By Nicole Hunt

Two persistently-delayed court hearings are scheduled to take place in Manama on Monday, though whether they’ll actually go ahead is never certain. 21 opposition activists, including hunger striker Abdulhadi al Khawaja, are due to hear the verdict in their appeal against life sentences for conspiring to overthrow the government. The decision was delayed from 23 April. Meanwhile, another appeal hearing is scheduled for 20 medical staff who were convicted in September of a variety of offences, including attempting to topple the monarchy and occupying the Salmaniya Hospital.

Libyan authorities have until Monday to submit information to the International Criminal Court on their case against Saif al Islam Gaddafi in a bid to convince the court that he should be tried in Libya. Gaddafi has been indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, but Libya has so far refused to hand him over for trial, preferring that he face the courts in Tripoli.

Tuesday is May Day, and as workers the world over take some time off to celebrate, France will be engaged in a bit of a popularity contest for right wingers. Front National leader Marine Le Pen – who won nearly 20 per cent of the vote in the first round elections – hosts her party’s traditional May Day rally, which also celebrates Joan of Arc. Incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing defeat at the hands of Francois Hollande in the second round if he can’t find a way to woo Le Pen’s supporters, has scheduled his own rally just down the Seine.

Speaking of right wingers, Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders takes a break from bringing down the Dutch government to launch his new book in New York on Tuesday. While launch details are still under wraps, it may be that Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me is Wilders’ bid to dredge up support and make his mark in America.

And if patriotism is what Wilders is hoping to tap into, then he’s picked a good day to do it: Tuesday marks the one year anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden, who was killed by US special forces at his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Hungary holds the first of eight elections taking place this week (more if you count the UK’s local and mayoral elections on 3 May), when MPs elect a new President on Wednesday following the 2 April resignation of Pal Schmitt over allegations of plagiarism. Janos Ader and Kristzina Morvai are the only two candidates that have been put forward, as smaller parliamentary groups know they don’t have the 78 votes required to push through their own choice.

Sarkozy is back in the news on Wednesday, this time up against Hollande rather than Le Pen. The two run-off candidates go head-to-head in the traditional debate held between the two electoral rounds. Sarkozy will be hoping that the power of TV has a Kennedy effect to help him overcome polling deficits that predict Hollande will win comfortably in Sunday’s vote.

Wednesday also marks the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano by the British submarine HMS Conqueror. 323 people were killed in the sinking, just over half of Argentina’s total losses during the Falklands War. Two days later, the HMS Sheffield was sunk by a missile fired from an Argentine navy plane, killing 21 people.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner are in Beijing on Thursday to take part in the fourth US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue with Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councillor Dai Bingguo. The talks follow Geithner’s remarks last week that the US is willing to further open its markets to China if China institutes its own reforms. Clinton travels on to Bangladesh and India after the two-day talks in China.

UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples James Anaya holds a press conference in Washington on Friday to discuss the findings of his 12-day mission to the United States to assess the situation of Native Americans in the country. During his visit, Anaya met with federal and state government officials, indigenous peoples and human rights groups in Washington, D.C., Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, South Dakota and Oklahoma.

Iranians are back at the polls for the second round of voting following the 2 March parliamentary elections. 65 of the 290 seats are still up for grabs after no candidate managed to gain 25% of the vote the first time around, but opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have already won 220 seats, meaning he could still be in trouble when parliament resumes sitting.

While the Kentucky Derby and the Berkshire Hathaway AGM both take place on Saturday, they’re likely to be overshadowed by the small matter of the arraignment hearing for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi – otherwise known as the 9/11 masterminds. The five men face a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, charged with planning and executing the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Have I mentioned the French election? It’s all finally over and done with on Sunday when the second round of voting takes place. While Francois Hollande has long been expected to win, the fact that he needs to garner support from far-right voters who cast their ballot for the Front National in the first round, and that France’s shares fell when he won the first round, means there’s still some room for Sarkozy to claw back support.

It’s not just France’s political future that will affect the stock market on Monday: Greeks, Italians and Germans are all set to vote on Sunday, too. The Greek election has been looming since George Papandreou resigned in November to make way for Lucas Papademos’ technocratic government to push through austerity measures. Former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos leads Papandreou’s PASOK party.

Local elections are taking place in over 700 municipalities across Italy on Sunday and Monday, while regional elections are being held in Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein state. Both countries are due for full parliamentary elections next year, and the fortunes of the ruling parties in this weekend’s elections are being closely watched as a barometer for national support. Italy’s elections are the first since Mario Mon
ti took over from Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister.

Finally, Armenians and Serbians are also going to the polls. Parliamentary elections are taking place as scheduled in both countries, but Serbian President Boris Tadic has also called an early presidential vote, which hadn’t been due until 2013. Tadic resigned on 4 April to trigger the vote, saying Serbia needs strengthened institutions as it faces ‘sweeping reforms’.

By Jasper Smith

As eurozone leaders continue efforts to counter turmoil in the financial markets, a team of inspectors from the IMF and EU are due to arrive in Athens on Monday to assess Greek efforts to sort out their public finances.

Across the Atlantic, Tuesday sees Dominique Strauss-Kahn back in court in New York on rape charges stemming from an incident back in May at the Sofitel Hotel. Prosecutors are said to be considering dropping charges due to supposed weaknesses of his accuser’s testimony.

Also Tuesday, Liberians vote in a referendum on proposed changes to the West African nation’s constitution.

Back in Europe, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to finalise plans on Wednesday to reduce his country’s deficit. Sarkozy was forced to return suddenly from holiday amid (apparently unfounded) rumours that France would be the next major economy to lose its triple A credit rating.

In Jerusalem, outspoken Republican commentator Glenn Beck is scheduled to hold his ‘Restoring Courage’ rally.

Meanwhile, at its headquarters in Ethiopia, on Thursday the African Union is holding a pledging conference to raise funds for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa.

At the International Criminal Court in The Hague, closing arguments are due to wrap up on Friday in the case against Thomas Lubanga, alleged leader the Union of Congolese Patriots. He faces war crimes charges over allegedly conscripting child soldiers in the DRC.

Saturday sees the ‘Tea Party Express’ bus tour kick off with a rally in Napa, California.

Finally, on Sunday, captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit turns 25. Hamas has held him since 25 June, 2006 when he was just 19.

Moynahan somehow survived the purge of the Harold Evans-era hacks to become the paper’s European Editor in the world’s best journalistic base, Paris. Fluent in French and with a history double-first from Cambridge, he went on to a career as prolific author of books on religion, politics and history. His revision of the Man for All Seasons view of Thomas More in his biography of William Tyndale, If God Spare My Life, heralded  his graduation from jobbing war correspondent to historian. The French Century carries on the series he initiated with The British Century and The Russian Century, with documentary photographs that are good enough to have been selected by Moynahan’s picture editor at the Sunday Times colour magazine, Michael Rand.

Moynahan’s mixture of politics, art, technology, fashion, sport, theatre and music presents a remarkably full picture of France during, between and after two world wars. He shows not only de Gaulle and Pétain, but the anti-Semitic doyenne of couturières, Coco Chanel, and the exuberant Franco-American entertainer and war resistante, Josephine Baker. Moynahan reminds his Anglo-Saxon readers that French achievements in aviation (Blériot et al.), science (the Curies) and sport made France the leading nation of the world for much of the first third of the twentieth century. They are at least as important to an understanding of French hauteur as the nation’s colonial expansion. The story unfolds from the cleavage that the Revolution wrought in French society, manifested itself in the Dreyfus trial and climaxed during the German occupation. Pétain and his ministers at Vichy used the presence of the Wehrmacht to turn France away from liberté, fraternité and égalité towards travail, famille and patrie.

After liberation and the vicious épuration of suspected collaborators, traditional divisions played themselves out again over Algérie Française and the riots of May 1968. The resonances of the conflict between those who would return to the glory of the Versailles court and the sans-culottes who occasionally answer the call “Aux barricades!” to defend the downtrodden survive under Nicolas Sarkozy, latest incarnation of a tendency to restore order from the top when democracy has gone too far.

Reviewer: Charles Glass is writing a book for Harper Collins on the Americans who survived the German occupation of Paris during the Second World War.

Yet even on holiday, in the distinctly un-French destination of the USA, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia just couldn’t help making news. Taking a rare break from work, the hyper-active French president had hoped for a little peace and quiet as the family took to a New Hampshire lake on a speedboat.

Seeing they were being pursued by two photographers, the president leaped from his boat to remonstrate with them from the water in angry, rapid fire French. Unfortunately, the two bemused Americans didn’t understand a word. That weekend, reconciled to the media and their cameras, Mr Sarkozy was back in the limelight enjoying a casual picnic lunch ‘en famille’ with President George W. Bush.

This is a French president who loves America, and often cites its economy and its can-do attitude as an example for the rather more indolent French. Mr Sarkozy is not only determined to revamp the French at home, but also their standing abroad, starting with the Franco-American relationship, badly damaged by differences over the Iraq war.

The Kennebunkport picnic hit the headlines for rather less positive reasons, thanks to the conspicuous absence of Mr Sarkozy’s glamorous wife, Cecilia, who claimed that a sore throat prevented her attending the family gathering. Happily, her throat cleared up quickly enough for her to be spotted doing a spot of light shopping the very next day – leading the French press to speculate that her ‘mal de gorge’ was more of a ‘mal de George’.

The holiday  season has also  allowed French newspapers  to  speculate,  not over the crucial upcoming tax and pension reforms, but the state of the Sarkozys’ marriage, and what kind of a First Lady Madame Sarkozy is to be. Her mysterious absence during much of her husband’s election campaign contrasted sharply with her recent role as his personal envoy in Libya, helping obtain the release the imprisoned doctors and nurses.

Ever since, a debate has raged in France as to whether Madame Sarkozy is the new Jackie Kennedy or more of a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. The Elysee Palace promises more ‘clarity’ over her role this September. Now that the holidays are over, it’s the ‘rentree’ or return to work for Monsieur Sarkozy and a government that has promised to put France and its legion of unemployed back to work – to make it a country that ‘gets up early’, and one in which hard work is rewarded. A country a little more like America, perhaps, but with much better food, and longer holidays, of course.

The far-reaching reforms promised by Mr Sarkozy are viewed with a mixture of interest and apprehension by the French, even though many agree that the country needs change as its economy stagnates. Left-wing commentators have already criticised Mr Sarkozy as the president of ‘bling and spin’, wondering if he really will fulfil his campaign promises to free up the labour market and create new jobs in France – and whether the trade unions will let him.

This September should offer some answers. Mr Sarkozy’s honeymoon period in the polls at home gives him a good chance of continuing the economic reforms he has begun. Yet even as he returned from his two-week break, Nicolas Sarkozy faced his first minor setback since assuming the presidency in May.

Having  pushed  through  many of his labour and tax reforms in a special parliamentary session in July, one of his key plans was struck down by the French Constitutional Council, which deemed unconstitutional part of his tax package aimed at encouraging more widespread home-ownership by offering home-owners a tax break on mortgage-interest payments.

So will his other reforms face similar difficulties? And will the trade unions sit by and watch as the Socialists’ main legacy, the 35 hour week, is chipped away? Perhaps most controversially, one of the first projects on Mr Sarkozy’s agenda is a new law that trade unions say will limit their legal right to strike, by enforcing a minimum service on public transport during industrial action.

Other flashpoints include the reform of unemployment benefits, which will be made dependent on active job hunting, in changes modelled on Britain’s system and aimed at tackling stubbornly high unemployment of eight percent, far higher among the young, immigrants and the over-50s. France’s trade unions are threatening to gear up for what could be a ‘hot autumn’ if the reforms go too far, too fast – though Mr Sarkozy knows that he must act quickly if he’s to capitalise on his current popularity among the voters in his first year in office.

In a Paris café this week, I sat with French friends as they returned from their holidays and discussed the prospects for the autumn. So do they believe Sarko will succeed in his grand project of shaking France out of its past decade of torpor and its fear of change?

As they stared into their café cremes, glumly contemplating American-style holidays  of  just t wo weeks  a year,  the  answer was a broad Gallic shrug, and an ambivalent reply: “If anyone can reform France, he can. And if he can’t, who knows? Maybe the rest of the world will just have to come round to our way of thinking.”