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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (264561)	6/17/2002 1:42:55 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

moesey, Ray is "ignoring" Tom. Life is too precious to waste on the mentally ill. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Here's a fun one for ya, moe: ucomics.com TTFN :)

To: Neeka who wrote (264561)	6/17/2002 2:14:15 AM
From: JEB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Na, ...he's crying in his brie over this: ______________________________________________________ French Conservatives Take Control 06/16/2002 9:58 PM EDT By PAMELA SAMPSON PARIS (AP) - The mainstream right won a huge victory in France's parliamentary election Sunday, forcing the Socialists to surrender control of the National Assembly and giving President Jacques Chirac more power than at any time in the last five years. The result was a stinging defeat for the French left, which found itself abandoned by voters frustrated by rising crime and a government paralyzed by "cohabitation," a situation that exists when the president and prime minister hail from opposing political parties. The head of Chirac's caretaker government, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, now looks set to act for the next five years as point man for the president's ambitious pro-business agenda. Raffarin would have lost his post if the left had won Sunday. "We will assume our duty of action," Raffarin said at his Paris headquarters as hundreds of supporters chanted his name. "We have the obligation not to disappoint. We will act with firmness and with openness." Conservative parties together won from 385 to 399 seats of the 577 seats in France's lawmaking body, exit polls showed. The left, including the Socialists, the Communists and the Green Party, won from 178 to 192 seats. The extreme-right National Front failed to win any seats. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy did not announce official seat counts but confirmed late Sunday that the left won approximately 180 seats, leaving the right with close to 400. Chirac's Union for the Presidential Majority, a coalition of rightist parties, captured between 360 and 378 seats, and the Socialist Party won between 153 and 165 seats, the exit polls showed. The Interior Ministry reported that with 96 percent of the vote counted, the right had 55 percent and the left had 45 percent. Control of the National Assembly goes to the party or coalition with an absolute majority. All but 58 seats that were already decided in a first round of voting last week were being contested on Sunday. The swing toward the right in France was just the latest tilt in that direction by voters across Europe. Conservative parties have also made gains in the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and Portugal. Raffarin will preside over a government that Chirac has promised would cut income taxes, ease red tape on businesses, and give businesses some flexibility in implementing the law that sets the legal workweek at 35 hours. Some big names who served in the Cabinet of former Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin lost their races, including Martine Aubry, the former labor minister who was instrumental in implementing the 35-hour workweek; Dominique Voynet, Jospin's environment minister; and Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the former interior minister. "This great victory for the right has swept away many of my convictions," Voynet, an environmentalist and outspoken critic of Chirac, told France-2 television. The Communists suffered as well, with party leader Robert Hue losing a tough re-election battle for a seat from Val-d'Oise, north of Paris. The Communists lost 15 of their 35 seats, according to exit polls, get just the 20 seats needed to officially qualify as a party and get speaking time in the legislature. The Interior Ministry said turnout was about 63 percent, which would be a record low for a legislative election under the Fifth Republic, established in 1958 under a new constitution. It was the fourth time in less than two months that the French have gone to the polls, including two rounds of the presidential race. The extreme-right National Front was running in 37 legislative districts but ended up with no seats because only the candidate with the most votes wins in each district. Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter, Marine, lost her race in northern France. The elder Le Pen has complained that the system is stacked against smaller parties. "We are the only country in which a party that arrived in second place in the presidential (race) and third place in the legislatives may have no deputies" in parliament, Le Pen said. The National Front currently has no seats in the legislature. Le Pen finished second to Chirac in the May 5 presidential runoff. In the outgoing parliament, leftists held 314 seats and rightists 245, while five deputies were unaligned. Thirteen seats were empty. apnews.excite.com _________________________________________________________ It's been a very bad day for Ray. Better give him a wide birth, ...he's bound to be a bit testy!