Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Friday, August 23, 2013

Top cop vs leftist icon rivalry grips French Socialists

Latest update: 23/08/2013 

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Top cop vs leftist icon rivalry grips  French Socialists
© AFP

The rivalry between Interior Minister Manuel Valls and Justice Minister Christiane Taubira has fed the French media through the silly season. Attention is now turning to its effect on the ruling majority in the lead up to local elections next year.

By Thomas HUBERT and Biodun IGINLA, France24 and BBC News
 
France is emerging from the August political torpor with the traditional Socialist Party summer school in the seaside resort of La Rochelle this weekend, and Saturday’s programme summarises the main fault line within the ruling left-wing coalition.
At 11.15am, tough-on-crime Manuel Valls is the keynote speaker at a session on how to “make democracy win against the far-right”. Three hours later, Christiane Taubira is due to lead a debate on judicial policy aiming to end former conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy’s "five years of penal populism”.
The solutions offered by the two ministers in charge of fighting crime appear to diverge radically. “Manuel Valls gives priority to repression and prison sentences. That’s a right-wing approach. Christiane Taubira favours prevention and reformation. That’s the left-wing line,” says political analyst Thomas Guénolé, who lectures at Sciences-Po in Paris.
Amazonia vs. Barcelona
Christiane Taubira (61) hails from the Amazonian overseas territory of French Guiana and started her career as an economist. A member of the Radical Left Party (a moderate, centre-left coalition partner despite its historic name), she is the first black woman to hold a senior portfolio in a French government. Her profile rose sharply when she defended legislation allowing same-sex marriage at the beginning of this year.
Valls-Taubira rivalry in French press on August 14th
Barcelona-born Manuel Valls, ten years her junior, cut his teeth winning elections in the tough suburbs of Paris. A member of President François Hollande’s Socialist Party, he has been the current government’s most popular member in consistent opinion polls for much of the past year.
Competition between the two figures erupted into an open clash mid-August when a note by the interior minister that sharply criticised Christiane Taubira’s justice reform bill was leaked to the press. The proposed legislation drafted by the justice minister -- following advice from a list of experts with various political views -- would end mandatory minimum sentencing for repeat offenders and offer more alternatives to prison terms.
Manuel Valls again proved he did not mince his words when details of a closed-door cabinet seminar on prospects for France in 2025 emerged in French media this week. He questioned current legislation allowing immigrants to obtain residency permits for their immediate family under certain conditions as well as Islam's compatibility with democracy.
Another quote-studded speech by Christiane Taubira
Christiane Taubira's profile rose sharply when she defended legislation allowing same-sex marriage (April 23, 2013)
Christiane Taubira retaliated in a speech at the Green Party’s summer school on Thursday. “If we give in to the temptation of reliance on martial speeches, great threats and intimidating virility – if we give in to that, then, as Césaire would say, France will have pulled on itself the sheet of deep darkness”.
The reference to the French West Indian poet Aimé Césaire is part of her trademark peppering of speeches with literary quotes.
"Prison has a role to play"
Manuel Valls style is different, with frequent off-the-cuff remarks during flash visits at crime scenes around the country. “It is up to the judiciary to hand down very severe sanctions, to match this cowardly and intolerable crime,” he said on Friday after armed robbers shot a pensioner dead earlier in the week. “Prison has a role to play ... without sanction, there is impunity,” he added.
Manuel Valls's tough rhetoric
Manuel Valls on riots after Muslims complained of harsh police treatment near Paris (July 24, 2013)
With six months to go before municipal elections, the ruling majority can use the two figures to bridge the gap between different types of voters.
“When the conservatives are on the offensive with all-prison policies, the majority can send in Manuel Valls and it turns into a right vs. right debate. Conversely, when the left wing of the Socialist Party or the extreme left are asking for guarantees, they can use Christiane Taubira,” said Thomas Guénolé.
"Incompatible" policies
On her blog on Thursday, the Socialist Party’s national secretary for justice Marie-Pierre de la Gontrie acknowledged there had been some praise for Manuel Valls’s position within party ranks. She then went on to defend the justice minister: “To get the full picture, it is just as important to demonstrate how useful Christiane Taubira is to justice and to the left,” she wrote.
Yet Thomas Guénolé warns that the policies promoted by the competing ministers are plainly incompatible.
“If François Hollande supports Manuel Valls, he will lose left-wing voters. If he chooses Christiane Taubira, he will lose on the right,” Thomas Guénolé said.
He added: “In my opinion, right-wing supporters do not vote for the Socialist Party in any case, and the left will need all the votes it can get as early as the first round of polling. In electoral terms, his interest would be to lean towards Taubira’s line.”

Bo Xilai bought his wife a villa in the French Rivera

 by Xian Wan and Biodun Iginla, BBC News

A luxurious, bougainvillea-clad mansion in one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in the French Riviera resort of Cannes emerged as a key exhibit in Chinese prosecutors' corruption case against fallen political heavyweight Bo Xilai on Thursday.
Nestled on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, the six-bedroom villa was once managed by close associates of Bo, including British murder victim Neil Heywood, French court documents obtained by AFP show.
According to French court filings seen by AFP, the villa in Cannes, near Nice, is owned by a French-registered company called Residences Fontaine Saint Georges, founded in 2001.
FRANCE 24's Sophie Hume reports from Beijing
Shide Group chairman Xu Ming testified in court that Bo's wife Gu Kailai told him in 2000 that she wanted to buy a villa in France and Xu provided $3.23 million.
Prosecutors said they had evidence to show Bo was present when Gu showed the businessman pictures of the villa and the politician knew he was buying it for her.
In later years, Xu repeatedly discussed with Gu nominees to own the Fontaine Saint Georges property on her behalf, the prosecution said, according to transcripts of the proceedings released by the court.
Neither Bo nor his family appear on official French records as owners of the property.
Bo told the court: "I was completely unaware of the Nice property and the whole process was made up."
The politician was one of China's highest-flying Communist Party members until his downfall last year following Heywood's death, for which Gu was later convicted.
He faces charges of bribery totalling $3.6 million, embezzlement and abuse of power.
The Cannes property stands on the winding Boulevard des Pins, in a suburb favoured by wealthy foreigners, according to property agents who specialise in high net worth clients.
"It's a quiet boulevard with views of the sea and numerous villas that are owned by emirs and international companies," Patrick Montavon of property firm Agence de la Californie told AFP. "It's next to billionaires' row."
Despite its neoclassical entrance, colonnaded balconies and shaded terrace with accompanying pool, the villa itself appears modest compared to its nearest neighbours, many of which sell for upwards of 50 million euros ($67 million).
The case has cast a spotlight on how disconnected many of China's Communist party leaders are from ordinary citizens, squirrelling fortunes away in overseas investments and sending their children abroad to study.
Bo's family is said to have amassed immense wealth, owning property in France, Britain and the United States.
According to French records, Residences Fontaine Saint Georges received payments from several corporate entities, one of them a limited company registered in Luxembourg called "Russel International Resorts".
Documents detailing the complex payment structures show that three people have run Residences Fontaine Saint George in the last decade, and therefore the Cannes villa.
The first manager was Patrick Devillers, a French architect who maintained a business relationship with both Bo and Gu forged when the politician ran the industrial port town of Dalian.
Devillers was detained in June 2012 at his home in Cambodia at Beijing's request and spent several weeks in custody in China before being released.
The second manager of the luxury villa was Neil Heywood, another friend and business partner of Bo and Gu before their relationship deteriorated.
Heywood was found dead in November 2011 and Gu Kailai was convicted last year of poisoning him after a business deal went sour.
Documents show that six months earlier, Residences Fontaine Saint George was entrusted to Feng Jiang Dolby, a prominent former state television presenter reportedly close to Bo.
Court filings say the company made the change because of "very significant difficulties" as Heywood was based far away, and thanked him for his service.