Tag: France

‘US drawing Europe into crusade against Russia, against our interests’

The US is drawing European states into a “crusade” against Russia, which goes against Europe’s interests, former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said. Speaking to French media, he stressed that Europe now is dependent on Washington.

“Today, Europe is not independent… The US is drawing us [the EU] into a crusade against Russia, which contradicts the interests of Europe,” Fillon told the BFMTV channel.

The ex-French prime minister, who served in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government from 2007 till 2012, lashed out at Washington and its policies.

Washington, Fillon said, pursues “extremely dangerous” policies in the Middle East that the EU and European states have to agree with.

He accused German intelligence of spying on France “not in the interests of Germany but in the interests of the United States.”

Fillon pointed out that Washington is pressurizing Germany to concede to Greece and find a compromise.

He noted the “American justice system” often interferes with the work of “European justice systems.”

“Europe is not independent,” the ex-PM said, calling for “a broad debate on how Europe can regain its independence.”

This, however, would not be possible if Europe goes ahead and signs the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed EU-US treaty, which has drawn much criticism for its secretiveness and lack of accountability.

“I am definitely against signing this agreement [TTIP] in the form in which it is now,” he added.

The TTIP agreement seeks to formalize the economic relationship between the EU and US economies across the board. The two partners trade nearly €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) worth of goods and services annually.

Its supporters promise €100 billion in GDP growth for the EU and almost $90-billion growth for the US, as well as the creation of over 700,000 extra jobs in the US. However, TTIP critics warn the deal would create environmental problems, a loss of economic sovereignty, bring in torrents of genetically modified food and cause unemployment.

French media call G7 ‘idiots’

Nicolas Bonnal of Boulevard Voltaire believes Russia is lucky that it wasn’t invited to the G7 summit this year, comparing the group to the company of hypocritical “idiots.”

As the West is reaching new heights of absurdity, Russia should be happy that it didn’t end up in the company of “idiots,” Nicolas Bonnal said in Boulevard Voltaire.

Russia certainly shouldn’t be ashamed of not being invited to the G7 summit this year. The group of the richest Western nations gathered in Germany, without Russia and China, but with “Italy and its crowds of Libyan refugees,” Bonnal said, comparing the summit akin to being in a luxurious hotel up in mountains, but with non-alcoholic beer.

Even Ethiopia was invited to attend the summit, but not Russia. Russia was punished for not dancing to Washington’s tune.

Moscow was put in a corner for the alleged aggression against Ukraine and the lack of respect for human rights, the author said.

Meanwhile, the United States has 2.2 million prisoners, Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act, 1,200 victims of police brutality and over a million people killed because of drug-related gang wars.

American neoconservatives started a series of atrocious wars in Libya, Iraq, and Syria in their “irrational and even frightening desire to harm,” Bonnal said.

The contemporary G7, which was originally seen as the collection of the world’s largest economies, lacks not only Russia, but also China, India and Brazil. Currently, the group consists of the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Japan, Canada and Italy. And almost no economic growth.

Source: Sputnik News

Yuan inclusion in SDR basket inevitable

An integrated Eurasian block will dominate the world. The Chinese are acting upon that insight.

The IMF is due to re-examine the composition of its currency basket for Special Drawing Rights, a foreign-exchange reserve asset for fund members, later this year says Zhao Yongsheng.

“Our assessment now is that the substantial real effective appreciation [of the yuan] over the past year has brought the exchange rate to a level that is no longer undervalued,” the IMF said last week after it concluded its 2015 Article IV Consultation Mission to China.

Does this mean that the yuan is about to be included in the SDR currency basket? We can consider a “signal” sent by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde during a speech at Fudan University in Shanghai in March: “It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”

Her speech, and the IMF’s announcement, indicate that the yuan is quite likely to be included in the SDR basket when it is reviewed this year.

But merely joining the SDR basket is not the only important step for the yuan, even if it is already a significant development in the currency’s internationalization.

Actually, the inclusion of the yuan in the SDR basket is not just a question of “if” or “when,” but a question of “how much.”

Let’s look first at the composition of the SDR basket, which now includes the four strongest currencies in the world: the dollar, euro, yen and British pound.

When the SDR was launched in 1981, the shares for the five currencies in the basket were 42 percent, 19 percent, 13 percent, 13 percent and 13 percent for the dollar, Deutsche mark, French franc, yen and pound, respectively. The basket is adjusted every five years.

Looking at this original composition, we can divide the basket’s basic structure into two blocks: the “Deutsche mark-French franc block” (or the “euro block” after the adoption of the European single currency in 2001) and the “dollar-pound-yen block.”

This division is based on differences in culture, historical links and even military relationships.

It is true that Germany and France are not the same, as one is a Germanic culture and the other is a French or half-Latin culture.

Nevertheless, these countries had no choice but to work together to establish and expand the European Union. Especially since the birth of the euro, monetary and financial relations between Germany and France have become closer. They are both countries of Europe’s continental culture.

For their part, the UK and US share an “Anglo-Saxon” culture, and their relationship is that of siblings. With regard to Japan, it has close links to the US due to its post-WWII occupation and rebuilding by the US. That’s why we put these three countries and their currencies together.

Originally, the combined share of the mark and franc was 32 percent.

Even if we assume this European continental culture block increased to 37.4 percent for 2011-15, it would still lag far behind the dollar-pound-yen block, which stands at 62.6 percent for the same period.

How can we maintain balance in the SDR basket?

Balance is essential for any game with multiple players, and that is also true of currency baskets.

In the case of the above division, obviously the gap of 25.2 percentage points between two blocks is too huge to be good for stability.

If we assume a share of 10 percent for the yuan in the SDR basket, the euro plus the yuan will make up 47.4 percent of the basket, against a new share for the dollar-pound-yen block of 52.6 percent. Now, the gap is not so large.

Why do we put the euro and yuan together? This implies the necessity for Europe to find another force to implicitly provide balance against the “American hegemony.”

The increasing closeness of Europe and China will be gradually reinforced with the adoption of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative and the operation of the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

This solution can also be a moderate and acceptable reform for the current players in the SDR basket, whatever their position, because even with the new composition, the dollar-pound-yen block will retain a dominant position with 5.2 percentage points more than the euro-yuan block.

Finally, in China’s pursuit of inclusion, France will play a major role – and not only because the IMF’s president is usually a French national.

It is also because France needs China, probably much more than do other countries, to recover from the lingering effects of the financial crisis and keep its economy growing.

Source:Global Times

The author is a Paris-based economist and vice-president of the Paris-based China-France Association of Lawyers and Economists. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Solar panels can power the world says MIT study

An MIT report has found that regular solar panels like the ones used today could supply much of the world with power. They believe terawatts of energy could be produced by 2050 and say that investment, not technology, could be the biggest hurdle.

The world’s population currently consumes 15 terawatts of power from various energy sources, according to the Economist. Despite making up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans use 26 percent of the world’s power.

The publication, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that no revolution in solar energy needs to take place, as scientists already have everything they need to harness the energy of the sun and turn it into electricity, though minor tweaks may help to improve efficiency.

The US, for example, generates less than 1 percent of its energy from solar power. This is something the researchers are looking to change.

“Our objective has been to assess solar energy’s current and potential competitive position and to identify changes in US government policies that could more efficiently and effectively support its massive deployment over the long-term, which we view as necessary,” Robert Armstrong, the director of MIT Energy Initiative, said in a statement.

The Topaz solar farm in California went online at the end of 2014. It generates 500 megawatts of energy, which is enough energy to power at least 160,000 homes. A terawatt is 1 million megawatts of energy.

The company behind the project, First Solar, uses 9 million solar panels to generate electricity. Crucially, it also eliminates over 350,000 tons of CO2 every year, Techspot reports.

“Solar electricity generation is one of very few low-carbon energy technologies with the potential to grow to very large scale. As a consequence, massive expansion of global solar generating capacity to multi-terawatt scale is very likely an essential component of a work-able strategy to mitigate climate change risk,” the MIT report said.

The study has emphasized the need for more research at a federal level, as well as more development support to help to advance low cost and large scale electricity storage technologies.

Battery technology is expected to be a crucial part of the future development of solar power energy, as the batteries can be used to store electricity during peak production and then dispense it at times when there is no sunshine.

The CEO of Tesla industries, Elon Musk, has been a big advocate of trying to develop better batteries that could help to store electricity.

“Our goal here is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy,” Musk said on April 30, Bloomberg reported. “We’re talking at the terawatt scale. The goal is the complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.”

The ability to get funding is out there. For example, the International Monetary Fund has calculated that the fossil fuel industries are receiving $5.3 trillion a year in subsidies, which is the equivalent to $10 million every minute. This is a figure that those looking to promote solar power can only dream of.

The authors of the MIT publication believe that the production of solar power will only increase if carbon dioxide emissions become costly. They admit this is unlikely to happen without a drastic rethink in US government policy.

“The main goal of US solar policy should be to build the foundation for a massive scale-up of solar generation over the next few decades,” the report said.

The researchers point to the example of Germany as a standout in pursuing green energy. In 1991, Berlin adopted a Feed-in Tariff scheme which was a rebate scheme to encourage the production of low carbon source energy.

The scheme was so successful that by 2013 Germany was producing 45 percent of solar energy in the EU, and 27 percent of solar energy around the globe, despite the fact that the country is not renowned for having a year-round sunny climate.

Marine le Pen: We must resist corporations

Leader of France’s National Front party, Marine Le Pen, has launched a month-long blitz against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – a proposed EU-US treaty, which has been criticized for secretiveness and lack of accountability.

“It is vital that the French people know about TTIP’s content and its motivations in order to be able to fight it. Because our fellow countrymen must have the choice of their future, because they should impose a model for society that suits them, and not forced by multinational companies eager for profits, Brussels technocrats sold to the lobbies, politicians from the UMP [party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy], who are subservient to these technocrats,” Le Pen said during a press conference in Paris.

Since 2013, open-ended negotiations between Washington and Brussels have drawn up the framework for the agreement, intended to standardize legislation and bring down trade barriers between them.

As per US practice, the contents of all economic treaties are classified. The EU has recently set up reading rooms throughout Europe for officials with clearance – but only a few thousand people have had access to the working documents.

Le Pen hit out at the secrecy of the negotiations, which have featured mostly bureaucrats from the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, and nebulous “stakeholders” from businesses and public organizations. As a member of the European parliament, she forwarded a motion for greater transparency in negotiations last year. Le Pen’s motion was defeated.

She is now hoping for grassroots support.

“I am convinced that we can push back the TTIP if the peoples are informed of its content, and if they decide themselves to join us in order to express their disagreement concerning this treaty,” Le Pen told journalists.

Both of France’s leading parties have endorsed the treaty, but Le Pen is relying on strong the anti-European sentiment that propelled her party to first place in last year’s elections for the European parliament.

While TTIP’s authors promise that the treaty will bring an extra 0.5 percent GDP to Europe and the US, figures across the political spectrum have expressed concern.

US President Barack Obama, who is also negotiating a similar treaty with Asia, was defeated by his own party in the Senate last week when he asked for fast-track approval to handle negotiations. Additional votes will be required if the proposed legislation is not to be bogged down in the US chambers of Congress.

Meanwhile, European legislators have raised a host of issues, in particular concerning the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism outlined in the treaty. The controversy centers on the proposed special economic tribunal, which would operate outside the traditional legal system and allow corporations to challenge governments.

In April, thousands took to the streets of Brussels, Madrid, Berlin and Helsinki to protest against the secretive deal.

Case that sparked 3 weeks of rioting heard in France

A French court delivers its verdict in the case of two police officers accused of not helping two youths electrocuted in 2005, whose deaths sparked three weeks of rioting.

The deaths of Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, following a chase by police ignited three weeks of arson and running clashes with security forces in downtrodden French city suburbs.

The two officers, Sebastien Gaillemin and Stephanie Klein, stand accused of “non-assistance to individuals in danger” by failing to raise the alarm after the two youths scarpered into an electricity substation.

They risk a five-year prison sentence and a fine of up to 75,000 euros ($86,000) if found guilty, but both prosecution and defence have called for them to be let off.

Gaillemin told the court during the trial that he had checked twice to see whether the youngsters were still in the substation and, satisfied that they were clear, left the scene.

“As he was not aware of the danger, he cannot be blamed for not acting to deal with it,” said prosecutor Delphine Dewailly.

“You don’t ease the pain of one drama by adding another injustice,” she told the court at the emotional trial, during which both officers broke down in tears.

Daniel Merchant, a lawyer for the officers, said: “There will only be closure if they are let off. The case will then be closed… Ten years, that’s enough now.”

Merchant added that in the case of a conviction, he would appeal on behalf of his client.

However, relatives of the two dead youths — as well as a third youth who escaped with burns — have launched a civil case, seeking a total of 1.6 million euros in compensation and damages.

A lawyer for the families said he was certain the officers were guilty of not coming to the boys’ aid. “Lets call the crime what it is,” said Jean-Pierre Mignard.

Much of the trial turned on one phrase uttered by Gaillemin during the chase.

According to transcripts from the police radio, he was heard to say: “They are climbing over to get to the EDF (electric company) site. If they enter the EDF site, I don’t give them much of a chance.”

During the trial, Gaillemin said he was only aware the boys were running “towards the site” and was not sure they had actually entered it.

Nevertheless, the trial has again brought to the fore the alienation felt by many in France’s ghetto-like suburbs, which Prime Minister Manuel Valls said earlier this year still represent a form of “territorial, social and ethnic apartheid”.

Source: AFP

Marine says Le Pen should no longer speak for party

France’s National Front chief Marine Le Pen said Sunday her father should “no longer be able to speak in the name of” the party, as a bitter public feud between the two continues.

Jean-Marie Le Pen infuriated some last month by reiterating his long-held view that the Nazi gas chambers were merely a “detail of history”, as well as making other controversial remarks defending the “white world”.

Previously he hailed the outbreak of Ebola in Africa as welcome. His latest comments also come in the wake of a recent controversial interview with Ursula Haverbeck on Germany’s ARD channel in which Haverbeck claims that the “Holocaust was the biggest pack of lies in history“.

Le Pen earlier praised French wartime leader Philippe Petain, who collaborated with the Nazis.

Marine condemned the comments as “political suicide” and a highly-publicised spat between them saw the 86-year-old party founder forced to pull out of upcoming regional elections.

“Jean-Marie Le Pen should no longer be able to talk in the name of the National Front, his comments are against the fixed (party) line,” she told French radio.

Marine Le Pen has been actively trying to distance the party from its racist and anti-Semitic image as she plans her bid for the next French presidential election in 2017.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was conspicuously dropped from a line-up of National Front leaders on stage during the party’s traditional May 1 rally in Paris.

But determined to upstage his daughter, he nevertheless strided uninvited onto the podium to take the ovation of the crowd.

“I think that was a malicious act, I think it was an act of contempt towards me,” Marine said Sunday.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has been summoned Monday to appear before the party’s top executive authority, which will examine whether to take action against him following last month’s comments.

The FN’s honourary president was in hot water just days before because allegations emerged that he had stashed 2.2 million euros in a secret Swiss bank account.

Some protesters also tried to take the stage at the event, but the old patriarch upstaged the opportunists.

Gay cartoonist says he will no longer insult prophet

Cartoonist Luz, who drew Charlie Hebdo’s front cover picture of Mohammed following the massacre of the satirical weekly’s editorial team by jihadists in January, has told a French magazine he will no longer draw the prophet.

The gay cartoonist and lover of Charb, one of the cartoonists killed in the attack, insisted that he was not scared of reprisals. “The terrorists did not win,” Luz told Les Inrockuptibles.

“They will have won if the whole of France continues to be scared,” he told AFP, accusing the “far-right” National Front of trying to stir up fear in the wake of the attacks.

“I will no longer draw the figure of Mohammed. It no longer interests me,” he told Les Inrockuptibles magazine in an interview published on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to spend my life drawing (cartoons of Mohammed).”

Luz’s cover image in January portrayed Mohammed with a sign saying “Je Suis Charlie” under the words “All is forgiven”.

The issue came out a week after the attack by jihadists on the magazine’s office left 12 dead. It had a print run of eight million, a record for the French press.

Before the attack the magazine faced closure.

Vatican turns down gay French ambassador

Three months after appointing an openly gay diplomat as France’s ambassador to the Vatican, Paris is still waiting for the green light from Rome.

While the Vatican usually declares it has accepted a candidate around a month after an appointment is made, it makes no public statements at all if the answer is no.

Paris appears determined to stick with seasoned candidate Laurent Stefanini, a 55-year-old practising Catholic whom the foreign ministry described as “one of our best diplomats”.

“That’s why we appointed him. We are waiting for a reply to our request,” it said.

Sources close to President Francois Hollande said his appointment was “the wish of the president” and the cabinet of ministers.

The French cabinet approved Stefanini’s appointment on January 5 but has not yet received a reply.

“A delay of three months like this is not normal,” a well-informed source in Rome told AFP.

“Homosexual people are rejected in the Vatican, despite their merits (and) indisputable qualities,” said Flavio Romani, who heads the Italian gay rights group Arcigay.

Accusing the Holy See of failing to implement its “teachings of openness”, he blasted the Vatican as acting “like Uganda”, where gays are unwanted.

Source: AFP

French intel chief questions NATO claims

France’s intelligence chief has questioned NATO’s claims of Russia preparing to attack Ukraine as their agents failed to spot any activities signaling this – either before or after the crisis began.

A statement by the chief of France’s military intelligence, General Christophe Gomart, was published on the National Assembly’s website.

“NATO announced that the Russians were about to invade Ukraine. But, according to French intelligence, there is nothing to corroborate this hypothesis – we determined that the Russians were deploying neither command posts nor logistical facilities, including field hospitals, needed for a military incursion,” General Gomart told a parliamentary hearing.

NATO’s top brass has been incanting mantras about a “Russian invasion” ever since the crisis in Ukraine began a year ago. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as his predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen, have lashed at Russia on numerous occasions, claiming that the Russian military is present on the ground in Ukraine, but failing to provide evidence supporting these claims.

“Our conclusion eventually proved correct because even if some Russian soldiers had indeed been seen on the Ukrainian side of the border, it was just a ploy, meant to bring pressure to bear on President Poroshenko, rather than an attempt to invade Ukraine,” General Gomart said.

The French intelligence chief’s remarks came in the context of France’s role in NATO. Gomart noted that at the moment the alliance is dominated by US intelligence, while France’s intelligence is taken not taken into consideration so much.

“France will not be fooled. France has its own sources of information and we are aware what the explanation for the crisis in Ukraine is,” Philippe Migault, expert on Ukraine from the University of International and Strategic Relations, said.

Meanwhile an American RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft was buzzed by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet over the Baltic Sea near Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, according to the Pentagon.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that the interception was launched after “Russian air defense radars spotted an unidentified air target over the Baltic Sea making steady progress toward the national border.” The aircraft had its transponder turned off, Konashenkov said.

The head of Russia’s Upper House Committee for Foreign Relations, Konstantin Kosachev, called on to NATO to stop their “hysterics” over flights by the Russian Air Force, “presenting them as aggression and demonizing Russia.”

“In connection with the incident over the Baltic one should keep in mind that Russia is a Baltic country, whereas the US is not,” Kosachev said.

Frants Klintsevich, of the United Russia party, said the report showed US intelligence has been working to fulfill a political order.

Meanwhile, on Friday five Northern European states, non-NATO Finland and Sweden included, signed a declaration on the expansion of military cooperation to counter “Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

Since Finland and Sweden intend to interact with NATO on a matching contribution basis, which might indicate a desire to join the alliance, Moscow will view this declaration as an act of aggression, Norwegian defense analyst Janne Haaland Matlary warned.

“Finland and Sweden have also decided to keep their exercises to NATO standards, which implies a step on the way toward NATO. Today, there are no political grounds for them to join NATO, public opinion is not frightened enough, and referendums will be required. But what is happening now still looks like a preparation for membership,” Matlary told Aftenposten newspaper on Friday.

Marine furious about Le Pen’s gas chamber remarks

France’s right-wing was plunged into disarray Wednesday as National Front leader Marine Le Pen openly split with her father and party founder after gas chamber comments she described as “political suicide”.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the outspoken 86-year-old founder of the FN party, has dominated headlines in recent days, repeating his view that the Nazi gas chambers were a “detail of history” and defending war-time French leader Petain, who collaborated with Hitler’s regime.

In an interview with the far-Right review Rivarol, Mr Le Pen stood by his gas chamber remarks, saying: “I am not the type of man who changes his mind or crawls.”

Then, when asked to comment on the presence of Pétain supporters within the party, he replied: “I have never considered Marshal Pétain a traitor. They were very severe with him after the Liberation. I never considered as bad French people or pariahs those who still hold the Marshal in esteem.”

He then attacked Mr Valls, France’s Spanish-born prime minister, who became a French national aged 20, saying: “Valls has been French for 30 years. I’ve been French for a thousand years. What are Valls’s real ties to France? Has this immigrant changed dramatically?”

His latest sorties appear to have been the last straw for daughter Marine, who has been trying to clean up the party’s anti-Semitic and racist image since she took over in 2011, a move that has seen it soar in opinion polls as it attracts more mainstream voters.

And some analysts say that while splitting from her father will be painful, it could end up making the FN more electable.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is veering between “political suicide” and “a scorched earth strategy”, said Marine, 46.

“His status of honorary president does not allow him to take the National Front hostage, to make such crass provocations that appear aimed at harming me but which unfortunately hit the entire movement, its officials, candidates, members and voters very hard,” she added.

Political scientist and FN specialist Virginie Martin told AFP that Marine’s latest move could benefit the party’s standing in the polls.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is “a historic figure who always amuses the crowd and… appeals to the historic, hard-line wing of the FN,” she noted.

“But at the same time, they’re never going to lose that part of the electorate. What’s the risk of cutting off Le Pen? You might lose one or two percent but you might gain five or six.”

“Think of the section of the (centre-right) opposition UMP that are disenchanted by traditional political parties… for them, the barrier presented by Le Pen has disappeared.”

Rabbi asked to remove kippa at French polling station

A rabbi in the city of Toulouse has filed a complaint for discrimination after a polling clerk told him he would have to remove his kippa, or Jewish skullcap, before voting in local elections.

The incident, indicative of the sometimes complex interpretation of France’s strict secular rules, took place on Sunday during the first round of nationwide polls to elect new local councils.

A polling clerk representing the left-wing Front de Gauche coalition told Toulouse rabbi Avraham Weill to remove his kippa inside the polling station, claiming this was required by French rules on secularism.

French law says it is illegal to wear “ostentatious” religious symbols, including Jewish kippas and Muslim headscarves, inside state schools.

Weill said Sunday’s incident had left him with a “bitter taste”, coming three days after Toulouse hosted commemorations for the victims of Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed three French soldiers and four members of a Jewish family during a 10-day shooting spree in March 2012.

In a sign of growing tensions, a pregnant Muslim woman was taken to a Toulouse hospital on Tuesday after she was attacked and beaten by an unknown man who insulted her for wearing a veil.

Last month, the Observatory against Islamophobia said more anti-Muslim acts were reported in January than in the whole of 2014.

‘Marine Le Pen could win presidential elections in 2017’

Ludovic de Danne, European Affairs Adviser for the leader of the French right-wing party Front National Marine Le Pen, said that Marine Le Pen could become number one in the presidential elections, if the National Front party gains 7 million voters.

French departmental elections showed that the National Front party could gain a record number of votes in the presidential elections, possibly making Marine Le Pen the next French president, European Affairs Adviser for the leader of the French right-wing party Front National Marine Le Pen, told Sputnik Monday.

“More than 5 million voters for National Front – it has never happened before, it’s unprecedented! If we could keep this kind of figures, Marine Le Pen will have the chance to reach 7 to 8 million voters for president’s elections… In this situation Marine Le Pen could become number one,” Ludovic de Danne told Sputnik.

De Danne explained that Marine Le Pen’s chances are very high as the UMP alliance consists of several different parties and each of them will have to present their own candidate for the presidential elections whereas National Front has a single candidate.

“Sarkozy pretends to be a winner in these elections, but when it comes to the president’s elections it’s not going to work like this. The UMP alliance will have to separate and each party will have to have the candidate of its own. And they don’t have the chances against Marine Le Pen,” de Danne said.

More than 140 believed dead in latest air disaster

A passenger plane flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf has crashed in a remote and mountainous area of southern France, officials have confirmed.

The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, said he fears between 142 and 150 people have been killed.

The Airbus A320 making the flight for Lufthansa’s lowcost arm, Germanwings, crashed near the small mountain village of Barcelonette in the southern Alps.

A distress call was made by the aircraft at 10.47am, while the plane was “in an abnormal situation”, the French transport ministry said. The crash happened shortly afterwards, it added.

The aircraft disappeared off the radar at around 11.20am, Le Figaro reported. The plane dropped from 38,000 feet to 6,925 feet in nine minutes between 10.31 and 10.40, air radar services said.

At least 142 passengers and six crew-members on board. Spain’s deputy prime minister said 45 passengers were believed to be Spanish nationals. A spokesman for France’s interior ministry said the passenger manifest was being verified.

The plane crashed at 2,000 metres altitude in the Alps, in the commune of Méolans-Revel, an isolated area of small villages and hamlets that are difficult to reach.

The French weather station says the meteorogical conditions were calm at the time of the accident and that the sky was “completely clear”, with almost non-existent wind.

Gilles Gravier, president of Tourism in the Val d’Allos ski resort area, said nothing of the crash had been heard from the pistes in his village. He said 400 gendarmes, firefighters and emergency search and rescue personnel had been mobilised but the zone was “extremely difficult” to get to.

Florent Plazy, director of the local ski school ESF, confirmed the area was hard to access even for mountain walkers.

Eric Ciotti, the head of the regional council, said search-and-rescue teams were headed to the crash site but Pierre-Henry Brandet, the interior ministry spokesman, told BFM television that he expected “an extremely long and extremely difficult” operation because of the area’s remoteness.

“The aircraft debris has been localised, and we can only fear a heavy death toll. The first information from rescuers suggests that the number of survivors, if there are any, will be low, but until we have reached the site by land, we cannot say with any certitude. The rescuers are being taken in by helicopter.”

The French president, François Hollande, said it was likely there were no survivors.

He said the crash happened in “an area that was very difficult to access” and did not know yet whether any homes had been affected on the ground. “Solidarity is our first sentiment at this moment,” he said.

Spain’s airport operator, Aena, has confirmed that the plane left Barcelona at 8.55am, a slight delay from its expected departure of 8.35am but did not know the reason for the delay. It said it had designated a special room in Terminals 1 and 2 of Barcelona’s El Prat airport for family members and media.

Airbus said it was aware of reports about the crash.

“We are aware of the media reports,” Airbus said on Twitter. “All efforts are now going towards assessing the situation. We will provide further information as soon as available.”

The crashed A320 is 24 years old and has been with the parent Lufthansa group since 1991, according to online database airfleets.net.

Source: The Guardian