>> hello and a very warm welcome to "european journal" coming to you from dw studio in brussels. thank you for turning in. here's what we have for you in addition -- life in the limelight. with the french think of their new first couple. forced labor. how ikea use east german prisoners to assemble furniture. and why the legendary minibus could disappear from istanbul. red carpets and the shiny helmets of guards. the inauguratio ceremony of france's new president, francois hollande, shows how much the

french love their pomp and politics. in that as well. she is expected to be elegant and have a sense of style, like harlem for nine -- carla brunei. hollande's partner has kept a fairly low profile so far, and that is something the french may find hard to tell of a rigid tolerate. >> two years ago, hollande looked like this. his arrest of nickname cost laughter across france. today, his 15 kilos lighter and comes across as dynamic and feisty. in france, popular opinion is that such a trends -- transformation has to be due to a woman. in the case of france what hollande -- friends what --

francois hollande, she is valley, a seasoned political journalist. his side, hollande was able to compete with sarkozy's constant media presence. even the glamour factor of sarkozy's wife, the former model, could not save his campaign. valerie comes from a less privileged background. her father was disabled in world war ii and her mother worked as a cashier. valerie became the host of political talk shows on commercial television. she is known as a tough journalist, but the role of the premier game premierdame -- dame requires other factors.

>> it is going so fast. there's so much turbulence. any time to process it. >> how does she see her future? >> i will need time to think about it. >> she is giving longer interviews only to select journalists. among the chosen few, a former colleague. she says valerie wants to keep working and does not want to be dependent on a man, not even hollande. >> she is a woman who has the same concerns as everyone else in france. she wants to keep working to earn money to support her three adolescents children. hollande is not the father of her children, and she does not want them living at the expense of the state. she knows the value of money, and she has never profited from any privilege. >> the new premier dame also

does not want to live in the ellis said palace, cut off from the outside world. she would rather live here in her paris apartment, but life there is not normal, either. two plainclothes policeman are posted outside. one of them approaches us after a few minutes and tells us he has strict instructions not to let us film. despite the police presence, people in the area are proud to have such famous neighbors, though some find that hollande's partner is very different from him. >> she is much more reserved. after he was elected, he came and shook our hands, but she stayed outside. you can tell she does not want to have too much to do with his being president. >> a few streets away in his courtyard, a well-known journalist and author has his office. you're a 500-page biography about hollande but never got

closer valerie. >> if you ask her where she graduated from school when she was 17, she threatens you with a lawsuit instead of answering with -- answering a simple question. she writes that you are a bad journalist and do not do your work properly. she is very aggressive, very violent, and i would say she is very paranoid. >> the french want to learn more about their new premier dame and some resent her efforts to avoid the limelight. >> what does that even mean, a normal life? when you are head of state or the wife of the head of state, the life is not normal anymore. >> some would have preferred to have hollande's x partner as premier dame.

with four children and a partnership lasting more than 30 years, they were the political power couple for the left in france. five years ago, she herself ran for president and recently supported her ex-husband in his campaign, even when he somewhat brusquely shoved her to the sidelines. >> for the french, she is a mixture of joan of arc and margaret thatcher, and she is very popular. in the subconscious of the french, that couple still exists somehow. so we are experiencing an unbelievable situation that never existed before, is sort of love triangle. >> so this with smooch and obvious devotion for his beloved rally. that was hollande's way of

making things clear on election night. there the first unmarried french presidential couple. hollande is familiar with protocol, but she it seems still has to find her way and the public stage. >> swedish furniture giant ikea is famous for its friendly customer service and likes to market itself as a good place to work, but now that image may be tarnished. until the berlin wall fell, the assembly network included sites in what was then a communist east germany, and it turns out the work force there included political prisoners who were forced to work. ikea has condemned the use of forced labor but says that if it did happen, then without its knowledge, but it has announced that it was to clarify the

issue, a first step in helping those who suffered come to terms with their past. because that is present, now with a modern facade, is one of the oldest jails in europe. during the communist era, it was also one of the largest. inmates here built furniture, providing labor for a local furniture manufacturer, which in turn supplied ikea. these men were once managers of of the biggest furniture producers in the east germany, which like was used cut-rate bigger forests ikea products. -- for its achaea products. >> with the spirit that is still on sale in all their stores, one of the best-selling models in the stores history. >> and and ikea best-seller

means millions of sales. even back in the 1970's when the production in east germany really took off. >> i could tell you the production figures. it was a case of mutual approval. ikea had great confidence in us, and vice versa. >> customers were oblivious to who was building their home furnishings. neither side of the deal like to talk about it. but those workers are now coming forward to tell their story. dieter was given a one-year sentence in 1985, which he served in two different jails. his crime -- wanting to leave east germany. >> i spent the first few days in

a cell like this, all alone. that he was a political prisoner and therefore singled out for harsh treatment, and like other inmates, he had to do work. >> i worked on a punching machine. we may castor rollers + furniture handles and hinges. >> they were never told who they were ultimately working for. the managers of the east german manufacturers supplying ikea new, of course, that the work force included political prisoners. >> in every jail in germany, whether in the east or the west, prisoners can work. so that they can find their way back into society. >> if they got something out of it. they were paid. >> paid? a pittance. a profitable business for the

respective bosses. and the inmates had to meet work quotas, so there was a lot of pressure on them. there were severe punishments for refusing to work. >> according to the united nations, it is not illegal for inmates to work, but that does not apply to political prisoners. but in east germany, opponents% of the regime were treated like common criminals, as a warden recalls. >> people tend to assume that the people breaking the law in east germany were criminals, but looking at it today, obviously, some were politically motivated offenses, such as trying to escape the country. the prisoners we had were mixed together. >> the dirty little secret was actually far from secret. in 1984, a fire broke out at ikea's west german headquarters. the media and the west were

quick to bring up the issue of prison labor as a possible motive for the arsonist. ikea was similarly swift to deny the charges, which it dismissed as rumors, but now, ikea was the image is again at risk. the allegations that it exploded prisoners are resurfacing with a vengeance. detailed notes made by east germany state securities showed that the ikea management did know about the prisoners. >> we are taking this matter very seriously, conducting investigations also with outside assistance. these events are 25 to 30 years old now. we have to view the files, and that will take time. but we will be thorough in order to ensure as complete a picture as possible. >> the former political prisoners say they already know the complete picture, and they

do not want any further delays. they are demanding compensation for the injustice they suffered in the past. and many villages in europe are threatened with extinction and have been for years. the current crisis is aggravating the problem. villages often lack the funds to repair roads or keep schools and local kindergarten's running. communities that want to survive need new ideas or fall back on old ones. in this village in the south of spain, people have enough work, and nobody is threatened with eviction from their home because they cannot pay off their mortgage. how does that work? the village is being run by a charismatic mayor, who firmly believes in social utopia, an idea that many have consigned to

the dustbin of history. >> mayor juan manuel sanchez greets the villagers. the face of che guevara flutters over the barn roof. >> i believe that in times of economic crisis, it makes more sense than ever before. we want to change this land into a new cooperative, and we tend to occupy more land. >> out in the fields, the present occupiers tell us that large landowners receive millions of euros in your subsidies for the land, although there were not even cultivating it. the workers have put up a sign telling locals to say to fight instead of immigrating.

a poor region, it has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn, but this village is bucking the trend. it has 3000 residents and many call the plays a utopia. its town hall sports a palestinian flag as a sign of solidarity. sanchez gordillo has been mayor for three decades. this commitment has never wavered. any villager with the problem was welcome to pay him a visit. in his office, the usual photo of spain's king is missing. instead, there's a picture of che guevara, evidence the revolution is alive and kicking. >> we believe in grass-roots democracy. in our meetings, we decide to get how much tax to pay and what to spend our money on. of course we feel the crisis as

well. the prices for our agricultural products have fallen, but generally, we are having a better time of it than others. >> the people of the village began occupying farms in the 1980's. the old footage shows the mayor as a young activists, calling on his fellow villagers to fight for the land. >> that is how it began. >> with shouts of, "we are hungry," the villagers occupied land belonged to a duke. he and other landlords and it up selling their land cheaply to the and illusion government. now the fertile land is being cultivated by dozens of laborers. the cooperative plans artichokes' and beans, which are then processed in the farm's factories. the mayor says there's hardly any unemployment in the village.

>> we are proud of what we have achieved. we have always been day laborers, but what we're doing now is our work. >> i had a regular income here. that is the most important thing during a crisis. >> the cooperative has also funded construction in the village. 350 homes have been built using income from the farm. no one here has to worry about repaying mortgages or bank loans. rafael lives in one of the houses and pays an extremely low rent. the land and materials were provided by the community, but he had to help build it himself. >> it is really unbelievable. many seasonal workers could never afford to live in a house

like this, but we pages 15 euros a month here. it is great. >> but is this a model village? some say not. we meet up with a town councilor, just one of two opposition councilmembers. he says the villages brand of socialism depends on subsidies and says the cooperative receives nearly 1 million euros from the eu and no new enterprises are being created. >> the mayor is always telling everyone there is no unemployment year. >> is it a lie? >> you could call it a political life. >> the mayor is unfazed by the criticism. he takes his cues from fidel castro or karl marx. his voice dominates the local council meetings, and his answer to the critics is always the same -- the people of the village are better off than other spaniards.

the struggle continues. the laborers are repeatedly driven away by the police. but they always return a few days later supported by the mayor. >> the village works today because we occupied the land back then. that is why we have an income and jobs. we want to do something similar with this project. >> occupying the land has turned around the lives of the villagers. despite the economic crisis, the village is driving. >> if you are sharing three lanes with five cars that keep crisscrossing in all directions happily honking their horns, you must be driving in istanbul. it is a fascinating city in turkey, but drivers need nerves of steel, so many turks rely on one of the 6000 so-called dormushes to get around.

it is a minibus with 14 seats but often more passengers squeezed in when needed. they operate in an informal and chaotic way, and they are much cheaper than taxis, but now, some local politicians want to get rid of them. they say that they are a threat to road safety and that they do not belong in a modern metropolis like istanbul. >> needs a good voice and strong nerves. he drives a dormush. the word roughly translates to what it is full because only then do the yellow shared taxis set off. he shouts to try to attract passengers. his route is transcontinental. he drives from europe to asia and back again. finally he can get going. he uses a wooden box as his cash register, and passengers pay

while he is driving. the passenger sitting directly behind him serves as the fair collector and hands back people change. 10 people can squeeze into the minivan. his shared taxi is the only answer to the crazy traffic on the istanbul's streets. >> if it were not for us, there would be no getting through the streets anymore. there should be more of us. >> but city officials think the 6000 minibuses clogged the streets and are outdated. they want to make them superfluous by expanding the metro service and getting more city buses. >> the minibuses hinder traffic. they are always stopping to let people on and off. we want to stop that and use modern buses, clean, with air- conditioning and trained drivers.

>> but the dormush is as much a part of istanbul as anything else. residents love their shared taxis. fast and without seat belts, it is its third traffic and gets you where you're going at an unbeatable low-priced. >> take a taxi 12 kilometers over to the asian side, cost the equivalent of 12 years. the dormush cost 10 -- two for the same route. >> i have never taken the metro. it is more comfortable in here. >> up until 20 years ago, the dormush were big, old american cars, converted to have eight seats. they were the share rides of the istanbul little class. but the population explosion in the city and the vintage cars could not keep pace, and they

were traded in for an expense of minivans. the dormush has served as a setting for countless turkish films, comedies as well as romances. the minibus driver as a well- coiffed romeo. but this can end badly. accidents involving many buses take place -- minibuses take place every day in turkey. dormush drivers do not have a very good reputation. they are aggressive on the road, recklessly smearing their vehicles at full speed through traffic with one hand on the horn and the other often holding a cell phone. and if the driver suddenly has agreed the call of nature, traffic comes to a standstill until he is ready to drive on.

but many here doubt that regular city buses will be able to fully replace the nimble shared taxis. the city buses often get stuck in traffic on smaller streets, and the very few metro and streetcar lines are also not a real alternative. we arrive on the asian coast. the passengers had arrived safely, and the driver has a few minutes for a tea break while he waits for his dormush to fill up again for the trip back. >> there is no future in this line of work. i would not want it for my children. the people in charge want to get rid of us, and they are stressed with the traffic, dissatisfied passengers. there are quieter jobs.

>> and then, the when it is full minibus takes off into the streets of the metropolis. it seems that the symbol's dormush -- istanbul's dormush is heading into an uncertain future. >> that report brings us to the end of this week's "european journal." we hope you enjoyed the show. remember, you can also find us online. the address is www.dw.de /europeanjournal, or check out our facebook page. and in again next week if you can. until then, from all of us here at dw studios in brussels, thanks for watching, and good bye for now. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--