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From Our Own Correspondent: Georgia and France

Bidzina Ivanishvili

Georgia and France

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Georgia and France

Damien McGuinness - who is Ivanishvili really? Hugh Schofield, the French in a gloomy funk

Damien McGuinness on trying to figure out who Bidzina Ivanishvili really is and Hugh Schofield bemoaning the current French climate - of gloom.

Pascale Harter introduces personal insights and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world.In this edition: 

From rags to riches to rule
He’s been variously compared to Dracula, Bruce Wayne and the Count of Monte Cristo. And his mountainside villa could double as a set from a James Bond film. Now, after his party won out in Georgia’s parliamentary elections on October 1st, the billionaire philanthropist Bidzina Ivanishvili is set to become the country’s prime minister. So who exactly is he? Our correspondent in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, Damien McGuinness wonders if anyone really knows.

Gare du ... gloom
A new – well, newish – French President is not having it all his own way. President Francois Hollande’s popularity ratings have collapsed by 11 percentage points in a month. Unemployment across France has just hit three million. And it’s predicted that economic growth next year won't get much better than zéro. Our correspondent Hugh Schofield spends lot of time hopping between Paris and London – and at the moment, he reckons, comparisons between the two capitals are not favourable for the French.

(Image: Bidzina Ivanishvili. Credit: AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

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