EU Elections: Desperate French Opposition

Between 4th and 7th June 2009, the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) will hold its 7th European Parliament elections. About three quarters of the 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will be elected on Sunday 7th June. These MEPs will represent for a five-year period some 500 million Europeans, making these the biggest transnational elections in history. It is also the only multinational parliament in the world to be voted in through universal suffrage!

EU ELECTION AND VIDEOS

To remind people that they should go to vote, as in any elections, the EU and the member states governments have produced videos to add to their media campaign (find some EU videos below…).

In France, the Government has broadcasted a video that the opposition party has simply called "propaganda". The Socialist Party (SP), relatively low in the polls, demanded the removal of the French European election video, because it said it was "obviously a UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire – Party currently in government and leading polls for the elections) video".

"It really is scandalous", said the SP National secretary for Europe, Benoît Hamon. "There is such a likeness in the images, especially at the end with the words G20, French presidency and 7th June, with the use of the President’s image during the UMP campaign".

DESPERATE OPPOSITION

After watching it again and again, one can only say that there honestly is nothing we can argue about. The video certainly shows Conservative Presidents Giscard, Chirac or Sarkozy, but it also shows Socialist President Mitterrand hand in hand with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and former European Commission President Jacques Delors, himself Socialist.

Dominique Paillé, the spokesman for the UMP, replied to the accusations by saying that "The President of the Republic is the president of all the French. He has led a remarkable action when President of Europe on behalf of France, that all other governments complimented, whatever political party".

BLAIM IT ON SEGO & CO.

If the French socialists do lose the European elections this year, it will certainly not be because of a video… How easy and comfortable is that? They should instead blaim it on the war between their chiefs and on their empty manifesto… Segolene Royal’s reluctance to admit that she has lost both the Presidential election in 2007, then the SP National Secretaryship in 2008, didn’t help the electorate to understand what the party is all about.

Take a look at the video of the French Government: