-
April in Paris
April 11, 2013 | 11 comments
-
France Meets Ugly American
April 4, 2013 | 23 comments
-
Kerry Chéri
March 16, 2013 | 0 comments
-
Sarko Redux
March 11, 2013 | 4 comments
-
Flanby’s War
January 17, 2013 | 39 comments
Letter From Paris
Requiem for a Failed President
No matter what his politics or programs, the French simply didn’t like Nicolas Sarkozy.
Nothing in his presidency became it like the leaving it. “I take full responsibility for this defeat,” Nicolas Sarkozy declared Sunday evening as results from second-round ballot showed that Socialist François Hollande would be France’s new chief of state. “I did everything I could to defend our party’s ideals. Now the French people have made their choice, there is a new president, and he is to be respected.” The tone was statesmanlike, a dignified class act. After five hectic, erratic, politically self-destructive years in the Elysée Palace, when he seemed indifferent to the impact of his words and actions on public opinion, Sarkozy had finally learned to be presidential.
His term was a case study in how to disorient and finally alienate those who believed in him and voted him into office. His defeat, making him only the second one-term president in the history of the Fifth Republic — the first was Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, beaten by another Socialist, François Mitterrand, in 1981 — was an astonishing fall from grace. This pugnacious, dynamic, brazenly ambitious son of a Hungarian immigrant came into office with a sound conservative program. He promised to bring real change to French politics. He was determined to lead, push, and coax a stagnant France out of its state-dependent slough of politco-socio-economic despond.
Early polls ranked him the most popular president since Charles de Gaulle 40 years ago. “The French people have chosen change,” he declared on his victory night in May 2007. He pledged to “break with the ideas, the habits, and the behavior of the past.” He praised “those who get up early to go to work,” vowed to encourage entrepreneurship. With his free-market ideals and vocal admiration for the U.S., pundits dubbed this edgy outsider who had not gone to the right elite schools, this self-described “little Frenchman of mixed blood,” l’américain. He took it as a compliment. He began his first day in office jogging in a T-shirt emblazoned NYPD.
He made some right moves. Public sector workers went on strike over his reform of their generous retirement benefits? He faced them down. He correctly identified France’s absurd, Socialist-decreed 35-hour work week as an obstacle to prosperity, and took initial steps to end it. The labor market was too rigid; he made it easier to hire and fire. Retirement age was increased from 60 to 62. He ended France’s knee-jerk anti-Americanism, bringing it back into NATO’s integrated military command.
Sarkozy also got credit for banning the controversial head-to-toe burqa worn by some women in France’s growing Muslim community, and cleaning out gypsy settlements that were causing trouble. Along with Germany’s Angela Merkel he helped cool Europe’s sovereign debt fever and stabilize the euro. Although he initially missed the importance of the Arab Spring, he later prompted the military campaign against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
But while this was going on, he was losing contact with the French themselves. For one thing, they couldn’t keep up with this man in motion, whose basic political tactic was to keep moving and produce new programs, proposals, and laws as fast as possible. Those initiatives went by so fast in a blur that they were often unperceived and unappreciated. For another thing, the French soon came to find the man’s personal style, or lack thereof, repugnant.
They could accept that he was hyperactive, with an endless supply of new ideas and projects — including, unfortunately, doubling his salary to $360,000 and ordering up a fancy new presidential jet modeled on Air Force One. But in this country where the chief of state is endowed with the majestic trappings of monarchy, they could not admit that he appeared grasping, common, gauche. In a word, unpresidential. It was Nicolas Sarkozy’s political tragedy that a man so in love for decades with the idea of becoming president that he confessed he thought about it every morning while shaving, was unable make the transition to presidential class once elected. Strange to tell, this man with three decades of political experience appeared to lack political instinct.
To start with, there was his turbulent, and very public, love life. Everyone knew that Cécilia, his second wife and mother of their 11-year-old son, left him briefly for another man in 2005, while he consoled himself with a political journalist. But when the capricious lady humiliatingly repeated that caper only weeks after he was sworn in, they were embarrassed. And taking up on the rebound with an Italian model-cum pop singer, an acknowledged man-eater who declared “Monogamy bores me terribly,” was a bit much even for the broad-minded French. The derisive giggling began when he giddily announced at a press conference, “With Carla, it’s serious.” Like some love-sick adolescent. “It’s Snow White marrying the dwarf,” quipped one comic, wickedly referring to his diminutive stature and tango-dancer elevator heels.
Ever conscious of their image in the world, the French were even more distressed that their president was being mocked in the foreign press. Italy’s La Repubblica noted with distaste that the man sitting “on De Gaulle’s throne” was “a shirt-sleeved president in Hollywood sunglasses who received his ministers with his feet on his desk, using the familiar tu form of address with everyone.” German newspapers found him “shameless, irritating, narcissistic, a new Napoleon.” They noted that Chancellor Angela Merkel disliked his familiar manners, especially the way he hugged and kissed her on both cheeks at every summit. The British press, miffed that he had dared respond to the Queen’s formal invitation to visit by cutting his stay a day short, dismissed him as “a soap opera star.” Worried a senior advisor at the French Institute for International Relations, “Can he incarnate France with dignity and legitimacy?”
Then, too, the man was just plain unpleasant. Not the sort you would want to have a friendly drink with. Unlike successful politicos the world over, he couldn’t even pretend to like people in general. Seemed to scowl more easily than smile. Known for a hair-trigger temper, he stormed out of an interview with CBS when an American journalist dared ask a question he found offensive. His own staff he berated as imbeciles, cretins, and worse. When a member of the public at an agricultural fair declined to shake his hand, Sarkozy tongue-lashed him, “Go to hell, you poor bastard!” Some began to wonder whether the nuclear button was safe with someone so irritable and impulsive. Others wondered what he was smoking.
His popularity plunged from a record 67 percent to a low of 37 in his first year. His own electorate began to turn against him. In the first municipal ballot of his term, some candidates in his UMP party quietly asked him to avoid campaigning for them and deleted the party logo from their leaflets. In a sign of political failures to come, they lost 38 of France’s largest cities and towns to the Socialists. It was an early, stinging rebuke to Sarkozy.
Allegations involving dirty money dogged him all during his term. There was the so-called Karachi case, a murky affair centering on kickbacks on a 1994 sale of three French submarines to Pakistan. The money, it was charged, went to fund the 1995 presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur, of which Sarkozy was financial director. His own campaign in 2007 came under official scrutiny due to claims that Sarkozy had received millions in illegal contributions from Lillian Bettencourt, heiress to the L’Oreal fortune and France’s wealthiest woman. This spring, a Paris investigative news site published an Arab-language document purporting to prove that he had accepted over $60 million from Muammar Gaddafi to finance his 2007 election. With several investigations ongoing, none of these allegations has been proven. But Sarkozy’s need to constantly counter such charges was a constant distraction from the business of governing — and from campaigning for re-election.
He delayed the start of that campaign until the beginning of this year, far later than his advisors wanted, and spurring speculation that he might not want to risk rejection due to his unpopularity. When it did begin it was often ill-tempered and belligerent. It also bore the mark of improvisation. Battling a 64 percent disapproval rating and polls that consistently showed François Hollande winning by a comfortable margin, Sarkozy erratically changed direction and sprang new programs and promises almost daily. Mainly he veered further and further right in hope of siphoning off votes from the National Front (a disastrous tactic that cost him vital votes from the moderate center and independents), hammering the message that he would save France from Islamists. He would cut immigration by half, closing France’s borders, in violation of European Union agreements, if necessary.
Grasping at straws late in the campaign, he attempted, unconvincingly, to cast himself as the people’s candidate. He used a video showing him with Barack Obama, suggesting that the American president backed him. He made excuses for his record, claiming that he was distracted early in his term by his failing marriage, and had to deal with the world financial crisis. In the campaign’s final days he resorted to that tired old loser’s pose: he was the victim of a biased media that hated him. His supporters physically harassed journalists at his rallies.
Sarkozy’s last hope was a knockout blow at the single televised debate on May 2 with François Hollande, who was running as a calm, easygoing Monsieur Normal. He and his inept staff thought the Socialist was a creampuff who would buckle under attack. Another miscalculation. It quickly turned ugly as Sarkozy called Hollande arrogant and other names, and repeatedly shouted “Liar! Slanderer!” in reply to his remarks. It didn’t work as the Socialist kept his cool and mocked Sarkozy for refusing to stand on his record. A majority of viewers thought Monsieur Normal won.
About the Author
Joseph A. Harriss is The American Spectator’s Paris correspondent. His latest book, An American Spectator in Paris, was released this fall.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (51) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Joseph A. Harriss
More Articles From Letter From Paris
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/09/requiem-for-a-failed-president
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Downton’s Class System — and Ours
- The Great Train Robbery
- The Vast and the Tiny
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Jack in Wi.| 5.9.12 @ 6:29AM
That such a worthless guy got over 48% of the vote shows how bad a lot of French People wanted to avoid a socialist government. Hopefully the National Front will take over as the main opposition party. Although Marine Le Pen is too much of a social libertine for my taste. In fact all Europe is in the toilet because it has abandoned the Christian Heritage which made the place.
RCV| 5.9.12 @ 11:48AM
Why I am not surprised that Marie Le Pen is too liberal for Jack. Nothing but Goebells himself will do!
Occam's Tool| 5.9.12 @ 12:00PM
Well, another anti-American in Paris. Oh, well.
They hated us when we were liberating them from the Nazis. More French fought FOR the Nazis in that war than AGAINST.
Paul| 5.9.12 @ 2:19PM
France, the only country that lost to both sides in WW2! Quite a feat!
Clint| 5.9.12 @ 6:08PM
Bullshit, Israel Firster Smear Bund Neo-Chickenhawk,Tool Job.
" Recruitment in liberated France led to notable enlargements of the French armies. By the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, France had 1,250,000 troops, 10 divisions of which were fighting in Germany. An expeditionary corps was created to liberate French Indochina then occupied by the Japanese. During the course of the war, French military losses totaled 212,000 dead, of which 92,000 were killed through the end of the campaign of 1940, 58,000 from 1940 to 1945 in other campaigns, 24,000 lost while serving in the French resistance. "
Crassus| 5.9.12 @ 7:58PM
NEOCON!! NEOCON!!
Doctor Right| 5.9.12 @ 9:15PM
Everything Clint knows is from Wikipedia.
Kenny| 5.10.12 @ 5:55AM
Ah yes, the Fighting French.
Why, they almost won WWII themselves.
Look how they marched into Paris -- as if they liberated the city. Totally classless.
Jack in Wi.| 5.9.12 @ 6:13PM
I like one thing Sarkozy said. " I hate Netanyahu. He is such a liar. " Truer words were never spoken. That was caught on mike when he was talking to Obama. It seems that a lot of the Israeli military and security services feel the same way about Bibbi.
RCV| 5.9.12 @ 9:22PM
Of course you like him for that, Jack, and for the same reason you like the Le Pens. Anyone or anything that reflects negatively on Jews generally, Judaism or any Jew, is to your liking.
Tim the Enchanter| 5.10.12 @ 1:58PM
Reminds me of that Jay Leno comment (I'm paraphrasing here): Get France's help to kick out Saddam Hussein? Hell, the french wouldn't even help kick the Germans out of FRANCE!
Jack in Wi.| 5.9.12 @ 6:07PM
I said libertine not liberal.
Doctor Right| 5.9.12 @ 6:56PM
Jack didn't say she was Liberal, genius...he said she's a Libertine.
They are not the same thing.
RCV| 5.9.12 @ 9:24PM
You're correct as to what he said. And my remark stands tho I'm well aware of the difference.
Clint| 5.9.12 @ 6:56AM
Qu'ils Mangent De La Brioche
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.9.12 @ 7:34AM
He came, he saw, he wrecked the economy and left the nation in massive debt. He sounds like Obama.
Dick Nome| 5.9.12 @ 8:26AM
The French Enonomy and France has been a wreck since the 60s. Nothing new. The new Socialist elected will help turn the place into Greece. France has been in the toilet for a long time.
Von Mises Jr| 5.9.12 @ 8:03AM
It demonstrates the obvious once again. The alleged best and brightest could not operate a hot dog stand profitably.
When you combine ignorance of economics, corrupt morals, cowardice and ego; it is always a recipe for disaster.
Bill has it spot on. Look at Obama, Hillary, "Little Timmy" Geithner, Ben "the Bank" Bernanke, Nancy Pelosi and "Dirty Harry" Reid and they have not done one honest day’s work in the private sector in their collective lives. And they want to RULE us, and we think it is a good idea?
A French guy in New York| 5.9.12 @ 8:33AM
Sarkozy's loss has less to do with him than it does with the stupidity of the French electorate and the perils of an out-of-control entitlement society.
Upon being elected, Sarkozy set about to do exactly what he said he was going to do, and what needed to be done:
Cut the size of government, and slash runaway entitlements that threaten the nation's long term economic prosperity.
But of course, my countrymen, fat on easy money from other people and too much wine and cheese quickly turned on Mr. Sarkozy, choosing to criticize him for his abrasive personality (as in this country, "abrasive" is what the left calls anyone who confidently rejects their worldview with facts) and ignoring his policies.
We French are unfortunately vain and petty at heart; sorry my follows, but it is true. And so, we have decided to kick out Mr. Sarkozy in favor of a man whose dogmatic socialist views make Francois Mitterand look like Ronald Reagan. In short, because of a national temper tantrum, we have embraced the very policies that got us not trouble in the first place, and disaster is surely around the corner.
I am proudly French. But I have had enough.
Thankfully, I am engaged to a wonderful, beautiful American girl whom I will marry in June, and I plan on becoming an American citizen as soon as possible. I will always love France, but for obvious reasons I cannot live there any longer while a majority of my fellow citizens feel an absolute right to a large percentage of my income.
I will not be able to vote this November, but I implore you, my future fellow-citizens, please cast out Mr. Obama! His ideas are a cancer.
Merci, and Vive Les Etats Unis!
TLP| 5.9.12 @ 9:43AM
Wow. A Frenchman I don't despise. Who'da thunk it?
The only thing I found in your comment, that I have a problem with, is the proclamation that he tried to Cut Spending. I've heard just the opposite. I heard that "Austerity" was just a word, and that Higher Taxes, and "Punishing the Rich" were the order of the day in King Nicolas the 1st's France.
Then, of course, there's the ever present Smell of Corruption, combined with a Super Effeminate Populace, who've probably not had Dirty Hands, since the 70's.
Too bad.
A French guy in New York| 5.9.12 @ 10:21AM
No, Sarkozy definitely tried to cut spending, first by cutting entitlements, and this, of course, is what got him into serious trouble with public sector workers, as well as his push to eliminate the idiotic 35-hour work week, which was mandated by law.
A French guy in New York| 5.9.12 @ 10:23AM
And please, we are not a "Super Effeminate Populace," that is a myth, I assure you. And it would not be bragging for me to say, for my own sake, that there are several American females who can testify to that assertion.
Occam's Tool| 5.9.12 @ 12:02PM
French guy: might I point out, that you are a French guy "in New York." TLP was referring to French guys in FRANCE.
You make two French guys that I respect immensely. Jean Louis Delezanne was the most brilliant French chef I ever met, and a good friend, once upon a time.
TLP| 5.9.12 @ 2:05PM
You da man.
A French guy in New York| 5.9.12 @ 6:59PM
Nonetheless, the assertion is an offense against the truth.
We French men are universally acclaimed as the world's best lady's men.
And if Monsieur TLP withdraws his statement, I will share the secret.
Stormzeye| 5.9.12 @ 12:32PM
What makes you think, TLP, that we have a masculine populace in the USA anymore? France is far more of a "man's world" than is the feminized USA. In fact, you could easily say that about most of Europe. Our culture has become effeminate in so many ways thanks to Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Democrats and boys raised by single women.
Mimi| 5.9.12 @ 8:36AM
Again noticed....NICE GETS....NOT NICE doesn't! A lesson to Romney...Stay " nice ", keep smiling and keep looking PRESIDENTIAL !
Find yourself a ' Pit Bull' to call the "LIBS" on thier damaging failures.
chuck| 5.9.12 @ 9:20AM
Romney's campaign needs to figure out how to use Newt as the attack dog. There is none better.
bull-gator| 5.9.12 @ 10:14AM
Allen West is the consumate attack machine. Romney needs to get West involved in his campaign a.s.a.p. to have him pound the democrats 24/7 over their failed (and sometimes criminal) policies.
nathan| 5.9.12 @ 10:58AM
NO, NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO! I'm sorry and I've been through this more times than I should have to and the details on West are all out there but West is no hero, what he did in that room with Homoodi violiated his oath of office, American civil law, and American military law. Senator Warner from Virginia said he didn't break the law he "rose above it". Yeah right. Again I encourage all of you to try that line on the next highway patrolman who pulls you over or at your next IRS audit and see how far you get.
Explain to me again what a man who freely admitted that he had zero training in interrogation was doing interrogation someone. Do you let people with no training in auto mechanics work on your cars? And again, if an Iraqi had captured one of his female officers, beat the crap out of her, conducted a mock execution on her, and West had caught the guy later and the guy says sir, I thought she had information that would save the lives of my men, what would West had done? Say dude, I get it, I understand completely you may go. Or throw his sorry behind in Abu Ghraib? Do I even have to ask? If it's wrong for the Iraqi for anyone else to do this to one of West's officers, then it was wrong for him to do it. And having been given more than enough training in Nuremburg, Tokyo, all the rest, West had zero excuse for his actions, ZERO.
And of course West got predictable results from his torture. The name that Hamoodi gave them turned out to have no value. They went to the guy's house and found . . . . nothing. What a surprise. Hamoodi, this great terrorist that West was CERTAIN had information was held than released. West at his hearing sort of admitted he may have made a mistake. His mistake was thinking he could play Jack Bauer, the problem when you have poorly trained incompetent interrogators for whom torture is the easy way to do things even if the results are garbage. (How much skill does it take to tie someone up and beat the crap out of him? A teenager can do that.) Skilled interrogators like Matthew Alexander, know torturing people get you nowhere, there are better ways.
The last thing Romney needs is a self confessed war criminal on this team. Who next? William Calley?
NO! Let's not even go there. And can the republicans walk away from this guy in the next election and undo the ghastly mistake they made the first time? Please?
TLP| 5.9.12 @ 2:55PM
Please, God. Let this self important TWIT, be the very next guy, one of these Arab Necrophiliacs separates from his head.
Maybe then he'll get it?
Though, I doubt it.
Jack in Wi.| 5.9.12 @ 10:19AM
MiMi: Good to seee you back. It must mean that your heart surgery went well.
Mimi| 5.9.12 @ 11:40AM
Thanks Jack...Yes, I'm still cooking but on SLOW!
The spunk is still there and brain intact! had some fantastic help from the VASCULAR Dept at Albany Med.....Grateful!
Pepe LaPue| 5.9.12 @ 9:23AM
Mr Sarkozy has said many times to the french public "I didn't say it was your fault, I said I"M BLAMING YOU!!!"
moron| 5.9.12 @ 9:27AM
"Ever conscious of their image in the world, the French were even more distressed that their president was being mocked in the foreign press." Well they turned that one around quickly. Now the voters are to be mocked for public display of genocide. Well deserved I might add. Pass the popcorn.
Audace| 5.9.12 @ 10:58AM
What troubled Sarkozy greatly was incredible inconsistency. What demolished him is and was lack of authenticity.
His first act as the newly elected (but not yet sworn in) president of France was to accept a lavish jetting off to the sun, a sun-tanned, sea, Med cruise on a mega gleaming white yacht. Literally hours after winning and making his winner's speech about a new France, changes, austerity, living within our means, and championing the Frenchman who goes to bed early at night! (the best line he ever spoke, I thought) etc., Nicholas was bare chested in shorts, feet propped up as photographed by the super elite paparazzi photojournalists who can find a person wherever they go -- except Nico Sarkozy was not hiding or attempting to. Nico wanted to be seen; he was gloating out on this supremely lavish mini cruise ship looking like a mix between a mafia, Wall Street, and Bond adversary tycoon.
His words to justify this lavishness several days into this opulence began his descent.
Sakozy's personal life is a shambles. Note: Politicians, at this level, you don't have a personal life. It is all public. And Nicholas knows this, wanted to be dashing and single and wooing a new conquest. His cavorting with, sleeping with, taking on the initial official state visits while unmarried, then marrying the Italian nude model and dippy liberal songstress was nothing more than an extended publicity stunt that he thought would lend him more street cred. (Incidentally, expect them to be divorced within three years -- and who cares that Nico has fathered another child with Carla that he will not actually father -- see, anyone even with a pea for a brain knows this is implausible inconsistencies.)
One could go on and on. These were just massive missteps in the first six months.
He talked about leading all of Mediterranean Europe in the ending forevermore the piracy off the coast of Somalia -- in 2008. Yet his words proved hollow right away.
Inconsistencies after inconsistencies.
He wanted to talk tough act tough and be tough. But he wouldn't be tough on the elite liberals and unions that run Paris and the nation.
See, ultimately for conservatism to work, it has to be lived. It is not so much at all in the saying. The speaking it is easy. It his how one lives, does, behaves.
Character is what one does in deeds, not with one's mouth.
Sad in a lot of ways. Sarkozy's probably best speech of all was given in London thanking the English for saving France's future in WW I and WW II. Have never heard that from a French leader. Sarkozy did push France to return to a more active presence in NATO, a semblance of greater responsibilities for shared security.
But he always wanted the pop star stuff, too.
Don't believe every negative you'll read on him. The liberal press was ready to skewer him long before he actually entered the Élysée Palace.
Sarkozy had many correct tendencies. Many correct traits or instincts. But he could not garner the strength to enact them or to garner support to do so -- because he was and is inconsistent, inauthentic. No one can effectively lead as a fake.
John786| 5.9.12 @ 11:32AM
By all accounts France allowed itself to be metaphorically raped by this man. His demonisation of muslims vis a vis public restrictions on what Muslim women can wear was an utter disgrace and an insult to the founding principles of the republic. All in all a thoroughly bad egg. I'm sure he will retire to -la dolce Vera-.
Frog in Uniform| 5.10.12 @ 11:40AM
His demonisation of muslims was really mild and without conviction. The man was the first to have 4 muslims in his administration, he shamed us in granting welcome to the likes of Assad, Bouteflika, Gheddafi and every muslim goat molester you could think of. Sarko didn't rape France, Islam did. And it's being demonized by its own medieval and murderous behavior. Think of Mohamed Merah as a muslim hero and leave us alone.
Frog in Uniform| 5.10.12 @ 11:44AM
And please, enough with that John stuff, your real name is Jamal and the correct digitsn are 666.
You don't fool me, I see your kind every day and in a way I'm its worst nightmare.
Occam's Tool| 5.9.12 @ 12:03PM
The founding principles of the Republic included public secularism, John786. By the way, how are the car bombing competitions doing?
John786| 5.9.12 @ 12:57PM
When did -what you wear in public - become part of the secular liturgy. This is the opposit of secularism. Your musings regarding various violent acts are becoming tiresome. Its obvious you were vigorously potty trained: and are now suffering the consequences. You should seek out potty-anonymous for help and support.
Mike Hawk| 5.9.12 @ 1:17PM
(__!__)
RCV| 5.9.12 @ 2:55PM
Ataturk was smart enough to recognize that if Turkey was to progress to a modern secular state, the visible symbols of female oppression must be outlawed. It keeps people apart from society at large, and in France in particular, slows the process of integration into French culture. Even tolerant societies such as the Benelux countries have come to recognize this.
Rollando| 5.9.12 @ 1:12PM
I just want to know who the hot brunette is!
Mike Hawk| 5.9.12 @ 2:51PM
Carla
Kingofthenet| 5.9.12 @ 4:28PM
Oh poor Sarkozy, what's he going to do with all the extra time? Hey maybe stay in bed and bang his beautiful wife a few more times a day!
Paul McGrath| 5.9.12 @ 4:39PM
I've long ago given up expecting to see anything intelligent written under your name. I now expect that anything I see written under your name to be jejune.
Frank Natoli| 5.9.12 @ 7:43PM
Thanks for the National Enquirer version of why Sarkozy is now unemployed.
Anybody besides me remember that Sarkozy's efforts at changing the French welfare state resulted in student and labor riots, shutting down the capital? And he had the choice between using the police and backing off? And he backed off.
I wonder what M. Harriss would have written if Sarko hadn't backed off?
[Note to French guy in the city where I was born and raised: while you guys are checking yourselves in the mirror, us guys from the Boot are teaching the ladies the benefits of "si" rather than "oui".]
A French guy in New York| 5.9.12 @ 9:18PM
Quelle scandale!
Frank Natoli| 5.10.12 @ 6:35AM
C'est la guerre!
And if I may be permitted to significantly digress, Americans love to mock the French record in World War II, but as anyone with more than a casual knowledge of the history knows, nothing could stop the Germans in the first two years of the war, and the only reason the British survived was not a superior culture or preparedness than their French allies but the Channel. Absent England being an island, Guderian and Rommel would have been setup in the Savoy within a few weeks of the fall of France. And of course what saved the Russians was the distance associated with seven contiguous time zones. The Free French who fought alongside the Americans in North Africa, Italy and northwest France had an excellent and well earned reputation for being good soldiers.
POST American| 5.9.12 @ 11:26PM
---EVERYONE realizing, for centuries,
Globalist takedown moves supreme
REALLY require a foreigner occupying
the helm of the object nation.
---Napoleon the Corsican
-------Stalin the Georgian
-----------Hitler the Austrian
--------------'CZAR ---COZY' the Hungarian
-----the OFF-SHORE,
and possible product of
secret breeding programs,
----------'BAR--Rockefeller' H. Obama
For those who STILL REFUSE to SEE
--------------REMEMBER!--------------
Oprah 'HOPE' --is franchise slum DOPE,
---------------------------and SO MUCH LESS!