Junk

"Britain's retention of a nuclear deterrent would be ridiculous if we were all lighting our cigars with tenners", says Marina Hyde. Hard to see the EU as a whole giving up (French) nukes, though.

La Casta Europeana

Clemente Mastella, who resigned as the Minister of Justice on January 16th, after it was revealed that he was under investigation for several crimes, including extortion, has been in parliament for thirty-one years, as a member of four different political parties. Mastella has denied any wrongdoing. Last week, he withdrew his party, the Udeur, from the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, a move that, on January 24th, after a no-confidence vote in the Senate, led to the fall of the government.

-- from Beppe's Inferno by Tom Mueller.

If, as a result of the fall of Prodi's government, Berlusconi makes a comeback, then his holiday-buddy Tony Blair, who is said to already have Sarkozy's support, could make a comeback as Presna Yurp. It may be that only Merkel, Zapatero and few others stand in the way.

Coup de train

This probably means that the strikers have lost in France. As a New Yorker profile suggested, to understand Nicolas Sarkozy it helps to know the story of the human bomb, whom he faced down. So he probably has the nerve for this situation too.