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1 Front National
, FNExtreme right-wing and xenophobic political party, founded by Jean Marie Le Pen in 1972. The party is strongly Eurosceptic, anti-immigration, and traditionalist; party members, including Le Pen, have been prosecuted for racist remarks, negationism, and the downplaying of war-crimes.The Front National has been a significant force in French politics since the 1980's, particularly where they have been aided by proportional representation. They won 10 seats at the European Parliament in 1984, and then 35 seats in the French general election of 1986, after François Mitterrand introduced a degree of proportional representation into the voting system. PR was quickly dropped again after this, and the FN has never since had more than a single Député. However, in European elections, where PR has remained, the FN has continued to pick up seats, most recently with 7 in the 2004 election.In 1995, the Front National won municipal elections in three towns in the south of France, Orange, Vitrolles and Marignane, in "triangular" second rounds for which neither the socialists (PS) nor the main conservative party would withdraw their candidates.Perhaps the FN's most visible success was that of its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in the 2002 Presidential election, when he obtained second place in the first round, thus securing a place in the runoff. It is interesting to note that in this second round, which was a massive victory for Jacques Chirac, le Pen took less than 1% more of the vote than in the first round.The high profile of the FN in French politics surprises many foreign observers, but it is not really a surprise in a country with a fragmented party political structure. France's biggest mainstream political parties have a tradition of instrumentalising whatever means possible in order to damage their opponents, and for a long time French left-wing parties have sought to portray the Front National as the natural ally of other conservative parties. Yet by blurring the distinction between this far right party other mainstream conservative parties, they paradoxically helped to legitimise the FN. Mitterrand's introduction of PR into the voting system for general elections in 1984, which propelled the FN into the limelight, was actually intended to stop the mainstream conservative parties from winning. The policy backfired, since the conservatives won anyway, and the FN obtained its own "group" in the French parliament.Currently (2008) the FN is in decline. The party has lost voters to other right-wing parties, and has had to sell off its flagship headquarters building in Neuilly-sur-Seine, in order to pay its debts. See Political Parties in FranceDictionnaire Français-Anglais. Agriculture Biologique > Front National
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2 Minitel
A first generation computerised videotext system, the Minitel briefly put France into the position of world leader in videotext access. Launched in 1982, the Minitel system rapidly entered the majority of French households and offices thanks to a masterly government policy of offering the basic terminals free to all telephone subscribers. Several years before the Internet explosion, the Minitel offered French telephone subscribers free access to a range of information services, including national telephone directories; it also offered a number of pay-per-view services, receipts from which were designed to help pay back the investment in the system. However, the success of the Minitel was also instrumental in slowing down France's uptake of the Internet. While the government remained keen to protect and promote this French technological success in the face of competition from a foreign system, many Minitel service providers also had a good reason to defend the system too. Provision of information via the Minitel, charged by the second, rapidly became seen as a lucrative activity (notably for the " Minitel rose" sites) - far more so than via Internet, where most general information is provided free of charge to the viewer. This economic disincentive meant that many major French providers of Information, such as the SNCF, were reluctant to replace, or even complement, slow but profit-making Minitel services by faster free Internet services - thus delaying French uptake of the Internet.Minitel services were completely phased out in 2011.Dictionnaire Français-Anglais. Agriculture Biologique > Minitel
См. также в других словарях:
thus far — thus far, we ve avoided any unanticipated expenditures Syn: so far, until now, up until now, up to now, up to this point, hitherto … Thesaurus of popular words
thus far — adverb used in negative statement to describe a situation that has existed up to this point or up to the present time (Freq. 3) So far he hasn t called the sun isn t up yet • Syn: ↑so far, ↑up to now, ↑hitherto, ↑heretofore, ↑ … Useful english dictionary
thus\ far — • so far (as yet) • thus far adv Until this time or to this place. The weather has been hot so far this summer. This is a lonely road. We have not met another car so far. Gary finally took the pledge and he has kept it thus far … Словарь американских идиом
thus far — phrasal so far < thus far our findings have been negative > … New Collegiate Dictionary
thus far — until now. We haven t had any problems thus far … New idioms dictionary
thus far — until now or until the present stage in a process Congress has thus far been unwilling to support an increase in federal taxes … English dictionary
thus far — See: SO FAR … Dictionary of American idioms
thus far — See: SO FAR … Dictionary of American idioms
thus far — adverb so far, hitherto … Wiktionary
thus far — Synonyms and related words: after a fashion, already, appreciably, as yet, at any rate, at best, at least, at most, at the outside, at worst, by this time, comparatively, detectably, earlier, fairly, heretofore, hereunto, in a manner, in a way,… … Moby Thesaurus
thus far — idi so far … From formal English to slang
