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A Further Perspective
De Gaulle’s Mantle
In the France’s first-ever primary campaign, the Socialists have chosen their candidate.
(Page 2 of 2)
With all due respect, and without giving an inch to the Blair fantasists like Robert Harris (whose novel The Ghost Writer inspired the eponymous Roman Polanski film), the glaring contrast in these formulations strikes me as worthy of consideration. With Mrs. Aubry, or with the other strong primary vote getter, Arnaud Montebourg, even with the weak primary vote getter, Ségolène Royal (Mr. Hollande’s former girlfriend, though I doubt that is the politically correct term on the mushy-left, and the mother of his four children, all of whom he adores according to reports), you sense a nostalgia and even more than that for the old school. What is a political program, after all, that aims to “realize our true potential” and other Jerry Brown type smoke? When François Mitterrand led the Socialists to victory 30 years ago, it was with manifestoes that for all intent and purpose read like the old Clause Four. He did not believe a word of it — at least not as much as he believed in getting re-elected, seven years later, even if it meant pretending that old time religion had never really existed. Mr. Hollande will have the comrades to his left reminding him of the dreams they all shared once, when Mitterrand sang lullabies. He will be pressed to sing them too — while hoping they sound innocuous enough to serve as an all-purpose “French dream.”
However, it is a four way race now. President Sarkozy is in the saddle, and his line is going to be that you should not change horses in midstream (somehow this always struck me as a ridiculous image because how would you get to the horse to unseat the horseman if they are already midstream?). There is unfinished business and, compared to his challengers, he has experience, he knows the great and mighty of this world (not to mention all the richest people in France, to one of whom he once complained that the presidency was okay but as soon as he got out he was going to make some real money).
The ecologist-Greens, under the leadership of the irreproachable and profoundly decent magistrate, Eva Joly, will impress everyone with their irreproachable decency.
The National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, will hammer away at the venality, the corruption, the shabbiness, all the sins all democratic politicians have been blamed for by national-right parties in Europe since the 19th century, plus laxity in the face of the Muslim threat, the American threat, the threat of s*x madness in TV commercials, and they will garner a fifth of the votes, forcing a runoff.
The Socialist candidate, who is 57 — the exact same age as Al Pacino when he played a Mafioso in Donnie Brasco, so go figure — will insist that France is in need of “change” and that priority must be give to “youth” and “education.” It will be quite a show, and it will be interesting to see how many public schools, in many of which Jewish teachers are physically assaulted as “Zionist vermin” by their own students, he visits during the campaign.
About the Author
Roger Kaplan, a Washington-based writer, covers the Middle East and Africa (and tennis) for The American Spectator.
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Lucien| 10.17.11 @ 12:30PM
Thank you for the follow up from last week and again the sensitivity to French nuances, but careful: it is too much to say the state has given up space to aliens, as you say, and I must assume by aliens you mean immigrants. This is a complicated matter and the risk of simplification is high. In the same way, you must be careful about the problems of some schools, where discipline is surely no worse than in many U.S. ones. There have been reports of bad behavior toward teachers . Hollande is making education a priority and you can surely not reproach him for this, since the school system has been traditionally the way to make a united nation. When he speaks of young people it is because they are the future and he wants them to have the chance to have careers. What exactly a Socialist government will propose, we will see, but Hollande has stated he will make specific projects and unite the nation.
A. Taylor| 10.17.11 @ 1:03PM
Also don't mistake them for us. Most of Europe has lived with, and would not think of not living with, an extensive and comprehensive welfare state, for a long time now. We've argued about it even as it has been implemented here as well, but they take it for granted. It is perfectly possible to be a "socialist" in Europe without wanting anything like the British Labour Party's Clause Four. The Scandinavians have what we would call socialism, but theirs are capitalist economies, maybe in the most traditional sense of the word. But they have a consensus on social welfare, what many in Europe call solidarity, and they simply agree that they will tax the capitalists without destroying the system. It's a deal. Beware of misunderstanding this and of underestimating its appeal even here.It is easy to make fun of "old" socialist ideas and ideals, but what are our free enterprise zealots if not champions of even older ideas?
Occam's Tool| 10.17.11 @ 1:15PM
Damn. I thought this was about DeGaulle's favorite soccer star.
Margie| 10.17.11 @ 8:45PM
In other (GREAT) news:
Drudge Reporting:
POLL: CAIN 43% OBAMA 41%
http://www.rasmussenreports.co.....l_matchups
POST American| 10.17.11 @ 11:56PM
---------------------FINAL WORD-----------------------
Like the Bolshevik coup d'etat of October
1917, this latest 'on cue' Wall Street event
comes DIRECT from the ROT-child world
USURY front --spec. via the Masonic capstone
foundations ('Order Out of Chaos') ---AND---
the Soros, Goldman Sacks, Obama, Rock--F--L--O
boys.
--------------------------CAIN----------------------------
--------------------------is the-----------------------------
---------------------- ROT-child-------------------------
---------------------------FED------------------------------
Do NOT be deceived.
Audace| 10.18.11 @ 2:05AM
Sarkozy's argument that you cannot bring real reform in just five years.
Well, this is actually quite true.
You can make all the top cabinet and underlying 850 - 1,200 appointments in the land within the first five months of your assuming the mantle as the nation's chief executive.
You can make speeches, organize blue ribbon panels, give lavish press interviews, announce your 10-point plans.
Big deal.
Not one vowel or consonant of what you're doing matters.
The bureaucracy is well dug in and impenetrable. They've been their for 55 years and fortifying their positions. They are in every city, town, and hamlet. They won't lift a finger to aid a reformer.
After all, this is their golden goose.
It is the same all round the globe.
Ironman| 10.18.11 @ 9:44AM
Entire neighborhoods lost to aliens, schoolkids going after "Zionist vermin" (Jewish teachers) -- there have been some alarming reports out of France and other EU countries where immigration from Africa and the Middle east has been massive, but here you are overstating the case. If France were in such bad shape we'd hear about it. Still, there was that famous instance when they played the national anthem at a big soccer event and half the crowd, according to reports, booed. The French side was playing against a North African country's side, so draw your own conclusions. This would seem to be qualitatively different from English soccer hooliganism. I don't know anything about French schools, I assume you mean public schools, but there is a decline of the school teacher's authority throughout the liberal democratic West. I would blame the parents even more than the school systems, but it is a complicated subject. Here you have -- as in some big American cities -- parents who may not speak the language, do not understand the school system, lose control over their kids. But you also may have parents who are for who knows what reasons hostile toward the schools. Still others understand education is their kids' best chance. I don't see that it would be wrong for a presidential candidate in a country like this to want to "fix" education. From recent experience here (U.S.) it can be argued that this is not an area even a well intentioned president can fix, since it goes back to the parents, the neighborhoods, the way teachers are prepared, and so on. But you would have to agree that the public officer who is supposed to be thinking big ideas about the country's well being and future has got to think about education.
HokenTaka| 12.9.11 @ 2:24PM
It is absolutely amazing how you right- wing fanatics can be so blinded by your outright hatred of Obama that you can actually dilute yourselves into thinking that everything he does is wrong and harmful to the country Dating Online