THE INDEPENDENT: Will a black American president shake hands one day with a gay president of France? Barack Obama has already taken strides towards reversing the conventional, racial wisdom of US politics. Bertrand Delanoë, the popular, successful, gruff, acerbic – and gay – Mayor of Paris took his first step yesterday on a four-year obstacle course which could, in theory, take him to the Elysée Palace in 2012.
In the introduction to a book of interviews, outlining a market-oriented and even Blairist future for Socialism in France, M. Delanoë hinted strongly that he would run for the leadership of the Parti Socialiste in November and probably seek the party's presidential nomination in four years' time. He was ready, he said, to "invest my convictions and energy in my country" if "democracy and the Socialist Party call on me... to act".
In a brief reference to his sexual orientation, M. Delanoë rejected the view – often voiced in the provinces but a taboo subject for the Paris media – that La France profonde is not ready to elect a homosexual as president of the republic. "People say that homosexuality is acceptable in Paris but not in the suburbs or in the provinces but that's a false idea," he said. "So long as people feel that it is not a problem for me, then it's not a problem for them." Gay Mayor of Paris Sets His Sights on French Presidency >>> By John Lichfield in Paris | May 23, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Broché)
The Dawning of a new Dark Age (Relié)
