Letters to the Editor
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Sarko is a scary, scary man.
Indeed, I explain Rudy Giuliani to my French friends by analogizing to Sarko.
As minister of the interior, he oversaw the race riots (let's call them what they really were) in France; had instigated them beforehand by sending in the equivalent of SWAT teams/the national guard into poor suburbs like La Courneuve, to install marshall law and to "clean" them, in his own words. He's promised to appoint a minister of national indentity if he were elected, a clear provocation to all French people who are not "white" and Christian.
He was recently quoted as saying that he, "for one... [does] not feel the compulsion to rape children," in a brazen attempt to win over voters from the Far Right of France, who would otherwise be voting for Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is best analogized as someone between Pat Buchanan and David Duke (14 % of French voters support Le Pen). This latest attempt to win Le Pen votes has promted satirical posters with pictures of Sarko and the caption "Votez Le Pen."
It's my opinion that Sarko, in spite of his distant Jewish roots, could very well turn out to be Europe's new Joerg Haider if elected.
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Empty promises
What I find particularly preposterous about the whole Sarkozy act is that he has been an important person in the government for the last FIVE years, and that he is now promising to do things that his own government either refused to do, or didn't do, or promised they would do (he made quite a few promises himself in the areas where he had the power to act) and just didn't keep.
Apart from that, what he says is utterly scary, I quite agree with the previous comment.
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France is not the U.S.
Dear Editor:
In the end, it really makes little difference who is going to be the next President of France. No future president is going to take away the free, cheap and high quality health care which the French have as a right. No future president is going to take away the legally mandated six weeks of vacation that the French enjoy. No future president believes that social services and pensions should be "privatized" so that the public's monies and future financial security can be better pillaged by the friends, direct and indirect, of the president. Most importantly, no future President of France is going to take that country into costly, disasterous, murderous, and politically destabilizing military adventures. To be succint, what the American political system is usually accused of by the Left in our country and abroad is more applicable to France. The consensus on the larger issues is shared by all participants in the politics there. All that is left is the details, and those are not very devilish at that.
Whoever is the next president of France will have to make reforms to the economy and also deal with the issues of identity, the marginalization of the the "immigrants," the open racism of the society, and crime and violence. In the absence of any clear plans or proposals by Royale, there is no assurance or guarantee that the policies what she adapts in a crisis or emergency situation will be any less drastice, and potentially more drastic than what Sarkozy is proposing.
In contrast to Royale, who is a true ethnic French, Sarkozy has proposed the use of affirmative action as a policy instrument to force the integration of the "immigrants" into French institutions and power centers. Perhaps Sarkozy, whose father is an immigrant from Hungary, and is not 100% ethnic French, has some sense of what it means to be an ethnic outsider in a country which officially denies the existance of ethnic distinctions between French citizens but in reality makes them, often in a very overt and exclusionary manner.
I do not feel truly qualified to endore Sarkozy over Royale but I do feel that this article is a bit unfair as it is not at all clear that Royale is any less, and potentially more, right-wing on the ethnic issues which face the Fifth Republic today.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur C. Hurwitz
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Re Sarkozy
Good article! Sums things up very well. One scary character trait should be added: Sarkozy's blind admiration for the US and Israel. One letter writer (just before me) said that Sarkozy would not change French foreign policy. That's not true. If Sarkozy had been president in 2003 there is no doubt in anyone's mind that French troops would today be patrolling the streets of Baghdad. (Following Chirac's opposition to the invasion, Sarkozy made a point of visiting the US and meeting AIPAC to affirm his differences with good ol' Jacques). The French president does not defer to parliament on matters of defence or foreign policy. There is no chance whatsoever that Sarkozy will continue the balanced (sorry Zionists but yes, balanced) French policy in the Mideast. There can only be a sigh of relief that he comes too late to join the battle for Mesopotamia.
Sarkozy is indeed a second generation immigrant but there are rumors about the precise reasons why his Hungarian family moved to France: it is said that as Hitler sympathizers, they were not welcome in their home country. I don't know if it's true but it is certainly a fact that Sarkozy is very far to the right, much more so than most people in his own party (and infinitely more so than Chirac), and that he has not only racist but also social darwinist tendencies. Such as his proposal to screen three-year olds for future delinquency.
The man is scary and France, and the world, will soon be nostalgic for Chirac (whose fan I definitely am not).
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Well, actually, Arthur Hurwitz
Royale endorsed Turkey joining the European Union. In France, that's about as anti-racist as you can get, and it may come back to hurt her with centrist voters, who are in fact much more racist than American voters, on the whole, and are scared to death of more Muslim brown people joining the French society (whether that fear is valid for other grounds is another question). While Royal has been riding on that, Sarko has been courting Le Pen voters. Who do you think is more racist?
Furthermore, Sarko does have Hungarian roots, but first of all, that doesn't guarantee anything. He's still a lily-white man, so he does not face racism or sexism, and foreign or "ethic" roots are not a very good predictor of sympathy to minority issues -- just take a look at Condoleeza Rice, Alan Keyes, and Zalmay Khalilzaid. Secondly, Royal was not born in France herself (in Senegal, but she is ethnic French), and she's a WOMAN. Again, it's no guarantee of anything, but if you've ever worked as a woman in France (I have), it's hard to avoid some sobering experiences about classism, sexism and general prejudice in French society. Yes, again you could cite Condi. But Royal IS on the left, there is no speculation about what her ideology and loyalties are.
Plus, if Sarko is elected, Borloo will be his PM, and Borloo is "currently the Minister of Employment, Social Cohesion and Housing." Look what a great job he's done with that.