Sarkozy, Royal in French elections runoff

[whottt]

Sarkozy leads with 30%; Royal second with 24% -- exit polls


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/sarkozy-royal-runoff-french-presidency/story.aspx?guid=%7B26E78971%2DA2BD%2D46F1%2DA9AD%2 DA2446C2EA359%7D




By Aude Lagorce, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:06 PM ET Apr 22, 2007

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy will face Socialist Segolene Royal in the runoff for the French presidency on May 6, allowing for a traditional left-right duel to take place, after the frontrunners fended off a flurry of rivals on Sunday, the first exit polls indicate.

Sarkozy, of the ruling conservative UMP (Union for Popular Movement) party, was the top scorer in the first round, with about 30% of the vote. Royal, of the Socialist party, gathered 24% of the vote, eclipsing centrist Francois Bayrou, who received around 18% of the vote.


Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the extreme-right Front National party, who stunned France by making it to the second round of the 2002 elections, garnered 11.5% of the votes.
The first official projections of the vote will be released by the government later Sunday. The final outcome of the vote won't be known until Monday.

Talk of reform, change and new blood motivated the French to go to the polls. Turnout soared to 84%, the highest in 50 years, according to the French Interior Ministry. Since 2002, about one million new voters have registered.
The French CAC-40 index isn't expected to show a big reaction on Monday. Sarkozy has been the clear favorite of the business community for months. See full story.
The polls of the last month consistently showed him set to face Royal on May 6.

"It is the best possible scenario for the financial markets, the CAC-40 should react well tomorrow and investors from abroad should be back," said Michael Benhamou, managing partner at Louis Capital, an independent broker dealer.

These elections are France's most important in a decade. The two finalists are not only a generation younger than incumbent Jacques Chirac, who's been in power for 12 years, they're also promising to rejuvenate the country by making significant breaks with the past.

Royal is the first woman with a real shot at the presidency after successfully eclipsing heavyweights within the socialist party to snare the nomination. Sarkozy has recently quit his post as interior minister in the ruling government and won the grudging endorsement of Chirac. Earlier in the campaign, the meteoric rise of Bayrou in the polls shook up what was meant to be a two-horse race.

The stakes of these election s are high for Europe's third-largest economy.

Despite its much-admired free education and health-care systems, contained work hours, generous vacations and pensions, and generally high quality of life, France is struggling with a raft of structural problems including tepid growth, high unemployment, booming national debt and a lack of innovation and R&D investment.

The next president must determine how the country will address these problems, a move that's likely to have a lasting economic impact.

Sarkozy, 52, and Royal, 53, disagree on most issues, including the length of the work week, the level of taxes, the country's immigration policy as well as how to kick start the economy, reduce unemployment and carry out the reforms many say the country so sorely needs.

Despite some classic policy promises targeted at voters in their core constituencies, both Royal and Sarkozy have also tried to reach across party lines.
Royal, who favors snow-white tailored suits to embody her freshness and novelty, has, for instance, confessed an admiration for Britain's Tony Blair, proposed sending unruly teenagers to military-style camps and suggested that teachers should spend more time in the classroom, all to the discomfort of various core supporters within the Socialist party.

Sarkozy is identified with the current government, though he doesn't hesitate to criticize its record, which has won him few friends in Chirac's camp. Against the traditions of the French republic, he also favors affirmative action to boost the numbers of ethnic minorities in certain jobs.
And both are seeking that folksy appeal.

Royal talks endlessly of "participatory democracy." Sarkozy, meanwhile, emphasizes his working-class and immigrant background, but has also developed a predilection for status-quo-bashing speeches that have made him a hit with entrepreneurs and the middle classes.

Sarkozy on Sunday called for a "true ideological" debate to take place in the next two weeks. Royal said that the electorate now has the choice between "two completely different roads" and that France can change without being "brutalized."

"I refuse to cultivate fears," she said.
Both, however, emphasized their belief that the current system no longer works.

Defeated Bayrou and Le Pen sounded dire warnings. Bayrou said the illness of France is deeper than the two leading parties understand.

Le Pen, meanwhile, simply said that "France's future is sad."






Props to the French...while I sincerely hope Royal doesn't win, eliminating LePen was IMO, a step in the right direction for that country...that guy is grade A jackass #2 in Western Europe(right behind Zapatero)...and worse than Chirac.

And yes worse than Royal...


Anyway...good thing we didn't elect Kerry or he'd be running out of the asses we were going to elect him to kiss, right about now...


Hopefully Sarzosky can win...

I don't think most of the French resent Americans....just like most Americans don't resent the French...but due to the peculiraities of the French Election system(read, having a shitload of political parties) the current of Anti-Americanism that ChIraq tapped into was enough to get him re-elected(with something like 20% of the vote).

We'll see what happens now...


The French will be amazed at how our relations will improve once they don't have a leader that openly despises our country and has less tact than Bush...little things matter.


I just wonder if ChIraq is going to avoid the criminal charges awaiting him once he's no longer granted immunity by his position(although he probably weaseled out of that, or else he'd be running again IMO).

[boutons_]

"Anti-Americanism that ChIraq tapped into"

French people elected Chirac because he was anti-American?

Had dubya followed Chirac's correct advice to stay out of Iraq, the USA, M/E, world would be much better places, and 30K less US military dead+injured.

Chirac, most French, and most countries were against the Iraq war, and they all have been proven right.

US or non-US, being against the Iraq war and the Repugs is not the same as being anti-American, no matter how many times lying, sliming assholes on the right repeat and sling that lying slime.

[whottt]

no one has less tact than bush

I think you missed an excellent opportunity to shut up.
























































- Jacques ChIraq to Eastern Europe 2003

[whottt]

If one picture of Rummy with Saddam has been the de-facto political view of the left for 7 years...

WTF?


http://www.phi-eu.net/images/chirac_saddam.gif

http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/siteimages/chirac&saddam76.jpg

http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/051018/051018_saddamhero_hmed_1p.hmedium.jpg

http://www.mideasttruth.com/francedevil.jpg

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/Photos_2003/chiracandsaddam.jpg


http://www.hydrogencommerce.com/images/xxChiracSaddam1974AP.jpg

[whottt]

Oh yeah...those pictures in the White Coats?


They are taken in a nuclear reactor in France..right before France built Iraq's first nuclear reactor(since blown up by the Israelis).

Fact - France had the post sanction devlopment deals with Saddam for Iraq.
Fact - State owned French companies were found to be among those circumventing the OFF program by sending banned materials that could be used for WMD(Russia, Germany and China were the otherS)
Fact - Chirac, unless he got some law passed, faces crimininal corruption charges from his days as Mayor of Paris, charges that have pretty much been corroborated and have only been staved off by the immunity his position gives him.


And boutons...do you realize what a complete ass you have made of yourself with those statements if Sarkozy gets elected? You're a whore...and a stupid one at that. Thank god most Americans aren't as stupid as you.


The only way ChIraq got re-elected was by riding a small anti-American current...


His own fucking people voted down the fucking EU constitution he stood for...douchebag...you think they elected him for his economic policies?


And he only got like 20% of the vote.




Bottom line is that you wanted us to elect a guy that was going to follow ChIraq and Schroeder...and they are gone. Don't claim you speak for Europe...

You just fucking clueless, like I always knew you were.


And you are the lying slime.

[whottt]

ChIraq, not only failed in his attempt to regain France's stature as a world leader...but he flushed the influence they had gained in the EU down the toilet...he didn't last outlast Bush...

And what you never hear is that the quiet boycott that has been in place since ChIraq made his power play, has fucked France up economically...and the falling dollar against the Euro hasn't exactly made them the first choice of imports with Americans.

He's a failed leader...extreme unpopular in his own country...his approval ratings make W's look like Nixon in 72....and inspite of his pro terrorist stance...the Algerian/North African French hate his guts more than they hate W.

[boutons_]

"The only way ChIraq got re-elected was by riding a small anti-American current.."

Show us the documentation.

And then show us how Cheney, Rummy, Halliburton, the Reagan Repugs in the 80s all supported, supplied WMD, and got rich helping Saddam AFTER Israel took out Osirak.

If France supported Saddam, it's anti-US. If the US right-wing/corps supported Saddam, it's OK.

[whottt]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/9/91851.shtml

Saddam and Chirac: 30 Years of Sleaze
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
France has desperately and publicly sought a peaceful solution of the Iraqi crisis with a sole strategic goal: strong influence if not control of the world's future leading oil reserves.
At the same time, French President Jacques Chirac has consolidated his status as heir of former President Charles De Gaulle's policy of independence from the United States.

The Iraqi government remembered Chirac's predecessor Francois Mitterrand's opposition to allied action to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait, before ultimately joining the Desert Storm coalition, and thus suspected France would eventually not use its veto power to block a second U.N. resolution. With good reason: If it were to have a stake in postwar oil developments, France must have realized it needed to be seen as a supporter of the "coalition of the willing."

Although the veto option did not materialize, opponents of the Iraqi regime accuse France of duplicity, citing opposition to use of force against Saddam's regime as a prime example. They see the French challenge to U.S. hegemony as propaganda for Arab consumption, in an attempt to divert attention from France's own objectives in Iraq.

Funded by the Genocidal Maniac

Opposition leaders accuse France of freely violating international law and the U.N. charter when it comes to safeguarding its interests and argue that Paris' opposition to war was solely to avert its good friend and client Saddam Hussein's ouster.

They point to a quarter of a century of such close relations that Baghdad generously contributed to Chirac's election campaigns and made annual donations to the Gaullist Rassemblement Pour La Republique political party, founded by Chirac.

They cite mutual public declarations of admiration made by the two leaders during Chirac's 1975 trip to Baghdad as prime minister, a visit that ushered in the golden age in French-Iraqi relations.

Shortly thereafter, France provided financial and technical assistance for the Ozirak, Iraq's first nuclear reactor. Israel eventually bombed the Ozirak, keeping Saddam from having a nuclear offensive capability during the Gulf War in 1990-91. At the time, Chirac's critics called him "Jacques Ozirak," much as now U.S. commentators have taken to referring to the French president as "Jacques Iraq."

Follow the Money, Oil, Weapons ...

After Chirac's 1975 visit, Iraq became the leading buyer of French arms, as well as France's main oil supplier. In fact from 1980 until Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, exports to Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounted for 75 percent of France's total arms sales, with the United States eventually taking the lead in Saudi Arabia.

The situation has been further complicated by a struggle between France and Russia over commercial dominance in Iraq.

France was strongly criticized by Baghdad last year when it agreed to the U.N. imposing "smart sanctions" against Iraq. At the time, the Iraqi newspaper Babel, run by Saddam's eldest son Uday, warned France its stance endangered French oil "interests and privileges" in Iraq.

France's leading oil company, Total Elf, which has held exclusive negotiating rights for the huge Majnoun and Bin Omar oil fields, was about to sign new contracts late last year, prior to the Iraqi oil minister being dismissed for canceling contracts with Russia.


Stifling the Opposition


In a bid to recoup its position, the Chirac regime has been the sole major European country refusing to receive Iraqi opposition leaders or hold official discussions with them.

Thus the diplomatic dilemma for Jacques Chirac: Having viewed French interests better served with a friendly Saddam Hussein in power, he has rightly feared the U.S.-led coalition would topple the Iraqi despot. And with good reason.

Analysis by Hussain Hindawi, a native Iraqi historian, humanitarian and journalist who is editor of UPI's Arabic News Service, and John R. Thomson, who has been involved in the Middle East since 1966 as businessman, diplomat and journalist.

Copyright 2003 by United Press International.

[whottt]

Yeah...we normalized relations with Saddam in 1984 after nearly 20 years....Saddam was becoming a power in the region...and he hated Iran, like us. Either we became his friend...or Russia did. I know...we should have let Russia.

The difference is? After Saddam proved himself to be a power hungry meglamanical asshole...we stopped supporting him...after 911...the solution to terrorism was clear.



Now I have a question for you....

How many Oil wells does France have?

Maybe that explains why they consistently buddy up to Iraq and Iran...you know, second and third largest Oil reserves..

At least when we do it's the private sector...and not the fucking GOVT.

About Oil, indeed.


I have no problem with France acting in their own best interest...I have a problem with him putting bullets in the back of US troops in Iraq...and assholes here thinking he was our friend. He wasn't just against the War...he was against anything that would remove his friend of 30 years from power.


Why?



And besides...911 didn't happen in Frace...which makes his position logical...unlike that of the Americans that wanted to elect someone to kiss his ass.





Better quit while you are behind or I am going to go find posts by you asking why we didn't attack Iran first....Rummy. It's not hard to figure out how all this shit works...

[mullet]

never did like dem french fried potaters

[whottt]

Was kind of a self ass kicking on our part when we couldn't change the name of Hamburgers and Frankfurters.

[whottt]

You want a piece of me pimpo? Is that how it is..I see how you are now.

Look while you may be the most intimidating person on ST and I am pretty sure you are a 6'8 version of Billy Gibbons on a Harley in leather and carrying guns...


I say to you...

On January 19, 2006, Chirac said that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism.[12]


How could any sane man say something like that? :smokin

[whottt]

Royal:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/12/18/wfra18.jpg


Damn...not bad. Not bad at all....


And not a bad strategy by the commies.

[smeagol]

whottt, if Sarkozy wins, will you like the French a little more?

[j-6]

Royal:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/12/18/wfra18.jpg


Damn...not bad. Not bad at all....


And not a bad strategy by the commies.


There's a picture of her in a blue bikini circulating the internets. I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Gerryatrics]

http://storage.canalblog.com/55/77/4344/6100053.jpg

Not bad for a 50 year old commie French chick.

[johnsmith]

Look while you may be the most intimidating person on ST and I am pretty sure you are a 6'8 version of Billy Gibbons on a Harley in leather and carrying guns


Must be sarcasm because I picture Elpimpo as a little bitch.

[smeagol]

Who has Royal as their last name and is a socialist?

That's fucked up.

[xrayzebra]

Who has Royal as their last name and is a socialist?

That's fucked up.


Hey, it is France after all....... :lol

[JoeChalupa]

I'd hit it.

[gtownspur]

I'd hit it.

Out of Barrack or Royal?

[boutons_]

At 50+ and 4 kids, she's better than 90% of the US fatties under 40 with 2- kids.

btw, there is no "French paradox". French women eat buttter, bread, pastries, olive oil, sauces, wine, 3- and 4-course meals, etc and don't get fat because they eat reasonable portions, and don't eat between meals. However, France's trational "raw food" culture, esp among the young and poor, has been deteriorating under US influence of fast food, junk food, useless breakfast food, convenience food, processed/industrial food, all flogged with corporate/agri-business marketing, the same well-proven, toxic formula that's sickening and killing US people.

Another btw is that there is marked difference in cardio-vascular disease between lower rates of the south of France where the diet fat is primarily olive oil aka "the Mediterranean diet", and the higher rates of the north of France where the diet oil is butter/cream.

[boutons_]

Here's couple of articles from the French press on the French elections and Franco-US relations. You can read these to get some perspective, or you can just read Whott's dumbfuck, chauvinistic, xenophobic, simplistic, close-minded non-stop shit.

===========

National Identity or American Imitation?

By Serge Halimi
Le Monde Diplomatique

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Mr. Sarkozy is reproached for being very American as people mention both his foreign policy orientations - close to those of the Bush administration - and his admiration for the economic and social system of the United States (read: "Un petit conte de Noel" [ A Little Christmas Story]). But the UMP president has also taken inspiration from the American right's ideas and political recipes in other domains.

Beginning in the 1960s, the most conservative wing of the Republican Party (Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan) chose to present itself as excluded from the political system (from 1955 to 1995, the Democratic Party controlled both Houses of Congress without interruption), disdained by a business world too concerned about social peace, and ostracized by the country's cultural and media institutions. That wing asserted its determination to establish (or reestablish) its ideological hegemony, certain that such hegemony would constitute the prerequisite to its return to power (read: "Quand la droite américaine pensait l'impensable" [When the American Right Thought the Unthinkable]).

In the case of Mr. Sarkozy, the government's most important minister up until just a few days ago and the president of the majority party for the past two years, this posture of a dissident, of an exile, may appear incongruous. Nonetheless, just like an American Republican, the president of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) - no doubt aware that a candidate defending the status quo in France could only lose the election - has hammered on the idea that "too often, one-sided and politically correct thinking have dominated the debate." [1] He elaborates that the right has never really dared to be truly right, suffocated as it has been by leftist, not to say "Marxist," orthodoxy, exactly as his friend, the industrialist Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH and the richest man in the country, has just alleged. [2]

In any case, the present UMP candidate in 2001 confessed himself to be "convinced that social-democratic sermonizing could only have prospered in the absence of a modern right." [3] This past April 12 in Toulouse he elaborated: "If I am elected president, I will do everything that the republican right no longer dared to do because it was ashamed of belonging to the right." Let us note in passing that it's been a long time since we've heard a socialist candidate make a symmetrical commitment to stop being "ashamed of belonging to the left."

The second of Mr. Sarkozy's campaign themes that seems to draw inspiration from the recipes of the American right concerns his discourse intended for popular consumption. In the United States and in France, it is theoretically difficult for a candidate who has the support of management, and who simultaneously demands the suppression of inheritance taxes and the reduction of corporate taxes, to present himself as the spokesman of the people against the elite. We know that Ronald Reagan and Mr. George W. Bush have nonetheless brought off that feat (read: "Le petit peuple de George W. Bush" [George W. Bush's Lower Classes]) - a significant fraction of the categories of the least-favored voted for them with the results including a reduction of real salaries and social services, a drop in the taxation of top earners, the impugning of union rights....

In the United States, this political prowess is largely due to the appeal to national and patriotic sentiment (anticommunism, then antiterrorism - read: "La droite américaine manipule le sentiment national" [The American Right Manipulates National Feeling]), to fiscal resentment (the "little taxpayer" against the "fat regulator"), to the invocation of "traditional moral values" (opposition to abortion and homosexuality), and finally, to a rejection of judicial "laxity" presented as the principal purveyor of violence and crimes (read: "Sur quelques contes sécuritaires venus d'Amérique" [About Several Security Fairy Tales Imported From America]). Mr. Sarkozy's palette cannot be precisely superimposed on this register to the extent that, in France, a candidate's recourse to religious feelings and the use of religions or sects as guardians of a conservative social order still run afoul of the country's secularization as well as its republican and secular tradition. The UMP candidate has nonetheless attempted to reactivate this religious drive: "I am one of those who believes that the spiritual question has been very broadly underestimated as compared to the social question," he reiterated just recently. [4] But he quickly went on to the nitty-gritty: redefinition of "the social question." Then he strove - American style - to make his audience swallow a new line of demarcation - no longer between rich and poor, capitalists and workers, but between wage-earners and those receiving government aid, between workers and cheats.

"There are two kinds of Americans," an ultraconservative Texas senator pronounced in 1984: "The ones who pull the wagons and the ones who ride in them without paying their way; who expect the government to take care of them." [5] To smash the solidarity born of the New Deal, the American right has, in fact, never stopped playing that chord, which seeks to line up wage-earners against slackers. "The Republican Party," proclaims neo-conservative publicist David Frum, "cannot remain faithful to its principles if it's afraid of being accused of insensitivity." On the other side of the Atlantic, questions of taxation and race contribute to feeding this reactionary resentment (under the cover, as we have seen, of breaking with the left's "political correctness") to which they seem connected. An almost exclusively white fraction of "the middle classes" (and of the blue-collar workers and salaried workers who aspire to that condition) feels abusively taxed in order to - it believes - finance social policies intended for other people, often blacks or immigrants.

"I'm sick of poor people," one officer's wife whispered into Ronald Reagan's ear one day. The future United States president was not deaf. In consequence, he immediately evoked the (fabricated) story of a welfare cheater: a story that he thundered out for over ten years. It was the story of a "welfare queen who uses eighty names, thirty addresses and twelve social security cards, thanks to which her after-tax income comes to more than 150,000 dollars." [6] The theme had a future. It's the now well-oiled speech of the "little white man" who slaves away and "goes nuts" from "the noise and the smell" of the poor - frequently immigrants - who luxuriate, thanks to their fat bundles of social welfare aid.

The assault on the welfare state operates obliquely. One does not frontally attack the principle itself, but those who profit unduly from it and who seize the benefits. Toughness is going to be required, but it is made more presentable by the assertion that public assistance hurts its recipients, forcing them into a "culture of dependency" that drags its litany of pathologies behind it (laziness, gaming, addictions, conjugal violence, etc.). Whoever doubts the importation of this discourse into France has only to refer to the Sarkozyist magazine, Le Point, owned by Mr. François Pinault, third wealthiest man in France. Less than a year after having headlined "Unemployment Cheaters," he has just made his cover story: "France on Social Security. The Scandals of the 'French Model.' Benefits Profiteers. How to Escape From the Trap." [7]

As for Mr. Sarkozy, he professes to be worried about "reconciling the France that wins with the France that suffers." The first group seems to be in his pocket already; he gladly speaks to the second group, profiting from the fact that the government's left has abandoned it: "I want to speak to all these unfortunates, but I want to say that life's suffering and hardness is not limited to the French population at risk. I want to talk about another suffering, real and true, that must not be underestimated: that of the French population not at risk, that gets up early, works hard, that knocks itself out to feed its family and raise its children, and I assert that it suffers also and listens for someone to know about its suffering and finally answer its call." [8] Then, in a Puritan style more appropriate to the United States than to France (read: "Aux sources puritaines des Etats-Unis" [At the Puritan Origins of the United States]), he gets to the warning: "I don't agree that people on the dole should have as much at the end of the month as people like you [wage-earners] who get up early in the morning." He will accept it still less, in truth, because "generalized assistance is a moral capitulation. Assistance is an attack on a person's dignity. It imprisons people in a situation of dependency. It doesn't provide enough for a happy existence, but provides too much to stimulate people's own efforts."

No doubt, a scoffer would object that there are other exploiters and other exploited in France, other rentiers, other cheats, who live in greater style than those on the dole, other privileged people who only put themselves out enough to be born into a good family (Jean-Luc Lagardère's son, Francis Bouygues's son, François Pinault's son, Vincent Bolloré's son, Bernard Arnault's daughter....); other injustices also. But those appear less worrying to Mr. Sarkozy. For, he explains, "Social welfare payments are financed by the production of the France that works and gets up early." So isn't it fair then that "these payments (be) allocated and used without fraud, lies and dishonesty?" [9]

Moreover, the solution, recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (read: "Economistes en guerre contre les chômeurs" [Economists at War on the Unemployed]), has already been discovered: "We must organize things so that the job seeker cannot reject more than three employment offers, so that everyone is forced to really look for a job, to work or to agree to training. Society cannot help those who don't want to shape up." [10] An alternative proposition is dismissed out of hand: "They say: Make capital pay! But if capital pays too much, it takes off." [11] With Mr. Sarkozy at the Elysée, it's a sure thing that capital will not pay too much.

To really belong to the right, close to employers' milieus, and nonetheless speak to the social categories that are neoliberalism's victims often involves additional smoke screen techniques: like that which consists of exhibiting the tastes of the man in the street. Although they are millionaires and socialize principally with other rich people, Ronald Reagan and Mr. George Bush incessantly play this populist card. Since they are "men of the people," they purport to be so, if not by their fortunes, at least in their tastes (read: "Cette Amérique qui vote George W. Bush" [This America That Votes for George W. Bush]). And they intentionally broadcast their disdain for "intellectuals" and for experts - henceforth associated with the elite, the mainstream press and aristocratic superciliousness (read: "Stratagème de la droite américaine, mobiliser le peuple contre les intellectuels" [Strategy of the American Right, Mobilize the People Against Intellectuals]). Mr. Sarkozy, for his part, is the former mayor of one of the poshest communes in the country (Neuilly) as well as the intimate friend of several billionaires. Yes, but he likes Michel Drucker's programs, bicycling and Johnny Hallyday's songs. So when Mr. François Bayrou proposed to eliminate the National School of Administration [l'école nationale d'administration (ENA)], it was altogether naturally that the president of the Union for a Popular Movement retorted: "As far as I am concerned, I am neither an ENA-graduate nor a graduate degree-holder - that allows me not to be demagogic."

But is it possible in France to be simultaneously a man of the right, legitimately adored by the CAC 40 [French "Dow Jones" companies] bosses, and the tribune of the little people and the unskilled, persecuted by the "politically correct" without demagoguery?

--------

[1] Nicolas Sarkozy, "Ensemble," XO, Paris, 2007, p. 7.

[2] Interview with "Capital," Paris, April 2007.

[3] "Nicolas Sarkozy, Libre," Robert Laffont, 2001. Cited by Eric Dupin, "A droite toute," Fayard, 2007, p. 56.

[4] Three years ago he added: "It is much more important for young people to be able to have spiritual hope than to have violence, drugs or money as their only religion." (Nicolas Sarkozy, "La République, les religions, l'espérance," Ed. du Cerf, 2004. Cited by Eric Dupin, op. cit.)

[5] Texas Senator Phil Gramm during the Republican Convention in Dallas, August 1984.

[6] On this subject see: "Le Grand bond en arrière," Fayard, 2006.

[7] "Le Point", April 12, 2007. The edition devoted to "Unemployment Cheaters" was published June 29, 2006. Also read: Renaud Lambert about this article on the Acrimed web site, "The 'Cheaters' at 'Le Point,'" July 6, 2006.

[8] Nicolas Sarkozy, "For Working France." A speech made June 22, 2006 in Agen.

[9] Cited par Grégory Marin, "Démagogie en terre de souffrance," "L'Humanité," December 20, 2006.

[10] Interview published by "Les Echos," November 9, 2006.

[11] June 22, 2006 speech, op. cit.


================


The French Connection

By Jordan Stancil
The Nation

Monday 30 April 2007 Issue

"The American model" plays a big role in European domestic economic debates, with business school types convinced that the streets really are paved with gold in the land of Ronald Reagan, and the left certain that modern America is a kind of Dickensian inferno. The leading candidates in France's presidential election (held, in two rounds, on April 22 and May 6) have followed this pattern in their rhetoric, with conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal respectively praising and criticizing the US economy.

At other times in history, however, these roles were reversed. During the American Civil War, French liberals supported the Union, while monarchists around Europe were drooling at the possible demise of the American experiment. Civil War historian James McPherson, in an essay on European responses to the conflict, quotes French reformer Edgar Quinet's 1862 statement that Napoleon III wanted to "destroy democracy in the United States ... because in order for Napoleonic ideas to succeed, it is absolutely indispensable that this vast republic disappear from the face of the Earth."

Today, the transatlantic discussion is not about "Napoleonic ideas" but rather about the viability of the welfare state in an era of globalization. And just as European republicans of the nineteenth century depended on the success of the American experiment in democracy, so today, American progressives would be enormously helped if Europe can get social justice and globalization right. Thus, while the French are debating the American model, Americans should be taking a look at what's happening to the French one.

It's all too easy to see Europe as a kind of welfare-state Alamo, desperately trying to hold on to the gains workers and the middle class made during the twentieth century. European leaders' rhetoric justifies that impression. However, the reality is much more complicated. As columnist Jean-Louis Andreani argued recently in Le Monde, EU governments, "including that of France, are supporting, or at least permitting, a policy that resists on principle anything that's public in favor of whatever is private. But this ideological shift is never admitted - or submitted to a clear decision by voters." It's like a Reagan revolution without a Reagan.

Nicolas Sarkozy is not a European Reagan, but some of his plans seem drawn from the Republican playbook. He proposes, for instance, a cut in the estate tax and the abolition of a surcharge on large fortunes. He also proposes other tax cuts, which he promises will put more money in the average person's pocket - paid for in part by not replacing half of all retiring civil service workers. You can almost hear him saying, "It's not the government's money - it's your money!" In addition, the at-will employment system the government tried to begin installing last year (but had to retract in the face of public protest) remains a centerpiece of Sarkozy's program. This is all part of his stated goal of bringing what he describes approvingly as Anglo-Saxon flexibility to France, a project that makes him the darling of the business associations even as his law-and-order image allows him simultaneously to cull votes from the populist far right.

And where is the fearsome French left in all this? It's not exactly AWOL, but neither is it providing a robust challenge to the current rightward drift. Ségolène Royal is running on a platform that is more Clinton than Roosevelt. She proposes some spending increases, but by far the biggest items on her wish list are for Blairite, New Economy-type programs such as more support for scientific research and improvements in training and education to help French workers compete in a globalized economy. But she says nary a word about the trade and financial flows that cause these workers to need help in the first place.

The only parts of the Socialist program that try to address these problems are proposals to give tax credits to companies that reinvest profits in France, and to make companies reimburse the government for tax breaks if they turn around and send jobs abroad that the tax breaks were designed to subsidize. Royal's program also calls for raising the minimum wage and increasing pension benefits for the lowest-income retirees. But all these proposals are well within what most Democrats in the United States and even some Republicans could support.

These timid suggestions come at a time when French voters are obsessed with economic insecurity and many hallmarks of the French model seem to be crumbling. For instance, even the paid vacation - the most emblematic achievement of Léon Blum's Popular Front government of the 1930s - is no longer what it once was. In 2004, one-third of French people didn't take any vacation, largely for financial or work reasons, according to a report released last summer by the nation's statistical agency.

Sarkozy has said that he profits from this "absence of economic questions," but the Socialists have also lost voters to François Bayrou, a conservative trying to ply the middle ground who has surprisingly strong support. Bayrou has tried to distance himself from Sarkozy by warning that the United States is "not a model." But he doesn't propose any major new initiatives that might actually shore up the French model that he says he prefers.

If none of this seems to matter to the fate of progressive politics in the United States, consider this: If a kind of Reaganomics came to dominate Europe, there would no longer be any major Western economy to demonstrate the viability of the social market. An ever-growing list of health, pension and education "reforms" - all tending in the direction of greater inequality - would eviscerate Europe's societal model. The welfare-state Alamo would fall, and American progressives would lose a powerful, living argument that - for all of its flaws - still gives the lie to the Bush/Norquist vision of the so-called "ownership society." Something to think about as French voters go to the polls.

=============

As Royal and Sarkozy battle in these two weeks before the run-off for the middle and independents, it seems that Sarkozy has it wrapped up.

btw, the obituaries for Chirac's political career are mostly tending to the negative. He was obsessed his entire life with becoming President. When he finally got it, he accomplished almost nothing in 10 presidential years. At least Mitterand built a lot public buldings, aka, Mitter-Ramses.

[whottt]

I'll be back to respond in a bit but boutons...

The fucking McDonalds thing is lame...

We don't force the French to eat there....if they didn't it wouldn't be there.


Should we blame them for all the winos on our streets?


It's not like we went and conquered indigenous populations around the globe enforcing our religion, language and culture on them.


I can't help it people like junk food.

[whottt]

Here's couple of articles from the French press on the French elections and Franco-US relations. You can read these to get some perspective, or you can just read Whott's dumbfuck, chauvinistic, xenophohic, close-minded non-stop shit.

===========

National Identity or American Imitation?

By Serge Halimi
Le Monde Diplomatique

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Mr. Sarkozy is reproached for being very American as people mention both his foreign policy orientations - close to those of the Bush administration - and his admiration for the economic and social system of the United States (read: "Un petit conte de Noel" [ A Little Christmas Story]). But the UMP president has also taken inspiration from the American right's ideas and political recipes in other domains.

Beginning in the 1960s, the most conservative wing of the Republican Party (Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan) chose to present itself as excluded from the political system (from 1955 to 1995, the Democratic Party controlled both Houses of Congress without interruption), disdained by a business world too concerned about social peace, and ostracized by the country's cultural and media institutions. That wing asserted its determination to establish (or reestablish) its ideological hegemony, certain that such hegemony would constitute the prerequisite to its return to power (read: "Quand la droite américaine pensait l'impensable" [When the American Right Thought the Unthinkable]).

In the case of Mr. Sarkozy, the government's most important minister up until just a few days ago and the president of the majority party for the past two years, this posture of a dissident, of an exile, may appear incongruous. Nonetheless, just like an American Republican, the president of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) - no doubt aware that a candidate defending the status quo in France could only lose the election - has hammered on the idea that "too often, one-sided and politically correct thinking have dominated the debate." [1] He elaborates that the right has never really dared to be truly right, suffocated as it has been by leftist, not to say "Marxist," orthodoxy, exactly as his friend, the industrialist Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH and the richest man in the country, has just alleged. [2]

In any case, the present UMP candidate in 2001 confessed himself to be "convinced that social-democratic sermonizing could only have prospered in the absence of a modern right." [3] This past April 12 in Toulouse he elaborated: "If I am elected president, I will do everything that the republican right no longer dared to do because it was ashamed of belonging to the right." Let us note in passing that it's been a long time since we've heard a socialist candidate make a symmetrical commitment to stop being "ashamed of belonging to the left."

The second of Mr. Sarkozy's campaign themes that seems to draw inspiration from the recipes of the American right concerns his discourse intended for popular consumption. In the United States and in France, it is theoretically difficult for a candidate who has the support of management, and who simultaneously demands the suppression of inheritance taxes and the reduction of corporate taxes, to present himself as the spokesman of the people against the elite. We know that Ronald Reagan and Mr. George W. Bush have nonetheless brought off that feat (read: "Le petit peuple de George W. Bush" [George W. Bush's Lower Classes]) - a significant fraction of the categories of the least-favored voted for them with the results including a reduction of real salaries and social services, a drop in the taxation of top earners, the impugning of union rights....

In the United States, this political prowess is largely due to the appeal to national and patriotic sentiment (anticommunism, then antiterrorism - read: "La droite américaine manipule le sentiment national" [The American Right Manipulates National Feeling]), to fiscal resentment (the "little taxpayer" against the "fat regulator"), to the invocation of "traditional moral values" (opposition to abortion and homosexuality), and finally, to a rejection of judicial "laxity" presented as the principal purveyor of violence and crimes (read: "Sur quelques contes sécuritaires venus d'Amérique" [About Several Security Fairy Tales Imported From America]). Mr. Sarkozy's palette cannot be precisely superimposed on this register to the extent that, in France, a candidate's recourse to religious feelings and the use of religions or sects as guardians of a conservative social order still run afoul of the country's secularization as well as its republican and secular tradition. The UMP candidate has nonetheless attempted to reactivate this religious drive: "I am one of those who believes that the spiritual question has been very broadly underestimated as compared to the social question," he reiterated just recently. [4] But he quickly went on to the nitty-gritty: redefinition of "the social question." Then he strove - American style - to make his audience swallow a new line of demarcation - no longer between rich and poor, capitalists and workers, but between wage-earners and those receiving government aid, between workers and cheats.

"There are two kinds of Americans," an ultraconservative Texas senator pronounced in 1984: "The ones who pull the wagons and the ones who ride in them without paying their way; who expect the government to take care of them." [5] To smash the solidarity born of the New Deal, the American right has, in fact, never stopped playing that chord, which seeks to line up wage-earners against slackers. "The Republican Party," proclaims neo-conservative publicist David Frum, "cannot remain faithful to its principles if it's afraid of being accused of insensitivity." On the other side of the Atlantic, questions of taxation and race contribute to feeding this reactionary resentment (under the cover, as we have seen, of breaking with the left's "political correctness") to which they seem connected. An almost exclusively white fraction of "the middle classes" (and of the blue-collar workers and salaried workers who aspire to that condition) feels abusively taxed in order to - it believes - finance social policies intended for other people, often blacks or immigrants.

"I'm sick of poor people," one officer's wife whispered into Ronald Reagan's ear one day. The future United States president was not deaf. In consequence, he immediately evoked the (fabricated) story of a welfare cheater: a story that he thundered out for over ten years. It was the story of a "welfare queen who uses eighty names, thirty addresses and twelve social security cards, thanks to which her after-tax income comes to more than 150,000 dollars." [6] The theme had a future. It's the now well-oiled speech of the "little white man" who slaves away and "goes nuts" from "the noise and the smell" of the poor - frequently immigrants - who luxuriate, thanks to their fat bundles of social welfare aid.

The assault on the welfare state operates obliquely. One does not frontally attack the principle itself, but those who profit unduly from it and who seize the benefits. Toughness is going to be required, but it is made more presentable by the assertion that public assistance hurts its recipients, forcing them into a "culture of dependency" that drags its litany of pathologies behind it (laziness, gaming, addictions, conjugal violence, etc.). Whoever doubts the importation of this discourse into France has only to refer to the Sarkozyist magazine, Le Point, owned by Mr. François Pinault, third wealthiest man in France. Less than a year after having headlined "Unemployment Cheaters," he has just made his cover story: "France on Social Security. The Scandals of the 'French Model.' Benefits Profiteers. How to Escape From the Trap." [7]

As for Mr. Sarkozy, he professes to be worried about "reconciling the France that wins with the France that suffers." The first group seems to be in his pocket already; he gladly speaks to the second group, profiting from the fact that the government's left has abandoned it: "I want to speak to all these unfortunates, but I want to say that life's suffering and hardness is not limited to the French population at risk. I want to talk about another suffering, real and true, that must not be underestimated: that of the French population not at risk, that gets up early, works hard, that knocks itself out to feed its family and raise its children, and I assert that it suffers also and listens for someone to know about its suffering and finally answer its call." [8] Then, in a Puritan style more appropriate to the United States than to France (read: "Aux sources puritaines des Etats-Unis" [At the Puritan Origins of the United States]), he gets to the warning: "I don't agree that people on the dole should have as much at the end of the month as people like you [wage-earners] who get up early in the morning." He will accept it still less, in truth, because "generalized assistance is a moral capitulation. Assistance is an attack on a person's dignity. It imprisons people in a situation of dependency. It doesn't provide enough for a happy existence, but provides too much to stimulate people's own efforts."

No doubt, a scoffer would object that there are other exploiters and other exploited in France, other rentiers, other cheats, who live in greater style than those on the dole, other privileged people who only put themselves out enough to be born into a good family (Jean-Luc Lagardère's son, Francis Bouygues's son, François Pinault's son, Vincent Bolloré's son, Bernard Arnault's daughter....); other injustices also. But those appear less worrying to Mr. Sarkozy. For, he explains, "Social welfare payments are financed by the production of the France that works and gets up early." So isn't it fair then that "these payments (be) allocated and used without fraud, lies and dishonesty?" [9]

Moreover, the solution, recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (read: "Economistes en guerre contre les chômeurs" [Economists at War on the Unemployed]), has already been discovered: "We must organize things so that the job seeker cannot reject more than three employment offers, so that everyone is forced to really look for a job, to work or to agree to training. Society cannot help those who don't want to shape up." [10] An alternative proposition is dismissed out of hand: "They say: Make capital pay! But if capital pays too much, it takes off." [11] With Mr. Sarkozy at the Elysée, it's a sure thing that capital will not pay too much.

To really belong to the right, close to employers' milieus, and nonetheless speak to the social categories that are neoliberalism's victims often involves additional smoke screen techniques: like that which consists of exhibiting the tastes of the man in the street. Although they are millionaires and socialize principally with other rich people, Ronald Reagan and Mr. George Bush incessantly play this populist card. Since they are "men of the people," they purport to be so, if not by their fortunes, at least in their tastes (read: "Cette Amérique qui vote George W. Bush" [This America That Votes for George W. Bush]). And they intentionally broadcast their disdain for "intellectuals" and for experts - henceforth associated with the elite, the mainstream press and aristocratic superciliousness (read: "Stratagème de la droite américaine, mobiliser le peuple contre les intellectuels" [Strategy of the American Right, Mobilize the People Against Intellectuals]). Mr. Sarkozy, for his part, is the former mayor of one of the poshest communes in the country (Neuilly) as well as the intimate friend of several billionaires. Yes, but he likes Michel Drucker's programs, bicycling and Johnny Hallyday's songs. So when Mr. François Bayrou proposed to eliminate the National School of Administration [l'école nationale d'administration (ENA)], it was altogether naturally that the president of the Union for a Popular Movement retorted: "As far as I am concerned, I am neither an ENA-graduate nor a graduate degree-holder - that allows me not to be demagogic."

But is it possible in France to be simultaneously a man of the right, legitimately adored by the CAC 40 [French "Dow Jones" companies] bosses, and the tribune of the little people and the unskilled, persecuted by the "politically correct" without demagoguery?

--------

[1] Nicolas Sarkozy, "Ensemble," XO, Paris, 2007, p. 7.

[2] Interview with "Capital," Paris, April 2007.

[3] "Nicolas Sarkozy, Libre," Robert Laffont, 2001. Cited by Eric Dupin, "A droite toute," Fayard, 2007, p. 56.

[4] Three years ago he added: "It is much more important for young people to be able to have spiritual hope than to have violence, drugs or money as their only religion." (Nicolas Sarkozy, "La République, les religions, l'espérance," Ed. du Cerf, 2004. Cited by Eric Dupin, op. cit.)

[5] Texas Senator Phil Gramm during the Republican Convention in Dallas, August 1984.

[6] On this subject see: "Le Grand bond en arrière," Fayard, 2006.

[7] "Le Point", April 12, 2007. The edition devoted to "Unemployment Cheaters" was published June 29, 2006. Also read: Renaud Lambert about this article on the Acrimed web site, "The 'Cheaters' at 'Le Point,'" July 6, 2006.

[8] Nicolas Sarkozy, "For Working France." A speech made June 22, 2006 in Agen.

[9] Cited par Grégory Marin, "Démagogie en terre de souffrance," "L'Humanité," December 20, 2006.

[10] Interview published by "Les Echos," November 9, 2006.

[11] June 22, 2006 speech, op. cit.


================


The French Connection

By Jordan Stancil
The Nation

Monday 30 April 2007 Issue

"The American model" plays a big role in European domestic economic debates, with business school types convinced that the streets really are paved with gold in the land of Ronald Reagan, and the left certain that modern America is a kind of Dickensian inferno. The leading candidates in France's presidential election (held, in two rounds, on April 22 and May 6) have followed this pattern in their rhetoric, with conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal respectively praising and criticizing the US economy.

At other times in history, however, these roles were reversed. During the American Civil War, French liberals supported the Union, while monarchists around Europe were drooling at the possible demise of the American experiment. Civil War historian James McPherson, in an essay on European responses to the conflict, quotes French reformer Edgar Quinet's 1862 statement that Napoleon III wanted to "destroy democracy in the United States ... because in order for Napoleonic ideas to succeed, it is absolutely indispensable that this vast republic disappear from the face of the Earth."

Today, the transatlantic discussion is not about "Napoleonic ideas" but rather about the viability of the welfare state in an era of globalization. And just as European republicans of the nineteenth century depended on the success of the American experiment in democracy, so today, American progressives would be enormously helped if Europe can get social justice and globalization right. Thus, while the French are debating the American model, Americans should be taking a look at what's happening to the French one.

It's all too easy to see Europe as a kind of welfare-state Alamo, desperately trying to hold on to the gains workers and the middle class made during the twentieth century. European leaders' rhetoric justifies that impression. However, the reality is much more complicated. As columnist Jean-Louis Andreani argued recently in Le Monde, EU governments, "including that of France, are supporting, or at least permitting, a policy that resists on principle anything that's public in favor of whatever is private. But this ideological shift is never admitted - or submitted to a clear decision by voters." It's like a Reagan revolution without a Reagan.

Nicolas Sarkozy is not a European Reagan, but some of his plans seem drawn from the Republican playbook. He proposes, for instance, a cut in the estate tax and the abolition of a surcharge on large fortunes. He also proposes other tax cuts, which he promises will put more money in the average person's pocket - paid for in part by not replacing half of all retiring civil service workers. You can almost hear him saying, "It's not the government's money - it's your money!" In addition, the at-will employment system the government tried to begin installing last year (but had to retract in the face of public protest) remains a centerpiece of Sarkozy's program. This is all part of his stated goal of bringing what he describes approvingly as Anglo-Saxon flexibility to France, a project that makes him the darling of the business associations even as his law-and-order image allows him simultaneously to cull votes from the populist far right.

And where is the fearsome French left in all this? It's not exactly AWOL, but neither is it providing a robust challenge to the current rightward drift. Ségolène Royal is running on a platform that is more Clinton than Roosevelt. She proposes some spending increases, but by far the biggest items on her wish list are for Blairite, New Economy-type programs such as more support for scientific research and improvements in training and education to help French workers compete in a globalized economy. But she says nary a word about the trade and financial flows that cause these workers to need help in the first place.

The only parts of the Socialist program that try to address these problems are proposals to give tax credits to companies that reinvest profits in France, and to make companies reimburse the government for tax breaks if they turn around and send jobs abroad that the tax breaks were designed to subsidize. Royal's program also calls for raising the minimum wage and increasing pension benefits for the lowest-income retirees. But all these proposals are well within what most Democrats in the United States and even some Republicans could support.

These timid suggestions come at a time when French voters are obsessed with economic insecurity and many hallmarks of the French model seem to be crumbling. For instance, even the paid vacation - the most emblematic achievement of Léon Blum's Popular Front government of the 1930s - is no longer what it once was. In 2004, one-third of French people didn't take any vacation, largely for financial or work reasons, according to a report released last summer by the nation's statistical agency.

Sarkozy has said that he profits from this "absence of economic questions," but the Socialists have also lost voters to François Bayrou, a conservative trying to ply the middle ground who has surprisingly strong support. Bayrou has tried to distance himself from Sarkozy by warning that the United States is "not a model." But he doesn't propose any major new initiatives that might actually shore up the French model that he says he prefers.

If none of this seems to matter to the fate of progressive politics in the United States, consider this: If a kind of Reaganomics came to dominate Europe, there would no longer be any major Western economy to demonstrate the viability of the social market. An ever-growing list of health, pension and education "reforms" - all tending in the direction of greater inequality - would eviscerate Europe's societal model. The welfare-state Alamo would fall, and American progressives would lose a powerful, living argument that - for all of its flaws - still gives the lie to the Bush/Norquist vision of the so-called "ownership society." Something to think about as French voters go to the polls.

=============

As Royal and Sarkozy battle in these two weeks before the run-off for the middle and independents, it seems that Sarkozy has it wrapped up.

btw, the obituaries for Chirac's political career are mostly tending to the negative. He was obsessed his entire life with becoming President. When he finally got it, he accomplished almost nothing in 10 presidential years. At least Mitterand built a lot public buldings, aka, Mitter-Ramses.



translation: boutons wants a government that will wipe his lazy ass for him.


Moron comes on the forum and all he does is rail against the Govt...but he favors a govt that weilds almost total control.

[George Gervin's Afro]

How many French GI's have died in Iraq? How much treasure have they sacrificed for the liberation experiment gone wild?..

[George Gervin's Afro]

translation: boutons wants a government that will wipe his lazy ass for him.


Moron comes on the forum and all he does is rail against the Govt...but he favors a govt that weilds almost total control.

Translation Whott's argument gun is empty so he shoots spit balls.. he is what 5 deferrment dick refers to as a dead ender..

[whottt]

What about my argument is empty...

You're just Bush's bitch to the extreme degree that your political IQ is lesser than a dung beetle turd.

There is absolutely nothing empty about my argument...and boutons got destroyed..

All he does is post propaganda...none of the shit I posted was propaganda.


But anyway...1 picture of Rummy with Saddam > 15 of Chirac with Saddam, standing in a nuclear facility, while he was on the US list of terror states(we're talking late 60's and 70's).

[whottt]

And smeagol...you are blind to the type of leaders that espouse socialism in Europe...they are all royalty and aristocrats to the nth degree. As are all the conservatives.

[whottt]

So...how bout that boutons? Really knows what the fuck he is talking about, don't he?

[boutons_]

"boutons wants a government that will wipe his lazy ass for him."


Go fuck your knee-jerking, hot-buttoned self. It more fun than getting bitch slapped by me.

[whottt]

"boutons wants a government that will wipe his lazy ass for him."


Go fuck your knee-jerking, hot-buttoned self. It more fun than getting bitch slapped by me.



Pissed because even the French don't hate America as much as you do?


boutons...why not just admit you hate this country? Why be dishonest about it? You know, if your hate were justified, you wouldn't have to disguise it....

[velik_m]

From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirac):
At the age of 69, Chirac faced his fourth presidential campaign in 2002. He was the first choice of fewer than one in five voters in the first round of voting of the presidential elections in April 2002. It had been expected that he would face incumbent prime minister Lionel Jospin (PS) in the second round of elections; instead, Chirac faced controversial far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen of the law-and-order, anti-immigrant National Front (FN), and so won re-election by a landslide (82%); all parties outside the National Front (except for Lutte ouvrière) had called for opposing Le Pen, even if it meant voting for Chirac. Slogans such as "vote for the crook, not for the fascist" or "vote with a clothespin on your nose" appeared, while huge demonstrations marked the period between the two electoral rounds in all of France.

Chirac was elected because the alternative was far worse.

Oh and Whottt: Chirac was right winged (not socialist) and "President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy, adding that he had his vote." (from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy))

So don't go throwing parties just yet. French are still french.

[Slomo]

From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirac):


Chirac was elected because the alternative was far worse.

Bingo!

The left was actually campaigning for Chirac after the first round with a slogan that was in the sense of "the lesser of two evils". If Jospin hadn't fucked up, Chirac would have had a hard time getting re-elected.

And just for clarifications Chirac and Sarkozy are from the same side of the French political spectrum.

Sarkozy is a fascist that despises foreigners - yes that includes the US of A too.

[George Gervin's Afro]

The French will be amazed at how our relations will improve once they don't have a leader that openly despises our country and has less tact than Bush...little things matter.


No one has less tact than 'bring it on' georgie.. :lol Now , according to Whott,the French are good but they still won't support the unecessary war..I guess the Bush dead ender will find good news even if it is wth the GOP hated French..

[George Gervin's Afro]

Pissed because even the French don't hate America as much as you do?


boutons...why not just admit you hate this country? Why be dishonest about it? You know, if your hate were justified, you wouldn't have to disguise it....


Hey Whott disagreeing with your chickenhawk hero does not translate into hating America..

[smeagol]

I'm happy socialism did not win in France. I'm surrounded by LatAm socialists and left wingers and they truly suck.

[Yonivore]

Germany, then France; before long, I'll have to quit calling them Eunuchpeons.

Who'd of thought the French would have the gonads to elect a pro-American (more pro than American Democrats) Conservative (yeah, yeah, I know...not the my daddy's conservative) President.

Go Frenchie! :elephant

[boutons_]

"admit you hate this country?"

Vehement opposition to dubya/dickhead/neo-cunts/PNAC/AEI, their bogus, murderous Iraq war, their pervasie, deep incompetence, corruption and pillaging/politicizing of the US govt, and the right-wing dumbfucks like you DOES NOT EQUAL hating USA.

This is nothing but the old "love it or leave it" right-wing bullshit of the 1960s.

Part and parcel of the eternal slime-job you right-wing check-box dumbfucks spew at anybody who is against the right-wing.

France elects a right-wing xenephobe, a fiscal conservative, an anti-socialist and immigrant/Arab "scum" head-knocker, but because the "It's France" check-box is operationationl, you US right-wing rabble's knees jerk, when you ought to love that you have a right-winger running France.

[xrayzebra]

Oh, Darn, that dumb Bush has done it again, he tricked France
into electing a C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E President. I spelled it
so boutons wouldn't know what I was talking about and get all
upset. I mean the new Prez likes American and keeps saying so.

How does Bush do this? He just keeps tricking everyone. And
he is so dumb and uncouth. Just a damn cowboy.

[xrayzebra]

"admit you hate this country?"


This is nothing but the old "love it or leave it" right-wing bullshit of the 1960s.



Well boutons, you cant go to France now, so where are
you going if the Republicans get elected here again.
Cuba?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Ok dead enders you guys can have moral victories when the Dems own all 3 branches in 2008..but,but,but, conservatives won in Europe.. of course neither of which has sent 1 GI to Iraq! Oh well at least on paper they support us!! :lol

[boutons_]

Chicac/France/Germany have been proven to be absolutely RIGHT that the US/UK shouldn't have invaded Iraq.

Eat French shit, right-wingers. You'll never wash the blood of 30K US dead and maimed off your hands.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Chicac/France/Germany have been proven to be absolutely RIGHT that the US/UK shouldn't have invaded Iraq.

Eat French shit, right-wingers. You'll never wash the blood of 30K US dead and maimed off your hands.


Boutons come on man..The Dems said it too! According to the dead enders Bush/Cheney don't have blood on their hands just the Dems.. Don't blame them they only ordered the invasion!!

[whottt]

Slomo and Velik...

Link to where I claimed ChIraq was a socialist?

I know he's a conservative...but he's also an America hating conservative.


When search comes back, do a search on the forum....I've been telling all the libs how stupid they were for wanting to kiss the ass of a more corrupt and asshole version of W...for 4 years now.


But stop confusing Sarkozy with LePen....

ChIraq was acting in the financial interests of France...the same thing, all the stupid idiot fucktard Americans that wanted to kiss his ass, hate W for what they think he is doing.

The Libs wanted to elect someone to kiss his ass....

Who is clueless there?

Those lips would not have an ass to kiss had we put them in office to do so.


That is ownership...and these stupid fucks can make all the excuses they want, but they got owned...they just don't have the balls to admit it.

Out of touch.


He is more of a socialist than Sarkozy though...and Sarkozy intends to do away with some of France's more socialist staples...which I personally think is a good idea..although I really could care less as long as they stop cozying up to terrorists...


The danger now exceeds the financial gain and those Mid-Eastern despots must go.



You guys can spin it all you want but Sarkizy, at least publicly, is Pro-American and an Atlantacist...the fact that he got elected and the dumb bitch tyrying to ride Anti-Americanism into office ala ChIraq, got put out on her ass...is scoreboard for all the ChIraq haters....



So try and spin it all you want...

But I didn't like ChIraq because he put material gain ahead of the safety of the Western World...which makes him an idiot in my book.

Not quite as big of an idiot as Zapatero....the chief terrorist asskisser in Europe, and a commie, for all the wrong reasons...but still a big one.



Bottom line is that the chief Anti-Americans in Europe, Schroeder and ChIraq...are gooooooooooooooooooone.


So all the dumbasses who wanted us to elect a leader to kiss their asses, which is every Liberal on this forum(although you can't find any of them to admit it now), are owned.

Owned.
Owned.
Owned.
Owned.


Get mad all you want libs, attempt to spin it, call names, but owned.



Owned. Owned. Owned. Owned.


And the funniest thing is that you stupid fucks think you're smart.


There is nothing more obnoxious than a stupid, condescening idiot....

[George Gervin's Afro]

Slomo and Velik...

Link to where I claimed ChIraq was a socialist?

I know he's a conservative...but he's also an America hating conservative.


When search comes back, do a search on the forum....I've been telling all the libs how stupid they were for wanting to kiss the ass of a more corrupt and asshole version of W...for 4 years now.


But stop confusing Sarkozy with LePen....

ChIraq was acting in the financial interests of France...the same thing, all the stupid idiot fucktard Americans that wanted to kiss his ass, hate W for what they think he is doing.

The Libs wanted to elect someone to kiss his ass....

Who is clueless there?

Those lips would not have an ass to kiss had we put them in office to do so.


That is ownership...and these stupid fucks can make all the excuses they want, but they got owned...they just don't have the balls to admit it.

Out of touch.


He is more of a socialist than Sarkozy though...and Sarkozy intends to do away with some of France's more socialist staples...which I personally think is a good idea..although I really could care less as long as they stop cozying up to terrorists...


The danger now exceeds the financial gain and those Mid-Eastern despots must go.



You guys can spin it all you want but Sarkizy, at least publicly, is Pro-American and an Atlantacist...the fact that he got elected and the dumb bitch tyrying to ride Anti-Americanism into office ala ChIraq, got put out on her ass...is scoreboard for all the ChIraq haters....



So try and spin it all you want...

But I didn't like ChIraq because he put material gain ahead of the safety of the Western World...which makes him an idiot in my book.

Not quite as big of an idiot as Zapatero....the chief terrorist asskisser in Europe, and a commie, for all the wrong reasons...but still a big one.



Bottom line is that the chief Anti-Americans in Europe, Schroeder and ChIraq...are gooooooooooooooooooone.


So all the dumbasses who wanted us to elect a leader to kiss their asses, which is every Liberal on this forum(although you can't find any of them to admit it now), are owned.

Owned.
Owned.
Owned.
Owned.


Get mad all you want libs, attempt to spin it, call names, but owned.



Owned. Owned. Owned. Owned.


And the funniest thing is that you stupid fucks think you're smart.


:rolleyes

[whottt]

There is nothing more obnoxious than a stupid, condescending idiot....

Here, please include this part....especially you.

[whottt]

:rolleyes


Never has someone thought he was so smart for knowing so little...except for boutons, and every other lib on the forum.

[PixelPusher]

Yonivore and xrayzebra's admiration for the "conservative" French President Nicolas Sarkozy ending in 3...2...1...


Sarkozy: 'U.S. to lead battle for climate change' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178431584265&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS

Nicolas Sarkozy, in his victory speech as France's president-elect, said the United States can "count on our friendship" but urged it to take the lead against climate change.

Speaking to hundreds of cheering supporters, the conservative also vowed to be "the president of all of the French" and warned that the European Union must not be "the Trojan horse" for globalization's ills.

To France's "American friends," Sarkozy said: "They can count on our friendship."

"A great nation, like the United States, has a duty not to block the battle against global warming but - on the contrary - to take the lead in this battle, because the fate of the whole of humanity is at stake."

He said the issue would be a priority for France.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Never has someone thought he was so smart for knowing so little...except for boutons, and every other lib on the forum.


Right whott. Somehow libs were owned by Sarkozy winning the election? An you call me stupid? Any more moral victories you care to claim?

[boutons_]

whott "brilliantly" fell for all the Repug/neo-cunt lies and still support the oil-grab war in Iraq.

That huge, inarguable right-wing fiasco marks them all as willfully, maliciously, murderously dumbfuck.

[xrayzebra]

whott "brilliantly" fell for all the Repug/neo-cunt lies and still support the oil-grab war in Iraq.

That huge, inarguable right-wing fiasco marks them all as willfully, maliciously, murderously dumbfuck.

Would someone please translate this for me. I am bilingual,
you know English and Profane, but this is even above me.

[xrayzebra]

You know instead of quoting every lib post on here, I would like to just make
one statement: everytime someone from the conservative side
speaks the truth, they win. Everytime someone from the progressive side express their views, they lose. That is a
fact. I know it will hurt some on here, like think, but think
about it.

[velik_m]

Would someone please translate this for me. I am bilingual,
you know English and Profane, but this is even above me.



whottt naively fell for all the lies of neo-conservative republicans and still supports the operation in Iraq.

This operation, which i view as a complete failure, marks them (editor's note: neo-conservative republicans) all as incompetent.

[Slomo]

Slomo and Velik...

Link to where I claimed ChIraq was a socialist?

I know he's a conservative...but he's also an America hating conservative.


When search comes back, do a search on the forum....I've been telling all the libs how stupid they were for wanting to kiss the ass of a more corrupt and asshole version of W...for 4 years now.


But stop confusing Sarkozy with LePen....

ChIraq was acting in the financial interests of France...the same thing, all the stupid idiot fucktard Americans that wanted to kiss his ass, hate W for what they think he is doing.

The Libs wanted to elect someone to kiss his ass....

Who is clueless there?

Those lips would not have an ass to kiss had we put them in office to do so.


That is ownership...and these stupid fucks can make all the excuses they want, but they got owned...they just don't have the balls to admit it.

Out of touch.


He is more of a socialist than Sarkozy though...and Sarkozy intends to do away with some of France's more socialist staples...which I personally think is a good idea..although I really could care less as long as they stop cozying up to terrorists...


The danger now exceeds the financial gain and those Mid-Eastern despots must go.



You guys can spin it all you want but Sarkizy, at least publicly, is Pro-American and an Atlantacist...the fact that he got elected and the dumb bitch tyrying to ride Anti-Americanism into office ala ChIraq, got put out on her ass...is scoreboard for all the ChIraq haters....



So try and spin it all you want...

But I didn't like ChIraq because he put material gain ahead of the safety of the Western World...which makes him an idiot in my book.

Not quite as big of an idiot as Zapatero....the chief terrorist asskisser in Europe, and a commie, for all the wrong reasons...but still a big one.



Bottom line is that the chief Anti-Americans in Europe, Schroeder and ChIraq...are gooooooooooooooooooone.


So all the dumbasses who wanted us to elect a leader to kiss their asses, which is every Liberal on this forum(although you can't find any of them to admit it now), are owned.

Owned.
Owned.
Owned.
Owned.


Get mad all you want libs, attempt to spin it, call names, but owned.



Owned. Owned. Owned. Owned.


And the funniest thing is that you stupid fucks think you're smart.


There is nothing more obnoxious than a stupid, condescening idiot....I never claimed you said he was a socialist.

I just find it funny how you assume (together with the other american poster in this thread) that Sarkozy is going to be any different than CHirac. If anything he's going to be worse since he's even more open about his hatred for all things foreign.

Calling Chirac more of a socialist than Sarkozy is a joke. None of them would be caught alive in the company of socialists - they are both right wing conservatives (slightly to the left from Le Pen who is a right wing extremist). Also don't forget that Chirac in many ways is responsible for Sarkozy being on the political stage at all.

As for the socialist aspect of France your statement and most quotes that you referenced over simplify the situation. The changes that Sarkozy proposes are more a result of the demographic changes in the country and the current financial reality - regardless who would have been elected, he/she would have had to deal with them and probably in very similar manner.

[xrayzebra]

Solmo, you mean we cant take him at his word? And his
statements about 35 hour workweeks. Funny, some of the
folks they interviewed on FOX said they voted for him because
they like America and he was quite open about wanting to be
one of or friends.

[Freeze]

Solmo, you mean we cant take him at his word? And his
statements about 35 hour workweeks. Funny, some of the
folks they interviewed on FOX said they voted for him because
they like America and he was quite open about wanting to be
one of or friends.

:lol
I really don't know where the Fox have found them !!!!

These are the true main reasons Sarko won :
- Royal is a woman and hasn't prove enough she has the balls needed to become president
- Many people of our middle class like Sarko's statement about security in our cities (I'm not talking about terrorism, but of sort of gangs dealing drugs, stealing,...)
- Socialists didn't have a true economical program, Sarko has

BTW, I'm french and I'm really fed up with the anti-french feeling of some of US citizen..... and Sarko wants friendly relationship between USA and France as it was before Bush wanted to invade Iraq, but I won't say he is pro-American, he is just pro-French and needs to be as French President.

[velik_m]

Solmo, you mean we cant take him at his word? And his
statements about 35 hour workweeks. Funny, some of the
folks they interviewed on FOX said they voted for him because
they like America and he was quite open about wanting to be
one of or friends.

Belive it or not: elections in europe are not about USA, we have problems of our own too.

[Freeze]

ChIraq was acting in the financial interests of France


Well I'm glad to here that my President was acting for my country's interest !!!!

:toast

[whottt]

Well I'm glad to here that my President was acting for my country's interest !!!!

:toast


Yeah but...our liberals over here wanted to elect someone President who would kiss the ass of a French President acting in his countries interest in opposing us...which is what makes them idiots.

Our libs think the only President in the entire world who acts in his countries interests is Bush.

[whottt]

:

BTW, I'm french and I'm really fed up with the anti-french feeling of some of US citizen.....



Oh really? You have no idea how sick I am of the Anti-Americanism of some Europeans and the rest of the world...




and Sarko wants friendly relationship between USA and France as it was before Bush wanted to invade Iraq,

That's not what lead to the bad blood between Bush and ChIraq...it started the day of their first meeting, before 911, before Iraq...ChIraq was talking shit about Bush behind his back and word got back to Bush...

That is what started the bad blood between them.



but I won't say he is pro-American, he is just pro-French and needs to be as French President.

So you do understand why we elected Bush then instead of Kerry?


And I think a good President will act in his countries best interests...but the type of action is important.

ChIraq felt he had more to gain, both politically and economically, for France by opposing us...

And by opposing I mean ordering the French Ambassador DeVillpen to veto any resolution that calls for the removal of Saddam from powers...

Not just staying out of it....vetoing any resolution that removed the dictator from power.

That's not failing to aid us...that directly opposing us...and supporting a hostile mid-east leader that was in violation of cease fire agreements with us.


ChIraq may have believed that to be in the best interest of France...but it wasn't....he was just being a modern day Neville Chamberlain...


I don't particularly care if Sarkozy hates us or likes us...it's not going to make any difference in the Iraq war at this stage...whether he does or not...

I just care if he's going to act in direct opposition to us, IMO, to the detriment of Europe, the US and all of Western Civilization.

I don't think he will...





And I think glossing him a fascist right winger is typical of European Leftist Political Propaganda...

If were European...


The last thing I would ever be is solidly aligned with either the left or the right....knowing some European Leaders love for authoritarian rule...whether it be on the right or the left.


But anyway....60 years of peace in Europe, no need to say thanks...a nice big fuck you and knife in the back is thanks enough :tu

[Slomo]

Solmo, you mean we cant take him at his word? And his
statements about 35 hour workweeks. Funny, some of the
folks they interviewed on FOX said they voted for him because
they like America and he was quite open about wanting to be
one of or friends.:lol

Now don't get me wrong the majority of French people do not hate americans (contrary to the popular belief in the US), but at the same time I haven't met a french person that would base her/his vote on the fact whether the candidate likes or dislike the US or any other country for that matter.

Anybody who has spent any time in France with French people knows that they have a certain "fuck them" attitude when it comes to other countries - they don't exactly hate them or wish them harm, but they feel they are more equal in the company of equals.

Now it makes it very easy for us foreigners to poke fun at them, but their behaviour is not the worst and certainly not unique - as a matter of fact it reminds me a lot of another country I like - the USA.

P.S. What makes me laugh at this point is that both will cringe at that comparison :lol

[whottt]

I never claimed you said he was a socialist.

I just find it funny how you assume (together with the other american poster in this thread) that Sarkozy is going to be any different than CHirac. If anything he's going to be worse since he's even more open about his hatred for all things foreign.


Yeah but the Lefties hate us just as much...

Sarkizy wants what ChIraq wanted...for France to be the big boss of the EU, the difference is that Sarkozy has a better economic mind that ChIraq...at least IMO. He's much more liberal when it comes to capitalism...which is a good thing IMO...at least for France's economic situation...and they got a lot of pissed of muslims living in their slums that need jobs...Sarkozy will fix that.







Calling Chirac more of a socialist than Sarkozy is a joke. None of them would be caught alive in the company of socialists - they are both right wing conservatives (slightly to the left from Le Pen who is a right wing extremist). Also don't forget that Chirac in many ways is responsible for Sarkozy being on the political stage at all.

MM....to me the basic tenet of Socialism is government controlled industry...

And even ChIraq was way to the left on that issue compared to what we consider centrist...I don't think Sarkozy is a far to the left on that as ChIraq...but he's more liberal on Free Trade IMO...he has to be...


The confusion is just in the differences between the Right and Left in America and Europe...

The definition of conservative in America has changed much since WWII...our conservatives are only conservative on the subject of religion and unfortunately, science...but when it comes to business, and free trade they are extremely liberal...





As for the socialist aspect of France your statement and most quotes that you referenced over simplify the situation. The changes that Sarkozy proposes are more a result of the demographic changes in the country and the current financial reality - regardless who would have been elected, he/she would have had to deal with them and probably in very similar manner.


It's only complicated because they still don't get free enterprise...


THe perfect model has been laying in front of you for 200 years but...they just have to do it their own way...

IF we see someone doing something better than us, we'll just give them credit and copy it...rather than spending decades trying to prove we can do it better differently.

And we steal your smart people too.

[Slomo]

Oh really? You have no idea how sick I am of the Anti-Americanism of some Europeans and the rest of the world...




That's not what lead to the bad blood between Bush and ChIraq...it started the day of their first meeting, before 911, before Iraq...ChIraq was talking shit about Bush behind his back and word got back to Bush...

That is what started the bad blood between them.




So you do understand why we elected Bush then instead of Kerry?


And I think a good President will act in his countries best interests...but the type of action is important.

ChIraq felt he had more to gain, both politically and economically, for France by opposing us...

And by opposing I mean ordering the French Ambassador DeVillpen to veto any resolution that calls for the removal of Saddam from powers...

Not just staying out of it....vetoing any resolution that removed the dictator from power.

That's not failing to aid us...that directly opposing us...and supporting a hostile mid-east leader that was in violation of cease fire agreements with us.


ChIraq may have believed that to be in the best interest of France...but it wasn't....he was just being a modern day Neville Chamberlain...


I don't particularly care if Sarkozy hates us or likes us...it's not going to make any difference in the Iraq war at this stage...whether he does or not...

I just care if he's going to act in direct opposition to us, IMO, to the detriment of Europe, the US and all of Western Civilization.

I don't think he will...





And I think glossing him a fascist right winger is typical of European Leftist Political Propaganda...

If were European...


The last thing I would ever be is solidly aligned with either the left or the right....knowing some European Leaders love for authoritarian rule...whether it be on the right or the left.


But anyway....60 years of peace in Europe, no need to say thanks...a nice big fuck you and knife in the back is thanks enough :tu:lol

Posting drunk again?

[whottt]

:lol

Now don't get me wrong the majority of French people do not hate americans (contrary to the popular belief in the US), but at the same time I haven't met a french person that would base her/his vote on the fact whether the candidate likes or dislike the US or any other country for that matter.

I don't think it's so much people hating the people...as it is political, it's a dislike and hatred at a national level, not a personal level...

And it was inflamed by 2 leaders that don't like each other.


Anybody who has spent any time in France with French people knows that they have a certain "fuck them" attitude when it comes to other countries - they don't exactly hate them or wish them harm, but they feel they are more equal in the company of equals.

Now it makes it very easy for us foreigners to poke fun at them, but their behaviour is not the worst and certainly not unique - as a matter of fact it reminds me a lot of another country I like - the USA.

P.S. What makes me laugh at this point is that both will cringe at that comparison :lol


I just can't write it off as typical French being the french...not in this case, not after the threats from the mid-east, the threat of nuclear terrorism, which threatens Europe(even the pro terrorists/appeasers like Zapatero) as much if not more than the US.


If ChIraq had supported us through the UN...

It would have been political suicide for Bush to be giving bids to US companies for post war development....

There would have been no propaganda basis to this war for the recruitment of terrorists...or at least it would have been hindered.


Together we stand, divided we fall...


ChIraq didn't want to do that, of course, because FRance already had the post sanction development deals for Iraq with Saddam.


He acted entirely in the financial gain of his country....not just at the expense of America...but of Western Europe as well...

I just can't believe so many of you didn't see through it.


Just like W...only worse.




ChIraq was insecure about France status in Europe and Worldwide...he shouldn't have been...

Make no mistake about it....his support of Saddam, and direct opposition to this war made this war made it much more difficult for us to win. It did hurt us...and a lot Americans are resentful of that...not towards the French people themselves...but no definitely towards their government.

It's going to take time to heal this...and it's going to take two leaders wanting to do so...

Sarkozy seems willing, but I am not sure about Bush at this stage...he's got nothing to lose by being an asshole.


But anyway...he'll be gone in a couple of years, and we'll see if we elect a better diplomat than Bush...that's when the bad blood will begin to subside at the National Level.






All the peace loving liberals on this forum are not save the world type libs...

They are isolationaists...the exact same ones that let Hitler kick the shit out of you guys for 5 years before getting involved.

THe guys ya'll hate and consider the Ugly American are the ones that got involved...

[Freeze]

Whottt I won't quote you, but one day you should come to France and other European contry to see how far from the truth you are !!!
You seem to believe many things about us but are so far from reality that I understand why you hate us.

240 years of independance and freedom......... no need to say thanks :p:

[whottt]

LMAO...why do you guys always think I am speaking from ignorance?


I never argue from a position of ignorance...and if I do...I certainly won't be an asshole like I am when I know what I am talking about. That would be stupid on my part....

I've been to France. I've been to the UK, I've been to Germany, I've been to Norway, I've been to Switzerland, I've been to Estonia, I've been to Sweeden, I've been to Finland, I've been to the Russia.

In Asia, I've been to Hong Kong(when it was still under the British).


To be quite honest...I love most of the European Land...I just don't like it's propensity for spawning homicidal maniacs and dictators. And I don't like that it's chief form of intellectual thought is a simple minded hatred of America.


Now granted...for the most part these were brief stops on cruises, but I still have been there.

I'm more qualified to speak on the subject of those countries than I am on the Mid-Eastern ones...


As for France...I took French in college and my professor, who I dated, was a PHD in French Linguistics and just about the biggest French lover in America...she even changed her name to the true French spelling. I've studied quite a bit on France and it's relationship with America...and that's why I have the opinion I do.


What might surprise you is that, prior to 2003, most Americans loved France...and now they really don't...and if that bothers you, you can thank ChIraq for that...



As I said...I don't think it's at the personal level...it's definitely at the national level.


But it is there...and pretending it isn't would be naive on the part of Americans, especially when it comes to electing a leader.



Our libs think you guys are all just sitting there wanting to be friends...and that is BS on the international level, the political level, the economic level...

Now that the cold war is over, you guys are competitors period, and we our your chief adversary...again, I have no problem with this...I just have a problem with dumbass libs that think you guys are a bunch of peace niks...

Europe exports many things...but peace is not one of them...never has been, and the past 60 years is the exception to the rule.

I applaud you guys in Europe unifying, it means we can pull our military, get paid back the Marshall loan, and stop being drug into your wars. I just want to make sure we are calling a spade a spade.

Point blank...Unified Europe's main goal is supercede the US as the World Leader, at least economically...which I personally have no problem with, competition is the heart of capitalism and it benefits all mankind...it's just the methods I have a problem with. Methods that IMO put us all at risk.


Europe did a crappy job of carving up the mid-east after the two WW's...

America didn't go in their and install a bunch of puppts...Europe installed a bunch of dictators...and that's what's breeding this fanatical strain of Islam..and it aint going away until those leaders are gone...

and you France, need to help clean up your mess...and stop attempting to maintain the status quo for no other reason than financial gain and regional influence.

We never thought you guys were a lap dog...any more than we think the UK is a lapdog...or Israle...valued strategic allies is the term I would have used prior to 2003.

And things are realigning now...

China and India are probably more strategic allies now...and you can thank the last Franco German alliance for that.

[whottt]

Hey Freeze and Slomo...btw, please don't take my views as being personally directed towards you individually...and I am glad to see some Euros participating on the forum...

It broadens the view and discussion base for this forum...

And unlike the libs on this forum, I don't think the world revolves around America and I actually do pay attention to what is going on in Europe...and the rest of the world, at their national level.

So by all means...keep participating, I remember asking slomo to participate 2 or 3 years ago....I guess it took me a while to get you pissed off enough to post :smokin


Hey slomo...I have a question for you...concerning Europe.

I see you Slovenians as more of former Eastern Bloc country...one that knows to a great extent thge chains of Socialism...

How can you guys...meaning you slomo, and velik(who I believe is Slovenian) still toe the socialist line...

Surely you see the improvement in your own country since you guys threw off the shackles that hold back...


Secondly...why do Slovenians get defensive when I attack Europe...surely you realize I mean the colonial empires of Western Europe...

After all,, there aren't any countries in the Western Hemisphere that speak slovenian...so why do you bear their guilt? And take offense at comments that are obviously aimed at Western Europe...

Huge differences between Western and Eastern Europe, I conider the Eastern Europeans to largely have their shit together more than the West at this time... and I don't understand why the more Eastern Europeans(which I consider Slovenia to be, at least in the cultural sense) get upset...surely you can see the difference?


Just trying to be a good Euro?

Fine...but the criticism I aim at Europe(Western) is deserved and factually based...and denying it is like Americans trying to deny that we pollute.


Fascism
Nazism
Socialism
Communism
Anti-Semitism
Racism...

All concepts that took modern root in Europe over the last 500 years or so up until the end of the 20th century.

WWI and WWII were both carried over into the Middle East for strategic and material gain of European countries warring with each other...we were drug into those conflicts, and the UK, France, and the UN(prior to America being a member) are responsible for the current layout of the mid-east, the despots in power there, and the harsh living condition and lack of respect for human life that gives rise to Militant Islam.

It's all true...

And the mid-east is not going to have peace until that is rectified. They'll have opressive silence, but that doesn't stop terrorism...and it's just not right, and no citizen of a free country should argue against that.


And BTW, you notice that most of the guys ripping Beno and Rasho are Libs right? :smokin

[BIG IRISH]

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/20070509ST2AP-WorldHateUs.jpg

[xrayzebra]

Hey Whottt, problem with some of these French Libs and Libs
over here is that France has told the ILLEGALS there, that is
what they are and will remain so. Also that the Muslims aren't
changing anything to suit them. That France is what it is: France.
Wished our government would take this lesson from Europe, but
they want.

[smeagol]

Hey Whottt, problem with some of these French Libs and Libs
over here is that France has told the ILLEGALS there, that is
what they are and will remain so. Also that the Muslims aren't
changing anything to suit them. That France is what it is: France.
Wished our government would take this lesson from Europe, but
they want.
Wassup with your obsession with illegals today.

Third post about them in three different threads.

Change the subject, already.

[xrayzebra]

Why, it is pertinent to all the post. Look around sometime.
You might want to really read something besides this forum.

[boutons_]

it's not "political", it's not "personal", it's just right-wing, stupid xenophobia and chauvinisn to hate an entire country in western Europe.

Seems like a lot of US people actually think well of France

=============

France Counts, for Eight Americans out of Ten

By Jean-Louis Turlin
Le Figaro

Friday 18 May 2007

The time of the "with us or against us" on Iraq Francophobia is over: For 80% of Americans questioned within the framework of a poll for the French-American Foundation - an NGO devoted to strengthening Franco-American relations - it is "very important" or "quite important" to maintain good relations with France during the coming years. But a significant majority of them (62%) declare they don't know what effect Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency will have on the connection between Paris and Washington.

The foundation's president, Nicholas Dungan, sees a "very positive sign" in the first statistic (only one American out of seven deems the Franco-American relationship to be unimportant), but the second "reminds us that too many Americans remain under-informed about European events" (only 57% declare they make an effort in that regard), and "many are unfamiliar with the new government in France." Those who are sufficiently informed to have expressed an opinion with respect to the Sarkozy presidency are many times more likely than the others to deem that it will be positive for transatlantic relations (21% versus 3%). For Nicholas Dungan: "The United States's international experience of the last five years has shown Americans the importance of relations with their historic allies, especially their European allies, notably France and Germany. Great Britain is not enough."

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And never forget: Germany and France were right about not supporting the invasion of Iraq, and the US was wrong to invade Iraq.

Who's a bigger friend of US and our military: lap-dog Blair or the French and Germans?