# Conservative French President Sarkozy swinging to the left?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 16, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252 "2009-09-16T00:02:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/21 "2009-09-16T18:26:09Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Heh. Pretty hypocritical words, from a guy who, a mere few months ago, was basing his entire political platform on the slogan “let’s work more to earn more !!”, and was busy abolishing every social program from the last 20 years. Measures of well being, my pale arse. Actually, Sarko was not workng to abolish French social programmes, merely modernise. Although to the still unreformed French Left… His positioning really doesn’t amount to much of a substantive change if one is not looking at him through highly ideological lens. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/22 "2009-09-16T18:29:17Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > You’re mistaking American anti-governmental sentiment for a universal (or even coherent) definition of “right wing.” > > The Right in France has always been Statist, and highly un-liberal. Indeed much of the Right tradition in the non-Anglo Saxon world is very Statist and un-liberal. The Americans are rather the outlier in the unique identification of Right as Anti State as such. > > Sarkozy is really just returning to the traditional French centre Right tradition of Statist desire to control economic activity. According to the paper ‘political conservatism as motivated social cognition’ there are certain psychological traits that are similar across cultures and time lines that unite conservatives. [http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf](http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf) > **[07.22.2003 - Researchers help define what makes a political conservative](https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml)** ``` * Fear and aggression * Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity * Uncertainty avoidance * Need for cognitive closure * Terror management ``` In the US there is a strong statist tendency among the right wing. Not so much with economics, but they want a very strong system of military, police, border guard and espionage. Do the right wingers in europe prefer socialist economic policy (as opposed to the libertarian economics they prefer here in the US)? It seems that both US and European right wingers have many similar attitudes about minority rights, immigration, diversity, response to domestic/international threats, international organizations, etc. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/23 "2009-09-16T18:31:56Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > If they truly invented the BJ I’d say humanity owes them a considerable debt. Well, I’m sure (because I’ve seen depictions in ancient art) that it’s something practiced in ancient Greece and Rome long before Clovis converted the Franks; but oral sex is associated throughout the English-speaking world with the word “French” for **some** reason. ---
**Author:** ![Oukile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@Oukile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oukile)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/24 "2009-09-16T18:34:34Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Heh. Pretty hypocritical words, from a guy who, a mere few months ago, was basing his entire political platform on the slogan “let’s work more to earn more !!”, and was busy abolishing every social program from the last 20 years. Measures of well being, my pale arse. > > Oh, and **Der Trihs** , I don’t think you could call Sarkozy an American-style liberal. He’s for more police/more “toughness on crime”, more immigration control, against nationalized businesses, against welfare/unemployment benefits, against minimum wage, against reducing work hours, against “Islamisation” (whatever the fuck \*that \*means)… From where I stand, he’s a right winger all right, and pretty far right at that. Indeed, first thing to keep in mind is that he is definitively a right-winger… from the point of view of a Frenchman. Not that all French are unhappy about it. However, and here I disagree with you, **Kobal2** , that still makes him someone who you may call and American-style libral. French right wing = US left wing. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Sarcozy is not right wing. Le Pen is right wing, which is why he only won 18% of the vote in 2002. > > In the US, someone like Le Pen would easily win a national election. His stance on the issues is not too radical by US standards: > > Reinstatement of the death penalty > Anti-immigration stance > Anti-abortion > Resisting international organizations (the EU, UN, etc) > Xenophobia against muslims > Support of torture Well, le Pen is a right-wing populist. And he is barely better than a nazi in lot of French people’s opinion. Let’s point out that Sarkozy was not a candidate in 2002 and that le Pen did benefit from a massive anti-criminality media campain. Sarkozy pretty much ate le Pen’s electorial basis by taking firm postures agains criminality and illegal immigration, and le Pen did only 10% in 2007. This being said, let’s point out that: - Sarkozy’s speech sounds very nice (to French people) but will very likely not come to anything. In all case, it is much easier than engaging into significant internal politic action. So it doesn’t really cost him anything, and the right-wing French voters won’t mind, even if they don’t appove this position. - French politics is a lot about getting the voters from the other side to switch towards yours, rather than the US politics which is (I heard) about getting the people from your side to vote. As a consequence, you can expect the right-wing people to make steps towards the left-wing voters, especially when it doesn’t cost anything. For instance by making this sort of proposals. - Sarkozy likes a lot making provocative statements or proposals which attract mediatic attention to him -and generally come to nothing. He’s done quite some of those in France since he is president ! > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > […] oral sex is associated throughout the English-speaking world with the word “French” for **some** reason. I’ll have to investigate this matter when I’ll move to the US, in 5 months 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/25 "2009-09-16T18:38:39Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Do the right wingers in europe prefer socialist economic policy (as opposed to the libertarian economics they prefer here in the US)? It seems that both US and European right wingers have many similar attitudes about minority rights, immigration, diversity, response to domestic/international threats, international organizations, etc. To an extent, yes. I think you’re drawing a false dichotomy though. There is a lot of gray between free-market-libertarian anarchy, and state-controls-everything socialism. Most conservatives in the non-US developed world sit in that gray: they are pro-market, but accept that there are some things that are fundamental to society that need to be provided by a responsible government (UHC for example). While there are still many conservatives in the rest of the developed world who would make Limbaugh blush [ETA: Thatcher wanted to dismantle the NHS, and was heavily influenced by libertarianism], the middle of the US conservative bell curve is currently, dramatically, way, way to the right of that of pretty much every other developed deomcratic country. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/26 "2009-09-16T19:12:07Z")
I suspect a key distinction is empire. Britain was all about the white mans burden and gunboat diplomacy in, say, the mid Victorian era - couldn’t walk down the street without losing an eye to a waving Union Jack. There something culturally implicit in mass militarisation. Another interesting aspect is perhaps how the church enables and reinforces imperialism. Very flexible is Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/27 "2009-09-16T19:48:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, I’m sure (because I’ve seen depictions in ancient art) that it’s something practiced in ancient Greece and Rome long before Clovis converted the Franks; but oral sex is associated throughout the English-speaking world with the word “French” for **some** reason. British French bashing as I understand. If something was considered sinful it was attributed to the French or got the word “French” slapped on it. Like French kissing, “French letters” for condoms, etc. As for oral sex; some apes indulge in it, so it certainly didn’t start with the French or even ancient Greece. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/28 "2009-09-16T19:58:01Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > I suspect a key distinction is empire. Britain was all about the white mans burden and gunboat diplomacy in, say, the mid Victorian era - couldn’t walk down the street without losing an eye to a waving Union Jack. How is that a distinction? Did not the French have their _mission civilatrice,_ in which schoolchildren in French Indochina read history texts beginning with “our ancestors, the Gauls”? Did not America take up the White Man’s Burden in the Philippines – or, more recently, the updated neocon version of same in Iraq? ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/29 "2009-09-16T20:35:58Z")
To my understanding the French never quite took to the imperial manner in the grand way the Anglo-Saxons did. While the government might huff and puff a little at times, the people don’t live in a glorious past, ime. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/30 "2009-09-16T20:36:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > British French bashing as I understand. If something was considered sinful it was attributed to the French or got the word “French” slapped on it. Like French kissing, “French letters” for condoms, etc. Seconded, or rather amended : it’s not a British thing, it’s a nation thing. “Unsavory” stuff is always from somewhere else. E.g. : In France, condoms are known (among a slew of other nicknames) as “capote anglaise” : the English raincoat. In England, syphilis was “the French disease”, in France it was “the Italian disease”. In France, a titty fuck is “Spanish wanking”. And so on, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/31 "2009-09-16T21:41:28Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Seconded, or rather amended : it’s not a British thing, it’s a nation thing. “Unsavory” stuff is always from somewhere else. > E.g. : In France, condoms are known (among a slew of other nicknames) as “capote anglaise” : the English raincoat. In England, syphilis was “the French disease”, in France it was “the Italian disease”. In France, a titty fuck is “Spanish wanking”. And so on, and so forth. OTOH, flogging or caning is the “English vice” – **everywhere.** (Something to do with public-school discipline in males’ formative adolescent years, or something . . .) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/32 "2009-09-16T23:12:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > OTOH, flogging or caning is the “English vice” – **everywhere.** (Something to do with public-school discipline in males’ formative adolescent years, or something . . .) And to do with the reputation the English earned for getting off on it as adults. _[The Pearl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pearl_(erotica))_, erotic stories published in London in the 1870s was pretty heavy on caning for pleasure for example. I wonder what sexual fetishes America has a reputation for? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/33 "2009-09-16T23:43:50Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > You’re mistaking American anti-governmental sentiment for a universal (or even coherent) definition of “right wing.” > > The Right in France has always been Statist, and highly un-liberal. Indeed much of the Right tradition in the non-Anglo Saxon world is very Statist and un-liberal. The Americans are rather the outlier in the unique identification of Right as Anti State as such. > > Sarkozy is really just returning to the traditional French centre Right tradition of Statist desire to control economic activity. I’ll grant you, modern American “movement conservatism” is different – not from-another-planet different, but pretty different. From [_The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America,_](http://www.amazon.com/Right-Nation-Conservative-Power-America/dp/0143035398/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224007314&sr=8-1) by conservative British journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge: > [@](#): > > The exceptionalism of the American Right is partly a matter of its beliefs. The first two definitions of “conservative” offered by the Concise Oxford Dictionary are “adverse to rapid change” and “moderate, avoiding extremes.” Neither of these seems a particularly good description of what is going on in America at the moment. “Conservatism” – no less than its foes “liberalism” or “communitarianism” – has become one of those words that are now as imprecise as they are emotionally charged. Open a newspaper and you can find the word used to describe Jacques Chirac, Trent Lott, the Mullah Omar and Vladimir Putin. Since time immemorial, conservatives have insisted that their deeply pragmatic creed cannot be ideologically pigeonholed. > > But, in philosophical terms at least, classical conservatism does mean something. **The creed of Edmund Burke, its most eloquent proponent, might be crudely reduced to six principles: a deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism.** Winston Churchill happily accepted these principles: he was devoted to nation and empire, disinclined to trust the lower orders with anything, hostile to the welfare state, worried about the diminution of liberty and, as he once remarked ruefully, “preferred the past to the present and the present to the future.” > > To simplify a little, **the exceptionalism of modern American conservatism lies in its exaggeration of the first three of Burke’s principles and contradiction of the last three.** The American Right exhibits a far deeper hostility towards the state than any other modern conservative party. . . . The American right is also more obsessed with personal liberty than any other conservative party, and prepared to tolerate an infinitely higher level of inequality. (One reason why Burke warmed to the American revolutionaries was that, unlike their dangerous French equivalents, the gentlemen rebels concentrated on freedom, not equality.) On patriotism, nobody can deny that conservatives everywhere tend to be a fairly nationalistic bunch. . . . Yet many European conservatives have accepted the idea that their nationality should be diluted in “schemes and speculations” like the European Union, and they are increasingly reconciled to dealing with national security on a multilateral basis. American conservatives clearly are not. > > If the American Right was merely a more vigorous form of conservatism, then it would be a lot more predictable. In fact, the American Right takes a resolutely liberal approach to Burke’s last three principles: hierarchy, pessimism and elitism. The heroes of modern American conservatism are not paternalist squires but rugged individualists who don’t know their place: entrepeneurs who build mighty businesses out of nothing, settlers who move out West, and, of course, the cowboy. There is a frontier spirit to the Right – unsurprisingly, since so much of its heartland is made up of new towns of one sort of another. > > The geography of conservatism also helps to explain its optimism rather than pessimism. In the war between the Dynamo and the Virgin, as Henry Adams characterized the battle between progress and tradition, most American conservatives are on the side of the Dynamo. They think that the world offers all sorts of wonderful possibilities. And they feel that the only thing that is preventing people from attaining these possibilities is the dead liberal hand of the past. By contrast, Burke has been described flatteringly by European conservatives as a “prophet of the past.” Spend any time with a group of Republicans, and their enthusiasm for the future can be positively exhausting. > > As for elitism, rather than dreaming about creating an educated “clerisy” of clever rulers (as Coleridge and T.S. Eliot did), the Republicans ever since the 1960s have played the populist card. Richard Nixon saw himself as the champion of the “silent majority.” In 1988 the aristocratic George H.W. Bush presented himself as a defender of all-American values against the Harvard Yard liberalism of Michael Dukakis. In 2000, George W. Bush, a president’s son who was educated at Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School, played up his role as a down-to-earth Texan taking on the might of Washington. As a result, modern American conservatism has flourished not just in country clubs and boardrooms, but at the grass roots – on talk radio and at precinct meetings, and in revolts against high taxes, the regulation of firearms and other invidious attempts by liberal do-gooders to force honest Americans into some predetermined mold. Of course, it is arguable that even Burke’s conservatism is profoundly different from that of a country where “conservative” is understood to have roots in medieval feudalism, Bourbon legitimist absolutism, and Roman Catholic clericalism – none of which is in any way “anti-statist.” ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/34 "2009-09-16T23:47:46Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > According to the paper ‘political conservatism as motivated social cognition’ there are certain psychological traits that are similar across cultures and time lines that unite conservatives. > [http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf](http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf) > > [07.22.2003 - Researchers help define what makes a political conservative](http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml) > > ``` > * Fear and aggression > * Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity > * Uncertainty avoidance > * Need for cognitive closure > * Terror management > > ``` That rather looks like a loaded, ideological set of spin in terminology from American leftists. I’ll take a pass. > [@](#): > > In the US there is a strong statist tendency among the right wing. Not so much with economics, but they want a very strong system of military, police, border guard and espionage. As far as I can tell, relative to the proper sense of the term Statist, the US Right is not very statist at all. They seem to favour extreme decentralisation, localist control for domestic security issues ex-Foreign. The matters foreign are not particularly “Statist” as that typically is applied to issues domestic. > [@](#): > > Do the right wingers in europe prefer socialist economic policy (as opposed to the libertarian economics they prefer here in the US)? False comparison. State interference in the market is not per se socialist. The more Statist wing of the right of European political is fully in favour of private enterprise, but controlled / regulated for State interest. Cartels and monopolies or more often oligopolies. That is not the same as socialism, with its classic hostility to private enterprise and magnates, even if state firms in effect end up looking like less-well-run versions of private monopolies. > [@](#): > > It seems that both US and European right wingers have many similar attitudes about minority rights, immigration, diversity, response to domestic/international threats, international organizations, etc. I would disagree. Generalising across all Europe is difficult, but if we leave aside the subjective minority rights, immigration etc, and take international organisations, the Statist tendency in the European Right tends to be quite favourably disposed to international treaty and organisation. It is, generally, rather more Realpolitik and less paranoid than the American Right. That, of course is a gross generalisation, and I am excluding the populist mob Right, a la Le Pen. > [@Oukile](#): > > Indeed, first thing to keep in mind is that he is definitively a right-winger… from the point of view of a Frenchman. Not that all French are unhappy about it. However, and here I disagree with you, **Kobal2** , that still makes him someone who you may call and American-style libral. French right wing = US left wing. Returning to Sarko, I don’t believe French Right Wing - US Left Wing at all. That is sloppy. The French Right is quite statist it is true, but that means while it may have some resemblance to the US Left, it lacks the political liberalism of the US Left, and is in any case rather more favourable disposed to industrial combination and oligarchy. That is, unlike the US Left, the Gaullists are not particularly paranoid about Firm and State working hand in hand, just so long as the Enarques have the proper upper hand in the affair. That is really very different from the US Left as far as I can tell. > [@](#): > > - French politics is a lot about getting the voters from the other side to switch towards yours, rather than the US politics which is (I heard) about getting the people from your side to vote. As a consequence, you can expect the right-wing people to make steps towards the left-wing voters, especially when it doesn’t cost anything. For instance by making this sort of proposals. I rather think that all politics is about getting the swing votes to swing your way. In any given country with say 2-3 dominant political parties (UK, France nowadays, Germany generally), you always have the hard core base of the party, but need to get another 20% of the voting populace on side. In any case, the pure base vote strategy failed the American right badly last round. > [@PrettyVacant](#): > > To my understanding the French never quite took to the imperial manner in the grand way the Anglo-Saxons did. While the government might huff and puff a little at times, the people don’t live in a glorious past, ime. Good bloody Lord. The French state promoted the mission to no end, not “huff and puff a little at times” - bloody took it more seriously than the UK where one openly could say during Empire that it was “acquired in a fit of absence of mind.” National glory and competition with UK to the point of irrationality (e.g. conquest of the Sahara… why the bloody hell the French wanted to bother with Niger, Chad, etc. escapes rational analysis. All about puffed up lieutenants). Worse, the French deluded themselves that the colonials liked them. See Algeria - bloody hell even talking about Algeria today with a bloody Frenchman runs you a chance of an entirely deluded conversation. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/35 "2009-09-16T23:54:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’ll grant you, modern American “movement conservatism” is different – not from-another-planet different, but pretty different. From [_The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America,_](http://www.amazon.com/Right-Nation-Conservative-Power-America/dp/0143035398/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224007314&sr=8-1) by conservative British journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge: > > Of course, it is arguable that even Burke’s conservatism is profoundly different from that of a country where “conservative” is understood to have roots in medieval feudalism, Bourbon legitimist absolutism, and Roman Catholic clericalism – none of which is in any way “anti-statist.” That article is a good one, and at the very least shows up the difference between even UK / Commonwealth conservatism and American Right Populism. UK conservatism is fairly Burkean. The US, I think not. French and Continental Conservatism is not Burkean at all, insofar as it generally lacks the suspicion of the State and really much political or economic liberalism at all. It is, contrary to the Left, however, favourable to private enterprise (submissive as it should be to State interest, domestic or foreign) and generally market economics, although not out and out free markets per se. I think Americans have a tough time understanding the rest of the world political universe because contrary to their beliefs, their particular political constellation is not universal, but actually rather highly idiosyncratic (not from Mars, mind you, but it is idiosyncratic). That is not intended as an insult, merely an observation, neither good nor bad, any more than a long haired dog is better than a curly haired dog. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/36 "2009-09-17T00:02:09Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > French and Continental Conservatism is not Burkean at all, insofar as it generally lacks the suspicion of the State and really much political or economic liberalism at all. It is, contrary to the Left, however, favourable to private enterprise (submissive as it should be to State interest, domestic or foreign) and generally market economics, although not out and out free markets per se. And I think the Burkean elements of “a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism” do apply to French/Continental conservatism – to the point where they can even trump patriotism; just ask Marshal Petain. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/37 "2009-09-17T00:08:03Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > state interference in the market is not per se socialist. **Thank you! Thank you!** ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/38 "2009-09-17T00:11:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **Thank you! Thank you!** Why are you thanking me? I heartily disapprove of state interference in the market, as it is generally disastrous and reducing in public welfare. That the Statist Right on the Continent support oligarchy and monopoly out of elite interest is hardly a positive argument. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/39 "2009-09-17T00:14:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And I think the Burkean elements of “a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism” do apply to French/Continental conservatism – to the point where they can even trump patriotism; just ask Marshal Petain. The modern Right in France is rather Gaullist, and that is virtually the antithesis of Petain. Overall, not very Burkean at all - Burkean is a package in the end, if you want to rip out elitism, hierarchies and established institutions as stand alone commonalities … well, I think you voided the term of its meaning. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252/40 "2009-09-17T00:29:23Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > The modern Right in France is rather Gaullist, and that is virtually the antithesis of Petain. I’ve always understood that Petain, like Franco, was actually more of a traditionalist-authoritarian than a fascist as such (fascism being plenty populist and social-revolutionary and future-looking in its own way, as discussed [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11562086#post11562086)) – am I mistaken? In any case, what are the defining elements of Gaullism (and, presumably, of Sarkozy’s politics)? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-french-president-sarkozy-swinging-to-the-left/510252.md?page=3)