L' Election Présidentielle 2007 / French Presidential Election [R]

[Pierre-Henri]

(Did he REALLY say this?)

Yes, he did. He also said that alcohol controls on the roads were too strict, that people should have the right to go faster, that fines are unfair and so on. Le Pen never forgets to say really stupid things. He knows the importance for him of the "vote beauf".

Note : A rough translation of "beauf" would be "Joe-six-pack", the core of le Pen political force.

[Catel]

"Quel que soit le candidat, demandez-vous d'abord s'il servira la cause des Noirs", a-t-il ajouté devant un public plutôt clairsemé en ce début de week-end pascal."
That is what is called "communitarism".

[Nanbawan]

That is what is called "communitarism".

That what is called an attempt at communitarism since there's hardly a Black community given the various origins of immigrants or people from West Indies overseas or living in the mainland. Let's not forget all the 'mixed' families as well.

The main common factor is (sadly) the discrimination based on the colour of the skin.

[Douai]

"Quand Le Pen parle de Sarkozy"
"Dans "Le Figaro", il évoque "des points possibles de convergence" avec N.Sarkozy, tout en reconnaissant qu'"il lui paraît extrêmement difficile d'avoir un accord avec des candidats européistes et immigrationistes".

Sur France 2, il dit que les origines étrangères de Nicolas Sarkozy devraient le conduire à s'abstenir de briguer spontanément l'Elysée."
http://elections.france2.fr/presidentielles/2007/actu/29908546-fr.php

[Douai]

Le 12 avril 2007
Avec ironie, Royal nomme Sarkozy pour la 1re fois
En meeting à Besançon, revenant sur les indemnités de Noël Forgeard chez EADS, elle a rappelé que le candidat UMP faisait partie "du gouvernement qui l'a autorisé à partir avec une cassette"
http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/elections-2007/0,,3430305,00-ironie-royal-nomme-sarkozy-pour-1re-fois-.html

[Douai]

Pour Hollande, il n'y a "pas d'alliance concevable" avec Bayrou
François Hollande a déclaré, vendredi 13 avril à l'AFP, qu'il n'y avait "pas d'alliance concevable entre la gauche et une partie de la droite", réagissant à la proposition de Michel Rocard, dans Le Monde, d'une "alliance" entre Ségolène Royal et François Bayrou "avant le premier tour"."Le rassemblement de la gauche doit se faire au premier tour. Il faut voter Ségolène Royal au premier tour. Au second tour, il faudra aussi voter Ségolène Royal", a ajouté le premier secrétaire du Parti socialiste.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-823448,36-895827,0.html

[Nanbawan]

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/4586/francedaprsbg6.jpg

It is written on the tin...

Let's imagine the France of tomorrow.



PS : Thanks Fred for sending me this.

[Douai]

Sarkozy proposes proportional representation in France:
Proportionnelle et FN : l'UMP rouvre le débat
A quel jeu joue Brice Hortefeux, le ministre délégué aux collectivités territoriales et proche de Nicolas Sarkozy? Dans un entretien au Figaro du 13 avril, le bras droit du président de l'UMP se prononce en faveur d'une dose de proportionnelle pour les élections législatives.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-823448,36-895542@51-823770,0.html

Socialist believes in a UDF/PS alliance:
Royal-Bayrou, l'alliance nécessaire, par Michel Rocard
Si Nicolas Sarkozy est élu dans quelques semaines, nous n'aurons aucune excuse. L'UMP gagnera les élections législatives qui suivront; et pendant cinq ans, la France va souffrir.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-823448,36-895551,0.html

[Douai]

http://medias.francetv.fr/bibl/url_images/2007/04/15/image_29983081_192_144.jpg
Ségolène Royal lors de son meeting à Achicourt (Pas-de-Calais), le 15 avril 2007 - AFP
Publié le 15/04 à 18:37
Ségolène Royal appelle au "vote conscient"

Ségolène Royal a appelé dimanche à une participation massive, au "vote conscient" et au "choix des valeurs".

http://elections.france2.fr/presidentielles/2007/actu/29983027-fr.php

http://medias.francetv.fr/bibl/url_images/2007/04/15/image_29982615_192_144.jpg
Jean-Marie Le Pen en meeting, au Palais des Sports de Paris, le 15 avrul 2007 - AFP

FN : meeting à Paris sur fond de manif
Des centaines de personnes ont manifesté dimanche à Paris contre le Front national, qui tenait meeting à Paris
http://elections.france2.fr/presidentielles/2007/actu/29982560-fr.php

[guignol]

le pen has decided to go for the dog and cat vote... he's made multiple staements about abandoned pets and other cruelty to animal issues, and he was accompanied in a recent appearance by EP deputy lydia schenardi who put out a big speech calling for an end to the barbarity called humanism...

from a man who called the shoah an historical "detail" and 9/11 "unimportant"... this is a nice touch!

PETS FOR PAPOON!
http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00006JTGW.01._SCTZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[Nanbawan]

Wow ! I'm reading the special issue of Marianne magazine about the 'true' Sarkozy. That's f**ing scary. Unless that's some of the most memorable lies in media history, there are some compelling elements against him. Mostly from his own party and the people who are close to the guy to back the main argument.

In a nutshell, we already had several hints though...The problem with sarkozy is not that he's a very conservative and ambitious politician ready to hurt the republican rules to fulfill his greed for Power. It goes beyond that. We knew it, it's confirmed...

The guy is batshit crazy !!!

The media, the politicians know but just STFU because the Sarko mafia* makes them poo in their pants ! I can't believe he can get elected like that because of that ! Damn, our lefties suck even more than the Dems !

Marianne a indiqué lundi qu'il retirait 60.000 exemplaires de son numéro de cette semaine, consacré à ce que les médias "n'osent pas ou ne veulent pas dévoiler" sur Nicolas Sarkozy, après l'écoulement en 48 heures des 300.000 numéros mis en vente.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-30528222@7-58,0.html

Donc, cette semaine Marianne brise l’omerta que favorise le verrouillage médiatique, dit ce qu’on n’ose pas vous dire, et se libère de la conspiration du silence pour jeter, dans le débat, cette lourde vérité dont on voudrait vous interdire l’accès !

Dès aujourd’hui, lisez et retenez ce numéro essentiel. Au nom de tout ce qui nous rassemble, aidez-nous à lui assurer la plus large diffusion. Offrez-en un ou plusieurs numéros autour de vous, à vos amis ou connaissances. Le 23 avril, il sera trop tard…

http://www.marianne-en-ligne.fr/exclusif/virtual/urgent/e-docs/00/00/F2/A7/document_web.phtml

Pretty dramatic, isn't it ? Just a marketing stunt ? I don't know, that's quite unprecedented. The Marianne redaction must also be gambling on the issue of the elections too. Anyway, we don't have all the info available, that's for sure. One thing is true though, the defiance to Sarko on the internet is overwhelming. I wonder to what extent it can be materialised in the voting booths. Everything looks fuzzy now...What do we really know ?

OTOH, for the Economist, only Sarko can save us...Yeah, right. Easy to say from abroad. :rolleyes:

*Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa has several 'friends' who happen to be industrial tycoons. Tycoons who own many newspapers including liberal titles like Libération. Handy, isn't it ?

[Reazzurro90]

Beh, you should never pay much attention to The Economist.

In Italy they're the ones who enthusiastically endorsed Romano Prodi even though he was the one who tried to reintroduce the 35 hour work-week in Italy.... :rolleyes:

[Nanbawan]

The article of The Economist is a brilliant display of free marketer dogmatism. I guess they prefer to refer to 'brutal pragmatism' though...


Faute de mieux

Which leaves Mr Sarkozy as the best of the bunch. Unlike the others, and despite his long service as a minister under Mr Chirac, he makes no bones of admitting that France needs radical change. He is an outsider, born to an aristocratic Hungarian émigré father; he openly admires America; he is enthusiastic about the economic renaissance of Britain. He plans an early legislative blitz to take on hitherto untouchable issues such as labour-market liberalisation, cutting corporate and income taxes and trimming public-sector pensions.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9005216

http://www.economist.com/images/20070414/1507LD1.jpg

If that's the best you wish for France...

[Douai]

Sarkozy et Royal à 50-50 d'intentions de vote au second tour

Nicolas Sarkozy et Ségolène Royal sont à égalité à 50% chacun d'intentions de vote pour le second tour de l'élection présidentielle, selon un sondage CSA-Cisco pour Le Parisien, Aujourd'hui en France et I Télé rendu public lundi.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-30535108@7-354,0.html

[ilv2]

The article of The Economist is a brilliant display of free marketer dogmatism. I guess they prefer to refer to 'brutal pragmatism' though...


It is an opinion article though, and as with most, they have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Another good english-language article written by the New Yorker, which is fairly lengthy but summarizes pretty well the basics of what is going on with the elections from an American perspective:

The French are often accused of being trapped in their Cartesian categories. A cold sandwich cannot morph into a hot sandwich without considerable mental accommodation on the part of the person putting it together. In politics, the left cannot creep toward the center, let alone the right, without a deep, if not intolerable, sense of ideological betrayal. The right rarely even considers the possibility of creeping. Change, on the right, is more a matter of cosmetic surgery. For most of the French, the “center”—call it a third way or Clinton’s way or Blair’s way or simply a free-market, social-democratic consensus—has been a contradiction in terms, perhaps because they remain so deeply devoted to the protective and protectionist state, l’État protecteur, that both the left and the right have helped create. The state has been reified, even deified; it carries the imprimatur of a historic compromise with reality.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/23/070423fa_fact_kramer

so Azouz Begag did resign from the government because of Sarko

[Anthony]

Here is a Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=0G3FG40SP1ZB5QFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/04/18/do1801.xml)article which claims that the number of undecideds are so high that both the Sarkozy and Royal campaignings are panicking. One unpublished poll appartently places Royal in 4th place and Sarkozy is affraid he may actually lose votes to Le Pen. Some Socialists are talking of a last minute electoral pact with Bayrou.

[Nanbawan]

Here is a Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=0G3FG40SP1ZB5QFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/04/18/do1801.xml)article which claims that the number of undecideds are so high that both the Sarkozy and Royal campaignings are panicking. One unpublished poll appartently places Royal in 4th place and Sarkozy is affraid he may actually lose votes to Le Pen. Some Socialists are talking of a last minute electoral pact with Bayrou.

From one of the reactions :'France's Electorate are Revolting'

It's because they don't bathe.

No Love lost, huh ?

Sarkozy is one of the candidates who should benefit the less from volatile voters as most of his electorate is already convinced. Royal is the one who has the most to gain or lose depending on whether people will rally her or Bayrou. And many voters who are drastically anti-Sarko know that if Bayrou makes the second round, it's a guarantee to beat the little bastard.

Yup, this election -once again- has little to do with profound convictions. Once, I and many others will have to vote 'against' and not 'for' something and it's a bit tiring. At a certain point, it's really out of civic duty to carry on voting...

***

Anglo-Saxon-style free-market liberalism

It can be noted that in several articles I've read, France seems to be at least able to impose some of its denominations. I've already noticed in the past that the first time you encounter certain terms in the English speaking media, they are followed by "like the French say". The next time, the notion is surrounded by quotation marks and finally it just makes part of the vocabulary...To be fair, the process also exists from English to other languages I guess.

"Anglo-Saxon" in that meaning was kind of needed apparently to lump the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc...

[Nanbawan]

It is an opinion article though, and as with most, they have to be taken with a grain of salt.



I glanced over the paper issue articles the other day and the general tone and rationale.

The most annoying thing about those articles is that they still keep the good old clichés and back thir argument with that. Apparently, there are no learning and revision whatsoever from what was already said at the time of the 'non' vote or the banlieues crisis. Just the repetition of pseudo conclusions that were not subtle enough at the time and still aren't.

[Anthony]

It can be noted that in several articles I've read, France seems to be at least able to impose some of its denominations. I've already noticed in the past that the first time you encounter certain terms in the English speaking media, they are followed by "like the French say". The next time, the notion is surrounded by quotation marks and finally it just makes part of the vocabulary...To be fair, the process also exists from English to other languages I guess.

"Anglo-Saxon" in that meaning was kind of needed apparently to lump the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc...

I always find it funny when I am refered to as "Anglo Saxon". ;)

Seriously though, most of English is loan words and foreign cognates. Which is why we have at least two words for just about everything. English is so far from its Anglo Saxon roots that my high school Latin teacher considered English a Romance language, not a Germanic language.

We are pretty easy about it -- it is important to realize that there is no "English Academy" that decides what is proper English and what is not. In the US, the closest thing we have to a language regulator is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the various style manuals, and the New York Times.

[Douai]

Français Bayrou a détaillé mercredi à Bercy la séquence gagnante qui le ménerait à l'Elysée

"Le 22 avril, les Français renversent l'une des deux citadelles et ils nous mettent en finale de l'élection présidentielle". "Le 6 mai, ils prennent et ils renversent la deuxième Bastille", a-t-il déclaré devant une salle comble.

"Il faut leur arracher le pouvoir. Il faut les renvoyer pour cinq ans au moins à leurs chères études", a-t-il lancé.

Pour le Béarnais la fin de la séquence est celle-ci: "Le nouveau président de la République entre en fonction le 15 ou le 16 mai. Le 17 mai, il nomme son gouvernement de changement et de rassemblement".

"Le 25 mai, il fête son anniversaire", a ajouté M. Bayrou , qui aura 56 ans ce jour-là, déclenchant rires et acclamations. Et , "le 10 et le 17 juin, le peuple français donne à ce gouvernement une majorité", a-t-il conclu.

Sous les clameurs de la salle, François Bayrou a ajouté "Il faut leur offrir une bonne douche froide pour qu'ils fassent leur révolution culturelle". "Nous sommes le changement que la France attend".


http://elections.france2.fr/presidentielles/2007/actu/30095762-fr.php