One of Nicolas Sarkozy's most immediate foreign policy challenges will be responding to the seizure of two French aid workers in Afghanistan. The Taliban abducted the workers in early March, but the Taliban has quite thoughtfully given France a chance to hold its election and appoint a new government before it must respond. Said a Taliban spokesman:

We will wait for a while after the election of the president. He will be busy with internal issues of his government but he will also pay attention to foreign issues."

Once the grace period expires, however, the Taliban has demanded that France provide a timetable for leaving Afghanistan, and Sarkozy made some worrying noises about withdrawal during the campaign.

Sarkozy may now want to consult the primer the Italians helpfully provided on how not to respond to the Taliban. in March, the Italian government pressured Afghanistan to release five Taliban prisoners in order to spring a captured Italian journalist. The move outraged NATO allies and the Afghan population (in large because the captive's Afghan interpreter was subsequently beheaded). It's hard to imagine Sarkozy now going down the path of negotiations. 

iStockphoto.com

You may have noticed that blogging was light at Passport yesterday. (It was May Day, after all. And since we are a global magazine, we were in solidarity with all those countries that celebrate it as labor day.)  To tide you over, we posted a Top Secret memo from Paul Wolfowitz to World Bank employees. In this super-duper secret memo, the beleaguered World Bank president warns that Bank employees are forbidden from wagering on a sports betting website that trades in the probability of future political events.

Doing so "will be considered insider trading in clear violation of my anti-corruption guidelines," the memo says. It goes on: "Your knowledge of normal World Bank personnel procedures gives you a clear information advantage in predicting whether I will be forced to resign. You must not abuse it. Please note: the Bank's prohibition on insider trading applies not only to immediate family but also to significant others (e.g., girlfriends)."

We are delighted that Very Important People read ForeignPolicy.com. Our esteemed Gallic cousins across the Atlantic at Le Monde were kind enough to post a link to our super-duper secret memo. For you non-French readers, Le Monde's piece has a straightforward headline, "Paul Wolfowitz wants to prevent World Bank employees from betting on his resignation," and basically just translates and quotes selected text from the memo into French. There's not much editorial commentary except for a throwaway line that Wolfowitz is not totally without humor.

Neither are the French, thank goodness. Several hours later, after finding out that our memo was fake, Le Monde posted an "Oops" note on its website. (They weren't alone. When I first read it, I had to ask Blake, "Is this for real?") As the byline should make clear, the satire was the brainchild of our friend Kenneth Rogoff, who is a professor up at Harvard and a potential future candidate for the economics beat at The Onion. Thanks to both Ken and to Le Monde for giving us a chuckle today.

Graham Parker has an interesting take on French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy over at the FT's Brussels Blog. The conventional wisdom among the Economist/Financial Times set in Europe is that Sarkozy is exactly what France's heavily statist and rigid economy needs. Parker worries, though, that Sarko will get on everyone's nerves once he's in office (assuming he wins on May 6):

... [L]eave aside policy for a minute and imagine what Sarko would be like on a personal level on the European stage. If you think Chirac tried to dominate European summits, wait until you see the little cowboy in action. [...]

As Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, says: "Europe is the antithesis of his approach. He always wants to be acting constantly, getting into details, while Europe lays down rules to constrain the action of national politicians."

Even if Sarko's policy agenda is one of modernisation, how long before his assertive French Gaullism, taste for the limelight and ill-considered initiatives, start to get on the nerves of his colleagues?

Parker then points to Sarkozy's April 20th appearance on a white horse as a potential indicator of a "more macho political style" that could rub Europe's other leaders the wrong way. I can see how the horse thing might remind them of certain past French leaders:

LOUAI BESHARA/AFP

This weekend is host to three elections: Nigeria, where ethno-religious violence and widespread accusations of fraud have marred the country's first attempt at a democratic rotation of power; France, where the gap between conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal has narrowed somewhat in recent days and many voters are still undecided; and ... what was that third country again?

Oh yeah, Syria.

Syria, an anachronistic Baathist regime ruled by an opthamologist, is holding "elections without politics" on Sunday and Monday, in the words of the Carnegie Endowment's Omayma Abdel Latif. You probably haven't heard much about Syria's parliamentary contests because, well, there isn't much to tell. One faction of the beleaguered opposition, as is typical in countries where politics are window-dressing for dictatorship, has had enough:

It is "pointless to take part in an election whose results are known in advance," said lawyer Hassan Abdel-Azim, spokesman for six banned parties operating under the umbrella National Democratic Rally (NDR).

And that is all you need to know about election #3. 

It's crunch time for France's presidential candidates. With the first round beginning on Sunday, Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolène Royal, François Bayrou, and Jean-Marie Le Pen are pounding the pavement in a last-ditch effort to round up votes. Who will win? The latest polls posted on Le Monde's website depict a tightening race between Sarkozy and Royal, the two frontrunners. If Sarkozy wins, he'll have to deal with the fact that he's deeply hated in Muslim and immigrant areas for his actions as interior minister during the 2005 unrest, when he famously denounced rioting youth as "scum."

As you can see from the following Google mashup map of the candidates' public appearances, Sarkozy has studiously avoided North African suburbs of Paris like Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois, ground zero for the riots. (Sarkozy's is the blue and red UMP logo; Royal is depicted by the purple-ringed icon in the middle of the map.)

And who can blame him for staying away? David Rieff, writing in Sunday's New York Times, quotes Mamadou, a Muslim from one of Paris's notorious banlieues:

If I could get my hands on Sarkozy, I’d kill him.”

Sarkozy is making a lot of sense on economic reform and relations with the United States, but if he does win, he's going to have to govern millions of people like Mamadou who hate his guts almost as vehemently. How's that going to work? 

Yesterday, French presidential candidate François Bayrou called for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, saying that China was not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in Darfur:

There is nothing easier than stopping this tragedy, this genocide. This is a political issue because China decided to bring its protection to the Khartoum regime."

China has come under increasing international criticism for investing in Africa, while ignoring human rights atrocities occurring on the continent. It currently buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil, and so has used its position on the U.N. Security Council to stymie attempts to put real pressure on the Sudanese government.

Reporters Without Borders

Bayrou's statement is not likely to have much of a real effect. The center-right party's candidate is currently running behind Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal in the polls. Press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ended its own call for a boycott during a visit to Beijing in January. And as for China, it trotted out Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao today for this bland retort: "The people who put forward those remarks are not very clear on China's position on the Darfur issue."

Still, it's unusual that Bayrou would call for a boycott on the basis China's foreign policy towards a third party. (The American and Soviet blocs each boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, respectively, in response to the other side's domestic policies and foreign policies aimed at them.) Nonetheless, it's an interesting thought. Beijing will invest more than $23 billion in the 2008 Olympics, and has been preparing for years to showcase China to the world. What better way for China to lose face than for no one to come to the party?

Americans have long been knocked for taking too superficial an approach to their politics. Saturday Night Live's caricatures of presidents and presidential candidates have been especially influential in defining their identities for the public. The French, though, have gone one step further, and turned to puppets.

Les Guignols de l'info ("News Puppets" in English), a puppet-based political satire airing on French TV station Canal+, has been popular for years. But how it aims its latex-clad barbs may now have an outsized effect on the contest between presidential candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Fully half of the French electorate believes the show will have an "important" effect on the outcome of the election, according to a recent poll.

The show ridicules everyone, but like American satires such as the Daily Show, it can't avoid appearing hostile to the conservatives currently in power. If Socialist candidate Royal eventually prevails, she may have more than the usual number of stagehands and behind-the-scenes manipulators to thank. Most politicians are in debt to figurative puppet-masters; she may find herself beholden to the real thing.

A couple years ago, the French officially bid adieu to the 35-hour workweek. Now it appears that those extra hours of work are taking their toll. This week, the Gallic government launched a $9 million public awareness campaign about sleeping problems.

Not surprisingly, 56 percent of the population has said that lack of quality sleep has made them less productive at work. In an interview on Monday, French health minister Xavier Bertrand said, "Why not nap at work? It can't be taboo." He said he would promote the idea of on-the-job slumber, if studies show that it's effective. But who needs research? If you snooze, you don't necessarily lose—JFK, Churchill, da Vinci, Clinton, and Einstein were all nappers, and they did just fine.

Never mind the brouhaha over a dying newspaper industry. Certain sectors of Old Media are actually gaining ground (er, I mean air). More and more broadcasters are showing a commitment to a format that is all news, all the time, all around the world. Yesterday saw the launch, to mixed reviews, of France 24 (vingt-quatre), a government-backed 24-hour news channel that's putting a Gallic spin on the day's events. Most of the stories will be broadcast and streamed online in French and English, and there are plans to ramp up Arabic-language content as well.  

The trend is happening in smaller countries too. When I was in Bangkok last month, I spoke with Tom Mintier, a CNN veteran who had been hired by Thailand's media giant UBC to launch a 24-hour news channel. Mintier thought that there was a valuable untapped market made up of viewers who wanted to watch news in their native tongue. Too bad UBCTV's news programming wasn't already on the airwaves during the coup. Then again, maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Mintier plans to avoid political coverage in favor of business and sports. If you ask me, that's an incomplete definition of "news."

At any rate, France 24 and UBCTV may make some headway in their respective niche markets. But neither is likely to make a dent in the overwhelming global dominance of the BBC and CNN International. They simply don't have the resources, reach, or potential audiences.

The EU recently released fertility statistics for the EU-25, and the new numbers point to an increasing number of Europeans choosing to have children out of wedlock (32.2%) vs. inside marriage (67.8%). The leaders of this trend, as the map from EUROSTAT at right shows, are the Scandinavian countries. In Denmark, for example, 60% of firstborns have unmarried parents. That figure hits 80% in certain districts of Norway.

While the United States still has more children being born out of wedlock (37%) than Europe as a whole, the profile of unmarried couples differs sharply. In the U.S., births out of wedlock are still associated with teenage pregnancies and poverty. In European countries like France, they have no such stigma. Ségolène Royal, who just won the Socialist Party nomination for France's presidential election next year, has been living with Francois Hollande, the party's leader, for 25 years. They have four children and remain unmarried. And they're hardly the only prominent French couple to prefer l'amour without marriage.

A closer look at the map reveals another interesting correlation. The countries in which birth rates are increasing are the same countries that have a larger percentage of children out of wedlock. It looks as though the current generation of childbearers is thoroughly rewriting their parents' family model.  

The French have long been resistant to the idea of American cultural imperalism. Now, they are resisting American technological imperialism as well. Not only has France worked on a homegrown search engine to counter Google's ubiquity, the government is also casting off the cloak of Microsoft. The French parliament is following the example of its gendarmes and its Ministry of Culture and Communication by ditching Microsoft Windows for its computers' operating systems in favor of open source platform Linux. My tech geek friends have informed me that this is a smart move, and not just because they hate Microsoft. It will save France cash (money that would otherwise go to Microsoft's coffers for Windows licensing fees), and Linux is a more stable platform than Windows (which is prone to crashing, as we all know from personal experience). Security is also better, making it perfect for a government concerned about protecting privacy.

It may seem like there are hordes of people doing fairly ridiculous things nearly every day of the year, but today is special. Today is Guiness World Records Day, and people around the world somehow feel more compelled to participate in mass events that involve the largest aqua aerobics class (in South Africa), the largest tea party (in Japan), and the largest check (in Kuwait). In some cities, national pride is at stake with Frenchies attempting the largest simultaneous kiss in Paris. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Canadians are attempting the largest ever re-enactment of Michael Jackson's Thriller video. This is the part of the story where the whole of Toronto starts showing up at awards shows with chimpanzees as dates, marrying Lisa Marie Presley, and dangling babies out of windows. Or they buy their own island and move to Bahrain. Either way, best of luck to everyone!

Incidentally, I'm happy to report that at least two people at FP have participated in Guinness events: the world's largest bowl of popped popcorn and the world's longest chorus line. At their request, identities will remain anonymous.  

France is attempting to pass a controversial bill which would make it a crime to deny that Turks committed genocide against Armenians  during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Under rule of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917, some 1.5 million Armenians were expelled and massacred. The Turks, however, strongly reject the label of "genocide", claiming that both Armenian and Turkish lives were lost during conflicts of that time.

The French proposal has triggered explosive reactions from Turkey. And today, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn claimed that the bill would be "counterproductive" and damage relations between the EU and Turkey, which is an aspiring EU member. Mr. Rehn stated that Turkey's entry into the EU should not be conditional on its recognition of the genocide, contrary to the opinion of French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who, as it happens, opposes Turkey’s accession to the EU. Many French politicians, who are trying to appeal to France's large Armenian population for votes in the upcoming elections, favor the bill, due to be discussed on Thursday. But the proposal comes at a time just when the EU is due to consider Ankara’s progress on harmonization. Sure seems like a convenient time to rock the boat. Wouldn't some deft backroom diplomacy, rather than politicking, better foster dialogue?

In late August, Lionel Jospin made a dramatic return to the French political scene, four years after he was knocked out in the first round of presidential voting. In an emotional speech, Jospin presented himself as the elder statesman of France, the true Socialist. Or, to put it more bluntly: the stop-Ségolène-Royal candidate. Today, he pulled out of the race.

Jospin's candidacy had failed to catch on with Socialist voters, among whom he trailed Royal 54 to 21 percent. Jospin had also failed to persuade the other male candidates, who have even lower ratings, to withdraw in his favor.

If this isn't enough to put a spring in Ségolène's step, there's also a new TV show in France featuring a charismatic female president. Now for all to be well in the Royal household, she just needs to persuade her common-law husband to confirm that he's standing aside for her.