FYI, the official far right party in France is the Front National, which doesn't have an elected deputy. U.M.P can be compared to the Republican Party in the U.S. : though the party is mainly on the right side of the political spectrum, several currents are represented. A lot of its members (particularly from the south east of France, where Nice is located) are in fact elected by Front National sympathisers, and are regularly borrowing ideas from the National Front, like the recent hunt against Roms. But it's not the main current inside U.M.P, it's more complicated than that (French politics are really fun...)

But the bank (Société Générale) will not go after him for this money. They just want to take away what he gained from the scandal (books and movie rights).

Cri-cri is a common nickname in french.

Saying that oil companies are closing whole refineries to lower the demand is far from reality: on average, if you look at the worldwide uptime in downstream (the uptime of refineries), we are close to 95% (I don't have the exact figure handy). Uptimes in upstream are worse, as you have to deal with typhoons, looters and kidnappers.

But in France for example, oil companies have delayed investements in new capacities for refining diesel, and have caused a noticeable bump of the price (I'm not discussing the impact of state taxs on this, but they are interesting). But greedyness is not the ony factor that comes into play: back in 1998-2000, refining companies were losing money doing their job. When you take into account that it requires 5 years to design and install a new unit (costing from 50M to 1B$), or 10 years for a whole refinery, you are careful when you take your decision.

That said, according to some leftists, three years of profit from Total are enough to end starvation on Earth. But that's another matter.