For the 2007 presidential election, many potential candidates appeared: François Hollande, Laurent Fabius (who has joined the left-wing of the party), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who claimed he represented "social-democracy"), Jack Lang, Martine Aubry and Ségolène Royal, who was favourite according to the polls.
On 16 November 2006, the members of the Socialist Party chose Ségolène Royal to be their candidate with a majority of 60%. Her challengers, Strauss-Kahn and Fabius, obtained 21% and 19% respectively.
After obtaining 25% of the vote in the first round of France's presidential elections Ségolène Royal qualified for the second round of voting but lost to Nicolas Sarkozy on May 6, 2007.
First secretaries from 1969:
Anomie
Anomie means the absence of the usual moral or ethical values, where a person or group lacks ethical standards. In the context of society or government it may be a cause of social unrest.
The word comes from Greek, namely the prefix "a-" “without”, and "nomos" “law”. The original meaning of "anomie" was "against or outside the law".
In contemporary English the word "anomie" can mean not only normlessness but also anarchy. Émile Durkheim and later theorists, meant with "anomie" a reaction against or a retreat from the regulatory social controls of society, and is a completely separate concept from anarchy which is an absence of effective rulers or leaders.
In Albert Camus’s existentialist novel "The Stranger", the protagonist Meursault struggles to construct an individual system of values as he responds to the disappearance of the old. He exists largely in a state of "anomie", as seen from the apathy evinced in the opening lines: "“Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas”" (“Today Mother died. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.”)
Dostoevsky, whose work is often considered a philosophical precursor to existentialism, often expressed a similar concern in his novels. In "The Brothers Karamazov", the character Dimitri Karamazov asks his atheist friend Rakitin, ”...without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?” Raskolnikov, the anti-hero of Dostoevsky’s novel "Crime and Punishment", puts this philosophy into action when he kills an elderly pawnbroker and her sister, later rationalizing this act to himself with the words, “...it wasn’t a human being I killed, it was a principle!”
On Hermann Hesse´s "Der Steppenwolf" we can also find a very clear picture of anomie. The protagonist affirms that the men of the Dark Ages did not suffer more than those of the Classical Antiquity, and vice-versa. It is rather those who live between two times, those who do not know what to follow, that suffer the most. In this token, a man from the Dark Ages living in the Classical Antiquity, or the opposite, would undergo a gulping sadness and agony.
Fog
Fog is thick mist. It may appear on land or sea and it usually lowers visibility (makes it hard to see very far). When fog forms at high levels it creates a cloud called stratus. When the air chills, moisture will turn to fog.
Fog is made up of tiny water droplets or, in very cold conditions, ice crystals. When seen on a high speed camera, (a special camera that takes many frames and can view videos at very low speed) it looks like hundreds of small water droplets moving through the air. These water droplets make up the fog or mist.
There are many types of fog, classified according to what makes the condensation. They include evaporation fog, advection fog, radiation fog, and upslope fog. The thickness of fog varies depending on the atmosphere, temperature, weather and location.
Frost
Frost is ice that is formed when water vapor freezes onto a surface. It has a white, powdery appearance. It forms on cold surfaces when the temperature of the air is very low. It can destroy crops.
Many plants can be damaged or killed by freezing temperatures or frost. This varies with the type of plant and tissue exposed to low temperatures. Greenhouses help to protect crops from cold and frost damage.
1983 Atlantic hurricane season
The 1983 Atlantic hurricane season was the least active Atlantic hurricane season ever recorded. The season officially started on June 1, 1983, and ended on November 30. The seaon had only a total of 4 named storms, which was less than half of the average number of storms in a season. In addition, it was the least active season since ACE recording began in 1950.
The most strongest and deadliest storm of the season was Hurricane Alicia, which hit Texas causing great destruction and killing 21 people directly. The damages it brought totaled up to be $2 billion.
This was a small depression that affected the Lesser Antilles, but did not cause much damage.
Alicia formed in the north-central part of the Gulf of Mexico on August 15. It traveled west, strengthening into a hurricane. It quickly reached Category 3 strength as it approached the Texas coastline, and made landfall at Galveston, Texas on August 18 at its strongest intensity. The storm then moved northward, its eye passing over Houston. Alicia still kept its tropical characteristics while over land, but eventually becoming extratropical and combining itself with another storm over northern Kansas on September 21. A total of 21 people died in the storm, which caused $5.1 billion (2005 USD) of damages.
An African tropical wave crossed the Atlantic Ocean and strengthened into Tropical Storm Barry for a short time just off the east coast of Florida on August 24. Barry weakened to a depression just before it made landfall near Melbourne, Florida, but managed to cross the Florida peninsula and continued west across the Gulf of Mexico. In the central Gulf, it began to restrengthen, and was a minimal Category 1 hurricane when it made landfall in northeastern Mexico. Barry then began to quickly weaken over land at about 1200 UTC August 29 and soon dissipated.
A group of scattered tropical thunderstorms 200 km south of Bermuda, strengthened into the fifth tropical depression of the 1983 season. An Air Force Reconnaissance aircraft found winds of 35 kt (40 mph, 65 km/h) and was named Tropical Storm Chantal. Chantal continued to strengthen and developed into a minimal hurricane with 75 mph (120 km/h) winds on September 11 and maintained that strength until September 13, when it weakened back into a tropical storm.
Chantal travelled northeast over open waters, missing the island of Bermuda, before weakening and being destroyed by a frontal system on September 15. As Chantal never made landfall, no damage or fatalities were reported that was related to the storm. However, Chantal created giant waves that were 30–40 ft (9–12 m) high across the East Coast of the United States.
This was a depression that formed over the Lesser Antilles. It caused no major damage.
Tropical Storm Dean was a short-lived storm that began as a subtropical storm which developed between Bermuda and the Bahamas on September 26. The subtropical storm headed north-northeast and became tropical the next day. Gale warnings were issued from North Carolina to New England that were produced by Dean, but the storm turned northwest and made landfall on the eastern shore of Virginia on September 30. The storm died out several hours later. Dean was one of only two tropical storms ever to make landfall in eastern shore of Virginia, the other storm being Tropical Storm Bret from the 1981 season.
Overall damage turned out to be light with only minor beach erosion and flooding along parts of the Virginian coastline.