Posted on 09/04/2006 4:45:08 PM PDT by shrinkermd
MARSEILLE, France, Sept 3, 2006 (AFP) - French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy appeared almost certain to lead the right into next year's presidential election, after a triumphant party congress which concluded Sunday in Marseille with a blistering attack on the "generation of May 1968".
Speaking before 7,000 young members of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Sarkozy, 51, said modern France had been betrayed by the left-wing ideals that took root after the 1968 student uprising, and called for a society built around "a reassertion of the value of work".
"(The generation of 1968) inculcated everywhere — in politics, in education, in society — an inversion of values and a political correctness of which today's young people are the principal victims," Sarkozy said to applause.
"The truth is that the students of May '68 were the spoiled children of 30 years of prosperity. You are the children of crisis. They lived a life without constraints. Today you are picking up the bill," he said.
The minister — who is also president of the UMP — was speaking at the end of a three-day post-summer "university" which is the last major gathering of party faithful before a congress in January which will designate the right's candidate for presidential elections in April.
Royal and Sarkozy neck-and-neck in race: poll
The Socialists: ready to rumble
Hallyday supports presidential hopeful Sarkozy
An opinion poll Sunday reinforced Sarkozy's massive lead over possible rivals within the UMP, indicating that 45 percent of the public want him as party candidate compared to just eight percent for his closest contender, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
President Jacques Chirac, who has refused to rule out running for an unprecedented third term, had the support of just three percent in the survey in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, behind Employment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo and Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie.
The nominee will lead the UMP into a two-round election, in which the principal opponent will be a Socialist party (PS) candidate to be chosen by a vote of party members in November.
Front-runner to win the PS candidacy is the head of the Poitou-Charentes regional council Ségolène Royal, 52 — an elegant newcomer to the top tier of French politics, but a woman whom polls show to be the only left-winger who could beat Sarkozy next year.
However Royal faces opposition from inside her party, many of whose leading figures accuse her of building a campaign based on image rather than ideas. Former PS minister Martine Aubry said on Friday that the test of a president was "not whether or not you have good measurements".
Sarkozy drew the strongest applause Sunday when he attacked the "dependency and welfare" culture epitomised by the Socialists' 35-hour week, and promised to bring unemployment down to five percent in five years by "giving work back its true value, because it is work that creates work"....
I propose reducing taxes on labour, so that employment plays a greater part in economic growth. I propose that people should earn more if they work more ... I propose replacing the language of redistribution with the language of growth," he said...
Sounds like the French version of what David Horowitz dubbed "the destructive generation."
I spent the spring semester in Aix - not far from you (Marseille was where my stuff got hung up.)
Will Sarkozy also take on the 69-ers?
>>And during her rule it [GDP per capita] got LOWER in UK?
The UK was shouldering its share of the burden in opposing the Soviets. The French were not.
And I'm not at all sure the data shows what you claim. France's per capita GDP was more than Britains at the beginning and the end of her era, but it was a great delta in favor of the French at the beginning, than at the end.
Lotta Brit ex-pats in Aix.
After 13 years on the "Cote d'Azur" I will NEVER again be attracted to a "tourist destination" in my life.
The locals are obnoxious and anti-tourist (as who wouldn't be) and the tourists are even worse.
Whenever I see a "travel spread" in a magazine or newspaper I cross the destination off my list of places I will ever visit...
I left France in 2003, but I never saw the sort of latent discontent that preceded Thatcher's revolution in Britain.
The frogs are too content with their socialist system and "anti-Anglo-Saxon third way" (regardless of how bad it is for the future) to support any real reforms.
The French are also cowards (I have experienced it first hand) and will cave to whichever union causes the most pain to the economy.
Sarkozy will have very limited room to manouever. And don't forget that under the constitution of the V Republic, the President has very little domestic power. He can cajole, but it's the PM who controls legislation.
"(The generation of 1968) inculcated everywhere — in politics, in education, in society — an inversion of values and a political correctness of which today's young people are the principal victims," Sarkozy said to applause."
WOW.
IF HE WINS, HE WILL BE THE THATCHER/REAGAN OF FRANCE.
France missed out on the reassertion of Conservative values and economic policies in the 1980s, which is why they are so screwed up now.
Maybe he can lead them back to sanite'.
A. Pole , your links shows your statement is wrong.
Per capita income in UK rose from 1979 to 1990, the time Maggie Thatcher was in office.
The fact remains that UK's economy is a freer economy, they were slightly behind France in 1979 and now they are slightly ahead.
What hope does France have, then?
France has serious problems in so many areas. They need a change badly.
Wrong. French and UK military spending are comparable.
SIPRI numbers for the late 80s and early 90s show a significantly higher spending rate, as a percentage of GDP, for the UK.
"(The generation of 1968) inculcated everywhere — in politics, in education, in society — an inversion of values and a political correctness of which today's young people are the principal victims," Sarkozy said to applause.He can say that again, and again, and again...HALLELUJAH!
What? The far left are the most authoritarian people on the planet! They are, in fact, TOTALITARIAN in their views. The only rebel against authorities who are opposing their totalitarian ideal.
Everyone born after our '68' generation here in America (baby boomers as we call them), who are approximately 40 and younger right now, need to listen to Sarkozy's words and take them to heart.
There may be hope for France yet.
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