In our second meeting with him in just over a year, on October 27, Jean-François Copé, close ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy and UMP secretary general, provided insights and blunt commentary on the looming presidential election next spring, and on why he thought there was little if any debate here on France’s foreign policy.
We met at UMP headquarters over breakfast, almost entirely on-the-record, a format he said he would like to continue with the AAPA. He suggested a third meeting next February, when the presidential campaign will move into high-gear. …

Dear Association Member,
Our Annual General Meeting at John Morris’ home on Nov. 24 was a convivial and productive evening. We discussed a number of topics including: our healthy finances, a recap of the many varied guests we received and events which were organized during the past year, our membership tally, and our ever-evolving website. And, of course, we voted for our officers who will serve in the coming year.
I was asked to serve as president for another year, was nominated and elected.
Below is the list of other officers who were …

Some thirty members had a first-hand chance to probe Bulgaria’s Irina Bokova’s background…

David Wingeate Pike’s new book /Mauthausen: L’Enfer Nazi en Autriche/ (Toulouse: Editions Privat), with a preface by the survivor Pierre Daix, is out in the bookshops.

Georgina Oliver’s husband, Felix Rozen’s latest exhibition (left) is at the Musée des Année 30 in Boulogne Billancourt. Barry James’ son Sebastian (www.sebjames.com) has just completed a monumental mural painting on the Crédit Lyonnais fire (below) for the fire-station in the 18th arrondissement, to be inaugurated January 7.

At the onset of the Christmas shopping period, Lady Holmes, wife of our honorary co-president, the British Ambassador in Paris, Sir John Holmes, greeted a group of AAPA members and guests, upstairs in the “inner enclave” of the Embassy Residence, before lunging into a show and-tell presentation of her successful cookbook, dubbed “Simply British!”

Jean-Pierre Jouyet, President Sarkozy’s key adviser on Europe and guide to France’s current presidency of the 27-nation European Union,
spoke to the Association at a breakfast meeting on 23 October at Bloomberg News.

When a flock of AAPA members and some guests flew down to Toulouse to meet senior executives at Europe’s commercial aircraft company…