Posted on 03/05/2021 7:15:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Political scandals are not unknown in France and are well documented, but the list of well known politicians, including former presidents and prime ministers, accused in recent years of financial misdeeds or corruption is growing.
In the present French political system, the president is a powerful figure: the head of state with supreme executive authority and command of the armed forces, with the ability to choose the prime minister, regarded as a symbol of the French nation. Directly elected by universal suffrage, not by an electoral college, for a term of five years, presidents cannot be voted out of office by the Parliament. The president enjoys immunity and cannot be prosecuted during his term. However, inquiries and prosecution can be started after he leaves office.
It is rare for former presidents to be put on trial and even rarer for them to be convicted of an alleged offense. France has had the dubious distinction of having two such cases in recent history concerning two presidents: Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Chirac, president 1995–2007, in 2011 was convicted of embezzling and misusing public funds when he was mayor of Paris. He was tried in absentia because he was in ill health, suffering from neurological problems. He received a two-year suspended sentence over "ghost jobs." Chirac was the first former head of state to be convicted since the head of the Vichy government, Marshall Philippe Pétain, in 1945, was found guilty of collaboration with the Nazis. Chirac was convicted of paying members of his political party, the RPR, for 21 municipal jobs that did not exist, diverting public funds to finance his political party, and abusing public trust while he was mayor. The court found him to be the sole person responsible, holding that there was no fault in his subordinates.
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In centralized states like France, China, and now the USA - you must be corrupt to climb the greasy pole. Since everyone is corrupt, politics becomes a form of mutually-assured destruction, which is a form of stability and oligarchy which doesn’t allow in outsiders.
The corruption is then only seen by the public when its used as a form of internal civil war among the elites.
What about the bucks dished out by OUR congress to cover up “stuff”. When will someone reveal who’s who?
The case of Nicolas Sarkozy is more important historically and politically since it is the first time a former president of the Fifth Republic has appeared in court on criminal charges and been convicted. Sarkozy had been president 2007–2012 after winning 53% of the popular vote.
After his electoral defeat by François Holland in 2012, he officially retired from public life but continued to play an influential role in French conservative politics, where he remained popular.
In a historic ruling, on March 1, 2021, the French court convicted Sarkozy, now 66 years old, and sentenced him to three years in prison for corruption and influence-peddling, though the sentence was suspended for two years, and the third year can be served by Sarkozy at home, wearing an electronic bracelet or in limited home confinement.
The court held that he had used his status as former president to influence a magistrate who had served his personal interests.
I wonder if Sarkozy is still eligible to serve in public office after this. Here in the USA, we had a judge named Alcee Hastings who was actually IMPEACHED and REMOVED from office in a “corrupt conspiracy” to extort a $150,000 bribe in a case before him.
Guess what? He went on to RUN for Congress and WIN !!!!
He’s still there, representing Florida’s 20th district, making laws for every American ! Go figure.
I remember FReepers telling us what an awesome and heroic “conservative” leader Sarkozy was. His policies were to the LFFT of Obama, but that made him “conservative by French standards” and we were supposed to fawn over him because he had a “beautiful” wife and kids and he liked to vacation in the United States.
Whatta guy!!!!
His wife had a better derrière than Michelle Obama.
“My family have always voted to the left. It’s tradition. I’ll never vote right wing.”
- Carla Bruni, wife of Nicolas Sarkozy
We need french prosecutors to go after US politicians.....
I won’t pretend to be mad at him for campaign fiance BS. He was justified to do whatever to beat the communists.
I will say though since corporations have committed themselves to anti-Americanism I’ve done a 180 (or a least a 90) on that issue though, ban corporate (and union) donations. Rich pricks can put their own name on their donations. No “dark money” either or loopholes for superpacs.
I’ve also done a 180 (or 90) on French politics, I was for Fillon but I’d be lying to myself to pretend he’s more than a little to Sarko’s right. I hope a Le Pen wins warts and all, there is no future for the European “center-right” (which is center-left or worse by our standards) than there is for Bush league RINOism.
What kind of name is Sarkozy for a Frenchman anyway? Hated this neoliberal ugly twerp.
FWIW: France’s greatest leading man was Italian (Yves Montand, born Ivo Livi), best scientist was Polish (Marie Curie, née Sklowdowska) and greatest male singer was Armenian (Aznavour).
Well to be fair, that's not really your own views "evolving" so much as it was the French political parties (cue Reagan's "I didn't leave the party, the party left me...)
Le Pen's daddy was running the "National Front" at the time Sarkozy was in power, which the media presented as a "far right" political party. Many FReepers who didn't research the media's BS took this to mean that National Front were hardcore Reagan-style conservatives. In reality, National Front in that era was a bunch of neo-NAZI loons and holocaust deniers, which not only made them NOT "conservative", but a disastrous option for France because of their odious Jew-bashing and fascist tenancies.
Since that time, Marine Le Pen has taken over the party from her daddy, done a complete "rebranding" and severed all previous neo-NAZI ties, and made them into much more of an ACTUAL conservative party.
The US equivalent might be the California affiliate of the Constitution Party (American Independent or whatever), which originally started off as the state branch of George Wallace's screwy segregation party in 1968, but purged the Dixiecrats later on and became an actual conservative party.
The media also claimed Sarkozy was the "most conservative" French President in decades (which a bunch of FReepers also accepted as face value and decided the guy was some kind of Reaganesque symbol of a conservative revolution, even though his actual policies were 95% identical to fellow faux conservative Jac Chirac). If that's their idea of "right wing", I'd hate to see what left-wing looks like over there.
Both the major "conservative" parties/leadership in Mexico and France have been non-starters for me for years, their "conservatives" are worse than our RATS.
Maybe France can end up like Mexico, where one of France's "far left" politicians actually turns out to be a VAST improvement!
Well, Chirac was an asshole (Yes in hindsight give me the Ron Paul of France over him!!), the last non-socialist Presidents before him were Valery Giscard d’Estaing (left office 81) and Georges Pompidou (died in office) 1974. I know dick about them.
So, Sark probably was the most conservative, like herpes is the most conservative VD.
And even before the blacks took over their soccer team, their best player was Italian, Michel Platini.
And oh by the way, he’s a corrupt SOB, as well, FIFA banned him.
They claimed it was unheard of for a French politician to behave that way, which was BS. You can find plenty of photos (pre-Iraq War anyway) of Jac Chirac taking extended tours of the United States and warmly rubbing elbows with American politicians.
I know some FReepers saying Sarkozy being pals with us changed their opinion of the French. It did zilch for me. What DID make me "rethink my opinion of the French" is when they had thousands of French citizens loudly marching in Paris AGAINST the government legalizing gay marriage. Where was that kind of courage in the U.S.? Even some "openly gay" and self-declared "atheist" French were vehemently fighting the government caving to the sodomy crowd! Gotta admire that the French people put up a valiant effort for western civilization there. (Of course, "conservative" Sarkozy and his marxist wife were all-in for the gay agenda)
I really don't think there would have been much policy difference at all if "socialist" Ségolène Royal had defeated "conservative" Nicholas Sarkozy in 2007.
For what its worth, I believe Chirac and Sarkozy personally loathed each other and never got along, despite being in the same party and having very similar ideological views, but meh, couldn't we say the same in the U.S. when it came to Bush and McCain?
As for me, a pox on all five of Franch's worthless Republics, and all the "conservative" politicians they elected President. France might be the only example where you can put me firmly in the monarchist camp. They need to wipe the slate clean there and start over. Interestingly enough, even if they DID go that route (which ain't gonna happen), there are currently three claimants who could argue to be the "rightful" successor to the French crown. The current contenders appear to be:
- Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou (Legitimists)
- Jean IV, Count of Paris (Orléanists)
- Prince Jean-Christophe Napoléon (Bonapartists)
Pick the "most conservative" of those three, and promptly crown him the ruler of the newly reborn Kingdom of France. :-)
I wonder if Europe might be better today if Napoleon never fell.
Anyway, you may jest but I’m so very disillusioned with “democracy” (by which I mean the entire notion of the masses voting for their leaders, please no one prattle at me about “republics”) that I have little of my youthful enmity for monarchy (not talking absurd figure head monarchy like the UK which I find increasingly absurd) or dictatorship. Iraq was last decently governed under a King. Neoconism taught me that it doesn’t matter if a foreign country is a democracy, only that it’s governed properly. I now apply the same thinking to this country. This nonsense of winning one election and then “losing” the next and seeing anything good that happened undone does not serve. Our foes are no longer just “bad” they are trying to destroy our entire way of life.
The main problem with monarchy is if even if you have a good monarch the heir might be a moron or a POS. The Romans got around that with with adoption, the 4 Good Emperors, that ended when Marcus Aurelius made his douchebag natural son the heir.
The ideal for me in this country (and I supposed it would work for Europe) would be a restricted franchise to ensure people who share our thinking form the overwhelming majority of voters. If you have that you might not need to change anything else. Any recalcitrant states we still didn’t control would have to forced into compliance though, federalism be damned.
Even moreso than Iraq (Iraq's current leader seems to be fairly decent), I would say its fellow "Axis of Evil" and rival Iran was last decently governed under a King. Even since the Shah was expelled and they became an "Islamic Republic" with the Ayatollah as Supreme Leader, they've been an unhinged islamofacist regime. Even the so-called "moderate" Iranian presidents and prime ministers are little more than puppets of the Ayatollah, and the people really can't make any changes to their creepy government, despite supposedly having "free and democratic elections" and a multiparty system that exists on paper.
The Crown Prince and Heir apparent to the throne Reza Pahlavi is an extremely bland and uninspiring figure (and has spent most of his adult life in exile in Maryland), but having him in power there instead of their current "democratically elected" Islamic Republic government would be 50X better.
Might be a little awkward if they tried to restore the monarchy in a few decades to the NEXT generation though. I don't think ANY of the three "royal princesses" (Reza Pahlavi's daughters) have spent 1 day of their life in Iran. Would be pretty hard to rule over a country just because grandpa was King there once upon a time.
Tell that to the Hanoverians. ;p
If this dude doesn't have a male heir that's a bigger problem. I can't imagine there has been a female monarch in an Islamic country other an Ottoman Sultana who was regent until her son came of age.
The "royal pretender" of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, has three children, all daughters:
Princess Noor
Princess Iman
Princess Farah
I'm pretty sure they all speak the native languages of Iran fluently, they've just never been there and were raised entirely in the U.S. I don't think the line of sucession would pass over them in favor of Prince Ali, the younger brother of Reza and thus the next male heir in line. He only has daughters, too.
But since there's little to no chance of the Iranian monarchy being restored (I'm surprised the US didn't attempt that in the 80s), I don't think there's any discussion of who's "next in line" after Reza. I believe it was a "crisis" in Japan when the crown prince only had daughters for a while though. Apparently they hadn't had a female Empress in 1000 years or something.
I believe Islamic majority countries have had female monarchs before. A few of them even had female Prime Ministers.
The current "royal pretender" for Iraq is Sharif Hussein, who despite his last name, is not related to Saddam Hussein and was in fact a "prominent critic of his regime", so I guess a theoretical Iraqi monarchy would be a good thing, too. This stuff is far more interesting to speculate on than their crappy "democratically elected" leaders of Islamic nations, though.
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