Sarkozy's win

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This probably isn’t the biggest news on a largely-American board (and I’m American too, just studying in France for a semester), but for all of Europe it is pretty big: Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing candidate for the French Presidency, just won against the socialist Ségolène Royal. I haven’t heard much news of riots or the like, but it should be an interesting time now as a guy known for being fairly anti-immigrant and pro-American takes command of the French government. Will this be a good thing for France’s economy, a good thing for French-American relations, and is it a show of a larger trend in Europe, rebelling against socialism and embracing Liberalism, free trade and nationalism?

Personally, I’m a bit disappointed just because of my socialist views, but quite honestly, Ségolène just wasn’t the leader that Sarkozy will be.

links:
Le Monde - French news site.
CNN - France Decides - English information on election, including info on the candidates.

ps Mods, I hope this is OK in Cafe Society, I was torn over putting it here or in great debates, but as I’m less interested in a political argument and more in a discussion of foreign politics and societies, I chose here.

2

This isn’t really Cafe Society fodder, 1point618, so I’m going to move this to MPSIMS. Not because it’s mundane or even pointless (as the name of the forum would seem to suggest), but we do use that forum for general discussion that isn’t a debate, a poll, or in need of a factual answer to a question. Cafe Society is meant for discussion of the arts (and a few other things).

3

I’m looking forward to seeing how he fares. If he does indeed liberalise the workplace and, further, make work over 35 hours tax free, I may just move there. Somewhere in Burgundy, by preference :).

4

This seems to be a sea change in French politics, so I’m a little disappointed this didn’t get moved over to GD.

5

I’m curious as to how much of his anti-immigration stance was genuine, and how much was to woo voters from Jean-Marie Le Pen.

6

I suspect that he is genuinely anti immigration

  • for those that are un-assimilatable

The idea of working another 5 hours without tax is something that went out with the Germans pre-1900

  • I doubt that anyone in the work place wants it ‘liberalized’ - only a turkey votes for Christmas.

He is just Chirac with a bit more honesty on some minor problems

7

It’s not a good day for the UK, if he decides to chuck all the immigrants out they’ll all want to come over here and we already have more than we know what to do with!

8

Are immigrants from North Africa as substantial a problem for the UK as they have been for France?

9

Yes, they are. Really, as long as they’re here legally and they’re working (therefore contributing to the economy) then there’s no problem. Trouble is, we have so many illegal immigrants who just disappear off the grid once they get here, the government has no idea where they are or what they’re doing, but in some way we’re supporting them. After all, it’s not as if we don’t have enough feckless layabout dole-scroungers of our own!