Mara Carfagna elected into the Chamber of Deputies for Forza Italia, and in the 2008 elections – running as the third candidate from The People of Freedom in the district "Campania 2" – she was reelected. When she first entered parliament Berlusconi jokingly commented that Forza Italia practiced the law of primae noctis; the right of a feudal lord to take the virginity of his female subjects. As a deputy she was secretary of the Commission for Constitutional Affairs, and has been described as a diligent, hard-working parliamentarian. On May 8, 2008 she was appointed Minister for Equal Opportunity, in the fourth
Death and funeral of Helmut Kohl and was honoured with an unprecedented European Act of State in his honour in Strasbourg, France, attended by the leaders of the EU's nations and other current and former world leaders. Subsequently, a Catholic requiem mass was celebrated in the Speyer Cathedral in Speyer, Germany, before Kohl was interred in the nearby Old Cemetery. Helmut Kohl was survived by his two sons Walter Kohl and Peter Kohl, and by his grandchildren Johannes and Leyla Kohl. No member of the Kohl family—Kohl's children and grandchildren—participated in any of the ceremonies, owing to a feud with Kohl's controversial new wife Maike Kohl-Richter,