Still, it’s hard to not see this as a major defeat for the left of Europe.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist former finance minister, noted that it was his party’s third consecutive defeat in presidential elections.
“The left has never been so weak, because the French left has still not renewed itself,” he said.
But let’s keep some perspective. As Jerome Armstrong notes at MyDD, “The shift is really moving toward a market-based economy, something that would hardly be considered conservative in the US.” I tend to agree with this. It seems to this untrained eye that Europe is actually moving towards liberalism, rather than socialism. That is, regulation of the capitalist markets from the worst of the market failures, but an increased amount of flexibility and freedom in an increasingly tight-knit Europe and globalized world. To me, that’s sounds about right.
Does anybody with more knowledge of France and its politics know any more? What’s your take? What can be done to bolster the left in Europe?
A conservative in Europe is far-left in America. Bolstering the left in europe is like saying “lets have communism!” One of Sarkozy’s plans was to eliminate a 35-hour work week.
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I know you guys love being liberal and all, but too much of a good thing?
So if a conservative in Europe is far-left in America, and this victory is a great victory for conservatism in Europe, then this is a great victory for the far-left in America. Right? Right?
and a loss for America’s Communist Party.
I’m glad to see you also disagree with Eabo’s assertion that this was a victory for Conservatism.
Is being reported to be Thatcherite. Not exactly left leaning. He is looking to liberalise (in the classical sense) the markets of France. He also recognizes that we are in the midst of a multi-generational war with Islamic Extremism. Not particularly leftist views.
That goes on the shelf with “some say” and Mitt’s lovely, “I am told”. WHO says he’s a Thatcherite? Did he run as a Thatcherite? Why not just go all the way and call him a Reaganite?
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And I would love to see a quote on that “multi-generational war with Islamic Extremism” bit. What does that even mean, exactly? Are we talking a clash of civilizations here, or a deployment of French troops to multi-generational deployment in Iraq, possibly? How do you recognize or not recognize that “we” are currently at war? Did the French army mobilize for join operations with the US and nobody else noticed?
If you say police action, you do not believe we are in a multi-generational war with Islamic Extremism. It’s really that simple.
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Oh and here is a Thatcher comparison. Economic conditions in France today resemble Britain in the pre-Thatcher 1970s.
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blockquote>Could Nicolas Sarkozy turn out to be the French Margaret Thatcher? In certain parts of London, there was jubilation Sunday night as Sarkozy easily swept past Socialist Ségolène Royal to win the French presidency. “France is on course for a Right-wing revolution,” the Daily Telegraph proclaimed. “France’s Only Hope for Reform Triumphs,” chimed in a blogger for The Spectator. For Thatcher’s heirs, it is self-evident that France needs a strong dose of privatization, tax cuts, and union-smashing to revive its sclerotic economy, and they see Sarkozy as the man to deliver the medicine.
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Sarkozy may well turn out to be an effective reformer. As I have written previously, he has remarkable political skills, grounded in a classic combination of charm and ruthlessness, and certainly recognizes the need for reform. Yet to call him a right-wing revolutionary is to misread both Sarkozy himself, and the nature of the office he has just won.
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It’s both…we need the combined skills of the FBI, CIA, special forces–for the most part–and the threat, and occasional use of massive military action to win this effort. All I hear from you and otehr neocons is military force, military force and military force.
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This false choice you try and make is an attempt to have people knee jerk into the use of military force. The 9/11 terrorist used box cutters. Most of the potential terrorist threats will be thwarted becuase of good “soft” efforts of intelligence and law enforcement efforts.
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Of course I’m not sure what this all has to do with the French elections…but it was fun.
in related news, the governor of kansas, where a tornado just decimated a town, was bemoaning the fact that her national guard is in Iraq and therefore unable to do what it was meant to do: assist in emergencies at home. very sad indeed when all our resources are tied up military action.
and I’m glad to see that you disagree with those who say that he is somehow “on the left.”
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The point is there are two broad narratives going around that are patently false. One is that he’s this conservative which represents your conservative victory in Europe. The other is that even in France conservatives are crazy-leftists. His comments on the war, on global warming et. al. help knock down the former. I think other comments from others in this community have done a pretty good job dismantling the latter and have showed him to be the rightwinger he really is.
The head of the Conservative Party beat out the head of the Socialist Party in France. That’s all. You win some and you lose some.
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That’s all
Well, I don’t see how this relates in any way to the political situation in America. If Conservatives are reaching out on this and saying “see, see!! our movement is alive and kicking and on th emove!” I’ll fall on my feet, dying from laughter. The political situation is different in France on so many different levels.
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While this election does impact America, it only impacts American foriegn policy… there are no insights to gain on our own political movements.
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I do feel bad for France though. They’ve had basically the same leadership for decade after decade after decade. Essentially, they only had one short period in the entire history of their current Government where the center-right party wasn’t in power. I don’t think that’s a good thing for France, or really any country (as America has come to realize in it’s last election).
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I do have to say kudos to the socialists for making it close – they are at a disadvantage in that country, with a smaller base. The last French presidential election I paid attention to – which was probably their last, but I’m not 100% sure – the socialist candidate shockingly failed to end up on the final ballot – and their whacko party ended up on it (but thankfully all the socialists voted for Chirac in that election, so the whacko guy didn’t really get any more votes in the runoff as he did in the first round).
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I’d love to move to a run-off system, not only because it’s a fairer system, but also because it’s fracking fun. French elections seem so much more dynamic – which is saying a lot.
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Which may be reflected in the amazing turnout numbers of 85% for this election. Imagine getting close to that in the US. I’m not sure how much is the fact that it was on a Sunday, but I’d guess the dynamism of the electoral system plays some role in driving up turnout.
clearly aren’t the best days for turnouts. We need to change that.
And give people the day off to vote.
you may actually lose voters…
it were a paid holiday, but only for people who voted?
it would be hard on the non-citizens and younger workers who would be forced to fill all the shifts that day. i think it should be a payed holiday for everyone, or for no one.
…to the first Tuesday of November. I understand the symbolism of 11/11, but since the holiday encompasses all verterans, I don’t see 11/11 as that important to the Veterans holiday.
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Rep. John Conyers would call it Democracy Day.
You would remove a holiday that honors Veterans specifically. That is not a good idea. If you can’t get yourself to a voting booth on election day, you don’t deserve to vote. I’ve never had a problem. The polls are open for 13 hours. It’s really not that difficult. It also wasn’t difficult when you used to have to register to vote in person. I abhor the motor voter bill, as it is ripe for corruption. You should have to go to city hall prove you are a citizen by giving a certified birth certificate and register. I have always gone to the city or town hall where I live to do this. It is a part of citizenship.
Conyers does not say move veterans day to election day. He just says make election day a holiday. And I never said remove a veterans holiday, I said combine the two.
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It would only be a good thing to have the day off to vote. And I am sure the elderly, the disabled, and the shut-ins would love to hear your opinion that people who can’t get themselves to the voting booth should be denied the franchise. Because God knows how giving someone a day off might allow them to help elderly parents, etc get themselves to the voting booth. It might allow more of us to volunteer for candidates and causes we care passionately about. And God knows, there are plenty of people who work 13 hour days. Tell a person working two jobs and has a family “it’s not that difficult” to get to a voting booth, especially polling places that have long lines. A day off would send a clear message to young people just how important participating in a democracy is. Also, a combined Veteran/Election holliday would solidify forever democracy/the right to vote with the sacrifice of the men and women who have served and died for America. Considering most of us don’t participate in Veterans Day activities, what better way is there to honor fallen soldiers than by going to the polls and exercising one of the fundamental rights that soldiers died protecting? I say make citizenship accesible and easier for more citizens and make Veterans Day matter again.
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This combined holiday will probably never happen, so this is moot. But it doesn’t matter to me what the holliday would be called. It seems only schools, banks and government agencies are the only ones who get 11/11 off anyway. Combining it with Election Day could raise it’s profile. I mean, Memorial Day is the better of the two Veterans holidays because it kicks off the summer season. Veterans Day is a rellic that could stand to be rejuvinated.
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Is that all Memorial Day is, a day to kick off the summer season? I still attend Memorial day services every year in which ever city I am living in currently.
I know the historical difference. But really, the holidays are identical, if not redundant to most Americans.
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The US has 4 “patriotic” holidays – President’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day. Why not have a holiday that promotes and priveliges citizenship and engagement in the democratic proccess?
And you can’t really excercise democracy on July 4th.
the boston police detained me for the anti-democratic act of handing out aclu fliers one july 4th. but i do admit, exercising my 1st amendment rights on THAT day in the “cradle of liberty” was reeaaaly pushing it. 😉
I’m saying Veterans day is over looked because a.) of it’s sexier sister holiday, Memorial Day b.) few people get the day off and c.) even fewer people do anything to observe Veterans Day.
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It seemed to me that was what you are implying.
When Patriotism can lead to unneccesary wars and give Presidents carte blanche to do whatever the hell he pleases, there can be too much patriotism.
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Sorry, but it’s true.
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Personally, I think we could combine Veterans Day with Memorial day and create a Democracy Day that’s all about Civil Engagement, encouraging the democratic process and – yes – a day for americans to vote. Also, I think schools should be in session on “democracy day” and students should learn some neat, cool civic lessons. Maybe make it an half day =p
Memorial Day is not a day for veterans. It is a day to remember those who did not make it home to become veterans.
I think you do, and I know I do. I wonder about Mr. Summer-Kickoff-Let’s-Get-A-Kegger-Going, though.
officially open on Mem Day? About all of them. Face it, the timing of the holiday has made it the (un)official summer kickoff weekend. It’s not just a few beer-swilling bloggers who treat it that way, it is just about everyone. You shouldn’t be surprised if your very own hamlet has some seasonal unveilings planned for that very weekend.
Not the entire weekend in the cemetary, mind you, but away from the Cape.
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When I was young, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Memorial Day meant geting up at 4 am to beat the traffic north, carefully carrying pink geraniums for the graves. Later, the WWI vets would walk through what passed for downtown (a grocery store and a hardware store) in their doughboy uniforms and sing songs. I first learned what puttees were as a child. It was all very patriotic, and the old people would reminisce about how they first saw a real Frenchman, or a mustard cloud.
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I feel bad for kids now – I really do.
have not been exposed to the gore of war that you were? it amazes me that you can feel nostalgic about mustard gas. my uncle fought in the pacific in ww2 and was so traumatized by it, he never said a word until well into his 80s. there’s nothing grand, patriotic or nostalgic in that – it’s tragic. but in any case, you needn’t feel bad for our children for very long. plenty of kids are or shortly will be hearing & seeing more than they could ever hope from their parents returning from Iraq & Afghanistan.
So what you are basically saying, Peter, is that you have a sense of superiority to someone who doesn’t know someone who was killed in war. You also seem to feel a sense of patriotic superiority because you visit a cemetary in Maine on Memorial Day.
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Your family goes to Maine, my family visits the cemetary at Otis – so what? Honoring veterans is a worthy cause, but not the only casue.
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And don’t hate me because I’m still young enough to enjoy keggers, old man! My grandfathers fought in WWII so I could enjoy a cold
BudweiserSam Adams Memorial on Day weekend instead of Becks!Try to show enough class to at least raise a toast in memory of the sacrifice they and their compatriots were willing to make.
In my grandfathers’ cases, the draft gave them no choice. “Willing” had little to do with it. My living grandfather knows full well how I feel about him.
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I do, however, appriciate your lecture on class, though.
One thing worth pointing out is that the conservative candidate in this election won partially due to copying a trademark conservative tactic in the United States: appealing to the worst bigotry and racism in the country.
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In the first round, Sarkozy captured half of the voters who had in 2000 voted for by Jean Marie Le Pen in the first round (Le Pen is a simian xenophobe of the worst nature who regularly rails against immigrants and people who don’t “act” or “look” French). Even though Le Pen was again running, Sarkozy’s appeals (some shockingly open) to the xenophobic, anti-Muslim section peeled many of his regular voters who apparently felt the two had much in common.
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Expect to see that all of Le Pen’s previous voters migrated to Sarkozy by the second round. So, similar to the Republican Party has here (and still does in many parts of the country), the conservatives won by courting the bigot vote. Had Sègo stooped to do the same, she’d have fared better.
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I would call this a victory for bigotry, not a victory for conservatism.
Socalist candidate Segoline Royal ran as a moderate, to the right of the traditional party base, in the mold of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Unlike those two men, Royal ran an undisciplined campaign marked by embarrassments and gaffes. She nonetheless got 47% of the vote.
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President Sarkozy campaigned with a deliberate appeal to voters supporting France’s Front National, the neo-fascist party that came in second seven years ago.
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This is as if a major U.S. Presidential candidate were to kick off his campaign by visiting a Deep South town where civil rights workers had been murdered in the 1960s, and delivered a speech about “state’s rights” (if you can imagine such a thing).
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Sarko’s victory either validates this strategy or at least does not repudiate it. It is hard to see how this is anything else than a victory for the French Right. How “great” a victory remains to be seen.
What I was trying to get across above was that this whole meme that conservative in France is actually left wing here is just bunk. Additionally, even conservatives in France agree that global warming is a threat and that the war in Iraq should not have been waged. The right in America likes to have it both ways: that this somehow signals that even the French are becoming more conservative in the manner of the US and that the French are so crazy left-wing that a conservative over there is far left over here.
Sabutai and Trickle Up are both right in their acknowledgment that the darkest part about this is the reliance of Sarkozy on the racist anti-immigrant far right. Forgetting the large difference in where the economic center is between the US and France, this could effectively be compared to an election bewteen Hillary Clinton and Tom Tancredo.
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Segolene Royal was a economically to right of her own party, often accused of being too “liberale” in that sense, (just as Hillary is much like her husband and to the right of the Democrats in general on economic issues) while lining up with her party on social issues with some token right-ish “values” stands (that in both Sego’s and Hillary’s case are rather silly). She had her problems as a candidate, but in France’s case a slight shift to the economic right with a solid re-affirmation of liberal social values would have be very useful, and her many benefits as a candidate.
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Sarkozy was basically Tancredo-esque in the sense that he openly relied on racism against non-European immigrants to propel his campaign, was slightly to the right of his party on most issues, and has the administrative bona fides comparable to those Micheal Brown earned in Katrina: he not mishandled the suburban riots but actually urged them on by insulting the people involved, creating further division.
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As much as I love some aspects of France’s strict election rules and use of run-off elections, the short time frame between the intial vote and the final vote left little time for coalitions to really solidify. Even though more of Bayrou’s supporters went to Royal, his refusal to endorse either may have been avoided if there was a longer general election campaign, and Sarkozy’s open courting of the National Front supporters (the Minutemen types) during the whole campaign left him very strong in the short campaign frame, as Royal had no natural support among Communists or Trotskyists.
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But this still reveals the sad truth that racism and sexism still exist and pervade in France as they do here. The only way I can still think to deal with it, which is snarky at best, is to paraphrase the classic headline from the Daily Mirror: “How could 18,983,408 people be so dumb?”
Women shunned Royale. Time and time I’m reminded of one of the most self-evident truths of our existence: women hate women. It’s not sexism…if it was sexism she wouldn’t have gotten as far as she did.
makes me wonder who you hang around with.
and the fact that ab out 70% of my friends are women, and the wonderful world of dating, it is painfully obvious that women hate other women.
never heard men hate men
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anyone?
I was hesitant to put that in, and it’s rather irrelevant to the rest of my post, but it probably was part of the package. Maybe was the same people who like Sarko cause they hate immigrants, but who knows.
i think they still have parliamentary elections coming up next month. as here in the u.s., it is too simplistic to typify the entire country based on the vote for president. one must wait to see how the people stack their national assembly. also, the president will appoint a prime minister to his liking. however, the p.m. will not necessarily be a carbon copy of the prez. i hear that the p.m. will be the guy who ran sarkozy’s campaign, so they are undoubtedly in agreement over major issues. but you never know. interesting things happen when that much power is at stake.
…and it turned out to be true.
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IMHO, the Socialists and their allies have done themselves no favors by rioting in response to the elections as far as Parliament is concerned, Laurel. Guys who take to the streets when they lose an election – yeah, that’s who I want representing MY interests in the Government!
France – got to love it
1) since all the polls show 46 to 48 percent for Royal going in to the weekend, it’s hard to argue there were any secret Sarko supporters lying to the pollsters.
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2) I doubt the Socialistes themselves had anything to do with the riots: it’s probably the same people who had protested in 2005, and were exacerbated by Sarkozy. The anti-Sarko movement is far bigger than Royal herself, just as the anti-Bush movement in 2004 was far bigger than John Kerry. Just in both cases, not big enough.
France is a third world country with a first world economy merely because of its colonial legacy and vast hordes of imperialist wealth. Everything about France is wrong right now, the massive socialist welfare state is clearly becoming too big and too expensive to maintain, it has also created a generation of French people accustomed to lifetime jobs, 35 hour work weeks, two month vacations, and having the government provide them with most essential services. Those that don’t work enjoy the free perks of France’s generous welfare state, if anything the reasons the Muslims rioted are not because they are “islamofacist” or any other dumb term the right can come up with, it is because they are unemployed and they are not valued as citizens of France. Marx correctly wrote that even if a man owns nothing he still owns his own labor, he incorrectly labeled this an evil, when in reality it liberates man. In France the Muslims cannot even sell their own labor since old white Frenchmen can have a job until they are 65.
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Sarkozy while a conservative by French standards is proposing curtailing a leftward system gone awry, the income tax for the average French citizen is 60%, even here in Taxchusetts only those in the top 1% bracket of income have to pay 50%. Sarkozy will lower the rate from 60% to 50% hardly a conservatives tax cut, by comparison in the US currently a middle class family pays less than 10%. He is also proposing making it easier to fire people again a conservative reform by French standards but essentially something America already has in place. So even as a liberal-libertarian Democrat I support Sarkozy since France is teetering on the edge of financial ruin and I want the French people to be productive again. Also Chirac was from the same party, and the Right loved to villify him even though he was from the “conservative” party in France.
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Can anyone define this term for me, or is it the same in the leftist mind as <>
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Just asking. Otherwise, we abstain. Courteously.
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Best,
Chuck
“France is a third world country with a first world economy merely because of its colonial legacy and vast hordes of imperialist wealth.”
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Can anyone define this term for me, or is it the same in the leftist mind as “capitalist wealth?”
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Just asking. Otherwise, we abstain. Courteously.
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Best,
Chuck