May 7, 2007
It's official: Nicholas Sarkozy is the next president of France
In his victory speech, Nicholas Sarkozy referred to France as a “great, old nation.” I couldn’t agree more; I never did buy into Donald Rumsfeld’s pejorative line about “Old Europe.” America needs Western Europe; no other region of the world so closely shares our democratic values. If there had been no Western Europe, there would be no America. More to the point, if there were no France, there would be no America. (France provided the colonies with decisive military aid during the American Revolution.)
However, Europe has been too often dominated by left-leaning ideologues in recent decades. France’s outgoing president, Jacques Chirac, is a radical leftist who in his youth joined the French Communist Party (Parti Communiste Français, or PCF) and distributed Marxist literature. No---I don’t want to hang Chirac for being a former PCF member; but we could do without a Marxist at the head of the French government. And Chirac had all sorts of unsavory friends in unsavory places around the world. As French prime minister, Chirac was responsible for the deal that gave Saddam Hussein the Osirak nuclear reactor in the 1970s.
Nicholas Sarkozy’s opponent in this election was Segolene Royal, another European socialist. But the French voters decided that they had had enough of the European left for a while, thank you very much.
Sarkozy has declared that he has a mandate for change. This is good news, as it is high time for a change in Paris.
So what change does Sarkozy stand for? Here are a few of the highlights, based on his official platform and past statements to the media:
On the U.S.: Sarkozy has expressed a desire for better relations between the U.S. and France. Does this mean that France will become a U.S. puppet? Perish the thought. France is still France---a fiercely independent nation to the core. But Sarkozy will be a welcome change from the reflexive anti-Americanism of Jacques Chirac.
On economic reform: France’s anti-free enterprise socialists have made it impossible for French companies to fire incompetent workers, pay their taxes, or compete in the global marketplace. Sarkozy has vowed to turn this situation around with a series of free-market reforms.
On French nationalism: France, like the rest of Western Europe, has been engaged in a decades-long session of self-flagellation over all of the real and imagined crimes of Western Civilization. Sarkozy has clearly stated that enough is enough: French people can once again be proud of being French. No arguments there.
On radical Islam: Radical Islamic groups have made their presence felt throughout Europe, stifling free speech and often committing acts of violence. Most readers will remember the recent flap over the cartoons in the Danish newspaper. Then there was the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who produced a movie that some radical Islamist groups considered to offensive. Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on his way to work in downtown Amsterdam. And these cases are just a few examples of what radical Islam is doing to Europe.
Sarkozy has indicated that he will be drawing a line in the sand to stop radical Muslim groups in France.
If your high school French is reasonable competent you can learn more about Nicholas Sarkozy on his website.
