Posted on 01/14/2007 2:35:30 PM PST by Cincinna
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy overwhelmingly captured the presidential nomination of France's governing party Sunday, pledging to reform the country, enforce respect of French laws and traditions and make the French work longer and harder.
In an 80-minute acceptance speech in a conference hall packed with 80,000 cheering supporters, Sarkozy also struggled to shake his reputation as the country's unforgiving law-and-order enforcer of security, portraying himself as a man of compassion who had changed.
"I have understood that humanity is a strength, not a weakness. I have changed," Sarkozy said from an immense stage bearing the colors of the national tricolor flag. He added, "I have known defeat, and I have had to overcome it, like millions of French people."
But his core message seemed aimed at wooing France's right-wing voters rather than those in the center or on the left who potentially could support his main rival, the Socialist party candidate, Ségolène Royal.
"My values are yours, those of the republican right," Sarkozy said. "These are the values of fairness, order, merit, work, responsibility. I accept them. But in these values in which I believe, there is also movement. I am not a conservative. I do not want an immobile France. I want innovation, creativity, the struggle against injustices."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
There actual accomplishments were quite limited. Most of the sucessful operations were carried out by the communists or their socialist allies.
I would say, "slim".
France has had decades of the kind of socialism that weakens people and turns them into government-dependent mediocrities. And like drug addicts, the French will likely re-elect their same old pushers, the socialists.
From the point of view of the political elite, it's a fairly fool-proof scheme for gaining and holding political power, and it is a scheme the Democrats here have been attempting to pull off through patient incrementalism since the days of FDR.
How the Republicans have managed to hold the Democrats off for as long as they have is a mystery. I guess there are still too many strong, hard-working, traditional American families in much of the country for the rats to overcome. So far.
Hope for the French?
Excellent news! Sarkozy - un nouveau jour pour France!
"In an 80-minute acceptance speech in a conference hall packed with 80,000 cheering supporters..."
Can you imagine what it smelled like in a packed hall with 80,000 Frenchies?
I hope you arew 110% correct! We need for France to get some political backbone.
Fixed
"What are his odds of winning the election?
I would say, "slim"."
I disagree. I think the odds are at least 60-40 at this point.
Segolene Royal is so PC and programmed, that she is bound to make more gaffes. She has already shown in her trips abroad to the Middle East and China that she is woefully incompetent, and a loose cannon diplomatically.
Her "husband" recently called for an increase in taxes on those making over 4,000 Euro per month. She distanced herself from that, knowing that would tax many middle class families who are already overtaxed.
This Socialist couple are really a Clintonoid "buy one get one free".
Is there a French Election ((((PING))) list?
'Contrary to popular belief......there ARE a lot of 'real men' in France. Just look at a generation ago.....the French Resistance."
Not so fast. Much (if not most) of the Resistance was communist. They were not very heroic, and today we would call them terrorists, which is what they were. They certainly were not uniformed, as the then-current laws of war required.
After WWII, the Geneva accords were revised to allow such "partisan" combatants, and we are paying the price for this but of stupidity to this day. We erased a very important line between combatants and non-combatants. It played right into the hands of our enemies.
Anyway, the Resistance was not a generation ago, bit three generations ago (counting 20 years to a generation).
If France had been anything but a disintegrated land, they would never have been occupied in the first place. After all, they were richer than Germany at the time. However, they were dominated by leftists, and had long since lost their elan.
A generation is generally considered to be closer to 40 years, not 20.....and the rest of your 'scholarship' is sadly lacking, as well. Back to school, son.
By now the entire country participated...../s/
But I will never denigrate those who served humanity rather than the nazis and I am thankful to know there are those in France who understand the stakes.
First off - for the record - I am a values voter.
BUT - I didn't stay home on election night to "teach the bad Republicans a Lesson!" I believe in working within a relationship or marriage to try to work things out!
So - I am in agreement with you that those that Did stay home on election night will rue the day that they did that - as a matter of fact - it is already here - and more to come under the Dems -
Please see:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JaySekulow/2007/01/12/speaker_pelosi_to_monitor_your_church
Those people should have thought of this when they refused to vote for the "culture of corruption" senators and congressmen of the Republican Party and voted for the real culture of corruption (abortion/human stem cell killers) - the Dems!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53714
An old discussion on what happened:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1735698/posts
Her "husband" recently called for an increase in taxes on those making over 4,000 Euro per month. She distanced herself from that, knowing that would tax many middle class families who are already overtaxed.
LOL, please don't tell me I need to direct you to a slew of continually-reelected American Democrats who are even more pathetic. None of this matters to the voters - - to the addicts (government-dependent parasites), it's all about getting free drugs (welfare, "programs", etc.).
Wasn't France recently paralyzed by a national strike because the government ruled that the work week shall be extended from 35 hours to 37? Segolene Royal sounds like the perfect French Democrat. The addicts know she will keep supplying them their drugs. It'll be a landslide.
Maybe so, but if you people don't wake up and come to your senses--and fast!--you ain't seen nothin' yet!
Historically, a generation has been held to be 33 years.
If all the people who now say they were in the Resistance were actually in it, Hitler would have never been able to take France.
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