Moscovici fights to keep Convention seat

Date: 04/07/02

By Simon Coss

FRANCE'S former EU affairs minister Pierre Moscovici this week launched a desperate bid to save his place as one of France's representatives on the European Convention.

In a letter to centre-left daily Le Monde, he said sacking him would be an 'error'.

He was responding to calls from the country's new centre-right Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle (UMP) party for the socialist to be axed as he is no longer in the government.

But Moscovici insisted this week that he had been chosen in a personal capacity by President Jacques Chirac because of his experience in EU affairs.

He also said that if he were replaced by a centre-right candidate, France's left would have no voice on the Convention. France's other representative on the forum is the Convention chairman, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

France's former EU affairs minister Pierre Moscovici has launched a desperate bid to save his place as one of France's representatives on the European Convention.