It offers no particular economic advantage to France.” Unless Emu includes the southern EU countries, and Britain, it will be meaningless, even dangerous.But aren’t his arguments much closer to those of the Socialists (newly- converted Emu-sceptics) than to Mr Chirac and Mr Juppe, who have gambled everything on the coming of the euro?”I don’t give a stuff what the Socialists think I never think the same as them. They are not stupid.”On the stump, Mr Pasqua lashes the Socialists in precisely this way. Push him even a little, however, and he gives his own colourful analysis of the condition of France, and the mood of the French. It amounts to a demolition of the record, and the programme, of the government he nominally supports.On the European single currency, Mr Pasqua is by far the most eloquent Euro-sceptic of the French centre-right (he is far more right than centre) “The treaty of Maastricht was an historic error,” he says. But he is often most effective when criticising the policies and record of President Chirac and his Prime Minister, Alain Juppe.On this occasion, he was talking over breakfast to a small group of foreign journalists. Despite a narrowing of the polls, and signs of alarm in the government camp, he said the centre-right parties would be safely returned to power in the two-round election on 25 May and 1 June “The Socialists are not credible. They say they can, all at the same time, cut working hours, increase the standard of living, and reduce unemployment When the French hear that, they burst out laughing.

In Mr Pasqua’s case, he is being besieged by requests from RPR candidates to come and waken up a campaign which is in danger of dozing off.Is this not odd? Mr Pasqua is a cuttingly effective politician. Afterwards, both were cast into outer political darkness by President Chirac.And yet both are now much in demand to defend the government from which they were excluded. Mr Pasqua, a long-term confidant and supporter of Chirac, chose to support Mr Balladur when he was riding high in the polls. “My mime is my answer,” he says at last.
The question was this: would the vicious family quarrel within the Gaullist party be healed, as rumoured, by the startling come-back of Edouard Balladur as prime minister after the French parliamentary election? If I interpreted Mr Pasqua’s facial grammar correctly, it would be unwise to bet too many euros on this prospect.And yet Mr Balladur, a convinced pro-European, and Mr Pasqua, a leading “Euro-sceptique”, have both made remarkable recoveries since the French election was called two weeks ago.In 1995, Mr Balladur ran against his party boss, Jacques Chirac, in the presidential election He lost. But the company had run 99.6 per cent of trains – which Mr O’Brien described as a “significant improvement.” But he warned that if cancellations rose again above 1.5 per cent he would threaten penalties.The pounds 1m fine with which SWT was threatened was above the normal penalties which rail firms face for failing to meet monthly performance targets.It had already been fined about pounds 1m for its poor record in February and March.The Transport Minister, Gavin Strang, said yesterday.

Mr Pasqua is one of the toughest politicians in France; and also one of the funniest. The answer lasts a minute or so; it does not contain a single word. Instead, Mr Pasqua’s famously crumpled face goes through a gymnastic display of expressions – astonishment, puzzlement, uncertainty, anger, amusement – of which Marcel Marceau would have been proud. Charles Pasqua, the 70-year-old bull elephant of the Gaullist RPR, is answering a mischievous question pitched to him by a German journalist. “An international airport was a prize reference in a cv that was growing.

I can no longer refer to it on my cv, except in a negative way,” he said.Mr Nicholas, a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, is pressing for a charter of artists’ rights: “It shouldn’t happen to anyone else.” He is also demanding a full explanation from the airport authorities.. The famous sculpture of 42 seagulls, which has hung in the entrance to Cardiff Airport since 1970, began life as a sketch of seagulls circling a rubbish heap.
But a recent refurbishment of the airport resulted in the aluminium birds being thrown into a rubbish skip.Mr Nicholas, 62, is asking anyone who laid their hands on a bird to bring it back to him so he can reassemble his sculpture.The pounds 4,000 commission for the sculpture in 1970 was the turning point in Mr Nicholas’s career. The seagulls in Peter Nicholas’s sculpture wound up where they started: in a skip. Its coordinator, Jonathan Bray, said: “The pounds 1m fine always was a gimmick. For a while the franchise director posed as a tough regulator – now he’s reverted back to being weak and ineffectual.”. that he had asked for a report on “the shortcomings of the sanctions currently available to the regulators, to assist in our review of the railway”.He added: “The SWT episode supports our belief that the weapons available to the regulators are inadequate.”Train operators across the country are on warning: this government will not tolerate inadequate performance.”The Save Our Railways group said it was disappointed at Mr O’Brien’s decision.