Nicolas Sarkozy or Segolene Royal?
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58 comments to The next French President |
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Leggo my Sarko
No You Leggo my Sego !
Well, Segolene is rather MILF-y, is that a good enough reason?
Sarko all the way. The most right-thinking of a left-thinking lot of collectivists.
Andy, LOL.
Either way France is screwed. Sarko means screwed slower, Segolene means screwed quicker
My guess is that Segolene Royal will win the second round. Those people who do not think that Nicolas Sarkozy is an evil right wing fanatic voted for him in the first round. Those who do think he is an evil right wing fanatic will vote for Royal in the second round because Sarkozy is an evil right wing fanatic. And France will then indeed be screwed.
53% for Old Nick in the 2eme Tour – thats my humble guess.
Is not the electoral turnout of 84%+ itself very interesting?
Best regards
In the election, or just generally? Because Andy has a point. As long as she kept her mad politics to herself, I’d go for Legoland every time.
I think Sarky might just scrape the President thing, though. (As if, as has already been noted, it matters.)
Perry is right. France is well and truly stuffed. If is a case-study in how (not to) run a capitalist society on communist lines.
If Sarko gets elected and has the temerity to even glance at the acquired rights of the pampered state workers, they’ll be manning the barricades and burning cars before you can say Zut Alors..
If Sego gets elected then France will pursue its current course of international and economic irellevance.
At least things will be more interesting if Sarko gets in.
I still laugh when I see UK pudits pointing out that French productivity is higher than British….no chance, it’s a total lie driven by massive unemployment and quite how do you measure productivity in state non-jobs?
A healthy sign, something to be proud of. I also like the lack of US style fluff.
My guess:
a President Royal (isn’t that an oxymoron?) for the reasons Michael gave above.
OT: Boris Yeltsin has had his last voddy! He’s dead.
This question is being asked as if it matters. Sarkozy is about as right wing as Edward Heath.
He is an archetypal Tory Wet at best.
Walter Boswell wrote:
You mean like http://www.discosarko.com/?
Or the books about their personal lives?
Healthy? I disagree. It is a sign of national psychosis. The fact is they are voting for which of the two tremendously statist candidates gets to continue the destruction of civil society. Healthy is staying at home with a nice bottle of wine and saying “Both of you can fuck off”.
The fact that so many French people think it is important which captain gets to continue to ram the ship of state into icebergs is a measure of the delusional state of French society at large. There is a reason some many French people have moved to London in the last 10 years.
Sarko, hopefully. And he has major flaws, but he’s better than the rest.
Poor France
The socialist lady wishes to increase government welfare state spending (which is her definition of “justice”) and to increase yet further the web of regulations that strangle France (contrary to common British opinion many of these regulations are enforced, and the socialists would enforce more of them).
Even Sweden is selling state owned companies and has reduced government spending as a percentage of the economy (indeed government spending may soon be a smaller proportion of the economy in Sweden than it is in France) and regulations are already, in some ways, less of a burden in Sweden than in France.
Yet the French socialists wish to impose upon France (which unlike Sweden carries the burden of the capital loss of two world wars and several lesser wars) yet more government spending and regulations.
Therefore to vote for the socialist candidate to be President of the Republic would not be sensible.
As for her opponent, I have heard all sorts of things about the man – some good and some bad, and a lot of contradictory reports.
Those people (of whom I am one) who admire Franch civilization will just have to hope for the best from him.
Chirac is/was considered a “center-right” politician in France. If that isn’t enough to dash any hopes of classical liberalism taking hold in France I don’t know what is.
Perry de Havilland Wrote:
With respect, 84% came out to vote for 12 candidates, who between covered a width area of the political spectrum.
400,000 French live in the UK, mainly in and around London. Many could be referred to as economic migrants. When things pick up a lot of these migrants will return home. Same thing happened with the Irish migrants in the US when the Irish economy got back on it’s feet.
By the by some 400,000 British live in France, but for different reasons then the French living in the UK.
Sure.If I was Irish I’d love to say stuff America and go home to some stewed potatos and Bono.
Or better still the Nolan sisters.
Anyway, I think Boris Yeltsin will be sadly missed.
But anyone who misses Blair when he goes is just sad, period.
Pietr Wrote:
Not to mention a GDP of 40% above the EU average. Long live free markets & low corporate taxes.
Pietr Wrote:
Not to mention a GDP of 40% above the EU average. Long live free markets & low corporate taxes.
Walter-do you mean that Eire has a GDP 40% above EU average?
That would be quite good.
Of course, the UK was until recently as large an economy as China with 6% of the population.
Does that mean we are all rich here?
Obviously not.
As for the Irish, I have never met an Irishman who wasn’t prised out of New York by the full force of the INS with all the crowbars they could muster, but I have met a few who were.
As it happens, I chaired a seance this last weekend where I chanelled the spirit of Blaise Pascal. He said that Segolane Royal would win hands down.
He seemed quite sincere. Is that any less reliable than the speculation offered so far?
Per capita GDP is 40% above that of the four big European economies and the second highest in the EU behind Luxembourg.
From the Here
# Luxembourg (pop. 474,413) … $61,610
# Ireland (pop. 4,062,235) … $32,930
# Austria (pop. 8,192,880) … $31,800
From There
How does Luxembourg do it, are all the Luxembourgerists secret pirates or something? Highly suspicious.
Nicolas Sarkozy. He gets more points in Scrabble.
If Ms Royal won, would we hear less about how terribly oppressed western women are?
I’m not certain, put perhaps this is relevant. From the CIA World Fact Book:
Unless accounted for explicitly in the data, this would appear to account for the high GDP per capita numbers. If the wealth created by the foreign workers (numerator) counts toward Luxembourg and the population (denominator) doesn’t, a high GDP per capita (ratio) would be the expected result.
Mike
In true French tradition, the voters will elect the one with the biggest tits.
Or just the biggest tit, I can’t remember which.
Go for Royalty!!! After all, do you really want France to do well, and maybe even better than you? Why risk it? Let France continue to collapse, and you can accept French economic Refugees!!! Doesn’t a recent Joan of Arc still prefer Britain for tax purposes?
I’d prefer Royal. We could really do with a massive SNAFU in some country that can only be blamed on Socialism, and Sego is just the chick to do it. Imagine how much more clearly people would think after France burns down and out. Not too dissimilar to the aftermath of the French revolution giving birth to modern Anglosphere conservatism. Well, maybe … who knows how it’d turn out in the real world.
Hear hear, Rob. I too am pulling for a Royal-ist victory. I want France — nay, all of continental Europe — to get the sort of government they deserve.
Back to subject; on my blog I have pointed out a few appearances;Royal looks like a Bunny-Boiling axe murderer, and Sarko looks like a naughty schoolboy.
Both useless.
Well part of me wants to see France wallow in its own filth so Royale who will probably not change much. But it would be good to see Sazkozy put in all his plans in place and watching the French left squirm.
So ultimately its a win-win for me.
Well part of me wants to see France wallow in its own filth so Royale who will probably not change much. But it would be good to see Sazkozy put in all his plans in place and watching the French left squirm.
So ultimately its a win-win for me.
I still laugh when I see UK pudits pointing out that French productivity is higher than British….no chance, it’s a total lie driven by massive unemployment and quite how do you measure productivity in state non-jobs?
I still growl each time I remember the 900,000 “salaried unemployed’ created by Gordon Brown in the UK since 1997.
As for Donny Sarko and Royal-avec-fromage? I think I might reach for the bottle of wine…
At the moment Paddy Power quotes odds of:
Sarkozy 1-6
Royal 7-2
Pretty decisive. After all, every other opinion you read in the papers is likely to be tinged with wishful thinking.
For the bookies cold hard cash is at stake.
(Link)
Unless accounted for explicitly in the data, this would appear to account for the high GDP per capita numbers. If the wealth created by the foreign workers (numerator) counts toward Luxembourg and the population (denominator) doesn’t, a high GDP per capita (ratio) would be the expected result.
No, the numerator and the denominator both include the foreign workers. The people who live in Luxembourg really are (on average) that rich. It’s more a consequence of the fact that a huge portion of the economy is banking and financial services.
Nice (and very pretty) little country. It feels a bit like a Swiss Canton that got a little lost.
What may be interesting if Sarkozy wins, is his approach to the ECB. as this article shows, he has no intention of watching Airbus go bust and will probably put pressure on the ECB to lower the value of the Euro. He may or may not be successful, but the currency markets will not take kindly to political interference in the value of the Euro, which was sold to them as being based on the Bundesbank/DMark model of independance. Whilst he will probably be able to gain some support for his actions withing the EU political class, it could open up a division which might hasten the ultimate collapse of the Euro. On the strength of that alone, he gets my vote.
I hear that the absurd fraud “Airbus” may be built in China. So much for the “E.U. alternative to evil America” (shades of the “E.U. alternative to G.P.S”, “Galileo”, which turns out to depend on the Chinese, or “.eu” which depends on government agencies and porn sites).
Accept, of course, that the Chinese are planning their own subsidized aircraft. Sooner or later design moves to where things are actually made. Which is why a nation of tens of millions of people (Britain or France) can not be based only on “design” or the “knowledge economy”.
Of course even if design did not move to where things are made (which eventually it does), tens of millions of people could not be employed in just design (or in providing services for designers) anyway.
If a country is no good to set up a manufacturing business in, it will eventually be no good for anything.
Cut government spending, taxes and regulations (especially “competition policy” stuff, and pro union laws).
“But we can not do this” – well you are finished then.
I was under the impression that the high turnout was because in the previous election, the final round was between Le Pen and Chirac – obviously the ‘left wing’ of France had to vote for Chirac, which would have hurt. There were a lot of protest votes then (allegedly, maybe it was just a low turnout and a lot of people who are exercising their rights to vote for someone who promises to stop immigration). I think the thought of the French equivalent of the BNP will alone have been enough to motivate people to vote in the first round for Royal – just so the second round is less ‘dangerous’. However, now Le Pen has been blocked out, I predict a lower turnout in the second round and a comfortable victory for Sarkozy.
If I was French, I would have wanted Bayrou. As I’m not, I wanted Le Pen – just for the chaos it would cause. Out of Royal and Sarkozy … Sarkozy might result in riots, which would provide some interesting news. However, a socialist regime that presided over collapse of the Fifth Republic might be fun too.
What is it with all these people wanting to see political failure in France?
When politics fail people suffer.
I have no love for France, but whoever wins I want to see the people, and the country, do well. I dislike the French political system because it is nigh on guaranteed to fail, but that is a cause for sorrow, not cheer.
What is it with you people on this one? Anyone would think this is the Daily Kos.
Make that “Some of you people”
Well Paul, I wouldn’t exactly call the Airbus a fraud.
The plane flies comfortably, economically and reliably.
It was started as a purely commercial venture, in Britain at least, (by either BAC or Hawker-Siddeley I don’t quite remember) and was pooh-poohed by Citizen Ted’s government(and by Freddy Laker).
Of course, sending it to China would enable those charged with responsibility for the fortunes of the company to take another ski holiday in Banff(next to people who really earned their skiing) while sympathising with redundant Toulouse workers enough to advise them to vote Royale.
Thank goodness Maggie promoted all those small businesses eh?
That’ll keep us all alive guys!
Chris: you took the words out of my mouth, although I could make a point that the French governments were put in place, to a large extent, by the French people.
Pietr: it is not a technological fraud by any means, but a commercial one. You cannot disregard the price while evaluating a product.
What is fraudulent about the commercial aspects, apart from the Americans complaining?
Yes, Sarko will win…No, sadly, it won’t make any difference in the end.
The government subsidies. I don’t care about American complaining, BTW, just stating the fact.
I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong;the Boeing 747 has a raised flight-deck because it was designed to have front-loading of military cargo.
Although conceived by commercial visionaries, it was created ostensibly under a military contract(won by the C5), and that rather suggests a fraud by Boeing on the American government.
As for Airbus subsidies you are probably right, although the ECB is supposed to have banned that sort of thing.I do know that Citizen Tony granted development loans of government money to Airbus, but this will have to be paid back.
Note that when Airbus built the original A300 it was an original idea, copied by Boeing.(Wide-body twin jet).
As soon as Airbus stopped being original and tried to ‘compete’ with Boeing, their range of aircraft became a failure which needed subsidy.
For example, the A340 is an answer to a question nobody asked.
In an industry where 2% efficiency gain wins customers,the 787 is estimated to use 27% less fuel than the 340 as used by Virgin.
Oddly the 787 is following the original Airbus model. Of course once Airbus became big it became political. That’s the Euro-lefty way.
He wants to
His foreign policy will be more western.
He wants to liberalise parts of the economy.
Its no more than a step in the right direction and a big improvement on Chirac.
Yes, he will obviously be better than Sego.
Korrektion:
His foreign policy will be more western.
He wants to liberalise parts of the economy.
Its no more than a step in the right direction and a big improvement on Chirac.
Yes, he will obviously be better than Sego.
Pietr,
You are partially correct. The 747 does have a hump for that reason. But it wasn’t military. The 747 was designed from the off to also be used as a commercial freighter. The wings are low-mounted (bad for FOD to the engines on arough strip) and ar optimised for high-speed cruise rather than STOL. The 747 is currently the fastest airliner in the world.
The real boost the US military gave to Boeing was right back with the 707. The airforce pre-ordered several hundred (600 springs to mind – could be wrong) as KC-135 tankers. Boeing were skating on very thin ice at the time so you can imagine how they felt about that!
Anyway Boeing/Airbus = Pot/Kettle.
“I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong;the Boeing 747 has a raised flight-deck because it was designed to have front-loading of military cargo.
Although conceived by commercial visionaries, it was created ostensibly under a military contract(won by the C5), and that rather suggests a fraud by Boeing on the American government.”
I am fairly sure this is not the case. If I remeber properly, the 747 came out a good bit before the C5. My understanding is that the 747 was built on a dare between the CEO of boeing and the CEO of one of the large american airlines.
I do know that Citizen Tony granted development loans of government money to Airbus, but this will have to be paid back You are not holding your breath, are you?:-)
I could make a point that the French governments were put in place, to a large extent, by the French people
Alisa,
This is true, but that still doesn’t mean I want to see them fail.
Knowing that someone will fail as a result of misguided decisions doesn’t mean I take pleasure in that failure.
I regard schadenfreude as one of the more repulsive emotions.
Chris: absolutely. But there are many people, especially in the US, who feel a strong resentment towards the French, so I can understand (intellectually, not emotionally) their sense of schadenfreude. It does not mean that I identify with it – I do not. Schadenfreude is absolutely foreign to me.
I think schadenfreude is a seriously underrated emotion. I can think of few things that would bring a broader smile to my face than the prospect of Mr Blair’s property portfolio suddenly dipping deeply into negative equity because of his next door neighbour’s gross mismanagement of the economy.
Schadenfreude aside, to even imagine such a scenario strikes me as seriously naive:-)
Sarkozy will win, and it *will* matter, even if the french are drawing on a completely different intellectual tradition, and revere the role of the state as a Hobbesian master.
It will matter b/c Sarkozy is continually speaking from ideas: over time, ideas matter.
Nobody thought Goldwater would exercise one ounce of influence in the states ca. 1964, either… but without Goldwater, Reagan would likely have stayed a Democrat…