The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Paris /Â AFP
The surprise winner of the first round of France’s rightwing presidential primary, conservative ex-premier Francois Fillon, was the runaway favourite on Monday to win the contest expected to decide France’s next leader.
Fillon, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher who has pledged deep economic reforms, pulled off a stunning upset on Sunday, surging from behind to knock his former boss Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race and beat the longtime favourite, Alain Juppe, into distant second.
Fillon and Juppe, also a former prime minister, will go head-to-head in a run-off on Sunday, with the winner expected to meet far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election in May.
As Fillon faced immediate attacks from the left as “an ultra-conservative”, former centre-right prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin also warned that his programme of cuts was “unworkable.”
“There is no chance of implementing reforms through brute force,” Raffarin, an ally of Juppe, told BFM television on Monday morning.
Polls show Le Pen being beaten at the final hurdle but her rivals have warned that all bets are off in a country where anti-elite sentiment that propelled Donald Trump to the White House is also running high.
Sarkozy’s defeat at the hands of his former premier Fillon, a man he once nicknamed “Mr Nobody”, marked what appeared to be an ignominious end to the ex-president’s forty years in politics.
His hard-right campaign and failure to enact many of his promises when in power from 2007-2012 repelled many voters in his camp.
Conceding defeat for the second time in four years, an unusually humble Sarkozy said it had not been easy for his family to live with a man who “arouses so many strong feelings”.
“It is time for me to begin a life with less public and more private passions,” he said, endorsing Fillon in the second round.
Fillon, a car-racing enthusiast who was premier throughout Sarkozy’s 2007-2012 presidency, emerged as a compromise choice between Sarkozy and Juppe, whose reform agenda is seen by many conservatives as too timid.
With nearly all the votes counted on Monday, he had won 44.1 percent of the vote in France’s first ever rightwing primary, which drew some four million voters, far more than expected.
Juppe, a moderate who campaigned as a unifier, polled 28.6 percent, ahead of Sarkozy with 20.6 percent.
French police foil terror attack, arrest 7
paris /Â AFP
Police have broken up a terror ring plotting an attack in France after arresting seven suspects in Strasbourg and Marseille, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Monday.
The arrests of the alleged plotters from France, Morocco and Afghanistan “enabled us to prevent a long-planned terror attack on our soil,” Cazeneuve told a televised news conference.
He said the investigation would show whether “the foiled attack was a coordinated attack aiming to target several sites simultaneously on our soil.” Police raids were carried out overnight Saturday to Sunday in the eastern city of Strasbourg and Marseille in the south following an eight-month investigation by security services.
“Credible information made these arrests necessary,” one security source said earlier, asking not to be named because they were not authorised to speak on the case.
France remains in a state of emergency that gives security forces enhanced powers to mount surveillance and launch raids, a year after attacks by extremists on Paris that left 130 people dead.
Security and fears about extremism are playing a major role in campaigning ahead of France presidential elections due in April and May next year.