In a not uncharacteristic move, small in stature President of France Nicolas Sarkozy has banned a section of society from taking holidays abroad. Well, for his ministers at least. France is well known for attempting to enforce homegrown products on its people, so it’s no surprise that Sarkozy is encouraging his ministers to holiday at home this year. This sudden burst of patriotism is instead the result of a scandal involving Tunisia.
Veteran politician Michele Alliot-Marie, a regular visitor to Tunisia was already, in something of a media firestorm after she suggested that French Riot Police should be sent to help Zine el Abidine ben Ali. She wasn’t the only one either: Prime Minister Francois Fillon was found to have authorised tear gas shipments to Zine el Abidine ben Ali just two days before he was forced from office. French policy was quick to change: they refused to let him land, forcing him to decide between Dubai holidays and haven in Saudi Arabia. But further revelations, that Michele Alliot-Marie took free flights from a Tunisian businessman during the uprising have bought the nation into further disrepute.
Because their Ministers apparently cannot be expected to make sound judgements by themselves they won’t expect to rest under the Tropical Sky in the next few holiday seasons. Sarkozy’s exact advice is that ministers must ‘prefer France for their holidays’. But Tunisia isn’t the only volatile nation in North Africa right now, and the French can be trusted to deliver elsewhere. Though his sense of timing is little less obviously controversial, the French Prime Minister has been criticised for taking a family holiday courtesy of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Considering that Sarkozy himself took a Mubarak funded holiday in 2007, it seems that vacation kickbacks are endemic to French politics.
Because of how widespread the problem apparently is, new rules have been drawn up governing such invitations: they now require parliamentary authorisation. No matter whether they’re on family holidays or even Weddings Abroad, policy may just dictate that the trip is unethical if the trip is financed by a questionable figure. But it’s difficult to honestly believe that the French government – like much of the western world – honestly values democracy above strong economic ties.
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