Sarkozy wins in France

[themistocles]

Nicolas Sarkozy is France's new president. (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4780172.html)

I was hoping he was going to get this job before he ran for it. :)

Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan mold. Controversially a hardliner on crime and immigration. Pro-American, anti-leftist. Maybe more polarizing than Chirac, but far less corrupt.

[mbossman2]

"Universal suffrage has spoken. I wish the next president of the Republic the best in accomplishing his mission in the service of all the French people"
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070506/tpl-us-france-election-royal-87aac06.html

say what you want about her politics but that is one classy comment.

I wish some of our election day second placers had as much class.

and too bad that her supporters lack her class:

CLASHES between police and protestors have been reported in central Paris and the southeastern city of Lyon after conservative leader Nicolas Sarkozy was elected French President overnight.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21684341-38200,00.html?from=public_rss

If the world is not careful, democratic elections will fall to the wayside and mob rule/election by (the threat) of violence will become the norm.

[themistocles]

If the world is not careful, democratic elections will fall to the wayside and mob rule/election by (the threat) of violence will become the norm.

Rioting in the streets is an age old French tradition. :p

[WJWheels]

Rioting in the streets is an age old French tradition. :p
Only when they run out of cake. :rolleyes:

[heyhey]

I'm glad he won. A "conservative" in Europe isn't exaclt a conservative like in this country. I think he will work well with a competant American president, (in 2009) to promote both the intrests of his nation and ours...I may be left of many of you here but I certainly don't want one of our historically most important allies run by a socialist, even if she is a woman.


About the French many on the right seem to forget with all thier freesom fries and anti-French sentiments just because they didnt go along with the Iraqi war.... without the French we would have been under British rule and not realized our independence as a nation for a very very long time after our forefathers... (with much French support) pulled it off...

righties in this country often site how we helped the French during WW2 which we did, but often forget we wouldn't be the America we are today with those "frogs".... they conveniently forget the French's contribtuion to the American Revolution... so they didn't owe uas blind allegeince to a fiasco of a war.... what we did in WW2 was a payoff for thier part in our very existence as a nation...

now that the scorecard is equal, with a leader in Sarkozy closet to most Americans views, and the good riddence of this adminstration in a couple of years... we might actually be able to work togther for the common good.

[David M]

Yeah ok...France saved our butts in the distant past. But what have they done for us in modern times?.. they have provided nothing but grief. Oh yeah, they did give us the Statue of Liberty.

The reason France is pissed off about the war is because Bush ruined the good deal France had selling weapons to Saddam.

Maybe with France becoming more capitalist I can buy a beret for less? I still say f_ck em...we don't need them and their nasty attitudes. Great Britain has been a much greater allie than France will ever be.

[mbossman2]

I think an big reason (other than the political and financial reasons) the French didn't get involved in Iraq is the size of their military. While they do have 250,000 or so "front line" troops, you have to remember that France had a difficult time deploying the 12,000 soldiers for Desert Storm and their military hasn't grown significantly since then. In addition they have and had have fairly large numbers of troops deployed in Africa, Lebanon as well as other locations prior to, during and since the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions. Their armed forces are stretched pretty thin.

And while the French were insturmental in our fight for independance, I, personally, believe that bill has been paid in full with not only the US "official" involvement and aid in WWI (there were US citizens already fighting with the French in April 1916, look up Lafayette Escadrille for one example) but also WWII.

[themistocles]

You know what happened to the French government that helped us in our Revolution? The people guillotined them.