Viv la France

Maybe France won't be the 1st muslim country with nukes:

Sarkozy elected French president
Sun May 6, 2007 2:15 PM ET

By Crispian Balmer

PARIS (Reuters) - Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won France's presidential election on Sunday, beating his Socialist rival Segolene Royal by a comfortable margin and extending the right's 12-year grip on power.

Within minutes of polls closing, Royal conceded defeat in a speech to party faithful in the heart of Paris.

"I hope that the next president of the republic fulfils his role in the service of all French people," she said.

Forecasts by four pollsters showed Sarkozy, 52, a hard-line former interior minister, won around 53 percent of the vote in the second-round ballot and will succeed fellow conservative Jacques Chirac, who was president for 12 years.

Turnout was predicted at about 85 percent.

Sarkozy's face flashed up on television screens after polling stations closed at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), signaling his victory and setting off jubilant scenes among supporters gathered in central Paris.

Across the city at Socialist headquarters there was gloom and sorrow after the party crashed to its third consecutive presidential election defeat. It now faces the prospect of tough internal reform to make itself more appealing to voters.

Although opinion polls regularly suggested voters preferred Royal, who was seeking to become France's first woman head of state, they saw the uncompromising Sarkozy as a more competent leader with a more convincing economic program.

Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, presented himself as the "candidate of work", promising to loosen the 35-hour work week by offering tax breaks on overtime and to trim fat from the public service, cut taxes and wage war on unemployment.

He is expected to take office on May 16 or 17, and will be the first French president to be born after World War Two.

He will then name a new government and immediately launch into campaigning for June's parliamentary election, where he will seek a clear majority to implement his reform plans.

The president is elected for five years, is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, nominates the prime minister, has the right to dissolve the National Assembly and is responsible for foreign and defense policies. (link)

This is indeed good news. Not only for France, but for the West as well.

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Reason to cheer

Filed: France, elections, Sarko, BlogPower, LordNazh

Violence ?

I thought Royal (France) was simply a socialists:

Talk Is Of War In French Election Battle

Updated: 11:50, Saturday May 05, 2007

The right-wing French presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy has attacked Socialist rival Segolene Royal for making "warlike" remarks that his election in a run-off ballot on Sunday could trigger riots.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal

In an interview released by Le Parisien daily on its Website, Sarkozy said such comments were anti-democratic and a sign of desperation by Royal.

She was trailing Sarkozy by 10 points in the last pre-vote polls.

All campaigning has ended before Sunday's vote because French election rules ensure voters a "day of reflection" before the ballot.

Sarkozy dismissed talk of rioting in France's tinderbox suburbs should he win the presidency.

"To explain that if people don't vote for one candidate there will be violence is quite simply to refuse the democratic and republican expression of opinion," he said. (link)

That sounds more like a dictator making a campaign speech to me. It also sounds alot like some people I know (no names, but if you have to ask, you wouldn't like me naming them anyway). It is utterly amazing that she would know exactly what the 'youths' will do if/when she loses. You would think she has a direct connection to them.
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Reason to go Sarko

Filed: Sarko, Royal, France, election, threats, BlogPower, LordNazh

Dirt

James Higham over at Nourishing Obscurity has the dirt in the Fwench Presidential Elections:

Monday, March 12, 2007 It's been a long time since this blog got into muck-raking, gutter-press, sensationalist journalism so here goes. First, the dirt on Sarko:

Nicolas Sarkozy urged the colonialist Arno Klarsfeld to think of colonization.

Doesn't move you? All right, how about this:

The satirical French newspaper Canard Enchaine is running a story which claims that in 1997, Sarkozy was sold an apartment in Neuilly for 300,000 euros (nearly $400,000) below the market rate. The catch: the same company that sold him the apartment had been granted city contracts, which was then being governed by Sarkozy.

Trouble is, he got out of that one. OK, the gloves are off now:

Read the rest and comment if you have a horse (or care) in that race.

Filed:Nourishing Obscurity, France, politics, LordNazh