012, she replied, "I would be willing to if I believe that it's right for the country."^[267] She added, "I won't close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future."^[268]

In November 2010, Palin confirmed that she was considering running for the Presidency, and was "having that discussion with my family." She stated she realised her level of experience could cause problems with winning the nomination, and criticized the "lamestream media" for focusing attention on her personal life.^[269]

During March 2011, Palin and her husband toured India at the invitation of Indian newsmagazine India Today,^[270] subsequently visiting Israel.^[271] During the tour she was asked about her future candidacy; she said, "I don't think there needs to be a rush to get out there as a declared candidate. It's a life-changing decision".^[272] In response to another question, she said "It’s time that a woman is president of the United States of America."^[273]

Palin has since denied that she is running for Senate and said that her recent purchase of a home in Scottsdale was not a full-time residence.^[274]

On October 5, 2011, Palin stated that she had decided not to seek the Republican nomination for President.^[275]

Personal life [link]

Palin family members at the announcement of her vice-presidential selection, August 29, 2008. From left to right: Todd, Piper, Willow, Bristol and Trig.

Sarah and Todd Palin have five children: sons Track (born 1989)^[276]^[277] and Trig Paxson Van (born 2008), and daughters Bristol Sheeran Marie^[278] (born 1990), Willow (born 1994), and Piper (born 2001).^[3]^[279] Palin's youngest child, Trig, was prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome.^[280]

Palin has two grandchildren, a boy named Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, who was born to her eldest daughter, Bristol, and her then-fiancee, Levi Johnston, in 2008,^[281] and a girl named Kyla Grace Palin, who was born to son Track and his wife, Britta, in 2011.^[282] Her husband Todd worked for the British oil company BP as an oil-field production operator, retiring in 2009, and owns a commercial fishing business.^[42]^[283]

Palin was born into a Roman Catholic family.^[6] Later, her family joined the Wasilla Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church,^[284] which she attended until 2002. Palin then switched to the Wasilla Bible Church.^[285] When in Juneau, she attends the Juneau Christian Center.^[286] Palin described herself in an interview as a "Bible-believing Christian."^[6]

Political positions [link]

Main article: Political positions of Sarah Palin

Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982.^[287]

Health care [link]

Palin opposed the 2010 health care reform package, saying it would lead to rationing of health care by a bureaucracy, which she described using the term "death panels". This legislation is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as modified by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.^[288] Palin characterizes the act as an "unfunded mandate" and supports defunding it,^[289] as well as repealing portions of the act.^[290]

Social Issues [link]

Palin opposes same-sex marriage,^[291] abortion including in cases of rape and incest, and embryonic stem cell research.^[292] She supports capital punishment,^[293] and parental consent for female minors seeking an abortion.^[294] She has called marijuana use a "minimal issue" and suggested that arresting pot-smokers should be a low priority for local police, though she opposes legalizing the substance.^[295]

Education [link]

Palin supports sex education in public schools that encourage abstinence along with teaching about contraception.^[296]
She supports discussion of creationism during lessons on evolution in public schools.^[297] Palin believes evolution "should be taught as an accepted principle" and said that her belief in God's role in Earth's creation "is not part of the state policy or a local curriculum in a school district. Science should be taught in science class."^[298]

Guns [link]

A Life Member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), Palin interprets the Second Amendment as including the right to handgun possession and opposes bans on semi-automatic assault weapons.^[299] She supports gun safety education for youth.^[300]

Environment [link]

Palin supports off-shore drilling, and land-based drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.^[87]^[301] When commenting on the Gulf Coast oil disaster Palin said, "I repeat the slogan 'drill here, drill now.'"^[302] She said, "I want our country to be able to trust the oil industry."^[303] Palin asked supporters to read an article by Thomas Sowell that criticized Obama for having BP pay to an escrow fund.^[304]
Palin has expressed skepticism about the causes of global warming,^[305] but agrees that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue" and that action should be taken.^[306] She is opposed to cap-and-trade proposals, such as the defunct American Clean Energy and Security Act. Palin has acknowledged that "Simply waiting for low-carbon-emitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals..that will be required [for carbon dioxide] under most credible climate-change models."^[307]

Foreign policy [link]

Palin in Kuwait, 26 July 2007

Palin is a strong supporter of Israel.^[308]^[309] Referring to Iran's threat to Israel, Palin said Obama would be reelected if "he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do."^[310]
On foreign policy, Palin supported the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, but is concerned that "dependence on foreign energy" may be obstructing efforts to "have an exit plan in place."^[311]^[312] Palin supports preemptive military action in the face of an imminent threat, and supports U.S. military operations in Pakistan. Palin supports NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia,^[313] and affirms that if Russia invaded a NATO member, the United States should meet its treaty obligations.^[314]
On foreign policy, Palin supported the surge strategy in Iraq, the use of additional ground forces in Afghanistan, and, in general, maintaining a strong defensive posture by increasing the defense budget. She believes Islam and democracy can co-exist. She supports strengthening America's alliance with Japan. She supports the de-nuclearization of North Korea. She supports working with China to reduce American debt and improve the human rights and political freedom of Chinese citizens.^[315]

Public image [link]

Main article: Public image of Sarah Palin

Prior to the 2008 Republican National Convention, a Gallup poll found that most voters were unfamiliar with Sarah Palin. During her campaign to become vice president, 39% said Palin was ready to serve as president if needed, 33% said Palin was not, and 29% had no opinion. This was "the lowest vote of confidence in a running mate since the elder George Bush chose then-Indiana senator Dan Quayle to join his ticket in 1988."^[316] Following the Convention, her image came under close media scrutiny,^[189]^[317] particularly with regard to her religious perspective on public life, her socially conservative views, and her perceived lack of experience. Palin's experience in foreign and domestic politics came under criticism among conservatives as well as liberals following her nomination.^[318]^[319]^[320]^[321] At the same time, Palin became more popular than John McCain among Republicans.^[194]

One month after McCain announced Palin as his running mate, she was viewed both more favorably and unfavorably among voters than her opponent, Delaware Senator Joe Biden.^[322] A plurality of the television audience rated Biden's performance higher at the 2008 vice-presidential debate.^[322]^[323] Media outlets repeated Palin's statement that she "stood up to Big Oil" when she resigned after 11 months as the head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, due to abuses she witnessed involving other Republican commissioners and their ties to energy companies and energy lobbyists, and again when she raised taxes on oil companies as governor.^[168]^[324] In turn, others have said that Palin is a "friend of Big Oil" due to her advocacy of oil exploration and development including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the de-listing of the polar bear as an endangered species.^[168]^[324] The National Organization for Women did not endorse McCain/Palin, endorsing Barack Obama instead.^[318]^[325]

Palin was selected as one of America’s "10 Most Fascinating People of 2008" by Barbara Walters for an ABC special on December 4, 2008.^[326] In April 2010, she was selected as one of the world's 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine.^[327]

In the wake of the January 8, 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Palin faced criticism for her SarahPAC website's inclusion of a graphic that included a crosshair over Giffords's district. Palin responded to the criticism of the graphic, saying that "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them," controversially equating the accusations of her role in the shooting to a "blood libel".^[328]^[329] Following her response, an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that 46% of respondents viewed Palin's actions after the shooting unfavorably, while 30% approved and 24% had no opinion.^[330]

Bibliography [link]

Going Rogue: An American Life (2009)
America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag (2010)

References [link]

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^ ^a ^b Barnes, Fred (July 16, 2007). "The Most Popular Governor". The Weekly Standard. http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp?pg=1. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
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^ ^a ^b Mosk, Matthew (September 1, 2008). "Palin Was a Director of Embattled Sen. Stevens's 527 Group". The Trail (Washington Post). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/01/palin_was_a_director_of_embatt.html. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
^ Abcarian, Robin (September 4, 2008). "Insiders see 'new feminism' Outside the GOP convention, however, questions are raised about Palin's family responsibilities". Article collections, Republican National Convention (Los Angeles Times). http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-motherhood4-2008sep04,0,1284515.story. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
^ Sands, David R. (August 30, 2008). "Palin's rise a model for maverick politicians". The Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/30/palins-rise-shows-willingness-buck-establishment/. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
^ Yardley, William (August 23, 2006). "Alaska Governor Concedes Defeat in Primary". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/washington/24alaskacnd.html. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
^ ^a ^b Ayres, Sabra (May 30, 2007). "Alaska's governor tops the approval rating charts" (Archives, fee required). Anchorage Daily News. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-164232650/alaska-governor-tops-approval.html. Retrieved September 16, 2008.
^ From an Ivan Moore press release (September 24, 2008). "Palin approval rating takes huge dive". Alaska Report. http://alaskareport.com/news98/x61643_approval_rating.htm. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
^ Cockerham, Sean (May 6, 2009). "New poll shows slump in Palin's popularity among Alaskans". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.miamiherald.com/515/story/1035915.html. Retrieved May 7, 2009.
^ Halpin, James (July 10, 2007). "Palin signs ethics reforms". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/324/story/150137.html. Retrieved September 12, 2008.
^ "How Palin turned on her own party and became governor". Alaska Dispatch. August 29, 2006. http://alaskadispatch.com/blogs/palin-watch/74-how-palin-turned-on-her-own-party-and-became-governor.
^ Berman, Russell (August 29, 2008). "McCain Picks Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Running Mate". The New York Sunl. http://www.nysun.com/national/mccain-picks-alaska-governor-sarah-palin-as/84934/. Retrieved October 24, 2009.
^ Carlton, Jim (2008-07-31). "Alaska's Palin Faces Probe". Wall Street Journal: p. A4. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121746477267499109.html. Retrieved September 4, 2008.
^ ^a ^b "Alaska State of the State Address 2007". January 17, 2007. http://www.stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=172665. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
^ Bender, Bryan; Issenberg, Sasha (September 3, 2008). "Palin not well traveled outside US". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/03/palin_not_well_traveled_outside_us/. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
^ Bender, Bryan (September 13, 2008). "Palin camp clarifies extent of Iraq trip: Says she never ventured beyond Kuwait border". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/09/13/palin_camp_clarifies_extent_of_iraq_trip/. Retrieved September 13, 2008.
^ "Excerpts: Charlie Gibson Interviews Sarah Palin". ABC News. September 11, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5782924. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
^ Shinohara, Rosemary (July 16, 2007). "No vetoes here". Anchorage Daily News.
^ Bradner, Tim (July 8, 2007). "Lawmakers cringe over governor's deep budget cuts". Alaska Journal of Commerce. http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/070807/hom_20070708005.shtml. Retrieved September 1, 2008. ^{[dead link]}
^ Cockerham, Sean (May 24, 2008). "Palin's veto ax lops $268 million from budget". Anchorage Daily News. Archived from the original on 2008-05-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20080527181734/http://www.adn.com/legislature/story/415749.html. Retrieved September 15, 2008.
^ Yardley, William (August 25, 2007). "Jet that Helped Defeat an Alaska Governor is Sold.". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/us/25jet.html. Retrieved September 18, 2008.
^ Kornblut, Anne Elise (September 6, 2008). "Governor's Plane Wasn't Sold on Ebay". Washington Post: p. A7. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090503722.html. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
^ ^a ^b Grimaldi, James V.; Vick, Karl (September 9, 2008). "Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home - Taxpayers Also Funded Family's Travel". The Washington Post: p. A1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090803088.html. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
^ The Anchorage Daily News, January 20, 2008: Palin does not use the governor's private chef, whom Palin transferred to the Lounge of the State Legislature.
^ ^a ^b Luo, Michael; Wayne, Leslie (September 9, 2008). "Palin Aides Defend Billing State for Time at Home". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10billing.html.
^ Walsh, Joan (July 9, 2009). "Why is Palin lying about state ethics probes?". Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/07/09/palin_lying/. Retrieved October 24, 2009.
^ Grimaldi, James V. (February 19, 2009). "Palin Now Owes Taxes on Payments for Nights at Home, State Rules". The Washington Post: p. A04. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/18/AR2009021803177.html?nav=hcmoduletmv. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
^ Demer, Lisa (February 17, 2008). "Palin owes tax on per diem, state says". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/palin/story/693695.html. Retrieved February 19, 2009. "'At the Governor's request, we reviewed the situation to determine whether we were in full compliance with the pertinent Internal Revenue Service regulations,' Kreitzer wrote."
^ Hopkins, Kyle (December 17, 2008). "Palin won't accept raise". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/palin/story/626781.html. Retrieved January 12, 2009. "But if the commission pushes ahead with a pay raise, Palin won't accept the money, said spokesman Bill McAllister."
^ Associated Press staff (January 11, 2009). "State commission nixes Palin pay increase". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/news/government/legislature/story/650524.html. Retrieved January 12, 2009.
^ Paige, Leslie K. (January 29, 2008). "Alaska Begins to Grow Up". Wastewatcher, January 2008. Citizens Against Government Waste. Archived from the original on January 13, 2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20090113165553/http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11244. Retrieved June 12, 2011.
^ Associated Press staff (September 8, 2008). "McCain, Palin criticize Obama on earmarks". Decision '08 archive- John McCain News. MSNBC.com. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26611103/. Retrieved September 16, 2008.
^ Bernton, Hal; Heath, David (September 2, 2008). "Palin's earmark requests: more per person than any other state". Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008154532_webpalin02m.html. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
^ Taylor, Andrew (September 2, 2008). "Palin's pork requests confound reformer image". Associated Press. http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/09/02/1817859-palins-pork-requests-confound-reformer-image. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
^ Bolstad, Erika (September 8, 2008). "Palin's Take On Earmarks Evolving". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/politics/story/516743.html.
^ Associated Press staff (September 23, 2007). "Alaska Seeks Alternative to Bridge Plan". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/us/23bridge.html. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
^ ^a ^b Kizzia, Tom (August 31, 2008). "Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't note flip-flop" (Archives, fee required). Anchorage Daily News.
^ Dilanian, Ken (August 31, 2008). "Palin backed ‘bridge to nowhere’ in 2006". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-31-palin-bridge_N.htm. Retrieved February 14, 2010. "'We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge, and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative,' Palin said in August 2006, according to the Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News."
^ ^a ^b Staff (October 22, 2006). "Where they stand" (Archives, fee required). Anchorage Daily News. p. A12. "5. Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges? Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now - while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."
^ Governor's Office (September 21, 2007). "Gravina Access Project Redirected" (Press release). Governor's Office–State of Alaska. http://www.dot.state.ak.us/comm/pressbox/arch_2007/PR_0921_GravinaAccessProjRed.pdf. Retrieved February 9, 2010. "Governor Sarah Palin today directed the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to look for the most fiscally responsible alternative for access to the Ketchikan airport and Gravina Island rather than the proposed $398-million bridge."
^ ^a ^b Rosen, Yereth (September 1, 2008). "Palin 'bridge to nowhere' line angers many Alaskans". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN3125537020080901. Retrieved September 1, 2008. "In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called 'Bridge to Nowhere,' political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community...."
^ "Fact Check: Did Palin say 'no thanks' to the Bridge to Nowhere?". CNN Politics, Political Ticker (CNN). September 18, 2008. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/fact-check-did-palin-say-no-thanks-to-the-bridge-to-nowhere/. Retrieved June 21, 2009. "The Facts: Palin voiced support for the plan while running for governor...She rejected the bridge after she was elected and the project became a famous symbol of government waste."
^ Kizzia, Tom (August 31, 2008). "Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't note flip-flop". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/sarahpalin/story/511471.html.
^ Quinn, Steve (September 20, 2008). "Alaska town opens 'road to nowhere'". Associated Press. USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-09-20-2839100226_x.htm. Retrieved April 28, 2009. ""Roger Wetherell, speaking for the state Transportation Department, said the road opened several days ago might someday get people to and from Gravina Island after all, if cheaper designs for a bridge become a reality. Meantime, it opens access to land development, he said.""
^ ^a ^b Rosen, Yereth (August 27, 2008). "Alaska governor signs natgas pipeline license bill". Calgary Herald. http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=2e84b1e8-9a4a-4558-ad05-21b517c50fae. Retrieved September 5, 2008.
^ "Governor Palin Unveils the AGIA". News & Announcements. State of Alaska. March 2, 2007. http://wayback.archive-it.org/1200/20090726180436/http://gov.state.ak.us/print_news.php?id=170. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ ^a ^b Hosenball, Mark (September 20, 2008). "Periscope: Palin's Pipeline to Nowhere" (From the magazine issue dated September 29, 2008). Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/160088. Retrieved September 23, 2008.
^ ^a ^b Associated Press staff (March 22, 2007). "State puts bounty on wolves to boost predator control". Juneau Empire Story Archive. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/032207/sta_20070322019.shtml. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
^ "Governor Palin Introduces Bill to Streamline Predator Management Laws" (Press release). Alaska Department of Game and Fish. May 11, 2007. http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/news/2007/5-11-07_nr.php. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
^ deMarban, Alex (March 31, 2007). "Judge orders state to stop wolf bounties: Option: The ruling says Game Board has authority to offer cash incentives". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/wolves/story/204937.html. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
^ "Alaska voters shoot down predator control initiative". newsminer.com (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner). August 27, 2008. http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/aug/26/alaska-voters-shoot-down-predator-control-initiati/. Retrieved September 1, 2008. ^{[dead link]}
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Cockerham, Sean (August 14, 2008). "Palin staff pushed to have trooper fired". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/492964.html. Retrieved 2008-09-01.
^ Fagan, Dan (September 16, 2008). "No one is above the truth, even Palin". Opinion (Anchorage Daily News). http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/528420.html.
^ Loy, Wesley (September 16, 2008). "Palin accuses Monegan of insubordination, Troopergate: Governor's lawyer attempts to clear her of misconduct in the firing". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/troopergate/story/527346.html.
^ Demer, Lisa (August 30, 2008). "'Troopergate' inquiry hangs over campaign: 'Troopergate' inquiry hangs over campaign". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/sarahpalin/story/510080.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05. "For the record, no one ever said fire Wooten. Not the governor. Not Todd. Not any of the other staff. What they said directly was more along the lines of 'This isn't a person that we would want to be representing our state troopers.'"
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Holland, Megan (July 19, 2008). "Monegan says he was pressured to fire cop" (Archives, fee required). Anchorage Daily News. p. A1.
^ ^a ^b Demer, Lisa (July 27, 2008). "Is Wooten a good trooper?" (Archives, fee required). Anchorage Daily News. p. A1.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Long-Standing Feud in Alaska Embroils Palin". The Washington Post. August 31, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083002366.html?hpid=topnews. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
^ Demer, Lisa (August 30, 2008). "'Troopergate' inquiry hangs over campaign". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/sarahpalin/story/510080.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05. "Monegan said he believes his firing was directly related to the fact Wooten stayed on the job."
^ ^a ^b The Editors (August 30, 2008). "Monegan to Palin: 'Ma'am, I Need to Keep You at Arm's Length'". The Washington Post Investigations (Washington Post). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/08/monegan_to_palin_maam_i_need_t.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
^ Simon, Matt (November 7, 2008). "Monegan Says Palin Administration, Husband Used Governor's Office to Pressure Firing First Family's Former Brother-in-Law". KTVA, CBS News 11. http://www.ktva.com/news/local/Monegan-Says-Palin-Administration-Husband-Used-Governors-Office-to-Pressure-Firing-First-Familys-Former-Brother-in-Law-116778328.html. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
^ Grimaldi, James V.; Vick, Karl (September 4, 2008). "Palin E-Mails Show Intense Interest in Trooper's Penalty". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303210_pf.html. Retrieved 2008-09-03.
^ Sean Cockerham (August 14, 2008). "Alaska's governor admits her staff tried to have trooper fired". Anchorage Daily News. McClatchy. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/48172.html. Retrieved 2008-08-29.
^ ^a ^b Quinn, Steve (July 28, 2008). "Lawmakers formally call for investigation into Palin's Public Safety firing". Associated Press. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. http://beta.newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/28/lawmakers-formally-call-investigation-palins-publi/. Retrieved 2010-02-09. ^{[dead link]}
^ ^a ^b ^c Espo, David (September 19, 2008). "Palin probe has parallels to 2000 recount fight". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/09/19/palin_probe_has_parallels_to_2000_recount_fight/. Retrieved 2009-06-21. ^{[dead link]}
^ Loy, Wesley (July 29, 2008). "Hired help will probe Monegan dismissal". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/478090.html. Retrieved 2008-08-29.
^ Hulen, David (August 13, 2008). "Namely, specifically, most disturbing, is a telephone recording apparently made and preserved by the troopers...". Anchorage Daily News. http://community.adn.com/adn/node/128981. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
^ Demer, Lisa (September 3, 2008). "Palin seeks review of Monegan firing case: Board: Governor makes ethics complaint against herself to force action". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/514163.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
^ "Palin wants quick state board ruling in trooper probe". ElectionCenter2008 (CNN). September 3, 2008. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/03/palin.investigation/.
^ Associated Press Staff (September 16, 2008). "Alaska AG: Palin subpoenas won't be honored and five Alaska lawmakers file suit to end ‘Troopergate’ probe". MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26742379/. Retrieved 2010-02-10.
^ Cockerham, Sean (October 2, 2008). "Judge refuses to halt Troopergate probe". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/palin/story/543892.html. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
^ Apuzzo, Matt (October 5, 2008). "7 Palin aides to testify in abuse-of-power probe". Associated Press. USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-10-05-1503106214_x.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
^ Spence, Hal (October 12, 2008). "Branchflower report draws mixed reactions". Peninsula Clarion (Kenai, Alaska). "The council voted unanimously to make the report public, but did not vote to endorse its findings."
^ Branchflower, Stephen (October 10, 2008). "Report to the Legislative Council, Public Report" (PDF). State of Alaska Legislature. http://download2.legis.state.ak.us/DOWNLOAD.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-10. ^{[dead link]} Report consists of 268 pages, see page 8 for the findings.
^ ^a ^b Branchflower 2008, p. 66
^ Rood, Justin; Rutherford, Jessica and Delawala, Imtiyaz (October 10, 2008). "Troopergate Report: Palin Abused Power: Palin Says She Did 'Nothing Unlawful or Unethical' in Firing of Safety Commissioner". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6004368&page=1. Retrieved 2008-10-10. The report further found that Colberg had failed to cooperate fully with the investigation.
^ The Governor's Attorney Condemns the Branchflower Report as Misleading and Wrong on the Law scribd.com, statement from Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen, Thorsness LLC, October 11, 2008. Retrieved 2010-11-24.
^ Dobbs, Michael (October 13, 2008). "Four Pinocchios for Palin". The Fact Checker, Candidate Watch (Washington Post). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/10/four_pinocchios_for_palin.html.
^ Demer, Lisa (October 11, 2008). "Palin: 'Very much appreciating being cleared of any legal wrongdoing or unethical activity at all' (Updated with audio)". Alaska Politics Blog. Anchorage Daily News. http://community.adn.com/adn/node/132625. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
^ Demer, Lisa (September 2, 2008). "Attorney challenges Monegan firing inquiry". Anchorage Daily News. http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/513137.html. Retrieved 2008-09-02.
^ Van Flein, Thomas (September 15, 2008). "Before The State Of Alaska Personnel Board, In The Matter of Sarah Palin, Governor, Motion For Determination Of No Probable Cause" (PDF). p. 54. http://sayanythingblog.s3.amazonaws.com/09-08/palin-response.pdf.
^ Loy, Wesley (September 16, 2008). "'Rogue' Monegan accused of insubordination" (Archives, fee required). Anchorage Daily News. p. A1.
^ CNN staff (October 25, 2008). "Palin gives deposition in trooper case". ElectionCenter200 (CNN). http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/24/palin.deposition. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
^ ^a ^b State of Alaska Personnel Board Report of Findings and Recommendations Nov. 3, 2008. pdf file of Independent Counsel Timothy Petumenos' report. Retrieved 2010-11-24.
^ Grimaldi, James V. (November 3, 2008). "2nd Alaska Probe Finds Palin Did Not Violate Ethics Rules". The Trail (Washington Post). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/11/03/2nd_alaska_probe_finds_palin_d.html?hpid=topnews.
^ "2nd probe clears Palin in trooper case". The CNN Wire (CNN). October 3, 2008. http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/03/2nd-probe-clears-palin-in-trooper-case/. Retrieved 2009-10-24. ^{[dead link]}
^ Yardley, William; Serge F. Kovaleski (November 3, 2008). "Report Backs Palin in Firing of Commissioner". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/us/politics/04palin.html.
^ D'Oro, Rachel (November 3, 2008). "Report clears Palin in Troopergate probe". Associated Press. Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008346215_appalintroopergate.html. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
^ SurveyUSA website, "APPROVAL RATINGS FOR ALL 50 GOVERNORS (Released 11/20/06)". Retrieved 2010-12-15.
^ Cauchon, Dennis (June 21, 2007). "At state level, GOP, Dems learn to get along". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-21-state-bipartisanship_N.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
^ Ayres, Sabra (May 30, 2007). "Alaska's governor tops the approval rating charts". Archived at AccessMyLibrary (Anchorage Daily News). http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-30905072_ITM. Retrieved 2009-10-24. ^{[dead link]}
^ Horton, Carly (November 4, 2007). "Palin ranks among nation's most popular governors". The Alaska Journal of Commerce. http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/110407/hom_20071104035.shtml. Retrieved 2010-02-13. ^{[dead link]}
^ "Alaska: McCain 48% Obama 43%". Rasmussen Reports. April 10, 2008. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/alaska/alaska_mccain_48_obama_43. Retrieved 2009-10-24. ^{[dead link]}
^ "Alaska: McCain 50% Obama 41%". Rasmussen Reports. May 17, 2008. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/alaska/alaska_mccain_50_obama_41. Retrieved 2009-10-24. ^{[dead link]}
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Governor Palin is the most popular governor in the country.". PolitiFact.com Truth-o-Meter (St. Petersburg Times, FL). September 3, 2008. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/03/john-mccain/she-wins-popularity-contest/. Retrieved 2010-12-01.
^ "Palin approval rating drops in Alaska". Anchorage Daily News. October 1, 2008. http://www.adn.com/2008/09/30/542179/palin-approval-rating-drops-in.html. Retrieved 2010-12-01.
^ "McCain Leads By 15 in Alaska". Rasmussen Reports. October 7, 2008. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/alaska/mccain_leads_by_15_in_alaska. Retrieved 2009-10-24. ^{[dead link]}
^ ^a ^b Cockerham, Sean (May 7, 2009). "New poll shows slump in Palin's popularity among Alaskans". Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/515/story/1035915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-05.
^ Cillizza, Chris (July 17, 2009). "Morning Fix: Winners and Losers, Sotomayor Day 4". The Fix (Washington Post). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/071709morning-fix-winners-and.html#more. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
^ SurveyUSA "SurveyUSA Job Approval Numbers" (to see, e.g., Schwarzenegger, select 042809 - California Approval Rating Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger). Retrieved 2010-12-15.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Palin's Reasons for Stepping Down" (Transcript and Video). 44 The Obama Presidency (Washington Post). July 3, 2009. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/03/palins_remarks_in_stepping_dow.html?wprss=44.
^ ^a ^b ^c New York Times staff (July 5, 2009). "Legal Bills Swayed Palin, Official Says". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/us/06palin.html.
^ Carlton, Jim (July 7, 2009). "Palin Confidante Says Governor Felt Hampered by Probes". Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124691179571701975.html.
^ Wall Street Journal Staff (July 6, 2009). "Palin to quit as governor; cost of probes is cited" (WSJ roundup). The Wall Street Journal Asia. p. 12. "Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as Alaska governor was primarily prompted by her concern over the large sums of money being spent on ethics investigations targeting her, Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell said Sunday."
^ Fund, John (July 7, 2009). "Why Palin Quit: Death by a Thousand FOIAs". Opinion (Wall Street Journal). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700261179807839.html.
^ Video of Alaska Governor Transfer of Power Ceremony (Sarah Palin "farewell speech" at 6:00min) C-SPAN.org 2009-07-26. Retrieved 2010-12-16.
^ Associated Press staff (July 3, 2009). "Palin Steps Down as Alaska Governor". CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/26/politics/main5189822.shtml.
^ ^a ^b New ethics rules in Alaska to take effect Dec. 22 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AP), Dec 07, 2010. Retrieved 2011-01-30.
^ Mayer, Jane (October 27, 2008). "The Insiders: How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/27/081027fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=1. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
^ Horton, Scott (October 15, 2008) (Transcript and link to Audio). Salon Radio: Scott Horton. Interview with Glenn Greenwald. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2008/10/15/horton/index1.html. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
^ Draper, Robert (October 26, 2008). "The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of McCain". The New York Times Magazine: pp. 52–59, 74, 112. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
^ Balz, Dan; Barnes, Robert (August 31, 2008). "Palin Made an Impression From the Start". The Making Of A Running Mate (Washington Post): p. A1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083002377.html. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
^ Davis, Susan (August 29, 2008). "When John Met Sarah: How McCain Picked Palin". Washington Wire (The Wall Street Journal). http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/08/29/when-john-met-sarah-how-mccain-picked-palin/. Retrieved 2008-10-21.
^ Bumiller, Elizabeth; Cooper, Michael (August 31, 2008). "Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman". New York Times. p. A26. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/us/politics/31reconstruct.html. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
^ ^a ^b ^c The first woman was Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1984, who ran with former vice-president Walter Mondale."McCain taps Alaska Gov. Palin as vice president pick". ElectionCenter2008 (CNN). August 29, 2008. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/29/palin.republican.vp.candidate/index.html. Retrieved 2008-08-29.
^ ^a ^b Delbridge, Rena (September 3, 2008). "Alaska delegates see more Republican convention attention". Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. http://2-fdnm.newsminer.com/news/2008/sep/03/alaska-delegates-see-more-republican-convention-at/. Retrieved 2010-02-15.
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^ Goldman, Russell (September 11, 2008). "Palin Takes Hard Line on National Security, Softens Stance on Global Warming publisher = ABC News". http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5778018. Retrieved May 28, 2010.
^ Murphy, Kim (2009-04-15). "Palin sees gas drilling as step to curb global warming". Articles.latimes.com. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/15/nation/na-palin15. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
^ "Sarah Palin tells AIPAC she's pro-Israel". Jewish Journal. September 2, 2008. http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/sarah_palin_tells_aipac_shes_pro_israel_20080902/+. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
^ Palin expresses support for Israel by Yitzhak Benhorin, Ynetnews.com, September 3, 2008. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
^ Transcript (February 7, 2010). "Sarah Palin on Fox News Sunday". PoliticsDaily.com. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/07/sarah-palin-on-fox-news-sunday/. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
^ Sullivan, Andrew (August 29, 2008). "Palin on Iraq". The Daily Dish (The Atlantic). http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/palin-on-iraq.html. Retrieved May 28, 2010.
^ Gourevitch, Philip (September 8, 2008). "Palin on Obama". Butting Heads (The New Yorker). http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/08/080908ta_talk_gourevitch. Retrieved May 28, 2010.
^ Rutenberg, Jim (September 11, 2008). "In First Big Interview, Palin Says, ‘I’m Ready’". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/politics/12palin.html. Retrieved May 28, 2010.
^ Kessler, Glenn (September 11, 2008). "War with Russia? Palin Talks Foreign Policy with ABC". TheTrail: A Daily Diary of Campaign 2008 (The Washington Post). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/11/war_with_russia_palin_talks_fo.html. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
^ Palin, Sarah (September 24, 2009). "Thoughts from Hong Kong". http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=139069028434.
^ Page, Susan (August 30, 2008). "Poll: Voters uncertain on Palin". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-30-palin-poll_N.htm. Retrieved May 28, 2010.
^ Weiss, Joanna (September 5, 2008). "McCain takes stage, turns down heat". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/05/mccain_takes_stage_turns_down_heat/. Retrieved May 28, 2010.
^ ^a ^b Harris, John F.; Frerking, Beth (September 3, 2008). "Clinton aides: Palin treatment sexist". Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13129.html. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Frum, David (August 29, 2008). "Palin". National Review Online. http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2VhOWE0N2VkOWI3MDdlODRlZWE4ODljMDc2NjliZDk=. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Will, George (November 3, 2008). "Impulse, Meet Experience". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202441.html. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Collins, Britt (September 17, 2008). "Sarah Palin: The ice queen; Sarah Palin, the Republican party's vice-president nominee, governs an oil-rich area that has seen some of the most dramatic effects of climate change. So what's her record on environmental concerns?". The Guardian (UK) (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/17/poles.wildlife. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ ^a ^b "Palin Still Viewed More Favorably – And Unfavorably – Than Biden". Rasmussen Reports. September 24, 2008. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2008/2008_presidential_election/palin_still_viewed_more_favorably_and_unfavorably_than_biden.
^ "45% Say Biden Won Debate, 37% Say Palin". Rasmussen Reports. 2008-10-04. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/45_say_biden_won_debate_37_say_palin. Retrieved 2008-12-25. ^{[dead link]}
^ ^a ^b Stoddard, Ed; Yereth Rosen (September 12, 2008). "Is Palin foe of big oil or a new Cheney?". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1150293420080912. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Nichols, Jon (August 30, 2008). "Clinton Praises Palin Pick". Blogs, The Beat. The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/blog/clinton-praises-palin-pick. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Dimond, Anna (December 1, 2008). "Barbara Walters Gets Up Close with 2008's Most Fascinating People". TV Guide. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Barbara-Walters-Special-1000398.aspx. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Nugent, Ted (April 29, 2010). "Leaders: Sarah Palin". The 2010 TIME 100 (Time Magazine). http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984864_1984871,00.html/. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
^ Oliphant, James. "Sarah Palin video on Giffords aftermath stays true to who Palin is," Los Angeles Times (2011-01-13).
^ Kurtz, Howard (2011-01-12). "Palin Goes Nuclear With 'Blood Libel' Speech". TheDailyBeast.com. RTST, Inc. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-12/sarah-palin-says-media-guilty-of-blood-libel-why-her-speech-was-wrong. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
^ Balz, Dan; Cohen, Jon (2011-01-18). "Poll shows high marks for Obama on Tucson, low regard for political dialogue". PostPolitics (Washington Post). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/17/AR2011011703262_2.html?sid=ST2011011702561. Retrieved 2011-01-18.

External links [link]

	Alaska portal
	Biography portal

Find more about Sarah Palin on Wikipedia's sister projects:
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	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote

Look up Palinista, Palinism, or refudiate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

SarahPAC (Sarah Palin Political Action Committee) (Official)
Sarah Palin on Facebook (Official)
Sarah Palin on Twitter (Official)
Sarah Palin's channel on YouTube
Biography at the National Governors Association
Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Campaign contributions at FollowTheMoney.org
Appearances on C-SPAN programs
Appearances on Charlie Rose programs
Appearances at the Internet Movie Database
Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal
Collected news and commentary at The Guardian
Works by or about Sarah Palin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Profile at Notable Names Database
Ongoing news and commentary from the Anchorage Daily News
Favorable Rating: Sarah Palin at Pollster
Sarah Palin rumor control at Snopes.com
Sarah Palin at FactCheck.org
Sarah Palin at the Open Directory Project
NOW: Meet Sarah Palin video from PBS
Sarah Palin : Sarah Palin News and Photos Search ChicagoTribune.com
Charlie Gibson Interviews GOP Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin from ABC News, September 2008
One-On-One with Sarah Palin transcripts and videos from CBS News with Katie Couric, September 2008

Sarah Palin succession and navigation boxes

Civic offices
Preceded by Camille Oechsli Taylor	Chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission 2003 – 2004	Succeeded by John K. Norman
Political offices
Preceded by Dorothy Smith	Member of the Wasilla City Council from Seat E 1992 – 1996	Succeeded by Colleen Cottle
Preceded by John Stein	Mayor of Wasilla 1996 – 2002	Succeeded by Dianne M. Keller
Preceded by Frank Murkowski	Governor of Alaska 2006 – 2009	Succeeded by Sean Parnell
Party political offices
Preceded by Frank Murkowski	Republican nominee for Governor of Alaska 2006	Succeeded by Sean Parnell
Preceded by Dick Cheney	Republican Party Vice Presidential candidate 2008	Most recent

Sarah Palin

Politics

Early political career · Governor of Alaska · Resignation as Governor · Political positions

Gov. Sarah Palin in Dover cropped 2, NH.jpg

Campaigns

Electoral history · Alaska gubernatorial election, 2006 · McCain–Palin 2008

Other

Death panel · Mama grizzly · Political action committee

Books and media
by Sarah Palin

Going Rogue: An American Life · America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag · Sarah Palin's Alaska

Family

Todd Palin (husband) · Bristol Palin (daughter) · Levi Johnston (father of grandson)

Public image

Book and media coverage about Sarah Palin	Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down · Public image and reception · Katie Couric interviews · Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare · Game Change (book, film) · The Undefeated

Parodies and pranks	Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin · The Masked Avengers' prank on Sarah Palin

Related articles	Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal · Gravina Island Bridge · Sarah Palin email hack

Conservatism Portal · Book:Sarah Palin · Category:Sarah Palin

v t e Governors of Alaska

District (1884–1912)	Kinkead Swineford Knapp Sheakley Brady Hoggatt Clark

Territorial (1912–1959)	Clark Strong Riggs Bone Parks Troy Gruening Heintzleman Hendrickson (acting) Stepovich Hendrickson (acting)

State (since 1959)	Egan Hickel Miller Egan Hammond Sheffield Cowper Hickel Knowles Murkowski Palin Parnell

v t e Republican Party nominees for Governor of Alaska

Butrovich (1958) Stepovich (1962) Hickel (1966) Miller (1970) Hammond (1974, 1978) Fink (1982) Sturgulewski (1986, 1990) Campbell (1994) Lindauer (1998) Murkowski (2002) Palin (2006) Parnell (2010)

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Conventions
(List)

Affiliated
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Conservatism Portal

United States presidential election, 2008

Democratic Party

Democratic candidates

VP nominee: Joe Biden
(positions)

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Republican candidates

Nominee: John McCain
(campaign
positions)

VP nominee: Sarah Palin
(positions)

Draft movements

Democratic Party:
Al Gore
Mark Warner (movement)

Republican Party:
Newt Gingrich
Condoleezza Rice (movement)

Independent:
Michael Bloomberg (movement)

Third party and independent candidates

Constitution Party: Convention	Nominee: Chuck Baldwin (campaign) VP nominee: Darrell Castle Candidates: Daniel Imperato Alan Keyes (campaign)

Green Party: Convention	Nominee: Cynthia McKinney (campaign positions) VP nominee: Rosa Clemente Candidates: Elaine Brown Jesse Johnson Kent Mesplay Kat Swift

Libertarian Party: Convention	Nominee: Bob Barr (campaign positions) VP nominee: Wayne Allyn Root Candidates: Mike Gravel (campaign) Daniel Imperato Michael Jingozian Steve Kubby Wayne Allyn Root Mary Ruwart Doug Stanhope

American Party	Nominee: Diane Beall Templin

America's Independent Party	Nominee: Alan Keyes (campaign) VP nominee: Brian Rohrbough

Boston Tea Party	Nominee: Charles Jay

New American Independent Party	Nominee: Frank McEnulty

Objectivist Party	Nominee: Tom Stevens

Peace and Freedom Party	Nominee: Ralph Nader (campaign) VP nominee: Matt Gonzalez Candidates: Gloria LaRiva Cynthia McKinney (campaign) Brian Moore (campaign)

Prohibition Party	Nominee: Gene Amondson

Reform Party	Nominee: Ted Weill VP nominee: Frank McEnulty

Socialism and Liberation Party	Nominee: Gloria La Riva VP nominee: Eugene Puryear

Socialist Party	Nominee: Brian Moore (campaign) VP nominee: Stewart Alexander Candidates: Eric Chester

Socialist Workers Party	Nominee: Róger Calero Alternate nominee: James Harris VP nominee: Alyson Kennedy

Independent / Other	Earl Dodge Bradford Lyttle Frank Moore Joe Schriner Jonathon Sharkey

Other 2008 elections:
House
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Correspondents	Jim Angle · Greg Burke · Brenda Buttner · Carl Cameron · Tucker Carlson · Steve Centanni · Jamie Colby · Peter Doocy · Mike Emanuel · Trace Gallagher · Wendell Goler · Lauren Green · Jennifer Griffin · Steve Harrigan · Molly Henneberg · Ed Henry · Catherine Herridge · Adam Housley · Jonathan Hunt · Laura Ingle · Phil Keating · Amy Kellogg · Douglas Harriman Kennedy · Rick Leventhal · Molly Line · Dagen McDowell · David Lee Miller · Reena Ninan · Greg Palkot · Elizabeth Prann · John Roberts · James Rosen · Jonathan Serrie · Eric Shawn · Caroline Shively · Carina Sonn · Dan Springer · Casey Stegall · Michael Tobin · Anita Vogel

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Editors	Manny Alvarez · Fred Barnes · Mort Kondracke · Bill Sammon

Contributors and analysts	Michael Barone · Evan Bayh · Jeff Birnbaum · Tucker Carlson · Linda Chavez · Alan Colmes · Bill Cowan · Ann Coulter · Monica Crowley · Al D'Amato · Tim Eads · Susan Estrich · Bruce Feiler · Mark Fuhrman · Mike Gallagher · John Gibson · Jim Gilmore · Marc Ginsberg · Jehmu Greene · J. Hall · Jim Hammer · Stephen F. Hayes · Ellis Henican · Paul Howard · Brit Hume · David Hunt · Laura Ingraham · Santita Jackson · Peter J. Johnson, Jr. · Charles Krauthammer · Bill Kristol · Adam Lashinsky · John "Bradshaw" Layfield · Mara Liasson · Michelle Malkin · Robert Massi · Thomas McInerney · Dennis Miller · Judith Miller · Dick Morris · Fr. Jonathan Morris · Andrew Napolitano · Chuck Nash · Sarah Palin · Liz Peek · Charles V. Peña · Walid Phares · David L. Phillips · James Pinkerton · Alfred Poor · Kirsten Powers · Ryan Radia · Ellen Ratner · Sandy Rios · Peter Robinson · Wayne Rogers · Isadore Rosenfeld · Dennis Ross · Karl Rove · Robert Scales · Michael Scheuer · Gary B. Smith · Tobin Smith · Steve Stone · Andrea Tantaros · Cal Thomas · Liz Trotta · Stuart Varney · Rod Wheeler · Lis Wiehl · Juan Williams · Georgia Witkin

Meteorologists	Janice Dean · Maria Molina · Rick Reichmuth

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.

Persondata
Name	Palin, Sarah Heath
Alternative names	Heath, Sarah Louise; Palin, Sarah Louise
Short description	Governor of Alaska
Date of birth	February 11, 1964
Place of birth	Sandpoint, Idaho
Date of death
Place of death

Sarkozy, Nicolas Filmography

Famous quotes by Nicolas Sarkozy:

"No-one believes that in just three months the situation there has been properly resolved."

"I am showing solidarity while being different."

"I am showing solidarity while being different. Or if you prefer, I am being different while being in solidarity."

"We must create conditions for dialogue. All this must end as soon as possible, because each day that goes by strengthens conditions for confrontations, for problems, and maybe even for tragedy."

"We want to allow families to return to football stadiums and feel safe. It was about time."

"Either the facts are proved, and in that case there will be disciplinary action, or these are lies and in that case I reserve the right to protect the honor of men whose work allowed lives to be saved. I will publish all elements of this inquiry."

"If a wife is kept hostage at home without learning French, the whole family will be asked to leave (the country)."

"We no longer want an immigration that is inflicted (on us) but an immigration that is chosen, this is the founding principle of the new immigration policy I advocate."

"What is dangerous is not minarets, but basements and garages that hide clandestine places of worship. Thus we must choose between mosques, where we know that the rules of the republic are respected, and secret places where extremism has been developing for too long,"

"Duel at the bedside"

Make changes yourself !

Contents

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Contents

[edit] Going Rogue and America by Heart

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