Hm. Chinese superstitions aside, this could be just because the roots of Enlightenment are once again shaken by neo-capitalism.

Indeed Chirac did say that 2 hours ago, you were pretty fast Invictus
It wasn't a big surprise though. Here is a bit of background.

The French government conservatist right-wing party (UMP) originally founded by Chirac is currently cut in two separate antagonist sides. Villepin, the prime minister, is the "official" heir of Chirac, of whom he is a "protégé", and a long follower. Sarkozy, the outsider, has exactly (more or less) the same economic and politic program as Villepin, but he succeeded in taking over the presidential party, the UMP. So he's president o...

Hm. Chinese superstitions aside, this could be just because the roots of Enlightenment are once again shaken by neo-capitalism.

Indeed Chirac did say that 2 hours ago, you were pretty fast Invictus
It wasn't a big surprise though. Here is a bit of background.

The French government conservatist right-wing party (UMP) originally founded by Chirac is currently cut in two separate antagonist sides. Villepin, the prime minister, is the "official" heir of Chirac, of whom he is a "protégé", and a long follower. Sarkozy, the outsider, has exactly (more or less) the same economic and politic program as Villepin, but he succeeded in taking over the presidential party, the UMP. So he's president of the UMP and current "ministre de l'interieur" (he controls police for instance) -- he's the "number 2" of the government.

There is a "cold war" between those two guys. The Sarkozy side, after the demonstrations of these last weeks, began to take its distance from the law, and we see more and more followers of Sarkozy offficially asking for a withdrawal of this proposition. Villepin, its main artisan, is of course trying to make it pass.

So Chirac couldn't really do anything else than signing it. Otherwise it would have send the message he was kind of supporting Sarkozy.

Of course those "differences" are nothing but political, and both have exactly the same economic and political views. After all they are in the same party.

The presidential elections in 2007 sure will be very entertaining.

Good points Invictus
I was speaking only of the struggle inside the government party, but they are far from the overall representation As you may know, we have a huge number of parties in France, with maybe 15 or 20 candidates from differente parties (or branches of the same parties) at the presidential elections.

The overall UMP is in fact quit low in the polls these days, due to this recent law of course, but not only. It has been the case for a long time, due to a number of other criticised laws and corruption stories involving Chirac himself, and opposition won most of the recent local elections, by far.

The left-wing "main" opposition is the socialist party. Their current probl...

Good points Invictus
I was speaking only of the struggle inside the government party, but they are far from the overall representation As you may know, we have a huge number of parties in France, with maybe 15 or 20 candidates from differente parties (or branches of the same parties) at the presidential elections.

The overall UMP is in fact quit low in the polls these days, due to this recent law of course, but not only. It has been the case for a long time, due to a number of other criticised laws and corruption stories involving Chirac himself, and opposition won most of the recent local elections, by far.

The left-wing "main" opposition is the socialist party. Their current problem is that they have no "true" leader. Ségolène Royal, the wife (!!!) of the current leader of the socialist party (a non-charismatic technocrat; Francois Hollande) rised a lot in polls these last months, and could be a valid candidate for the election. But a lot can happen until may 2007... Problem is that they were in the opposition for a long time, and a bunch (like 6 or 7) of potential candidates (Fabius, Strauss-Kahn, Lang, etc.) are currently preparing their personal plots to be candidates for the party (because a lot of people currently feel the socialist party will the one which win in 2007). So we could see an epic battle among Socialists too.

In between the UMP and the Socialists, a self-defined "centrist" party tries to fight to emerge: UDF. In reality, there are very close to the UMP (in which half of the UDF has been swallowed when Chirac created it) but its leader Fancois Bayrou wants to drive away its paty from the UMP and its curent bad reputation, and appear as a valid alternative. He might succeed.

==> Follow up

To the extreme-right, I won't speak a lot about the infamous Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen, notorious in the world for its racism and anti-semitism, naming the Holocaust a "detail" of the second world war for instance. Economically and morally, they are close to the right wing of the US Republican party.

To the left of the Socialists, here again, lots of "small" parties.
First the Communist party, still alive and kicking, though greatly diminished if we compare them as what they were in the 50s or the 60s. They are still (often, ut not always) a stong ally of the Socialists though.

To the left of them, we have 2 Trotskyst parties: Lutte Ouvrière ("Laborer Fight" or something) and LCR...

To the extreme-right, I won't speak a lot about the infamous Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen, notorious in the world for its racism and anti-semitism, naming the Holocaust a "detail" of the second world war for instance. Economically and morally, they are close to the right wing of the US Republican party.

To the left of the Socialists, here again, lots of "small" parties.
First the Communist party, still alive and kicking, though greatly diminished if we compare them as what they were in the 50s or the 60s. They are still (often, ut not always) a stong ally of the Socialists though.

To the left of them, we have 2 Trotskyst parties: Lutte Ouvrière ("Laborer Fight" or something) and LCR ("Revolutionary Communist Group"). They don't have a large number of followers, but still, they make between 5 and 10 percent in all elections.

And finally (last but not least) you also have the Green Party. This could be (in my opinion) what is the closest to a libertarian party. They are, not to surprise you, the ones I feel the closer from.
They're not just an environmentalist party, but politically are close to a US Ralph Nader for instance. They represent between 5 and 15 percent, depending on elections.

This vast number of parties and candidates can cause some problems. Let's take the previous presidential elections in 2002.

Chirac was the current president. He wasn't very high in the polls, and it was roughly fifty-fifty with Lionel Jospin, the prime minister and leader of the Socialist party at the time. Everyone felt like the second turn of the election would oppose Chirac and Jospin. But the big number of left-wing parties produced a side-effect of "scattering" of votes. Jospin was not even in the second turn (while the total number of left-wing votes was greater than the total number of right-wing ones), which opposed Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen (whose followers don't scatter, them...) Of course, Chirac was thus reelected triumphally with more than 80% of votes (socialists calling to vote for him against L...

Chirac was the current president. He wasn't very high in the polls, and it was roughly fifty-fifty with Lionel Jospin, the prime minister and leader of the Socialist party at the time. Everyone felt like the second turn of the election would oppose Chirac and Jospin. But the big number of left-wing parties produced a side-effect of "scattering" of votes. Jospin was not even in the second turn (while the total number of left-wing votes was greater than the total number of right-wing ones), which opposed Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen (whose followers don't scatter, them...) Of course, Chirac was thus reelected triumphally with more than 80% of votes (socialists calling to vote for him against Le Pen). This was a really really sad day. All the left-wing people in France felt that as a big injustice. Jospin decided to quit politics this day. He might come back. Or he might not.