Sarkozy has Won

[Nobunaga]

... A turn-around in France?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6630797.stm

... Any French players here? Give me your thoughts, please.

[freezie]

He's a liar. Like bush, harper, and EVERY other politician.

[Aegnor]

He's a liar. Like bush, harper, and EVERY other politician.

But ask yourself, is he a stupid liar (like bush), or a cunning one?

[Stopper]

I preferred Sego.

[Guiscard]

A bad turn for France in my opinion... More riots and violence, I'd imagine, before he can deliver on his promises of ending unemployment and suchlike...

Does show how Blairism has influenced politics outside of the UK, though (although he'd never use the term himself)...

[dwightschrute]

... A turn-around in France?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6630797.stm

... Any French players here? Give me your thoughts, please.

not from france sry

[Great Pretender]

He's a liar. Like bush, harper, and EVERY other politician.

[Guiscard]

He's a liar. Like bush, harper, and EVERY other politician.

He doesn't mince his words though...

In the midst of a tense period and following a shooting that killed an 11-year-old boy in the banlieue of La Courneuve in June 2005, he quoted a local resident and vowed to clean the area out “with a Kärcher” (nettoyer la cité au Kärcher, Kärcher being a well-known brand of pressure cleaning equipment), and two days before the 2005 Paris riots he referred to the rioters as voyous (thugs) and racaille, a slang term which can be translated into English as dregs or riff-raff[21] this was criticised as being too hard on the rioters.[22][23]

Basically he said he'd wash all the scum out of the working class areas with a pressure cleaner... Obviously the people who loved in those areas were non too happy and there were some pretty serious riots.

Perhaps his presidential acceptance speech should be amended:

“The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past. I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation.... and clean out all the blacks with a hose"

[Titanic]

Bloody French......

I think Royal would have won if she didn lose her temper in the debate.

[nagerous]

gutted

[strike wolf]

It looks like my french teacher was right.

[unriggable]

While I am left-wing, some of the french liberal-social laws are complete bullshit. For example, companies have to limit their employees workweek to 35 hours max, but they have to keep the same wage as it was when they had a 40 hour workweek. What the f*ck!?

Not all conservatives are liars BTW. I hope he can be in power long enough to fix some major fallbacks but not long enough to make a mini-US.

[chewyman]

I don't know a thing about the French election other than that a conservative beat a socialist. What I do know is that France is ridiculously socialist and any move away from that can only be a good thing. It's time the French realised that you can't have an effective economy with a maximum 35 hour week.

France is dropping from one of Europe's strongest economies and it's time they decided to play catch up rather than paying for people to do nothing.

[flashleg8]

I’m just back from France today. This is a bloody travesty. Everyone I know over there is solidly against this guy. A lot of my friends and family over there are first or second generation immigrants and they are convinced that his policies will be terrible for them.
I stayed for a day near the Place de la Bastille (in Paris) where I was speaking to many young people in the bars who all said there'd be trouble if he won – surprise, surprise there was street fighting on Sunday night at the same place! Last night I was in Marseille (which has a massive immigrant population) and the mood was furious when the result was announced. To be perfectly honest I was surprised nothing more serious was happening there too.
I personally admire the existing French social system and if Sarkozy pushes through his welfare reforms he will be as bad as Thatcher was for Britain.

[chewyman]

Says a lot about the people that you know then doesn't it Sarcozy won the majority, there haven't been any complaints of polling bias so that's that as far as I'm concerned.

I was watching the news tonight and there was a reporter speaking from Paris about the French election (the station has a slight left wing bias, but it's still the best news station in Australia). One question was about the violence that would occur as a result of the polls. The reporter answered that it was difficult to say exactly what the reaction was, despite the fact that numerous cars had been bombed and there had been street riots etc. The reason was that cars were firebombed every week in France.

France's social system is a failure. You only need to look at their fast dropping position as one of the world's strongest economies and the almost daily riots for proof. It's about time some conservative economic sense was knocked into the French.

[Titanic]

Says a lot about the people that you know then doesn't it Sarcozy won the majority, there haven't been any complaints of polling bias so that's that as far as I'm concerned.

I was watching the news tonight and there was a reporter speaking from Paris about the French election (the station has a slight left wing bias, but it's still the best news station in Australia). One question was about the violence that would occur as a result of the polls. The reporter answered that it was difficult to say exactly what the reaction was, despite the fact that numerous cars had been bombed and there had been street riots etc. The reason was that cars were firebombed every week in France.

France's social system is a failure. You only need to look at their fast dropping position as one of the world's strongest economies and the almost daily riots for proof. It's about time some conservative economic sense was knocked into the French.

Its because of the conservative attitude that a lot of these problems occur. A socialist would put a proper social system in place to help the less well off, who atm are the main contributors towards the riots and the violence.

[chewyman]

Socialists have had enough time. France is ridiculously socialist as it stands. It's just more proof that you can't have a powerful economy with all power to the workers.

The reason for those riots isn't just the poor, it's largely the segregated Muslim and other communities. France's socialist leaders long ago decided that 'multiculturalism' (or voluntary apartheid, both terms work) were to be encouraged and France began losing its identity. It sounds great in theory but in practice all that happened was that you got a bunch of foreigners concentrated inside France who couldn't speak French and hated the rest of the country.

[Stopper]

Socialists have had enough time. France is ridiculously socialist as it stands. It's just more proof that you can't have a powerful economy with all power to the workers.

I'm supposed to working (even though it's supposed to be the workers' day off, but never mind), so I'll try to keep this brief, but I don't see how you can say "Socialists have had enough time". France hasn't been governed by a Socialist government for many years. When Socialist Jospin was prime minister, Chirac was president, so the Socialists had to cohabitate with him. After the 2002 disaster, it was a Conservative President and government all the way.

I dare say employment law could be liberalised there - but a 35-hour week is hardly "all power to the workers." I don't think France's economic problems can be put down to the issue of whether people aren't made to work indecent hours. For one thing, they're far more productive than the British (something like a 20% difference per capita), but Britain's economy keeps growing.

The reason for those riots isn't just the poor, it's largely the segregated Muslim and other communities. France's socialist leaders long ago decided that 'multiculturalism' (or voluntary apartheid, both terms work) were to be encouraged and France began losing its identity. It sounds great in theory but in practice all that happened was that you got a bunch of foreigners concentrated inside France who couldn't speak French and hated the rest of the country.

Probably other people can address this better than I can, but one problem with France and its minorities is supposed to be that minorities are not properly recognised there. Everyone is French, and nothing else, in the eyes of the state. Which is lovely in theory, but in practice, means that nothing is done about discrimination by whites against other groups.

That's the impression I get, and if it's correct, it seems that the French state doesn't follow any policy of multiculturalism - quite the opposite, in fact.

[Guiscard]

The reason for those riots isn't just the poor, it's largely the segregated Muslim and other communities. France's socialist leaders long ago decided that 'multiculturalism' (or voluntary apartheid, both terms work) were to be encouraged and France began losing its identity. It sounds great in theory but in practice all that happened was that you got a bunch of foreigners concentrated inside France who couldn't speak French and hated the rest of the country.

I think at this point there is no point arguing the merits of multiculturalism, so I won't respond to the voluntary apartheid comment but:

It was far from decided a long time ago... France has fought what you view as multiculturalism fiercely over the years - remember this is the same militantly secular country which banned headscarves in schools - and, if anything, it is the right which is polarising society and creating the socio-economic 'slums' from which immigrants cannot assimilate. France has been the most vehemently secular and anti-multicultural European country thus far, but multiculturalism has caught up with France and its an issue which needs addressing, certainly. Do you think Sarkozy, who wrote off the immigrant community as scum, is gonna do anything to help those people integrate?

As Flashleg has shown, a lot of young people in France feel alienated and attacked by what Sarkozy is preaching. We cannot tell for sure what the effect of his reforms will be, but you cannot blame the current problems solely on socialism.

[unriggable]

Another dumbass law - muslim girls are not allowed to wear scarves at school.

I hope that they keep the conservative long enough to fix these fuckass laws but not to ban abortion and that type of thing.

[Guiscard]

Another dumbass law - muslim girls are not allowed to wear scarves at school.

I hope that they keep the conservative long enough to fix these fuckass laws but not to ban abortion and that type of thing.

France has been conservative for a good while... France has a pretty intense history of secularism dating back to the revolution. Its not the secularism that is the main issue, its the whole socio-economic decline.

[cosmin]

f*ck politics! let go get drunk instead!

[flashleg8]

The reason for those riots isn't just the poor, it's largely the segregated Muslim and other communities. France's socialist leaders long ago decided that 'multiculturalism' (or voluntary apartheid, both terms work) were to be encouraged and France began losing its identity. It sounds great in theory but in practice all that happened was that you got a bunch of foreigners concentrated inside France who couldn't speak French and hated the rest of the country.

It was far from decided a long time ago... France has fought what you view as multiculturalism fiercely over the years - remember this is the same militantly secular country which banned headscarves in schools - and, if anything, it is the right which is polarising society and creating the socio-economic 'slums' from which immigrants cannot assimilate. France has been the most vehemently secular and anti-multicultural European country thus far, but multiculturalism has caught up with France and its an issue which needs addressing, certainly.

Guiscard and Stopper are completely correct. France traditionally worked with a policy of assimilation as opposed to the British system of multiculturalism.
This historically probably stems from the French Empire's make up, where all citizens of the French Empire were considered French with the equal rights (part of the Republican ethos). It was largely a colonial type empire (in the North Africa especially), thus the need for large numbers of French citizens to emigrate, they obviously wanted to retain all their rights and ensure that their families did so too. The British Empire on the other hand was in the main a trading empire (after the US broke away it had learned the lesson of relying on too strong colonies). In this system it was easier to have local people rule (in particularly in India and South East Asia) with British governors and commercial trading firms running the economy. There was no need to promise citizenship to the locals, in fact it was easier to have a hands off approach.)

Anyway, my Fiancé is really a good example of this assimilation policy. Her parents were both Algerian but she considers herself 100% French with little or no links to her cultural heritage. I would contrast this with my Pakistani friends in the UK who are in a similar second generation position but they would consider their selves British Asians, and have no problem with this dual identity. (Perhaps this is in part due to the unique dual identity all British have - I myself am happy to think of myself as Scottish in one breath and British in another, I'm sure most of the Brits here would feel the same). Now- I see the merits and faults of both systems but in practice in France it leads to a very racist attitude in some quarters. My Fiancé often remarked when she first came to Britain on the fact that Black people or Asians were newsreaders or on TV or Radio in prominent positions. In France this was really not the case, even where non-white presenters where on TV they were either really Franco-fied or in minor positions. The immigrant populating (especially in the city suburbs) are often discriminated on for jobs and even housing. Leading to a further ghettoisation an increasing economic black spots. These people often feel neglected and unwanted by the "French" society at large and justifiably feel that the changes proposed by the Right would increase this alienation. The UMP (Sarkozy's party - a center right party) have shifted considerably to the right as a result of the upswing in support for the far right FN party (of Le Pen), promising tough policies to deal with immigrants and immigration. These are seen as essentially racist by many people. One policy he will introduce is that all non French citizens without a job will be forced to leave France. I know a man who has been in France for 40 years but may be forced to leave if this is introduced! Where would he go? This is really just a taste of the feeling in some quarters of the French society, never mind the issues my socialist party friends and relatives have with the economic, social, and foreign policies he has.

[chewyman]

Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to, I cannot continue this debate. Some of you, especially flashleg, clearly know more about French politics then I do. I'm not hiding that ignorance, it's right there in my first post in this thread. That's why you may notice that my posts are extremely general, they are based solely on the odd snippets of information I pick up from TIME, THE ECONOMIST and my local newspaper. I think the real reason for my lack of knowledge is that I am a terrible anglophile, the French have just always irritated me lol.

So keeping on that general line of thought I will say that I support the British system with a bit of the French in between Let's use a Chinese lady whose parents immigrated to Britain 30 years ago, she was born in Britain, as an example. In my opinion that lady should, if she wanted, say that she is a British Asian. However, asked to give just one word that answer should always be British. I'm a huge fan of the multiculturalism back home in Australia, we all know how differences of opinion are a good thing. But differences left untamed will only lead to racism and that voluntary apartheid I already mentioned. It's necessary to have a higher bond between people so that those differences can be utilised in achieving that higher purpose. So in other words, the Anglo-saxons, the Asians, the Mediterraneans, that's fine, but they should consider themselves primarily Australian.