French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday his government intends to lead France into the 21st century with a new approach to democracy and new policies to boost competitiveness and social harmony.
"We must rewrite our political, social and cultural contract," Fillon told lawmakers, outlining his government's general policies -- marked by vast ambitions in the economic realm, including lowering unemployment from 8.1 percent now to 5 percent -- for the next five years.
"There is a cancer at the heart of the national crisis -- mass unemployment," Fillon said, adding that it not only cuts production and breaks national morale but also blocks integration and feeds extremism.
Fillon, chosen after President Nicolas Sarkozy was elected in May to succeed Jacques Chirac, said no government has managed to stop what he called "the slow spiral downward" that has put France 16th in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's list in terms of riches by inhabitant.
Past governments have failed to reverse the trend because they did not dare "to break this vicious circle of working less and less and becoming more and more indebted," Fillon said.
He promised to increase growth, apparently aiming to raise it from 2 percent to 3 percent a year.
In a vote of confidence, lawmakers of the government's conservative majority easily carried the day, approving Fillon and his program 321 to 224. The right's traditional leftist rivals voted against him.
Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande, responding to the policy speech, said that ``serious risks lie before us,'' asking that the government give an account of its work every six months.
Hollande took a swipe at Sarkozy who has said he wants to be the "president who governs," calling him the "omnipresident ... omnipotent, omniscient" and asking Fillon: "What exactly is your job?"
The powerful CGT union criticized the government policies as "a dressing for decisions already made."
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS