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	<title>World &#187; Bruce Crumley &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>World &#187; Bruce Crumley &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com</link>
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		<title>France&#8217;s Latest Terrorist Suspect: A French Convert Near Retirement Age</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/05/02/soldiers-in-mali-arrest-french-terrorist-jihadi-convert/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/05/02/soldiers-in-mali-arrest-french-terrorist-jihadi-convert/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 06:00:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley / Paris</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morocco]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bamako]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mohammed Merah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=84717</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[France’s newest prisoner in the fight against terrorism does not fit the profile of the modern jihadi that French investigators have, in recent years, broadly focused on — that of a young, disaffected man. Gilles Le Guen, a French convert to radical Islam who was arrested by French forces on April 28 in northern Mali, is 58. When last seen in an online video uploaded in October 2012, Le Guen — who also went by the name Abdel Jelil — was declaring his allegiance to the Islamist group Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and threatening his homeland with retaliation if France intervened against his fellow extremists who had taken control of northern Mali. Both his look and message raised many eyebrows among security officials back in France. Many aspiring jihadis in Europe begin the radicalization process at home before seeking instruction and combat training from radical groups abroad. Le Guen, by contrast, veered to extremism only once AQIM-allied militias stormed northern Mali — an area where he’d quietly lived, approaching retirement age, with his wife and children for two years. (MORE: Jihadi Strike in Timbuktu Reflects Altered Terrorism Threat in Mali) “The average case involves a younger man leaving for a zone where jihadi activity — usually combat — is already under way, not waiting for jihad to come to the door,” says a senior French antiterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and who notes several French nationals are known to have traveled to Mali to fight aside AQIM-linked militias. “[Le Guen] lived as a convert to Islam in Timbuktu as a pious husband and father, and only radicalized once extremists took control of the region. He’s the polar opposite of [Toulouse jihadi killer] Mohammed Merah.” That late-in-life transformation is what appears to have inspired Le Guen’s October video, in which he warns France and other nations to halt plans for the military intervention that in January drove the Frenchman&#8217;s fellow Islamists out of northern Mali. It’s still unclear to French security officials, however, whether Le Guen actually took<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=84717&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Terrorism</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/terrorism/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/march20.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mali Fighting</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>France Legalizes Gay Marriage Despite Vocal and Angry Opposition</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/23/france-legalizes-same-sex-marriage/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/23/france-legalizes-same-sex-marriage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:01:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adoption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extreme-right]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gay marriage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gay rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Sarkozy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paris]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=83489</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Controversial legislation establishing marriage and adoption rights for same-sex couples cleared final passage in France on April 23 after a 331-to-225 vote in the left-controlled Parliament. But the protests it has prompted in recent months aren’t likely to fade any time soon. As France’s opposition conservatives promise to mount legal challenges to block the law’s application, leaders of the well-organized and vocal groups who’ve fought the measure will continue denouncing it as an attack on matrimony and the traditional family unit. The French lower house of Parliament on Tuesday passed the so-called Marriage for All bill, which opens marriage and adoption to same-sex couples with identical rights previously limited to heterosexual unions. That vote — which was largely split down left-right lines — makes France the ninth E.U. member and the 14th nation in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Opponents decried the legislation — which was one of Socialist President François Hollande’s main campaign promises — as deforming time-honored definitions of marriage and endangering children by permitting gay and lesbian couples to adopt. French public opinion was mixed: polls have consistently shown around 60% of people favoring legalization of same-sex marriage, with a small majority opposed to adoption rights accompanying that reform. (MORE: Is Gay Marriage Too Progressive for the French?) Indeed, given France’s rather liberal, live-and-let-live social reputation abroad, it struck some foreign observers as ironic the French took so long — and battled so bitterly — to legalize same-sex marriage that purportedly stodgier “Anglo-Saxon” countries like the U.S. and U.K. now appear to be moving toward rapidly. Be that as it may, backers of Marriage for All cheered its final passage — and expect, once the law clears constitutional review in late May, the first legal same-sex marriages to be performed in June. “It’s a generous law, and a law of equality,” an elated Christiane Taubira, Socialist Justice Minister and author of the bill, told Parliament after the vote. “We believe the first weddings will be beautiful and that they&#8217;ll bring a breeze of joy, and that those who<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=83489&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/int-french-members-of-parliament-13042.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">French Parliament legalize gay marriage</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>French Ministers Disclose Private Assets Amid Political Scandal</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/17/disclosure-of-ministers-assets-shatters-french-political-taboo/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/17/disclosure-of-ministers-assets-shatters-french-political-taboo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:26:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sweden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Swiss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[switzerland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conflict of interest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conservatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial disclosure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wealth]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=82150</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The French have always had a difficult relationship with money — a love/hate affair that has left France’s rich and powerful as detested as they are envied by the rest of society. That tension came to the fore once more following the April 15 disclosure by French ministers of their personal wealth. That new obligation was denounced by critics as voyeuristic invasion in the private affairs of public officials, while backers praised it for shedding a little light on France’s opaque political class. The French public viewed it as both — and gobbled up details of their leaders’ holdings, even as a majority of people admitted their vote wouldn’t switch if preferred candidates turn out to be well-off. Monday’s publication of personal holdings by all 38 Cabinet members sparked as much excitement in France as it did head-scratching in countries where some form of financial disclosure by government officials is routine. The move was imposed by French President François Hollande in response to tanking public confidence in the political class after his former Budget Minister, Jérôme Cahuzac, admitted he repeatedly lied in denying he’d maintained a secret bank account in Switzerland. Public reaction to the resulting scandal sent Hollande’s approval rating down to 26%. (MORE: Swiss Account of Ex-Minister Further Darkens Hollande’s Political Fortunes) “The End of a Taboo,” trumpeted the April 16 headline of the left-leaning daily Libération. In airing conservative hostility to the measure as a cheap distraction from the Cahuzac scandal, by contrast, right-wing paper Le Figaro dismissed the wealth disclosures as “The Striptease of the Republic.” The less partisan newspaper Le Parisien opted for a more factually accurate (albeit wordier and less sensational) option, with its front-page reaction: “38 Ministers, 37 Houses, 29 Apartments, 40 Cars, 2 Boats and Three Bikes &#8230;” Indeed, the main takeaway from this parade of financial declarations — which are considered routine in Scandinavian countries and the U.S. — is if French pols are abusing their positions to fill their pockets, they’re doing a pretty cruddy job of it. Monday’s filings show<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=82150&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>Swiss Account of Ex-Minister Further Darkens Hollande&#8217;s Political Fortunes</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/03/swiss-account-of-ex-minister-further-darkens-hollandes-political-fortunes/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/03/swiss-account-of-ex-minister-further-darkens-hollandes-political-fortunes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:04:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Swiss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Switzerland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[switzerland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austerity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elysée]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investigation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marine Le Pen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Front]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Sarkozy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scandal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Swiss accounts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=79330</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The troubling political outlook for French President François Hollande darkened further April 2, after his former austerity-enforcing Budget Minister Jérôme Cahuzac admitted to possessing a secret Swiss bank account whose existence he previously denied. The avowal not only delivers a blow to Hollande’s campaign pledge to return transparency and accountability to government. It also undermines the President’s attempts to convince public opinion to accept deficit-reduction efforts he said were being exacted from all sections and actors of French society. Cahuzac resigned his cabinet position March 19 just hours after French prosecutors launched an official inquiry into suspicions of tax fraud. Despite that, the former amateur boxer never flinched from earlier, insistent denials of wrongdoing—and even launched slander proceedings against online Mediapart.fr publication that first broke the allegations. That position of innocence became harder to maintain after an audio recording Mediapart produced of someone fretting about the ability to keep his Swiss account secret from potential inquiry was verified by vocal testing to be that of Cahuzac. By March 26 he’d become sufficiently sure the truth would come out that Cahuzac wrote a letter to the two investigative magistrates overseeing the case to request an interview—a session of mea culpa Cahuzac revealed  on his web site Tuesday afternoon. (MORE: Amid the Depardieu Tax Debacle, France’s Budget Minister Accused of Dodging Taxes) “I met the two judges today,” Cahuzac wrote April 2. “I confirmed to them the existence of the account, and informed them that I’ve already given instructions necessary for all assets deposed in the count—which has not been added to for around 12 years—(worth) around €600,000 euros ($768,000) be repatriated to my Paris bank…Thinking I could avoid confronting a past I considered long gone was an unspeakable error. I will now face this reality in complete transparency.” He’ll have little choice. The result of his avowal to judges led to Cahuzac’s immediate placement under investigation —a step under France’s legal system akin to indictment. The crimes of tax evasion and money laundering involved carry potential prison terms in case of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=79330&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>French Soccer Clubs Aren&#8217;t Safe From François Hollande&#8217;s 75% Tax on the Rich</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/02/french-soccer-clubs-arent-safe-from-francois-hollandes-75-tax-on-the-rich/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/02/french-soccer-clubs-arent-safe-from-francois-hollandes-75-tax-on-the-rich/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:38:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[soccer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[75% income tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[football]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[socialists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wealth gap]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=79240</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Even people who hate soccer (especially people who hate soccer) may want to consider how the beautiful game has become a battleground political clash over France’s financial future. Because as TIME’s Michael Schuman demonstrates in his excellent story titled &#8220;Marx’s Revenge: How Class Struggle Is Shaping the World,&#8221; surging class conflict is increasingly shaping political priorities across the world — and now even staging an unusual pitch invasion in French football. On April 2, France’s leftist government issued a denial that the country’s soccer elite will be protected from Socialist President François Hollande’s decision to hit the country’s top salaries with a 75% income tax. The previous day, the head of the French Football Federation, Noël Le Graet, played an unintentional April Fools&#8217; gag by telling the daily Le Parisien he’d gotten government assurances that France soccer stars and their clubs would be spared from a revamped 75% income tax scheme Hollande revealed March 28. Unlike the initial proposal applicable to people earning over of $1.28 million annually, Hollande’s new plan will leave large companies paying those salaries on the hook for the 75% tax. (MORE: France’s 75% Income Tax on the Rich Overturned as Unconstitutional) Yet on Monday, Le Graet claimed that pro soccer clubs — which he defined as medium-sized businesses despite their employment of sweaty multimillionaires — would be exempt from the measure. Clearly not amused, the government promptly disabused Le Graet and the public of that idea. As a result, team owners, pundits and fans alike are asking whether those new costs — coming atop heavy taxes all French businesses and employees already pay — won’t further handicap the nation’s notoriously modest pro clubs struggling to compete with their financially flush English, Spanish and Italian rivals. (The one exception at the moment in France is table-topping Paris St.-Germain, which is bankrolled by investors from Qatar.) As a lifelong soccer fan and weekend player himself, Hollande had been expected by some observers — Le Graet first among them — to provide French football an umbrella from his<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=79240&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/518585250.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">FBL-EUR-C1-BARCELONA-PSG</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>Jihadi Strike in Timbuktu Reflects Altered Terrorism Threat in Mali</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/04/01/jihadi-strike-in-timbuktu-reflects-altered-terror-threat-in-mali/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/04/01/jihadi-strike-in-timbuktu-reflects-altered-terror-threat-in-mali/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:30:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Algeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Army]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mauritania]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Niger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[timbuktu]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=79024</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The assault launched late March 31 by jihadi fighters on the northern Mali town of Timbuktu reflects the changing security scenario in West Africa. On the one hand, the Franco-African military intervention against groups allied with al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has inflicted considerable losses on Islamist militias — including within their leadership — and forced extremists who previously occupied the northern half of Mali to retreat to the mountainous border with Algeria to escape further fatalities from ground and air assaults. That progress allowed French President François Hollande on March 28 to outline his planned withdrawal schedule for France’s forces. But Sunday’s infiltration and attack on Timbuktu by a small unit of radicals not only demonstrates that the otherwise battered extremists are determined to continue waging jihad despite the setbacks they’ve suffered. It also suggests Islamist militias are already reverting to traditional methods of using the vast, ungovernable Sahel region to avoid enemy forces as they orchestrate regular strikes against military, government and civilian targets in Mali, Mauritania, Algeria and Niger. (MORE: French Officials Warn ‘Success’ in Mali Won’t End Islamist Threat) “The military intervention has decimated Islamist forces and killed key leaders, but no one ever believed it would eradicate jihadi groups in the Sahel,” says a senior French counterterrorism official who cannot be quoted by name. “Surviving commanders and fighters are now regrouping and gradually resuming operation, and will seek to regain some of the influence they had before they made the mistake of taking over the entire northern half of Mali. They’re reverting back from being a terrifying occupation force to being a more elusive force of terrorism.” As that happens, the official says, Islamist groups are expected to increase kidnapping, attacks on military outposts and, throughout the Sahel, suicide strikes on targets that they staged before teaming up with Tuareg militants to seize control of northern Mali in April 2012. Though that activity — which never entirely ceased during their domination of northern Mali — will remain a threat, it’s a far cry from the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=79024&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mali</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/africa/mali-africa/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/int-mali-130401.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>Nicolas Sarkozy&#8217;s Battle With France&#8217;s Judiciary Leads to Death Threats</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/28/nicolas-sarkozys-battle-with-frances-judiciary-leads-to-death-threats/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/28/nicolas-sarkozys-battle-with-frances-judiciary-leads-to-death-threats/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:08:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaddafi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[campaign financing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[controversy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investigation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[L'Oréal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Sarkozy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scandal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=78317</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[France’s rambunctious, razor-tongued former President Nicolas Sarkozy has never hidden his disdain of the nation’s judiciary. But despite his long-running battle with French judges, even Sarkozy could never approve of what&#8217;s arisen in the wave of his latest offensive: death threats leveled at legal authorities who’ve implicated Sarkozy in a roiling illegal finance scandal. On March 27, Bordeaux Judge Jean-Michel Gentil received a letter menacing his life, those of his intimates and leaders of the left-leaning Union of Magistrates (SM). The apparent reason: Gentil heads a trio of investigating judges who on March 21 officially placed Sarkozy under investigation for “abusing the weakness” and mental frailty of L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. That move — which under France’s inquisitorial justice system, is akin to being designated a suspect or being indicted in Anglo-American courts — was based in part on testimony from former Bettencourt employees claiming Sarkozy personally pocketed $193,000 in 2007 from Bettencourt as an illicit donation for his victorious presidential run. The death threat addressed to Gentil less than a week later promised revenge against the “group of red revolutionary judges; totalitarian, rabid and politically committed” involved in the case, and warned the magistrate and SM officials that “one of your people is going to disappear.” (MORE: French Police Raid Sarkozy’s Home, Offices in Illicit-Campaign-Funding Inquiry) Condemnation of the threat — which also carried in its envelope a blank bullet — was unified across the political sphere, but still left Sarkozy and his supporters in a particularly uncomfortable position. The reason: the already outraged reaction by fellow conservatives to Sarkozy’s official implication in the epic Bettencourt scandal. Sarkozy defenders not only mocked his designation as a de facto suspect in the case as ridiculous and politically motivated, but at times even singled out Gentil personally. “I object to the way [Gentil] does his work,” said Sarkozy’s former Élysée adviser Henri Guaino on Europe 1 radio on March 22. “I find it disgraceful. I believe [Gentil] has dishonored a man, state institutions [and] the justice system &#8230; It would be laughable<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=78317&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/sarkozy_legal_woes_0328.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Nicolas Sarkozy</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>France May Aid Syrian Rebels Unilaterally If EU Doesn&#8217;t Lift Arms Embargo</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/14/france-may-aid-syrian-rebels-unilaterally-if-eu-doesnt-lift-arms-embargo/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/14/france-may-aid-syrian-rebels-unilaterally-if-eu-doesnt-lift-arms-embargo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:32:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[arab uprisings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaddafi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Qatar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bashar al-Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[civil war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Damascus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Embargo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[London]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=75356</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[France has significantly upped its efforts to unblock Western military support for rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by calling for the European Union to lift its arms embargo in the conflict. In the most emphatic sign yet that Paris intends to get weapons and ammunition flowing to anti-Assad fighters, French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius said March 14 that if the E.U. and other international partners fail to heed that call, France may act on its own to bolster rebel fighting capacity. “The position we’ve taken, with [President] François Hollande, is to demand a lifting the arms embargo… [as] one of the only ways to get the situation moving politically,” Fabius told France Info radio Thursday morning. Asked what France would do if its partners refused that request, Fabius indicated Paris would act unilaterally, reminding listeners that “France is a sovereign nation”. (MORE: Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion) That push isn’t the first time France has sought to extend aid to Syrian civilians and anti-Assad militias beyond the medical and humanitarian assistance it now provides. During a Jan. 28 conference on Syria in Paris, Fabius warned that continuing to withhold armaments to democratic forces within the Syrian resistance risked seeing large and powerful Islamist members of the anti-government coalition seize control of the country once the conflict ended. Fabius more recently escalated the tone of that message in a March 13 editorial in the daily Libération by describing what he called a Franco-British initiative. That consisted, Fabius said of seeking to bring a swifter end to the escalating massacre of the civil war by offering military as well as political and moral support to rebel forces. &#8220;More than 70,000 dead and a million refugees, the systematic destruction of a country: the second anniversary of the launch of the Syrian revolution is an anniversary of blood and tears,” Fabius wrote Wednesday. “We must convince our partners, particularly in Europe, that we no longer have any other choice than to lift the embargo on arms to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=75356&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Syria</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/syria/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>The Terror of Toulouse: How Much Did the French Know About a Spree Shooter?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/11/the-terror-of-toulouse-how-much-did-the-french-know-about-a-spree-shooter/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/11/the-terror-of-toulouse-how-much-did-the-french-know-about-a-spree-shooter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:42:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Af-Pak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extremism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intelligence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mohamed Merah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Sarkozy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Salafism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taliban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=74246</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On March 11, a one-year memorial was held for French parachutist Imad Ibn Ziaten, the first death in an eight-day-long shooting spree in Toulouse and nearby Montauban that ended with a total of seven victims killed — including three children at a Jewish day school. The shooter, Mohammed Merah, had targeted Ibn Ziaten to punish France for its participation in battling the Taliban in Afghanistan. But 12 months after the series of attacks — which concluded with Merah&#8217;s own death after a 32-hour siege — the country is still learning details about the self-proclaimed al-Qaeda member’s transformation from petty hood to violent jihadist. Perhaps most disturbing among those revelations are indications that the nation’s domestic intelligence agency identified Merah as a potential security risk as early as 2007, yet failed to prevent the mass killings of March 2012. The latest evidence arose March 10, when the regional French channel France 3 Midi-Pyrénées revealed documents showing security forces had begun taking notice of Merah’s ties to extremists in Toulouse as early as October 2006. Though that initial file focused mainly on the higher-profile militants that Merah was in contact with, it did contain a photo of the smiling 18-year-old holding a Koran in one hand and a large knife in the other. By May 2007, the France 3 report noted, a second brief devoted primarily to Merah described the youth as a “radical jihadi” who “recently joined this [Salafi] movement” police had infiltrated. (MORE: France’s Benghazi: Was the Case of Mohammed Merah Bungled?) That online report came ahead of France 3’s March 11 broadcast of a documentary casting additional doubt on the official theory that Merah had been a lone wolf who’d prepared and carried out his three gun attacks alone — making detection by security forces nearly impossible. That version has been fiercely defended by authorities in former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative government, who deny that lax oversight was in any way responsible for Merah’s deadly spree. That position has been challenged by families of victims, investigative journalists, and even<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=74246&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Terrorism</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/terrorism/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/int-toulouse-shooting-anniversary-1303.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A soldier holds a portrait of late French paratrooper Imad Ibn Ziaten, the first victim of Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah, on March 11, 2013 in Toulouse, during a ceremony awarding him with the Legion d&#039;Honneur.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>French Officials Warn &#8216;Success&#8217; in Mali Won&#8217;t End Islamist Threat</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/french-officials-warn-success-in-mali-wont-end-islamist-threat/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/french-officials-warn-success-in-mali-wont-end-islamist-threat/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:36:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Algeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Borders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=72963</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As the French-led offensive against Islamist militants in Mali advances, diplomats and intelligence officials in Paris are beginning to tamp down expectations that eliminating al-Qaeda-linked extremism in the region can be achieved anytime soon. Despite the military operation continuing to inflict heavy losses on jihadi combatants hunkered down in northern Mali’s mountainous border area, they say, the amorphous terrorist threat those extremists pose makes full military victory a relative notion. “Final success in this case probably comes in us decimating Islamists in Mali, and send them scattering to open, unsecured parts of the Sahel — where their ability to organize and execute terror is greatly diminished,” says a French intelligence official who agreed to speak to TIME on the condition of anonymity. “This intervention has cost the Islamists very dearly, and they’re now dug in and trying to survive. But it’s also evident they have no intention of being taken alive, and will die fighting to avoid that if necessary. This unfortunately isn’t an enemy you can eliminate in a single operation.” That caution tempers France&#8217;s recent victories in northern Mali. On March 5, French officials revealed that operations by some 1,600 French and Chadian special forces the previous night had killed around 15 extremists. That followed news on March 3 that some 50 radicals had been slain in heavy fighting that also claimed the life of the third French soldier since the intervention began Jan. 11. Earlier battles left scores of jihadi fighters dead — including a series of skirmishes in late February that Chadian officials say killed at least 93 extremists. Those numbers are considerable given estimates by some French military commanders that between 1,200 and 1,500 Islamist fighters are active in Mali — a figure the French intelligence officer calls “closer probably to 800 or 900.” Two commanders of al-Qaeda-allied Islamist militias in the Sahel are rumored to have died in recent battles. Authorities in Chad say their troops gunned down  al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) regional leader Abdelhamid Abou Zeid — a brutal terrorist and kidnapper whose group is holding many of the 37 Western hostages currently detained<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=72963&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Terrorism</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/terrorism/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/00_mali1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">French in Mali</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>Stop the Presses: (Another) Strauss-Kahn Sex Book Challenged in Court</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/28/stop-the-presses-another-strauss-kahn-sex-book-challenged-in-court/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/28/stop-the-presses-another-strauss-kahn-sex-book-challenged-in-court/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:25:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexual Violence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dominique Strauss-Kahn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DSK]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[publishing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scandal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=71701</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[People wishing the world would turn the page on the seemingly endless Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex saga have  again seen their hopes dashed. On Feb. 26 a Paris court ordered author Marcela Iacub and her publisher Stock to pay Strauss-Kahn €50,000 ($65,000) in damages for another book that—wait for it—details the former International Monetary Fund chief’s allegedly boundless libido and peculiar sexual proclivities. The text grew from an affair Iacub and DSK allegedly pursued between January and August, 2012—a period well after Strauss-Kahn’s peccadilloes had come to the attention of most of the planet. In dishing dirt about her ex-lover, Iacub turns against a disgraced figure she repeatedly defended in newspaper editorials and essays—some of which were written during the pair’s fling. (MORE: The Endless Pathos and Hubris of L’Affaire DSK) Due out Feb. 27, the book titled Belle et Bête (which can be translated as “Beauty and Beast” or “Beauty and Stupid”) describes the conquests and penchants of a “half man, half pig.” It also recounts conversations Iacub says he had with Strauss-Kahn’s unsuspecting wife, Anne Sinclair, about the revelations that had laid her husband low. Last week Sinclair responded in anger to French newsweekly Nouvel Observateur’s decision to publish excerpts of the book, asking why it gave “credit to the maneuvers of a perverse and dishonest woman driven by her fascination for the sensational and the lure of money?” Strauss-Kahn sounded a similar note during Tuesday’s court proceedings, when he asked the court whether “anything [is] permitted in order to make money?” “I want to tell you how shocked I am by this scornful and totally lying text,” said Strauss-Kahn, 63, a former French presidential hopeful. “What’s written cares nothing of (its) devastation to my private life.” The court sympathized with DSK’s objections. In addition to ordering Iacub and Stock to pay Strauss-Kahn damages, the ruling instructed the Nouvel Observateur to hand over an additional  €25,000 ($32,500) to the former IMF honcho. Judges also instructed the book’s publisher to insert a warning into each copy so potential buyers will know the work “Violates Personal Privacy.”  That ought to work wonders dissuading voyeuristic<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=71701&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/int-dominique-strauss-kahn-130227.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Dominique Strauss-Kahn attempts to ban book written by Marcela Iacub.</media:title>
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		<title>The War in Mali: Does France Have an Exit Strategy?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/26/the-war-in-mali-does-france-have-an-exit-strategy/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/26/the-war-in-mali-does-france-have-an-exit-strategy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:17:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Borders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cameroon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.N.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extremism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hostages]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kidnapping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[peacekeeping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=71377</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s looking increasingly unlikely that France’s military intervention in Mali will be over anytime soon. Despite comments by French officials earlier this month that Paris hopes to begin withdrawing troops in March, it now seems evident the stiffening resistance of jihadi groups in the Sahel — pushed out of northern Mali&#8217;s cities by the French-led expedition last month — will require a lingering French presence for months, perhaps even years. (MORE: Mali’s War: After Surging into Islamist-Held North, Will France Retreat?) Over the past two weeks, French commandos have engaged in deadly combat with jihadi fighters, some linked to al-Qaeda, in the mountainous region in northern Mali. That included a Feb. 19 battle that killed 20 insurgents and also claimed France’s second fatality in the campaign. In the meantime, extremists have mounted suicide bombings, mine attacks and armed assaults in and around recently liberated Malian towns as proof that their capacity for violence and terrorism is anything but vanquished. Losses have been even heavier among forces from regional African nations that have deployed soldiers to reinforce — and eventually fully replace — France’s contingent in Mali. Authorities in Chad say they lost 23 soldiers — and killed 93 Islamists — in recent combat with retrenched Islamist units. The wider threat from regional extremists has been demonstrated in other ways. On Feb. 25, a video posted on YouTube by radicals claiming to represent the Nigerian group Boko Haram took responsibility for the Feb. 16 kidnapping of a French family of seven in northern Cameroon. That brought the total of French nationals held by Islamist groups in Africa to 15, with captors demanding the release of their jailed comrades as well as millions in ransom payments. French authorities refuse to negotiate with abductors and say their activity won’t undermine French resolve to battle the jihadi threat in Africa and beyond. Yet French authorities aren’t abandoning plans to begin withdrawal of France’s 4,000 troops from Mali next month. During background briefings on Feb. 25, officials in Paris said they still hoped conditions would be<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=71377&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Africa</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/africa/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/517514594-copy.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">French in Mali</media:title>
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		<title>CEO of U.S. Tire Company Gets into Fight with All of France</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/21/ceo-of-u-s-tire-company-gets-into-fight-with-all-of-france/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/21/ceo-of-u-s-tire-company-gets-into-fight-with-all-of-france/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:55:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Investment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Goodyear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maurice taylor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIchelin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[titan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[work ethic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=70411</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What’s French for “cat fight”? Ask American businessman and would-be industrial investor Maurice Taylor, who has provoked la France entière by claiming the “French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours.” In doing so, Taylor mockingly dismissed French government invitations to invest in a struggling tire factory in northern France. “How stupid do you think we are?” Taylor asked in a letter sent to French Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who had asked the CEO of the Titan International tire company to invest in a money-losing Goodyear plant in Amiens. The notoriously hard-edged Taylor maintained the factory suffers from the same lame work ethic, coddled labor force, union domination and protection of feckless politicians he seems to see plaguing the wider French economy. “You can keep the so-called workers. Titan has no interest in the Amiens North factory,” Taylor said in a double-barrel missive revealed by the French media Feb. 20. “Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one euro per hour and ship all the tires France needs.” (MORE: Goodyear’s French Nightmare) That’s exactly the kind of business ethos assured to enervate Montebourg—a crusading leftist cabinet member who has repeatedly locked horns with bosses over job cuts. Last year Montebourg threatened to nationalize French units of Arcelor Mittal over what he called the steel giant’s “lying” by ignoring promises not to close plants. In replying to Taylor&#8217;s broadside, Montebourg scorned  the CEO&#8217;s “extremist insults” of France as a reflection his “perfect ignorance of what our country is.” Perhaps, but Taylor’s tarring of the Amiens operation succeeded to obtain what may have been a broader objective: using it as a broad brush to tarnish a purportedly pampered, work-averse French society—one the 1996 GOP primary candidate doesn’t seem too fond of. Indeed, in deriding the Goodyear workforce that “gets paid high wages but&#8230;get(s) one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three,” Taylor seemed to be shaking a fist at the entire French socioeconomic model<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=70411&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/goodyear_0221.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Goodyear tire company</media:title>
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		<title>French Family&#8217;s Cameroon Kidnapping Stokes Fears of a Pan-African Islamist War</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/20/french-familys-cameroon-kidnapping-stokes-fears-of-a-pan-african-islamist-war/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/20/french-familys-cameroon-kidnapping-stokes-fears-of-a-pan-african-islamist-war/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:15:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cameroon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Somalia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abduction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extremism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kidnapping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=70074</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Updated: Feb. 21, 2013, at 6 a.m. EST France began holding its breath Feb. 21 amid unconfirmed news that a French family of seven kidnapped two days earlier in northern Cameroon by suspected Islamist extremists had been recovered unharmed. Confusion surrounding the accounts heightened when a French Cabinet minister on Thursday confirmed, then backed away from swirling reports that the vacationing family &#8212; including four children &#8212; had been found in what French media described as an abandoned cabin in northern Nigeria, about 60 miles (95 km) from the Cameroon border region where the abduction occurred. Around the same time, a member of Cameroon&#8217;s government denied the reports before the French Foreign Affairs Ministry also distanced itself from what it termed unsubstantiated &#8220;rumor.&#8221; Still, hopes linger in France that officials may yet be able confirm the end to what might turn out to be a bungled or aborted snatch &#8212; a yearning born of considerable concern. On Feb. 20, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told TV station France 2 the crime was believed to be the work of the notoriously violent Nigerian radical group Boko Haram. Le Drian speculated the kidnapping of the family marked Boko Haram&#8217;s long record of  “terror giving way to horror” as the group “begins kidnapping children.” But even if the happy news of the hostage recovery is confirmed &#8212; and allegations of Boko Haram&#8217;s involvement reviewed &#8212; the kidnapping raises fears of renewed aggression against French and other Western targets as the ongoing push against Islamist fighters in Africa continues. During his television appearance Wednesday, Le Drian dismissed suggestions that the family’s seizure was directly linked to France’s military intervention against Islamist fighters in Mali — where a new major offensive on Feb. 19 led to the deaths 20 militants as well as that of a second French soldier in the monthlong campaign. But despite Le Drian&#8217;s assurances that the Mali operation wasn&#8217;t directly responsible for the abduction, French security officials say the kidnapping is just the kind of aggression they feared from revenge-bent radicals in Africa<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=70074&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Africa</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/africa/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/int-cameroon-kidnapping-130220.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Policemen gather around a vehicle that carried seven members of a family kidnapped in Cameroon.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>As the Horsemeat Hysteria Spreads, E.U. Opens a Mad-Cow Can of Worms</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/19/as-the-horsemeat-hysteria-spreads-e-u-opens-a-mad-cow-can-of-worms/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/19/as-the-horsemeat-hysteria-spreads-e-u-opens-a-mad-cow-can-of-worms/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:29:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Beef]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[food]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[food industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[food production]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[horsemeat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[livestock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mad cow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[regulation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=69832</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Like humor, the key to successful politics is frequently timing. That may explain why a recent food-policy decision by E.U. officials is going over like a lead balloon. On Feb. 14, members of the E.U.’s executive body took a break from Europe’s horsemeat-impersonating-beef scandal to reauthorize a type of animal feed that was banned in 1997 to battle mad-cow disease — an illness that infected nearly 500,000 animals in Europe and killed around 200 people. Observers now grimly marvel at mad-cow-era precautions being rolled back at the very moment the horsemeat flap is raising new concerns about the safety of Europe’s food industry. (MORE: Whoa, Nelly! European Leaders Scramble to (Sur)Mount Horsemeat Scandal) “It’s not a good time,” lamented Guillaume Garot, France’s Junior Minister for the Food Industry, on Feb. 15 — just four days ahead of the Tuesday news that Europe’s horsemeat scandal had spread to Nestlé, the world’s largest food group. “You’d have to have the political sense of an oyster to damage peoples’ perception of Europe this way,” Isabelle Thomas, a French member of the European Parliament, said of the move to lift the mad-cow-related animal-feed ban just now. “We demand the commission immediately revise this decision.” Though the timing of the move, which ends the 15-year prohibition of using animal remains to feed other livestock, was terrible at best, E.U. officials defend reauthorization of processed-animal proteins (PAP) as scientifically sound. The initial interdiction was motivated by suspicions that PAP — whose content often turned livestock into de facto cannibals of fellow species members — may have played a role in ruminants developing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which later spread to human consumers of meat. The new rules allow feed made of restricted parts of pigs and poultry to be used to feed fish starting June 1. Poultry and pig farmers may use feed made from each other’s species as of 2014. The ban on feeding ruminants&#8217; PAP (i.e. of cattle, sheep, goats, etc.) — or using them to produce such meal — remains prohibited. “The most recent scientific findings [demonstrate] the risk of BSE transmission is negligible<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=69832&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Europe</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/</primary_category_link><letterbox>1</letterbox><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/int_madcow_0220.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">MAD COW</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>Whoa, Nelly! European Leaders Scramble to (Sur)Mount Horsemeat Scandal</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/15/whoa-nelly-european-leaders-scamble-to-surmount-horsemeat-scandal/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/15/whoa-nelly-european-leaders-scamble-to-surmount-horsemeat-scandal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:01:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[food]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horsemeat scandal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mad cow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[safety]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=69303</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Diners across Europe continue to cast wary glances at their meals despite new steps by authorities to respond to the region’s horsemeat scandal. On Feb. 15, E.U. experts met to prepare testing and control measures for member nations seeking to uncover any other beef-based food products containing horse. That move came just 12 hours after officials in France said they’d identified the French meat-processing company that allegedly sold equine meat as beef to companies producing frozen and fast food. Yet despite all the activity aiming to restore consumer confidence, other actions taken by food-safety authorities may have only increased public concern. On Feb. 14, British police arrested three people suspected of introducing horsemeat into the U.K.’s industrial-food system by selling it to unsuspecting clients as beef. That raised fears the horse-for-beef swindle might be a wider problem than feared — and one that has infiltrated the fresh-meat market as well as the processed-food chain. (MORE: Pony Burgers? Horsemeat Scam Makes Europe Gag) The scandal began in mid-January when authorities in Ireland discovered traces of horsemeat and pork in frozen hamburgers sold as pure beef. The resulting uproar expanded in February when industrially prepared food products containing beef in Britain were also found with varying levels of horseflesh. The turmoil spread to the continent, where supermarket chains quickly pulled beef products of suspect food brands from shelves. Testing has uncovered levels of horsemeat in nominally beef-based products running from 60% to 100%. About 17 Europe nations already implicated in the nag-in-the-nosh flap have launched investigations into slaughterhouses, meat suppliers and food processors. There were hopes Thursday that the horsemeat crisis might soon be resolved. French officials announced on Feb. 14 they’d established that the Spanghero processing company in southwest France had intentionally sold a reported 42 tons of horsemeat as beef to 28 client companies operating in 13 countries. French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoît Hamon said customs labels on meat Spanghero bought from suppliers in Romania and Cyprus clearly stated the meat was horse. Yet records Hamon cited indicate those horse deliveries were later<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=69303&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>E.U.</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/e-u/</primary_category_link>
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		<title>The European Slump: France Gives Up Lowering Its Budget Deficit</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/14/the-european-slump-france-gives-up-lowering-its-budget-deficit/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/14/the-european-slump-france-gives-up-lowering-its-budget-deficit/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:11:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[austerity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recession]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spending cuts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=69106</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Poorer-than-expected economic news completely outed what was already the worst-kept secret in France. On Feb. 14, members of socialist President François Hollande’s government admitted they wouldn&#8217;t meet their 2013 target of keeping the budget deficit to 3% as previously (and incessantly) promised. That avowal was hardly a shocker: until now, the only people taking the 3% pledge seriously were the same French government officials who continued citing it despite increasingly dire economic statistics. But with figures for the fourth quarter of 2012 showing growth levels worse than feared, even Team Hollande conceded that meeting the 3% deficit objective had become the stuff of fantasy. “We won’t be exactly at 3% for 2013, I believe, for the simple reason that growth in France, Europe and in the world is weaker than expected,” socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said after official stats indicated the French economy shrank by 0.3% in Q4 2012, while growth across the euro zone was expected to decrease to around 0.6%. “[But] the objective — and it will be met — is 0% [budget] deficit by the end of [Hollande’s] five-year term, and what’s important is trajectory toward that.” (MORE: It’s Official: Euro Zone Enters Second Recession in Three Years) That “focus on the bigger target” message is one Hollande and his government have continually peddled to French voters and E.U. officials — especially as the economic outlook has darkened. Yet despite the abandonment of the 3% deficit-reduction target for this year, Ayrault’s assurances on progression to the larger, further balance-budget goal aren’t unfounded. The French deficit that ballooned to 7.1% in 2010 was first lowered to 5.8% in 2011 under conservative rule, and further cut to an expected 4.5% this year after the election of Hollande and fellow leftists last year. The goal of bringing it down this year to 3% — the official maximum allowed for euro members — was set within a range of economic policies and reforms that combined cuts, targeted stimulus spending and increased taxes. That approach, Hollande pledged, would stimulate France’s slumping economy enough<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=69106&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>E.U.</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/e-u/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/wor-hollande-deficit-0214.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">French President  Francois Hollande attends a press conference at the EU Headquarters in Brussels, Feb. 8, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>France&#8217;s Lower House Pushes Through Gay-Marriage Legalization — Now What?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/12/frances-lower-house-pushes-through-gay-marriage-legalization-now-what/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/12/frances-lower-house-pushes-through-gay-marriage-legalization-now-what/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:01:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservative Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gay rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labour Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-sex marriage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialist Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tories]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=68676</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[France took a big step toward balancing the rights of homosexuals and heterosexuals on Feb. 12, when the leftist-controlled Assemblée Nationale passed draft law legalizing marriage and adoption for same-sex couples. The legislation, adopted by a vote of 329 to 229, now heads to the left-dominated upper house of Parliament for expected final passage in April. From there, the so-called Marriage for All bill will undergo routine legal and constitutional vetting before going into force as French law — probably later in spring. Though first-phase passage of the text was virtually certain, the vote was nevertheless significant for numerous reasons. Politically, it was the first major social reform presented by Socialist President François Hollande — whose promise to legalize same-sex marriage was one of his central campaign planks. Meantime, it saw socially liberal France finally embrace marriage and family rights for same-sex couples that many countries adopted long ago, including some considered more conservative. And after several embarrassing policy setbacks — like the constitutional incompatibility of Hollande’s planned 75% tax rate on incomes exceeding €1 million ($1.3 million) — the resounding lower-house approval of Marriage for All sent the French public the not altogether common image of Parliament’s leftist majority marching in lock step with Hollande’s often more cautious Cabinet to put policy into place. (MORE: Where Does France’s Unmarried President Really Stand on Same-Sex Marriage?) &#8220;This law is in line with a long series of republican reforms for equality and against discrimination,&#8221; said Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault as legislators prepared to vote. &#8220;Contrary to what those who rail against it say — and fortunately they&#8217;re in the minority — this law is going to strengthen the institution of marriage.&#8221; Despite the large margin of victory, bringing the text to vote was a laborious affair — and the fight over Marriage for All won’t be over even once the law is enacted. The legislation remains an issue of contention — even among people who back it — and widened the split within French society over same-sex marriage and adoption<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=68676&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>France</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/europe/france/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/517289535.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, French Junior Minister for Family Dominique Bertinotti and French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira listen to members of Parliament explaining their vote on Feb. 12, 2013 at the French National Assembly in Paris.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>The E.U. Budget: Champions of Austerity Win a Big Battle&#8211;for the Most Part</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/08/the-e-u-budget-champions-of-austerity-triumph-win-a-big-battle-for-the-most-part/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/08/the-e-u-budget-champions-of-austerity-triumph-win-a-big-battle-for-the-most-part/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:55:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geo-politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Angela Merkel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Cameron]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=67994</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marathon negotiations between European Union leaders in Brussels produced a deal Feb. 8 on a seven-year budget following 36 hours of tense discussion. Indeed, that compromise appears as much a reflection of the considerable differences still dividing the 27-nation bloc as it is a convergence of vision and priorities. The budget for the 2014-2020 period is being viewed as a success for EU champions of austerity, because while it outlines maximum credits of €960 billion ($1.3 trillion), it limits actual spending to around €908 billion ($1.2 trillion). Overall the document represents a 3% cut from the plan covering 2007-2013—the first budget reduction in European Union history. The accord announced Friday afternoon represents a victory for UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his German budget ally, Chancellor Angela Merkel. The pair had teamed up with demands the same belt-tightening national governments have applied to address debt-swamped public finances also be extended to the EU through budget cuts. That drive led an initial budget proposal of nearly $1.4 trillion to be scaled back to $1.3 trillion during a November summit that ended without a full agreement. The final budget came after the UK-German duo—supported by countries like Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands—clawed back around $15 billion more from the November proposal. Overall, EU officials say, the penny-pinching camp erased about $45.8 billion in previously proposed spending. (MORE: A Deeply Divided European Union Faces Budgetary Cliff) One way the austerity camp did that was by imposing an additional condition that only €908 billion of the total €960 billion credited to the budget will actually be spent—effectively slapping a reduction on a cut. Leaders who resisted those slashing efforts tried to paint them as an inevitable evil within the context of the enduring European financial crisis and economic slump. But even as they sought to put the best face on an accord they clearly disliked, the anti-reduction crowd suggested they’d averted even worse cuts that London had sought to impose. “My responsibility was to put forward what I thought was the best [compromises] under<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=67994&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>E.U.</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/e-u/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<title>Why the Europeans Don&#8217;t Really Want an E.U. Budget Deal</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/07/why-the-europeans-dont-really-want-an-e-u-budget-deal/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/07/why-the-europeans-dont-really-want-an-e-u-budget-deal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:13:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ireland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[italy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Cameron]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Parliament]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=67770</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s difficult to designate an obvious villain in the European Union’s stalled budget negotiations. Virtually all 27 member states are advancing mostly national interests in what’s supposed to be the world’s largest team effort. That is why few observers expect E.U. leaders converging on Brussels Thursday for another round of budget summitry to come away with a mutually acceptable compromise. Indeed, no agreement may be the best agreement for all concerned. The Feb. 7 and 8 summit seeks to establish the E.U.’s budget for the 2014–2020 period — a quest that went nowhere when leaders last huddled to talk finances in November. On the face of it, the cause of the impasse is fairly simple. Fiscally conservative countries like the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark want to see Europe’s budget cut in the same way that spending by national governments has been slashed to remedy debt-plagued public accounts. Countries like France, Poland, Italy and Spain, by contrast, generally seek to maintain or inch up current E.U. funding levels and redirect money saved through austerity to other economic and social programs capable of stimulating slumping growth. If that seems like déjà vu all over again, it is: those are largely the same fault lines that split northern and southern E.U. members over how to respond to Europe’s financial crisis. (MORE: A Deeply Divided European Union Faces Budgetary Cliff) Though a degree of progress toward a budget compromise has been made, literally billions (of euros) of differences must be overcome to reach a deal. An original package of $1.3 trillion for the seven-year period (a 5% rise over the current budget) was revised in late 2012 to $943 billion, under pressure from the U.K. and its allies. London wants the total outlay lowered to under $900 billion, while Germany is aiming for steep but less drastic reductions than Britain. France and its backers want a final amount lifted closer to $980 billion, while E.U. officials reportedly view $920 billion as the most likely figure all members will be able to agree upon. That may be<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=67770&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>E.U.</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/e-u/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/int_hollande_0207.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">France&#039;s President Hollande</media:title>
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