May 29, 2014

Leaders of the 28-member nations of the European Union (EU) met in Brussels this week in response to recent European Parliament elections that gave a boost to a number of Eurosceptic (anti-EU) parties. Both the president of France and the prime minister of the United Kingdom called for major EU reforms. French President Francois Hollande warned Europe to “pay attention” to the election results in France, where his Socialist party lost to the far-right National Front. The National Front—which some have called a neo-Nazi party—collected fully 24.95 percent of the vote, winning a nationwide election for the first time. France’s Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls characterized the results as “more than a warning. It is a shock, an earthquake.”

(© Stephen Hird, Reuters)

French President Francois Hollande (above) and British Prime Minister David Cameron (right) both called for EU reforms in the face of strong showings by far-right parties in European elections (© Balint Porneczi, Bloomberg/Getty Images).

Populist and far-right parties gained ground across the EU, including in Austria, Denmark, Greece, and the United Kingdom. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party lost to the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). UKIP campaigned to slash the EU’s powers and return decision-making to individual nations. In Greece, Golden Dawn, an openly neo-Nazi organization, also picked up seats.

Despite the unprecedented gains made by such extremist parties, the pro-EU bloc retains a safe majority in the parliament. Nevertheless, the current president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, noted: “This is a bad day for the European Union when the party [the National Front] with such an openly racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic program gets 25 or 24 percent of the vote in France. . . . The reasons behind such a vote for a party like this party in France is not that people are hard-core extremists. . . .They are disappointed. They have lost trust and hope [in the EU].” International affairs experts note that much of the lost trust and hope stems from years of recession and the necessity of granting massive financial bailouts to various eurozone countries to keep them from defaulting on their national debts. (The eurozone consists of the 18 EU nations that adopted the euro, the common European currency.)

Additional World Book articles:

• Crisis in the Eurozone (a special report)
• Eurozone Crisis: No End in Sight (a special report)

February 4, 2013

French President François Hollande paid a triumphant visit on February 2 to the fabled city of Timbuktu, where he received a rapturous welcome from crowds chanting “Vive la France!” and waving banners stating “Papa François, the mysterious city welcomes you.” French and Malian forces drove Islamist jihadists out of the city on January 27 and into the vast desert to the north. (Mali was once a French colony.) However, residents of Timbuktu worry that the rebels will return as soon as the French withdraw their troops. “These Islamists, they have not been defeated,” Moustapha Ben Essayouti, a member of a locally prominent family, told French correspondents. “Hardly any of them have been killed. . . . If France leaves, they will come back.” While praising French and Malian troops for the “exceptional mission,” President Hollande acknowledged that “the fight is not over.” In a later speech in Mali’s capital, Bamako, he declared, “We will be with you to the end, all the way to northern Mali.”

President Hollande’s government announced on January 12 that it was sending troops into Mali to help wrest the nation back from Islamic jihadist expansion. Some 1,900 African troops–including soldiers from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria,  Senegal, and Togo–were deployed to Mali as part of a United Nations-backed African intervention force to drive the insurgents northward.

Franch and Malian troops have driven Islamist rebels out of Timbuktu and into the desert to the north. (World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.)

Islamist rebels gained control of much of the north in 2012 after a military coup in Mali’s capital, Bamako, created a power vacuum. At the core of the Islamist insurgency are the remnants of a now-defunct Algerian rebel group that was largely driven out of Algeria and into the unpoliced desert land in northern Mali sometime after the Algerian civil war was settled in 1999. A loose alliance of Algerian and Mauritanian  fighters, they are believed to be connected to an al-Qa’ida offshoot known as “al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb.” (Maghreb refers to northern Africa west of Egypt). The group aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state under Shar’iah law. The group operates in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, and other ungoverned areas of the Sahel region.

Additional World Book articles:

• Algeria 1991 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1992 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1999 (a Back in Time article)

January 16, 2013

French troops fighting alongside Malian troops are engaged in their first ground battle with rebel forces in Mali. According to British sources in Mali, French troops are fighting the Islamist rebels in street battles in the town of Diabaly, which the rebels seized on January 14. Diabaly is 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the capital, Bamako, and the French and Malian forces are attempting to halt the insurgents’ advance on the capital. The rebels gained control of much of the north in 2012 after a military coup in Bamako created a power vacuum. Mali was once a French colony.

Islamist rebels who control the northern half of Mali are advancing south on the capital, Bamako. (World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc)

The government of French President François Hollande announced on January 12 that it was sending troops into Mali to help wrest the nation back from Islamic jihadist expansion. Mali’s neighbors, including Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, have also agreed to send soldiers into Mali, and the United Kingdom is supplying planes to transport them.

Despite massive aerial bombardment by French air force jets, the insurgents have continued to advance south. French military officers acknowledge that the rebels are better armed than expected, with AK-47′s, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles. American intelligence agents have traced at least some of their ammunition to Iran.

A number of historic structures, similar to the pyramid-shaped Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu, Mali, have been damaged or destroyed by Malian rebels, who claim the structures are idolatrous. ((c) Aldona Sabalis, Photo Researchers)

At the core of the Islamist insurgency are the remnants of a now-defunct Algerian rebel group that was largely driven out of Algeria and into the unpoliced desert land in northern Mali sometime after the Algerian civil war was settled in 1999. A loose alliance of Algerian and Mauritanian fighters, they are believed to be connected to an al-Qa’ida offshoot known as “al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb” (Aqim). Aqim aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state under Shar’iah law. The group operates in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, and other ungoverned areas of the Sahel region. The insurgents are known for their extreme cruelty and barbarity. Since seizing the northern half of Mali, they have destroyed a number of historic and religious landmarks in Timbuktu, claiming the landmarks are idolatrous. Any behavior deemed an affront to their interpretation of Islam has been zealously punished. They also actively recruit children for armed conflict.

Additional World Book articles:

• Algeria 1991 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1992 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1999 (a Back in Time article)

May 7, 2012

Francois Hollande has won the second round of France’s May 6 presidential election. Hollande took just under 52 percent of the vote, compared with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 48.3 percent. Sarkozy, who campaigned on a promise to reduce France’s large budget deficit, is the first president not to win a second term since Valery Giscard d’Estaing in 1981.

Francois Hollande promised to refocus the response to the eurozone debt crisis on growth and jobs rather than austerity. Austerity in some eurozone countries has involved severe budget cuts, including the elimination of many public jobs, reductions in pensions, and increases in personal taxes. Hollande instead has pledged to raise taxes on big corporations and on people earning more than 1 million euros ($1.4 million) a year. He has also proposed to raise the minimum wage, hire more teachers, and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers. Hollande is France’s first socialist president since Francois Mitterrand, who held office between 1981 and 1995.

In parliamentary elections in Greece, also on May 6, voters turned away from the two dominant political parties, instead voting in protest for the far left and neo-Nazi right. The elections were the first public test of the European Union (EU) bailout of Greece’s national debt and the subsequent austerity program that Greece was forced to adopt. Analysts noted that the outcome was clear–a complete rejection of that agreement.

Member nations of the European Union (EU).

The euro is used by 17 member nations of the European Union. European Central Bank

While Mr. Hollande has said that he intends to give “a new direction to Europe”–specifically  instituting measures to stimulate economic growth–German Chancellor Angela Merkel made plain today that she was not open to renegotiating Europe’s current program of austerity. “I may say from my side that Francois Hollande will be welcomed with open arms here in Germany by me,” stated the chancellor at a press conference in Berlin. “We will work together well and intensively.”  However, Merkel insisted that the fiscal pact she negotiated with President  Sarkozy and endorsed by 25 EU member nations is “not negotiable.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Crisis in the Eurozone (a special report)
• Economics 2011 (Back in Time article)
• France 1958 (Back in Time article)
• France 2011 (Back in Time article)
• Greece 2009 (Back in Time article)
• Greece 2010 (Back in Time article)
• Greece 2011 (Back in Time article)