Member of the European Parliament Sarkozy, former Deputy PM of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg, former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Belgian PM Elio Di Rupo. The so-called "dual mandate", in which an individual is a member of both his or her national parliament and the European Parliament, was officially discouraged by a growing number of political parties and Member States, and is prohibited as of 2009. In the 2004–2009 Parliament, a small number of members still held a dual mandate. Notably, Ian Paisley and John Hume once held "triple mandates" as MEP, MP in the House of Commons,
Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy he proposed that all high-school students read Guy Moquet's last letter to his parents, which was criticized by a number of leftists as a cynical form of reappropriation of French history by the right. In the afternoon, the new president flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was replaced by François Fillon on 17 May. Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, as his foreign minister, leading to Kouchner's expulsion from the Socialist Party. In addition to Kouchner, three more Sarkozy ministers are from the left, including Eric