Rama Yade: "Bonjour, Bookeristas! My Party Continues Operation Break-A-Negro Due To My Outspokenness. Another Party Is Trying To Recruit Me Though"

Things are getting interesting in France in regards to Rama Yade, the outspoken French Secretary of State and former human rights minister who is France's most popular politician. A move by the French government to scrap a tax break which benefits top football and rugby players has angered clubs and caused a huge row between Secretary Yade and her fellow center-right cabinet colleagues. Ms. Yade was publicly told to "shut your mouth or resign" by Nadine Morano, the French Secretary of State for Family and Solidarity (the female attack dog sent in after a string of male politicians publicly criticized the defiant Ms. Yade) after she broke ranks and defended the special fiscal provision that allows professional players of team sports not to pay tax on 30% of their income. "Scrapping this benefit for professional sportsmen will threaten the competitiveness of French sports," Secretary Yade said, echoing protests from a host of club managers.

Even French Prime Minister Francois Fillon is publicly downing Secretary Yade for going against the wishes of the executive branch and contradicting another minister in public (article in French). The prime minister also gave a very strong warning that Ms. Yade's days are numbered in government (article in French). They're also publicizing a government study showing that 68% of French people - and 78% of members of the center-right Union Pour Un Mouvement Populaire party, which is Ms. Yade's party - support nixing the tax break (article in French).

All of this is in addition to President Nicolas Sarkozy freezing her out (again) after criticizing the president’s recent handling of a nepotism scandal involving his son. This was on top of her past criticisms regarding France's acceptance of African dictators, her refusal to run in last year's European Parliament elections (which is often considered a demotion in French politics) and instead focus on her goal of contesting regional elections in 2010 and then run for Parliament in 2012. President Sarkozy hit back at Secretary Yade with a vengeance after his son - who is only 23 and still in college - had to step down as head of the agency that oversee's France's and Europe's largest business district, after Ms. Yade's remarks and public outcry. He demanded that she abandon her seat in her resident Hauts-de-Seine area, west of Paris. The area is also his family fiefdom and where his son Jean is a city councilman, and where many French politicians have originated their political rise The president wants her to stand as the number two candidate on their UMP list in the northern Val d’Oise suburb - a poor, immigrant, and mostly racial minority suburb where she has no ties - in March 2010 regional elections. Ms. Yade is making no secret of her reluctance to follow the president’s order, calling it "ethnic parachuting". The UMP is now offering her the top candidate slot on their list in Val d'Oise (article in French).

The Socialist Party is adding fuel to the fire. Michele Sabban, the party's vice president for regional councils, this morning offered her the top slot on its candidate slate for her home district of Hauts-de-Seine. They’re calling it “asylum” and say that "she is standing alone [at the UMP." LOL. However, apparently the party's spokeman has come in and said that it was "a joke with no political meaning" (article in French). Booker Rising doesn't think so, but rather it was a trial balloon. Her husband Joseph Zimet is a political figure in the Socialist Party and works in government, so I'd bet that there is behind-the-scenes work to try to flip her. Yet while Secretary Yade is certainly a social liberal, from what I’ve read of her she’s not in tune with the Socialists on fiscal issues (e.g., the recent tax blowup; I think she supports lower taxes in general). In that sense, she is a political refugee as there’s no sizeable centrist party for her to join.