France and the UK have signed two agreements on military cooperation driven by the need for both governments to cut costs and to maintain a credible military capability. French President Nicholas Sarkozy, in London for the signing 2 November, hailed the accord, saying “I know there is a Channel between us, but our values are the same.”
Prime Minister David Cameron said after the signing: “Today we open a new chapter in a long history of co-operation on defence and security between Britain and France.”
One of the treaties will see the two countries cooperate on nuclear research, allowing Britain to share France’s nuclear warhead simulation technology. The two countries have guarded their nuclear secrets jealously in the past.
The other treaty contemplates cooperation on sharing military transport aircraft, on making the two countries’ aircraft carriers interoperable, so that French airplanes can land on a British carrier, and agreeing to keep at least one of their aircraft carriers at sea at any given time. The agreement would also set up a “combined joint expeditionary force” of 10,000 troops from both countries.
There has been vocal opposition to the agreements. Conservative member of parliament Bernard Jenkin said “France has a long track record of duplicity”, according to the BBC. The Daily Mail says “the pact may risk the alliance with Washington.”
Links to other sites: Economist, Financial Times
Greek police arrested two men 1 November in connection with a plot to send parcel bombs to three foreign embassies via courier service in Athens. A fourth parcel was addressed to French President Nicholas Sarkozy. One of the parcels detonated at the offices of a courier service and injured a worker, who has been hospitalized with burns.
One of the two men, aged 22 and 24, is linked to a Greek anarchist group, the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, police said. In June, a parcel bomb killed an aide to the Greek Interior Minister.
Greek police have said they do not believe there is a connection with the recent bombs found in planes originating in Yemen and destined for addresses in the USA.
Links to other sites: BBC, Bloomberg, Boston Globe
French strikers are targeting oil refineries and oil terminals in order to put pressure on President Nicholas Sarkozy’s government to give way on proposed laws on pension reform. Ten of 12 refineries have closed down operations, including all of Total’s, France’s largest refiner.
Police used force to remove striking workers at a major petroleum derivatives depot in Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseilles, early Friday 15 October. The government says that there is at least a one-month supply of petrol and it is asking motorists not to panic. A trip across France by car 14 October revealed normal service station operations and no shortages.
Public transport in Paris is returning to normal, with most Metro lines running normally, and only some intercity rail connections reporting delays.
Links to other sites: Le Figaro (Fre), Libération (Fre), Le Monde (Fre), New York Times
The French government is being shaken by revelations by Claire Thibout, a former accountant to Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L’Oréal fortune, that the ruling UMP party may have benefitted from cash donations to President Nicholas Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007. These allegations have now been partially retracted. Bettencourt is France’s richest woman.
Previously, it was revealed that the wife of Works Minister Eric Woerth had been advising Bettencourt on financial matters. Some of the €15 billion fortune found its way to Switzerland and may not have been properly declared. Eric Woerth is both works minister and treasurer of the UMP.
Woerth, formerly the budget minister in Sarkozy’s government, made chasing French tax evaders a priority and is key to the government’s pensions reform which is attempting to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 in an effort to reduce the French government’s recurrent budget deficit. He has been backed by Sarkozy, though two junior ministers were ousted this past weekend for ostentatious use of taxpayers’ money.
Links to other sites: BBC, Le Monde, Libération, Wall Street Journal
Eurostar, the operator of high-speed trains through the Channel tunnel, was ordered by French President Nicholas Sarkozy to resume regular service by Tuesday 22 December after he met with Guillaume Pepy, the head of the SNCF, the French national railways operator. The French president also demanded that appropriate information be supplied to passengers, in a communique 21 December.
