France Elects Sarkozy President

About 85% of the French electorate trotted down to the polls yesterday and selected the next president of the Fifth Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy. He will officially takeover on May 16, but he is already making changes. For example, the new prime minister will be Francois Fillon, who just happens to be the president-elect’s senior political advisor. However, the winds of change aren’t done blowing through the country.

Mr. Sarkozy is a free-market conservative who wouldn’t be entirely out of place at a meeting of British Conservatives or American Republicans. Indeed, he is so enamored of the Anglo-American approach to economics that his detractors call him “Sarko the American.” His key policies in the late campaign included an exemption for overtime (above 35 hours) from taxes and social security charges, minimum sentences for repeat offenders, tougher sentences for juveniles, selective immigration that favors arrival of qualified workers, increased taxes on polluters, and opposition to Turkish EU membership.

The defeated Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, lost 53% to 47% of the popular vote, not a squeaker but hardly a thumping either. She sought to “consolidate” the 35-hour work week (meaning make sure it stays the French standard), bestow residency papers for those who meet certain criteria such as job contract and time spent in France, establish military-style training camps for young offenders, build 120,000 new council homes per year and allow councils to claim properties empty for two years, and cap some private rents and grant lifelong guarantee of housing. Although to the left of Mr. Sarkozy, she was hardly interchangeable with Rosa Luxemburg.

In his victory speech, the president-elect made some conciliatory noises while maintaining the posturing of a winner, “My thoughts therefore go to all of the French who did not vote for me. I want to tell them that beyond the political battle, beyond the differences of opinion, for me there is only one France. I want to tell them that I will be the president of all the French people, that I will speak for each one of them. I want to tell them that this evening it is not the victory of one kind of France against another . . . . The French people have spoken and have chosen to make a break with the ideas, the customs and the behavior of the past. I am thus going to restore the status of work, authority, standards, respect, merit. I am going to give the place of honor back to the nation and national identity. I am going to give back to the French people pride in France.”

That’s all well and good, but there’s another election in June. The French will vote for a new National Assembly, and it would be just like the fickle voters of a developed democracy to vote in a majority politically opposed to their new president. Currently, Mr. Sarkozy’s UMP party leads the Socialists by 6% in the polls, but much can happen in the course of a month.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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