Rama Yade's Dilemma

Yesterday Booker Rising reported with French regional elections approaching in March, the center-right UMP party is rife with negotations on how to form its candidate list and who will top it at which locations. Rama Yade, as alderwoman of Colombes (a suburb of Paris, where she grew up) was originally intended to appear on the UMP's list for the Hauts-de-Seine district. Hauts-de-Seine includes Colombes. It also includes La Defense, Europe's largest business district. Ms. Yade, who is France's Secretary of State for Sport and the former human rights minister, polls as France's most popular politician. However, some folks within her party in the district took issue with her addition to the list in Hauts-de-Seine and made racial comments about it. A French media outlet reported that an unnamed UMP politician remarked: "Rama Yade in the Val d'Oise [another district, where many immigrants live and which is infamous for its violence...including those riots from a few years ago], she'll be better for local color than in the Hauts-de-Seine." Secretary Yade is resisting attempts to put her as a candidate in Val d'Oise, a district where she has no ties. She has even said that she has no desire to be an "ethnic parachute".

Well, Secretary Yade faces a big dilemma: she has been offered a place for regional elections in Val-d'Oise district (article in French). That prospect has upset her electoral plans, since she hoped to contest for Hauts-de-Seine district (where Colombes is located), which is currently represented by a Communist, so she can launch a parliamentary bid in 2012. She said, "My goal is to try to get Colombes". However, President Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't want her in the Hauts-de-Seine and she's already in the doghouse so to speak for declining last year to lead the UMP's list for European Parliament elections. Last week, she also distanced himself from Jean Sarkozy's possible ascension as head of the EPAD (which oversees La Defense).

Unnamed Sarkozyite ministers are calling the 32-year-old politico - known for her outspokenness and independent streak - a "spoiled child" (article in French).