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 ...
Very nice, but what does this have to do with the French Elections?
re ((( PING LIST ))):
Does anyone know how to get one started?
Yes. I have a few of them. Freepmail me.
Well, even if they did do the "something," they have no bearing on this election. I hope for his success.
Biblically...........40...............but I won't quibble.
For France to elect this man would be great. He is not anti-American. He might even be a partner.
(1) Thanks for the article. Very good.
(2) I'd put the odds at 52-48 Royal. But it will be close. The "I'm voting for a woman because she's a woman" vote is going to matter this time. Whether it will be enough to give Royal the win or not will be interesting, because the other side of the coin is "A woman is not strong enough to be President of the Republic", which will cut the other way. Maybe Sarkozy will win.
(3) I do want to point out to that Sarkozy firmly rejects the American war in Iraq as a mistake. He supports Chirac's opposition to the war.
The four major polls in France have them at a statistical dead heat, well within the margin of error. http://www.lemonde.fr/web/vi/0,47-0@2-823448,54-848463,0.html
If there is a shift of few point difference, it is still within the margin of error, and thus impossible to predict.
Since turnout in France is so high, the question of who and who will not turn out to vote doesn't figure in.
How reliable have French polls been in the past? Is their such a thing as a post-convention bounce?
One unknown now is who is going to run as a 3rd or 4th or 5th party candidate (or as an independent). I think this may turn out to be the most important factor. All we know now is that is Sarkozy for the UMP and Sego for the PS. However MAM has said she may throw her hat in, and others have made similar comments. I think even LePen may have something to say before this thing is all over. Like in our election of 1992 (shudder) a French Ross Perot or two could change everything, IMHO.
The French system is a two round system, like Louisiana.
In the first round premier tour)there are many parties and many candidates. If no candidate gets 50.1%, there is a runoff a week later between the two candidates with the highest score.
It is thus impossible for a third party candidate to get into the runoff.
Michele Alliot Marie, the Defense Minister, threw her support behind Sarkozy before the nomination yesterday, so she isn't running.
What happened in the last election was that the two candidates with the highest score in the first round were Jean-Marie le Pen and Chirac.
Since Sego and Sarko have been pulling much higher numbers in the polls than in the previous election, the possibility of a third party candidate beating out either one of them is highly unlikely.
Anything has got to better than Jack...he loved Saddamn 'cause he lined his pocket from the butcher of Baghdad...
"If there is a shift of few point difference, it is still within the margin of error, and thus impossible to predict."
I agree. I wouldn't put money on this election.
"Since turnout in France is so high, the question of who and who will not turn out to vote doesn't figure in."
True.
"How reliable have French polls been in the past? Is their such a thing as a post-convention bounce?"
Not very.
Not really.
If something big and nasty happens within France involving Muslims between now and the election, it will improve Sarkozy's chances.
But then again, if anything REALLY big and nasty happens in France between now and the elections, it will boost Le Pen's numbers, and that would hurt Sarkozy.
Royal has hit all the cylinders she can hit. She's declared everything she stands for. Sarkozy's still got some questions surrounding his candidacy - namely, the extent to which Chirac and/or de Villepin will work behind the scenes to damage his candidacy.
Le Pen peaked long ago, unless there is a mass-casualty terror attack in France.
But time does not favor Royal. The French economy has been steadily improving and adding jobs, and the streets have been quiet. The fact that Chirac, whom everyone knows is corrupt as sin, hates Sarkozy actually helps Sarkozy in public opinion: he will not be "More of the same". But of course if the old, dying King decides to lash out at Sarkozy within the power-base it could still cripple him.
Many things are unclear.
With time, Sarkozy will become the natural, obviously leader of the center right, and this harms Chirac's ability to really hurt him internally.
With time, the improving economy makes the Right look smarter and less callous.
With time, the potential for another Islamist explosion increases, and that would hurt Royal.
It will be interesting.
Are you French? Spend a lot of time there?
Today's Figaro shows Villepin cozying up to Sarko and saying that he's a man "constant and faithful". And MAM is saying that she's going to be Sarko's attack dog because it's better for a woman to attack another woman.
Looks to me like Sarko has got his ducks all in a row and their quacking in unison.
"Are you French? Spend a lot of time there?"
It's not an easy question.
I am ethnically French.
I was born in the US and am a US citizen. I have the French equivalent of a green card, because my wife is a French national. Our child is a dual citizen.
I went to university in France and got my law degree in Paris.
I have worked at different companies in France.
Currently I am in the US, working in New York, with French clients on French issues, and am always "on deck" to get sent back over temporarily or permanently.
I get to France often, sometimes for business, and at least annually because my family is all in Paris and Guadeloupe.
Of course the family contacts are constant.
I have lived a total of perhaps 8 years in France.
If I just sign the nationality paper, then it will be very easy to answer your question "Yes, I am French". But without the nationality paper, I am not legally French, I am ethnically French and immersed in things French. What I say is that I live a trans-Atlantic existence, because this best fits the facts.
In the perennial spats between France and the USA, I usually see some merit in both sides. When people try to force me to take sides I tell them the same thing I always told them, even back in the US Navy (where people really didn't like my being French, but where they really did use me to communicate with the French at sea when things really needed to get done correctly and there was confusion):
When your mother and your father fight, you do not want one to kill the other. You want them to stop fighting.
Not enough to keep Sarkozy out of the runoff, or to get Le Pen in. Sarkozy's inevitably going to poll higher than any third party candidate in the first round.
Villepin's move is interesting.
He does not want to be left behind.
His benefactor will be sliding off the stage into the oblivion of retirement, and Villepin now knows that Chirac hadn't the horsepower to propel Villepin into Elysee. So now Villepin must cozy up to Sarkozy, and he is.
Sarkozy needs to keep his enemy, Villepin, close. The two can be fruitfully engaged with each other for the benefit of France, assuming Sarkozy wins.
It will be a really tight election.
I was a lot more sanguine on Royal early on, but she has put all her cards on the table. It is not a matter of my liking her policies or not - I can't vote (although my wife does). Just being analytical and objective about it, Royal did a brilliant PR job to capture the Socialists, and she has the attention of everyone. But she has been, what is the best word here?, flat. She is honest. She has stated her platform. Nobody really doubts that she'll try to do that if she's elected. A nice, solid technocrat who is honest and who communicates with her constituents. These are plusses. But there are things that are gimmicky here - though sincere. Gimmicky isn't enough to win, or to lose either. On foreign policy she appears naive...to me anyway, also to others.
Sarkozy is in many ways an asshole. But he is decisive. And on security matters he has been hard, and France wants some hardness now. People don't want street protests suppressed - that's France, it's a right, it moves the country, etc. But they DO want the willy-nilly destruction of property in these Muslim riots suppressed. That is over the top and expensive. And people are feeling insecure, too, because of the crime.
Sarkozy looks better on these things than Royal.
On the other hand, Sarkozy wants to frankly Americanize the French economy. This is a clear weakness.
How will the people vote?
My relatives, who are generally socialists, are uninspired by Royal. They don't like Sarkozy.
They don't like the idea of the "Vote vaginale" taking the elections.
I think that the election in France is going to be so uninspiring, so rote, and so close as a result, that it will actually be finally decided in the DOM. I noted that Villepin, Sarkozy, Royal, and Le Pen - all of them are pitching woo at the Guadeloupeens, Martiniquais, et al. They've done the math and realize that the million or so votes from the DOM could be the pivot, given that the DOM are not as sown into the usual fabric of internal French politics.
I think Sarkozy and Villepin realize that the Muslim ethnic vote in France is going to go socialist, but that can be balanced somewhat by the non-Muslim ethnic vote in the DOM. Hence the push. Le Pen, for his part, likes to get up there on stage with blacks and declare solidarity as Frenchmen and get their support, because it allows him to needle his opposition in the metropole with the pictures, etc.
If the election were held TODAY, who would win?
I don't know.
It would be very, very close.
I am not sure about that.
If France took a massive hit, I think the breaking free of passions might well bury all concessionists and it might be another Le Pen versus the center right election.
And under such circumstance, if the hit were truly massive, Le Pen might very well win.
The whole constructed belief system is that the pressure is being siphoned off, that the Beurs are acculturating - ah slowly! - and need to be brought more fully into the economic and social life of the country. The heavy influence of terrorists as we see in England and Spain is not believed to be so prevalent in France. Yes, the terrorists are there, and yes, they are trying to organize Islamism. But the belief is that France HAS successfully secularized the Arabs sufficiently that they are angry over exclusion, and not trying to do what the radicals in England want. That's the belief.
If something massive and bad happens, that belief will be torn asunder. People WANT to believe it, but if there is an awful attack with mass casualties, a lot of people will cease believing that.
And in the backlash, the rush to a hard-right wing security fellow would be strong. Le Pen is the know quantity there. He has been ruthlessly frank and consistent over the years. Most people find what he has to say repulsive. Let everyone in the country lose a son, daughter, cousin, aunt, uncle, parent, friend in some horrible fireball, and Le Pen's bullheaded xenophobia will look Churchillian, and he might just win.
I have bought into the "Beurs are not Islamists" myself, and don't think there will be a fireball or a Le Pen victory, but I could be wrong. I could be rallying behind Maginot, apres tout. They were certain they were right too.
Who knows for sure?
Only time will tell.
I think that in the real world it will be Sarkozy versus Royal, and it will be very, very close, decided in the DOM and among women.
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