Young Writers Society

(Not that anyone but me, maybe, cares...)

PARIS — French voters chose Nicolas Sarkozy as their new president on Sunday, giving the conservative a comfortable margin for victory and a mandate for change, result projections from four polling agencies showed. His Socialist opponent conceded minutes after polls closed.

The agencies said the conservative won 53 percent of the vote amid massive turnout, dashing Socialist Segolene Royal's hopes of being elected France's first woman president. The projections were based on vote counts from representative samples of hundreds of polling stations across the country.

That is pretty much all it says, but in any case the article is here.

Heard it on the radio.

One giant step backwards for Frenchkind.

Ugh... I had faith. I'm probably too much of an optimist. It's good to see lots of French people still have spirit and they're protesting so strongly. I've always loved that about France. But unfortunately backgroundbob is right...major step backwards.

Heh, there is room for disagreement

It shall be interesting to see what happens next. Chirac came to office promising similar reforms to those that Sarkozy is promising, but Chirac was not as consistent in his beliefs as Sarkozy is now.

What I do think is also interesting is the rise of conservatism (in the American sense) in Europe & Canada, and the rise of liberalism (again, in the American sense of the word) in the United States. With Merkel the chancellor of Germany, Sarkozy the President of France, Harper the Prime Minister of Canada, and even the resurgence of the Tory party in the UK; there is a sharp contrast between politics in the rest of the Western world and the politics in the United States, where the leftist party is experiencing a big resurgence.

I love politics!

I was so hoping Segelene Royal would win. Alas.

I hate Sarkozy's face for some reason, he always seems to be hiding a menacing grin.

It has to do with his actually being the devil.

The problem with Sarkozy is that if he does nothing to reform (Chirac-style) then France stays right where it is and rots a little more, whereas if he does institute reform, it's practically guaranteed to be changes that strengthen the rich-poor divide and marginalise minorities even more than they already are. His massive emphasis on how he will be a 'unifying figure' for France rather than a divisive one pretty much confirms the opposite - I don't say it because he's a conservative (my view of the bear-right has improved substantially lately, especially in the UK) but rather because he's Sarkozy, and that man is not capable of being inclusive; his 'scum' and 'rabble' comments about the suburban population highlights those flaws in his character pretty well.

Continential politics, alas - one step forward, two steps back. On a good day.