I have always thought that the French were astute politically, more interested and analytical about politics than us. This could happen in America with George Bush with his false populism and peity, but in France where discussing politics runs just behind le football as the national pastime? What happened here? The French pride themselves as being more knowlegeable and connected to history that the average American. It’s been only barely more than forty years since the European fascist dictators were defeated with horribly shameful and disasterous consequences for France, Germany and Italy (I inculde France with the Vichy government). C’est trop gros, as the French say.

Certainly one has to lay part of the blame at the feet of the French left with its lack of new ideas and perhaps not being sufficently in touch enough with the everyday concerns of the French voter despite fundamentally desiring to make the life of the average citizen better. I think the riots of 2005 frightened the French more than anyone realized, and Sarko deftly played on these fears. The irony for those who rioted, and thought they could create social change through violence, is that Sarko et al will do nothing to ease their plight, perhaps even tighten the screws, while royale would have at least tried.

Or is it the fault of TV? Are the French watching too much of “Star Academie?” Did Sarko understand the power of the modern media to brainwash the population a l’americaine?

So what are the French in for? Here is a a link I got from some French friends with interviews with professionals in their respective fields, academic and experts getting to the heart of what Sarko will try to achieve in sixteen different social/economic/governmental areas from medical care, to education to social services. He looks to be Maggie Thatcher on speed with a solid dose of old fashioned greed and the Hungarian Iron Cross thrown in: http://www.lautrecampagne/refuatations.php

In the end, I think that a more compassionate, humanistic, intelligent and forward looking center will arise in France perhaps on the left a la Tony Blair’s New Labor (apologies to those who don’t like anglo-French comaprisons) or Bayreux’s center right that is humanistic as well. So I think all’s well that ends well. I’m sorry that the French will have to go through such a painful learning curve. C’est dommage, c’est vraiment tres dommage. I also think the French will have to come to terms with the large Muslim population living in France, accept them into their society, even when so many are relegated to projects in the suburbs, and that the Muslims will have to find a way to be both Muslim and French.

But I will end on an optimistic note, and will take the risk of comapring the States and France: We are the first two democracies in the modern world, where human rights, the rule of law, and the freedoms and repsonsibilities of each citizen are at the heart of this great social experiment and evolution of mankind. And as long as freedom beats in the hearts of its citizens both great nations will survive and remain lights to the world.

Vive la France!

Vive la Liberte!

We do have more lenient rules for writing about public figures, however. Even so this may have crossed the line. We’ll be more careful in the future.

So if on Sunday the French elect a short, brutal, far right, desperately ambitioius, unattractive Hungarian-Jewish cuckolded mongrel

He should limit his comments to early music. The sort of childish tantrum of character assassination is beneath his dignity and if any of us postd comments like that on ROS about any of the other participants we’d be banned. That’s the last time I go to a Boston Camerata concert.

Maybe by turning off the TV they have more time to read a book and become educated?

No one, in France or the USA, holds a gun to anyone’s head and forces them to watch TV. And wealth is the RESULT of being educated, not the other way around. Education in France is free, or close to it, anyway, so income should be no barrier to education. And I’m sorry to keep harping on the Jews and Chinese in the US but both groups were very poor when they came to the US but they raised their children to respect scholarship, teachers, and education, and today both groups have higher levels of educational achievement than the average for the US.

Which makes their behavior even less excusable.

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/2007/05/merci.html

“Young people vote Royal, elder persons Sarkozy. It’s among electors between 18 and 24 that Royal made her best outcomes. According to the Sofres, more than a third of this age range gave her their ballots. It’s nine points more than her national average. In the same age range only 19% of the electors voted her UMP contender, 12 points less than his national 31%. UDF Bayrou is barely doing better while the Front National candidate followed with 8%. The more the age rank increase, the more the electors support Sarkozy: among French people above 65, 44% of the electors chose the right-wing candidate.”

This is not polls, this is results.