Posted on 03/07/2007 3:19:27 PM PST by Cincinna
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Nicolas Sarkozy remains the most popular presidential contender in France, according to a poll by TNS-Sofres released by Unilog. 31 per cent of respondents would vote for the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate in next month’s election.
Ségolène Royal of the Socialist Party (PS) is second with 25.5 per cent, followed by Union for French Democracy (UDF) leader François Bayrou with 18.5 per cent, and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front (FN) with 12 per cent.
Support is lower for Marie-George Buffet of the French Communist Party (PCF), Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) member Olivier Besancenot, farmer-activist José Bové, Arlette Laguiller of Workers’ Struggle (LO), Movement for France (MPF) leader Philippe de Villiers, Dominique Voynet of the Greens (Verts), and National Assembly member Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
Sarkozy currently serves as France’s interior minister. Royal is the leader of the regional government of Poitou-Charentes. In a prospective run-off scenario, Sarkozy holds an eight-point advantage over Royal.
In order to become candidates, potential contenders must submit 500 signatures from elected officials in 30 regions by Mar. 16. Le Pen has failed to gather such signatures so far. On Mar. 5, Sarkozy said France would benefit from Le Pen and other candidates participating in the campaign and urged regional officials to back the 77-year-old’s bid, saying, "Democracy must not be confiscated by just a few people."
The UMP’s Jacques Chirac won the presidential ballot in 1995, and was re-elected in a run-off over Le Pen in May 2002. The next election is scheduled for Apr. 22. If no candidate garners more than 50 per cent of all cast ballots, a run-off would take place on May 6.
Polling Data
Who would you vote for in the presidential election?
Mar. 1
Nicolas Sarkozy
31%
Ségolène Royal
25.5%
François Bayrou
18.5%
Jean-Marie Le Pen
12%
Marie-George Buffet
3.5%
Olivier Besancenot
3%
José Bové
2%
Arlette Laguiller
2%
Philippe de Villiers
1%
Dominique Voynet
1%
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
0.5%
Corinne Lepage
0.5%
Run-off scenario
Mar. 1
Nicolas Sarkozy 54% Ségolène Royal 46%
Source: TNS-Sofres / Unilog Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,000 French adults, conducted on Feb. 28 and Mar. 1, 2007. No margin of error was provided.
Who knows? Maybe he will declare himself Emperor! (Just kidding, Just kidding).
De la Chapell I think?
Why was he executed, sounded like hero to me?
The topic may now return to it's origins.
Great post, and a timely reminder that a French "conservative" is about as liberal as Chuck Schumer.
I think most of them were run off by Freepers posting comments like this.
Your comment about Bonapartism is a good one.
Just finished a book about Napoleon and at the end of the book the author talked about the love-hate relationship the French have with the man and his times.
He went on to observe that the entire city of Paris is a monument to Napoleon I constructed by Napoleon III. But constructed in such a way that the references and allusions are at best indirect and tangential, due to the this love-hate fest that the French have for the little Emperor. Apparently there is a Rue Bonaparte tucked away in a little corner of the city but no Grand Avenue Napoleon etc. etc.
We were lucky that George Washington was 10x the man that Napoleon was - I think Washington's influence (for the good) is with us to this day just as Napoleon's multiple good and bad influences persist.
It will not be POSSIBLE, period.
French labor law is not going to be seriously reformed any more than gun rights are going to be stripped from rural Americans. There are some bridges that are too far in politics, and realistic people have to accept that.
France's economy is doing pretty well, and unemployment has been steadily trending down for a number of years. The French are not going to abandon job security; it is too fundamental to the society. What France may very well do, under a Sarkozy, is deregulate business in the financial controls, general legal regimes and taxation arenas. But unravelling job security - really, just forget it.
And forget, too, that job security MUST be unravelled or France will sink. That's not true either. France ISN'T sinking, and it won't sink (so long as labor restrictions don't get WORSE). The work-arounds in France will have to be found in OTHER areas, not creating job insecurity, just as control of crime in America will have to be done in OTHER ways, NOT by seizing everybody's guns.
You lived and worked in France. How, then, can you describe the economy itself as a "layabout cafe society"? What did you have to wait in line to get? A phone (no)? An apartment (no)? A car (no)? Medical care (no)? What, then? The nature of the work regulations has forced companies to become quite good at sorting out good workers from non-performers. This is never perfect, but the more competitive the industry, the more generally competent the people who work in it are.
France isn't going to become like America in terms of economic structure, doesn't want to, and frankly doesn't NEED to. There are aspects of the American economy that are, frankly, appalling, and are driving the the US towards taking some decisions Americans don't want to take (like universal health care).
"We were lucky that George Washington was 10x the man that Napoleon was - I think Washington's influence (for the good) is with us to this day just as Napoleon's multiple good and bad influences persist."
Mostly, you're lucky that George Washington didn't have any children and therefore had any natural dynastic interests checked by nature. America was deeply blessed by the fact that the "Father of his Country" was shooting blanks.
I'm sure it's not that simple.
What, no Muslim in the running?
Bayrou is much more of a centrist (left-leaning) than Sarko. His rise could actually help Sarko by draining votes for the Socialists.
Who I'd like to see win it (but they never will) is Philippe de Villiers or Alain Madelin, both relatively pro-American and not anti-capitalist (which is about as pro-capitalist as you're ever going to get in France).
Couldn't agree more.
France really didn't whip out a stiletto over the Middle East you know.
She didn't.
After 9/11, Chirac was the first on a plane, and came to America. The French committed their counterterrorism resources to tracking down, finding, and neutralizing international terror. The assistance on that front has been very deep, and the French are the best in the world at tracking and monitoring Muslim terrorists. They are deeply insinuated into the culture, and have higher degrees of intermarriage than any other Western culture. Bombs get PLANTED in France, but they (so far) have been detected and neutralized. There's a reason for that, and it has to do with the degree of French surveillance and counter-intelligence in the Arab arena, which is second to none. They threw all of that onto the table and help the US, clandestinely and secretively, across the board, across the world.
The French supported the removal of the Taliban, and have troops there.
France did NOT support the invasion of Iraq, but there was no stiletto there, no stab in the back. The French government, all parties, made it perfectly, exquisitely, painfully clear that Iraq was a no-go as far as they were concerned. There was no "surprise" about it. No "stab in the back". The French pushed back harder and harder in the UN on the subject, and reached out to Germany and Russia as well, to make it clear they did not, would not, and could not, support the operation against Iraq.
There was nothing sneaky, Pearl Harborish, or underhanded about it. France had deep vested interests in Iraq, and those interests were threatened by a US invasion. The French might have cooperated with the US had the US guaranteed that the new regime implanted there would respect the French interests, but the US was unprepared to do that, and France was not going to sign onto the American operation, therefore.
It was all in the open from day one.
Even while the Iraq operation goes on, Lebanon went into disarray, and the USA and France were the strongest and best allies to diminish the Syrian influence there.
France is with America on most things. Where she isn't, there's no stiletto, no stab in the dark. She says "No." And means it. And pushes back diplomatically against the US policy when she doesn't like it. There's nothing hard about that to understand. That America doesn't LIKE being opposed is all well and good, but it is not treason, backstabbing, evil or anything else for a sovereign country, an ally, to tell you "No" on something it does not agree with. France is not a province of the US. Nor is it a colony or a vassal state. The US and China are the world's greatest trading partners. The US does not agree with China over Taiwan. Does that mean that the Chinese are stabbing the US in the back over Taiwan? No. The Chinese always made clear their intentions to reabsorb Taiwan. It's a given of their perception of their national interest. The US may not like it, but in no mature sense can the US accuse the Chinese of underhanded dealing because the Chinese will not substitute the American preference for their own over Taiwan.
France disapproved of the American war on Iraq for a great number of reasons, some of which are discussed above. There were many others. The French discussed it all in the open, and have never hidden their view. The Americans seemed to be shocked and then became very angry when they discovered that the French were not kidding about what they said and thought on the subject. No meant no. America went ahead anyway, without France, and France found other major countries which agreed with France's position, and made the diplomatic situation absolutely miserable for America, to punish America diplomatically for overriding French wishes. That's not a backstab or a stiletto slash. It's called pushback, and it's what you do to people who damage your interests and don't take into consideration your viewpoint.
The American view is that European states are cute little vassals who ultimately have to do what America says. That is not true. The French demonstrated it. And countries all across Europe have followed suit, with time. Germany. Russia. Italy. Spain. The UK will too, once Tony Blair is out of office.
Now, there is a difference between what France did and what Italy and Spain did. Italy and Spain committed to war, they put their flag there next to the Americans and, by doing so, encouraged the Americans to embark on the adventure.
The French are alongside the Americans in Afghanistan, but said outright that they opposed Iraq. They never encouraged the Americans to think that they had French support.
So, the Americans, overestimating the degree of support they had in the world (they had the support of European GOVERNMENTS, but not European PEOPLE; the French position more accurately reflected the actual democratic will of the French people than the Spanish, Italian or British government position did), went in with these allies. And the people within those allies, within Italy and Spain, removed their own governments and pulled out. Pulling out from combat was really a backstab to the Americans. Once you are committed to war, you are relied upon. France did NOT do that. France is still in Afghanistan, and will be there, with the Americans, for one hundred years, if that's what it takes. It's an axiom of French history that the French do not always commit forces wisely, but once they DO commit, they are extremely stubborn and tenacious about STAYING there until they either win or are essentially annhilated on the ground. France said she was with America in Afghanistan, and France will be the last ally standing there, in the fight, with the Americans in Afghanistan. Even if the Afghan government itself falls, the French will be there as long as the US is. They COMMITTED to the war, and they will fight it to the end.
The OPPOSED the war in Iraq from the beginning. They never hid their opposition. They expressed some of their reasons (not all). They made it clear it wasn't a bluff. They still think that way. Sarkozy bluntly supports President Chirac and does not support the American adventure in Iraq. They said what they were going to do, said why, and when the Americans embarked on the course they did, the French DID IT. It wasn't negotiable and it still isn't.
This isn't hard, and it is in no sense disloyalty. France did not stab America in the back. She reasoned with America in the open, then she argued with America in the world forum, and then, when the Americans insisted on going forth against French objections, the French fought the Americans diplomatically to punish them for taking the policy option France opposed.
I understand that America does not like to be told "No". Nobody does.
But when somebody warns you over and over, and you don't listen, and they slap you in the face for it, that's no backstab.
"When I managed the Paris Office for my former employer our three least productive workers could not be fired because of the French Labor Law. This rigidity also makes hiring new people a total crap shoot because if you hire a loser you are stuck with him."
Did you get French labor law advice?
These "least productive workers", were they monitored, supervised, given written instructions, evaluated? Were letters placed in their records?
In other words, were the steps that are necessary to remove a non-performing worker, or at any rate to raise the heat on him, under the French Labor Code followed?
My bet is no.
My bet is that "least productive" is a relative term. The office was run by Americans, with American work ethics, correct? And it was staffed by a mix of Americans and French, with Americans predominating in leadership positions, correct?
Americans are used to the swift power of command and the power of fear that the ability to quickly fire brings. They are used to being able to demand that people work longer hours than the hours for which they are paid, and not to be limited to getting work out of employees only during that portion of employees time that is allotted to the employer by the labor contract. In other words, Americans are used to a labor command culture that has a lot of "free labor" fringe benefits in favor of the American employer. France is not wired that way.
Tell me truthfully, did you attempt to go through the procedures necessary to supervise, document, and remove a non-performing French worker? During the probationary period, was the worker closely monitored and evaluated? Were the workers, though unremovable, placed under great pressure and heavy supervision to perform here and now. French employers CAN remove employees with relative ease for direct insubordination, and a good French employer knows how to drive his workers in much the same way that a good American political prosecutor knows how to drive a witness into the perjury trap.
Just alleging general low performance is a lazy American's way of saying that French employees don't fear the "jump to!" But you can make a French employee jump to by taking him or her under very close personal command and giving explicit written instructions for specific tasks. Then, if the employee does not perform, you can begin the process of represented confrontation which will eventually lead to termination, because sooner or later the employee will explode in anger and become insubordinate, and then you have got him.
To remove French employees, you have to torture them by getting on their case constantly - but coldly, clinically, professionally...like a military martinet, like a noble dealing with a peasant...you have to keep it professional...and in the process you will reduce a French worker, who is passionate and emotional as French people are, to a frenzy of neuroses and tears. Eventually, the employee will snap - the French always do - and the instant he defies authority vulgarly, you have him. The French do not stand for insubordination. You have a place in the monarchical hierarchy. You are completely protected in that place IF you understand your role as a subordinate and act with proper deference and subordination and inferiority to your superiors. If you are merely lazy and don't work much, then if your superiors are themselves weak and flaccid...or if they are Americans absolutely at sea in how to deal with a lazy worker he cannot fire for performance...then you will get away with it. But properly advised, or properly acculturated, the effective French boss knows how to bring out his inner German and drive harder and harder and harder, in correct documentation, and always with the correct language, but without pity, without mercy, until the employee melts down emotionally and explodes in profanity, or lashes out with a fist and strikes at the boss. Then even the Prud'Hommes will throw his carcass out of the job. Insubordination or violent acts or property destruction at work, not during a strike, will get you fired in France.
If you have a non-performing employee, you have to get advice and hone your martial qualities, for it is through bearing down and taking a French employee under close, merciless, clinical control that you use his own emotionalism to cause him to spontaneously combust and self-destruct, either through insubordination or absenteeism.
Or, if she's female, she makes peace with the boss by offering sex, but that's another feature of the French world that we'll leave aside.
Americans are like Opie: sweet, goodhearted, accustomed to a certain cultural rules set. French employees exploit them. Everybody loves an American boss. French employees under French bosses "glandent" in the civil service (that is hardly unique to France!), but in the private sector one must understand French techniques with the whip to properly drive recalcitrant French workers. The French, per capita per hour, are the most productive manufacturing employees on the planet. This is not a fluke.
The French need labor protection, because French bosses are ruthless people. Perhaps they have BECOME that way in order to operate in a system of labor protection.
In any case, you didn't go and get legal advice from a French labor specialist, did you?
And you didn't embark on a campaign of calculated cruelty and close control to "encourage performance" of these French glandeurs, did you?
OF COURSE you didn't! You're an American! You figure that, just by being the boss, you can make folks do things by ASKING them. That often works with the French too. When it doesn't, with Americans, the employee is GONE. But French labor law doesn't let that easy dump happen: it puts too much strain on the state. As an American, you do not have the experience with the whip that effective French bosses have. The key is to torture and torment within the limits of the law: coldly, methodically, relentlessly - to provoke an abandonment, an explosion, a terrified submission and actual work (the usual result)...or an office affair that, in another country, would be called sexual harrassment. A good French boss knows how to use the whip within the French system to get a recalcitrant employee to perform...in one sense or another.
I think most Americans would not like to work for the French in France.
Always enjoy reading your posts. As De Tocqueville wrote, independence of thought in the United States is rare. It's good to have outside perspectives.
I have worked briefly in Europe and work on a regular basis with Europeans. As Americans go I relate pretty well to Europeans (in fact some say I'm more European than American, but that's more due to my diplomatic skills than reality) -- but I would be reluctant to take a managerial position in Europe, because of the cultural differences. (Of course, a European would say that the problem is that there is no culture in America).
Most companies, including ours, have managers attend cultural workshops before taking a foreign position -- German in America, American in France, etc. The language barrier can sometimes be the LEAST of all of the problems. It is the mindset and lifelong experiences that make it so difficult to understand how others think.
To attack French industrial and creative capability because of the Labor Law is just silly. France has many world-class companies, and is really the only country in the world other than the USA with a top-flight medical research industry. I've been to Paris several times on business and vacation -- also Nice and Cannes -- and if an American makes a genuine effort to try and speak at least a little French and act like a guest in another's home there are few more interesting, enjoyable and beautiful countries to visit than France.
What so many people fail to understand about politics -- local, state, national, international -- is that politicians are usually shaped by the political realities of their locale, and not the other way around. Even a strong figure of change like De Gaulle was forced to resign in 1946 because France at that time was ungovernable. He had to wait for the country to come to him before he instituted the Fifth Republic. Anyone who thinks an American-style conservative will ever win in France will have to wait a very long time, because as you know France is very different from most of the USA.
In 2007 I agree with you that it will be Sarkozy. If he is smart enough to institute affirmative action to help reduce the discrimination in the French workplace against North Africans and others, while also cracking down on illegal immigration and acts of violence, then I believe he will get and maintain broad support in France. He seems to be the right person to succeed Chirac, who's main problem is that he thinks he is as smart politically as De Gaulle, but in fact he's not nearly as politically smart as Mitterand.
For similar reasons I believe Rudy Giuliani is also the right person at this time in the USA. He, too, is the only person likely to get and keep broad support in his country. If he wants to improve the friendship with France (assuming he gets elected) then his best bet would be to make Condi Rice Ambassador to France. As my French colleague put it after her memorable visit in 2005 -- "That was a seduction job."
The "Muslim" birth rate is relatively small, because there are not that many Muslims in France. The Arab birth rate is moving at a good clip. Most Arabs are secularized, and are no more "Muslim" than most white French are Catholic.
The white French birth rate seems to have picked up as well, and greater subsidies are planned for the "middle class" (i.e. white) French women to have more children.
As to this:
"I'm sorry but you can't just start chirping about "free societies" and the "will of the people" as though you just sprang up from the soil last year. Your debts to us are too numerous to mention...cowardly Europeans welshed on what they owe us, which is, at a ridiculous minimum, one invasion at our discretion. "
The debt America had to France for America's existence was paid by the World Wars. There is no debt to be paid that justifies an invasion of another country against the will of the French people. That's ludicrous.
And this:
"I know a powerful means of making points depends entirely on where one starts measuring. Counting from 1995, you could have a point, counting from 1905, you have no point."
I presume, based on all of this business about the historical debt of nations, that - counting from 1905 - you believe that the United States government and the governments of the American states and cities, and indeed many large corporations still in existence, have unpaid debts owed to black people in America for legal apartheid and the organized violence against blacks as a race, which didn't end until the late 1960s (far sooner than 1905)?
I presume, based on the same arguments you made about debts, that you believe America has a massive unpaid debt to Amerindians for the unpaid liabilities of the US government under broken treaties, yes?
Or is the line, when speaking with Europeans, to be drawn at 1905, but the line, when speaking of Americans, to be drawn sometime after 1980?
And then there is this barbaric practice of aborting babies after ten weeks, when the fetuses actually can feel pain, which is widespread and routine in America. This is practically a crime against humanity.
Perhaps the French have been weak and foolish, even cowardly in 1940, and ineffective in 1954 (Dien Bien Phu - not that the Americans in the end fared any better in Vietnam). The Americans as late as the 1960s and since the 1970s have practiced apartheid against their own people, and have sanctioned the killing of millions of babies in the womb who can feel pain.
France doesn't morally owe America anything.
America stands on no pedestal to be preaching morality to anyone.
Heal yourself, then go picking fights with the rest of the world who has not behaved as badly as you have in far more recent history.
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