Sarkozy wins French Presidency

Sucks to be French today. Nicholas Sarkozy, the ultra-Conservative former interior minister has been elected to the French presidency by a vote of 53%-47% over Segoline Royal, the candidate of the Socialist Party. Sarkozy is the one who referred to immigrants (and in particular those living in the suburbs of Paris) as "scum." Not exactly a good attitude for someone who will be governing France for at least the next four years.

Sarkozy is also disturbingly close to George W. Bush on issues of foreign policy and civil rights. While I may not have agreed with Jacques Chirac on most issues, he was at least a strong voice opposing the idiocy of the foreign policy of the U.S. government in Iraq. Sarkozy cannot be counted on to do the same.

Sarkozy has announced his resolution to destroy a significant part of the fabric of the French social security net, including reducing state pensions and lengthening the work week. France is finally coming in for the kind of neoliberal garbage government that those of us in North America, many parts of Europe, much of Africa, much of Latin America and in Oceania have suffered through for two decades. It is too bad that the French did not learn the lessons of economic disaster brought on by neoliberal idiot economics and of right-wing governments with authoritarian tendencies:

1. Jobs, fleeing to South and South-East Asia as a result of trade "liberalization."
   
2. Dramatically increasing gaps between the rich and the poor as low-decile incomes stagnate or fall and high-decile incomes soar into the stratosphere.
   
3. Security states, where the most basic of human rights and civil liberties can be sacrificed on the altar of Security, a demon insatiable for the freedoms that define a democracy.
4. Social programmes and safety nets torn to ribbons in the quest to get rid of "fat" in the system, and in the never ending search for "efficiency".

Today, the French public chose to inflict this on themselves. For their sakes, I hope that the next four years go by quickly.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 629