Posted on 04/27/2007 1:47:31 AM PDT by Cincinna
Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate in the French presidential election on May 6, accused Nicolas Sarkozy, her conservative opponent, on Wednesday of having “apologized” to President Bush for France’s decision not to back the United States militarily in Iraq.
Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign team called her words “lies.”
“I am not for a Europe that aligns with the U.S.,” Ms. Royal said on France 2 television. “I have never been, and will never, go apologize to President Bush for the position of France on the issue of refusing to send our troops to Iraq.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So Sarkozy is more appealing to you because he has a much stronger Law & Order intention if elected?
And not economic reform, but rather a stabilization that makes few changes one way or another?
Interesting that Sarkozy’s Conservatism is just that, conserving the status quo in France.
“If you add up all the taxes in France, income tax, social charges, TVA, and a tax on everything you possess for people having a new worth over $75,000, including their home, taxes are over 60% for middle class working people.”
The wealth tax on fortunes hits above 750,000 Euros, which is to say about $1 million, not $75,000. Anyway, wealth taxes are the way to go. Eliminate the income tax, the sales tax and other taxes that burden the active economy which creates all the jobs. Eliminate capital gains and dividends taxes. Just tax absolute wealth, at a flat rate. That is definitely the fairest and least distorting tax of all.
But yes, if you add up taxes in France, it is about 60%. But remember what you are getting for that 60%! You are getting medical insurance, a pension, and a free college education, not to mention a clean and swift transport system and electrical energy self-sufficiency.
In America, the average middle class person spends about 36% of his income on taxes. But when you add in the cost of medical insurance and pension savings, and college education costs and savings, these total costs add up to about 67% of the American’s paycheck.
So yes, in France the taxes are higher, no doubt about it. BUT the overall person pays a lot less in the aggregate for the same bundle of services (government + health insurance + retirement security + college education) than Americans do.
Big insurance pools for necessary things (like medicine, pensions and education) should be paid for through a single-payer state system. The French way of doing it is more economically efficient for French families than the American way. To put it plainly, after the cost of government, medical insurance, education and pension savings, the French family has 45% of their income left. After paying for the same costs: government, medical insurance, education and pension savings, the American family has only 33% of its income left. Which means, to me, that the French way of doing it is more economically efficient, especially given that wages are lower in France, so it’s 55% of a significantly lower salary that provides services as good as what the Americans get for 67% of their much higher salaries. I think that, over time, American companies are buckling under the American model and are going to force French-style public pensions and health insurance on the American government. The American way of doing it is unsustainable.
France is through the worst of it economically. The French economy is growing steadily, and French unemployment is slowly but steadily shrinking. So, France will keep its model, because it works better that you seem to think. I predict, in fact, that America will be forced by economic reality (of spending far more per capita to do the same things) towards the French single-payer model.
“So Sarkozy is more appealing to you because he has a much stronger Law & Order intention if elected?
And not economic reform, but rather a stabilization that makes few changes one way or another?
Interesting that Sarkozy’s Conservatism is just that, conserving the status quo in France.”
Yes.
I think the French economic model is very good. Public insurance for health care, pensions and university education are the proper way to finance such things. It is far more cost effective. Public guidance has created French electrical energy self-sufficiency. Private industry could never produce a marvel as well-organized and disciplined as either the US Navy or the French nuclear power program. 80% of French power comes from nuclear power, and the other 20% from hydroelectric, wind and geothermal. France burns no fossil fuel to generate electricity. This is an enormous advantage, not only for the environment, but for national security as well. Further, it creates an export industry: France exports electrical power to its neighbors, and exports its superior nuclear technology around the world. Similarly public transport. The New York public transport system plus Amtrak are a humiliating embarassment compared to the French RER and Metro and SNFC. Once again, proper funding and intelligent planning, of the sort that can only be done by national government, has produced a superior product in France.
The proof of the wisdom of the French model lies in competition. The American airlines and auto companies, all of them, are buckling at the knees under pension costs and health care costs. Meanwhile, Air France is the world’s largest airline, now, in terms of revenue. Renault and Peugeot and Citroen do not produce the sexiest cars in the world, but they are not going under either, like the Americans are. The airline industry, in particular, competes head to head. So why is Air France rich while the Americans are all going bankrupt? It is so simple as to be axiomatic: in France, each person pays entirely for his own health insurance and pension, through the social charges imposed on his income. But in America, it is the employer’s job to subsidize health insurance, and to provide matching funds, etc., for pensions. Older-style American pensions are a staggering burden on US industry, sapping its ability to compete with an Air France that just has to fly planes and get there on time.
Oh, and it helps that Air France doesn’t have to hire the ugly ones for stewardesses.
I think the French economic model is overall more resilient and better designed than the American, and have no desire at all to see any change in the basic principles of public insurance change into an American-style free for all which benefits, primarily, the private insurers and their investors.
Most French people do not want to change their acquired rights.
Labor law and business regulation are separate cases. Of course labor relations and business need to be regulated. The “Ayn Rand” style of American deregulation is stupidity incarnate, because men are greedy and venal, and men who strive for great wealth are no different. The half-trillion dollars that American taxpayers paid out of their own pockets to repair part of the damage left by Reagan’s idiot economics, deregulating the Savings and Loan industry, ought to have taught Americans the lesson that it is profoundly foolish to deregulate finance. The California power experience should have taught the same.
So no, France does not need American-style deregulation.
However, French regulations have become TOO rigid, with time, and not well thought out. There are some things that the state simply cannot do as well as individuals can, and individuals and private agencies should be left more alone to do those things. More alone is not the same thing as alone. Nobody must ever be completely free of the law and regulatory oversight. Every industry that the Americans ever completely deregulate, in their periodic outbursts of deregulatory zeal, becomes the poster-child industry for massive corruption and billions in losses on the front page of the papers within a few short years. One can improve the performance of some industries by reducing the rules and oversight, but all industries are ruined swiftly by the internal buccaneers whenever they are deregulated to the point that the government is no longer monitoring them to enforce the rule of law on them. It is a simple fact that businessmen are greedy. That is why they are capitalists: they love money and want more of it. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is equally a simple fact that they will take absolutely as much as they can get from the system, and push right up to the very limits, the most successful ones will. Remove those limits, and every great fortune will be predicated on great crime. This has always been the pattern in human history, and always will be, men being men. It is well to earn a great deal of money working under the oversight of the laws. Remove the oversight of the laws and the controlling presence of the public inspector, and the most aggressive will simply steal the money, not make it. They will drive for monopoly to put their competitors out of business, and resort to political influence and corruption to prevent being held accountable. We see this in America right now with an industry that is very cozy with the Bush administration, and THEREFORE able to employ illegal aliens at will, evading all American labor laws, because the Administration turns a blind eye to these practices.
That is what happens in unregulated, uninspected industries, and it breaks down the economy over time.
So, France needs her labor laws and regulation. But they should be made a degree more supple, a degree more sane, so that time and aggravation are not expended on silly things. Bayrou’s idea of forcing the government and the administration to obey all of the labor laws, and indeed all of the other laws, is a stroke of genius. There is no better way to ensure a reasonable labor law than to impose the labor law on politicians’ hiring and firing of their political aides-de-camp. Sarkozy will never do that, of course.
Sarkozy wants to change the labor law and make it more like America. Bad idea.
Sarkozy wants to slash taxes. Bad idea. France cannot do without any of its major social insurance programs, so slashing taxes will just cause the debt to balloon, which will in turn mean that interest payments on the debt will grow, choking out the rest of the economy.
Sarkozy’s big plus is that he will be tough on criminality and will reimpose the rule of law on the hoodlums. Nobody in France can ever be allowed to be above the authority of the state and its laws for even an instant, and these gangs directly defy authority. They need to be beaten into submission, but no President has had the courage to do so. Sarkozy may. He shows the signs. This is why some fear him as a fascist, because he has it in him. To control crime, France needs a fascist for awhile. It is the only way.
Sarkozy will be just another chiraque, but at least he’s not french.
Of course he’s French.
“Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant, Pál Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa[1] (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; some sources spell it Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál; Hungarian pronunciation (help·info)), and a French mother, Andrée Mallah.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy#Family_background
Class warfare, tax the rich. That is the class warfare crap that usually comes out of Democrats, not Conservatives.
The wealth tax in France is a YEARLY tax on your total net worth including your home. If you have a decent apartment in Paris normally worth more that 750,000 Euros you are taxed every year, on top of real estate taxes and other assorted taxes. Then you are taxed again on everything when you die. It is a confiscatory tax system that is designed to redistribute wealth, even before it is created.
The transportation system in France is not free. The trains are excellent. though very expensive. The Metro, the equivalent of our Subway system is less efficient, doesn’t run all night, is definitely not free, in fact it is more expensive than the NYC Subway system.
NYC has an almost free education system from kindergarten through graduate school.
There is no University in France that is free that compares to the high quality of higher education in the US which is why all the French who can afford it, from Socialists like Dominique Strauss-Kahn on up send their own children to school in the States.
Same for the medical care.
I come from a family with many many doctors. They all treat many Europeans, particularly people from France. The French people who can afford it come here for major health issues. The same for dentists. The “free” dentists in France are worth exactly that... nothing. The free market dentists are excellent, and most of them have trained in Dental Schools in the US. They charge about the same as dentists here.
Why do you continually mislead people here into believing that France is some kind of social paradise, if only the Muslims would go away? The French themselves don’t believe that for a second. They know their system is bloated, outdated, and in need of massive reform and change. The high income earners and professional people are leaving France in record numbers to earn more and have more opportunity for advancement.
The stupid French retirement system of forced retirement that you so highly praise has forced people like Dr. Luc Montaignier, the discoverer of the AIDS virus, to move to the US and work and teach in an American University (Queens College, part of the NYC University system) because the French system refused to employ him after he turned 65. Four out of the last 6 French Nobel prized were awarded to French living and working in the US.
If it weren’t for the Muslim question, would you be in the Socialist camp?
Of course Sarko is French. He was born and raised in France. His mother is French, his father, a Hungarian immigrant, who escaped to France after the failed Hungarian Revolution.
Very interest WIKI profile. It seems like Sarko is related to the Bouvier family. Does that make him a distant relative of Jackie Kennedy...nee Jacqueline Bouvier?
I’m not too sure that Jackie’s real father was her real father. :’) Her mom was a gold-digger, Jackie didn’t take after any strangers.
“Class warfare, tax the rich. That is the class warfare crap that usually comes out of Democrats, not Conservatives.”
No class warfare whatever.
Taxes have to be raised. What is the fairest way to raise them? By having a flat tax that hits everybody the same. But ah, that’s the rub. The same HOW? Somebody who has inherited a large estate but has a decent professionals income, and his colleague who was not born into wealth - both do the same job, both earn the same wealth each year, and both are taxed the same on earnings. However, they do not live anything like the same lives! For the one, through blind fortune, lives like a prince. The other would like to, but the high rate of taxation on both of their salaries holds back the one from every catching up with the blind heredity lottery of the other. Now, some say that this should be settled by a heavy inheritance tax. Absent anything else, that’s true, but that’s not really fair either. Gaining an inheritance through luck of the genetic draw is no different from winning a lottery, except that the two are taxed very differently. And then there is the matter of capital gains and dividends, realized and unrealized. They are certainly accretions to wealth and power, and yet they are not taxed the same. So, we end up with a strange system in which labor, which is the very hardest way to earn money, is ALSO the way that is most brutally punished by taxes. That is wrong. It is deceptive of you to suggest that my opposition to the tax status quo is “class warfare”. It is not. There is already class warfare inherent in a tax regime that hammers wages much heavier than either capital gains or dividends. You may prefer that system, or avert your eyes to it, and PRETEND that there is not a very pernicious inequality and unfairness to any system that taxes accretions to wealth differently, and especially which taxes wages - by far the most painful way to have to earn money - MORE, but I will not do that. Accretions to wealth, however derived, whether from wages or capital gains or dividends or lotteries or inheritances, should be taxed THE SAME. THAT is not “Tax the rich”, and it is not “Class warfare” either. Indeed, to do it ANY OTHER WAY is to engage in a subtle game of class warfare, which says, in effect, that capital gains from the accretion of money on money is somehow more WORTHY than wages earned by sweat, and so wages SHOULD be taxed more. I will not engage in any such distinction or discrimination between the two, because I don’t like class warfare. Accretions to wealth should be taxed THE SAME.
Continuing in this theme, my proposal is the opposite of class warfare. The present system, in the US and France, is class warfare. Wages are brutally taxed. Capital gains are lightly taxed. Dividends are very lightly taxed. And if the GOP in America has its way, estates will not be taxed at all. THAT is class warfare, and markedly in FAVOR of the capital class.
Me? I prefer a simple, fair, unitary tax that taxes only one thing: wealth. Wealth can be accumulated any number of ways: wages, winnings, capital gains, dividends. These things should not be weighed and taxed differently. Rather, the total wealth should be summed up, and a single flat tax rate should be applied to everybody’s wealth. The Gross National Wealth of the United States is about 660 trillion dollars. To generate adequate money to run the budget I would tax wealth at 1%. There would be no corporation tax, no other taxes, just a 1% wealth tax. That is the opposite of class warfare, and the opposite of “tax the rich”.
America doesn’t have a wealth tax. France does. It is only imposed on large holdings, starting at 750,000 Euros. At that level, it is one half of one percent plus change (.55%). The maximum is 1.8%, when one has about $15 million Euros in wealth. I object to the fact that this tax is imposed only on great fortunes. It should be imposed on all of France, and it should be imposed in place of the other taxes, and at a flat rate of 1 or 2%. This is utterly egalitarian, and doesn’t tax the rich any worse than the poor. It is the antithesis of the class warfare you accuse me of. It would produce ample revenue, but without distorting the economy the way other taxes do. As it stands, France does not have that system, but the principle of a wealth tax is a good one, especially considering how badly wages are taxed, so the existing ISF should be left in place.
So, as to this: “It is a confiscatory tax system that is designed to redistribute wealth, even before it is created.”
I disagree. I think it is a neutral revenue-raising measure, based on the most fair way to tax. I will acknowledge that within the cadre of the rest of the French tax code it doesn’t fulfill all of the purposes I think a wealth tax should fulfill, and it is not set high enough or at a level sufficient to tax all people such that it could REPLACE all of the other taxes, from the income tax to the TVA. In principle, however, the wealth tax is as fair as any other tax that takes money away from people - which all taxes do - and I think fairer than most.
“The transportation system in France is not free. The trains are excellent. though very expensive. The Metro, the equivalent of our Subway system is less efficient, doesn’t run all night, is definitely not free, in fact it is more expensive than the NYC Subway system.”
Most of what you say is more or less true. However I disagree with the “less efficient” part. Everyplace is served by the Paris Metro within reasonably close distance. The New York Subway system is much more spread out, and loses its usefulness in the boroughs outside of Manhattan. Metro coverage in Paris is more complete. I do agree that it’s a shame it doesn’t run all night. That people have to pay a fare for transport seems normal to me. Why wouldn’t they?
“NYC has an almost free education system from kindergarten through graduate school.”
Good!
The whole of America should have it.
But the whole of America does not.
Also, NYC has the highest tax rates in America. If you are going to have a system that does what NYC does, you have to pay higher taxes for it. It has to be paid for somehow.
“There is no University in France that is free that compares to the high quality of higher education in the US which is why all the French who can afford it”
I disagree. I went to law school at an Ivy League university in America, and I went to law school at the University of Paris I, Pantheon/Sorbonne. The American school certainly had nicer facilities and more responsive staff than Sorbonne. And the conditions of education and class size were different. However, the density of material and quality of education were absolutely comparable. The French system did not have that “We are the elite” feel that the American top institutions cultivate, but those who did well in the classes were on average better than the average American students at the Ivy League school, and these French lawyers who also studied in America did very well at American schools and in the legal profession. The elite American schools are easier than the plebian, pedestrian and non-elite French general universities, like Sorbonne. Yes, anyone can enter Paris I, but the failure rate is ruthless. Open admission and free tuition mean that all can come, but the professors only pass those who do the work. That is not true at expensive elite American colleges, which practice uniform grade inflation and from which nobody who does the minimum ever fails.
“from Socialists like Dominique Strauss-Kahn on up send their own children to school in the States.”
People come to school in the USA because the USA is the center of the world. It is an experience, and necessary, to understand the Roman society and what the Romans think. Chirac was always proud of his years as a soda jerk. To come and study in America is a rite of passage for many who hope to enter into the higher echelons. It is not because American education is particularly rigorous or one learns a tremendous amount in the American schools. Truth is the students from Grandes Ecoles, assuming they speak English, find American schools less difficult than university in France - because American universities ARE less difficult than university is in France! - but they do it for the cultural experiences and the connections.
“Same for the medical care.
I come from a family with many many doctors. They all treat many Europeans, particularly people from France. The French people who can afford it come here for major health issues.”
I know the French health system as a patient and as the husband and father and son-in-law of patients. The care I have received in France is as good as any care I or my wife or relatives ever received in America, at a more reasonable cost.
“The same for dentists. The “free” dentists in France are worth exactly that... nothing. The free market dentists are excellent, and most of them have trained in Dental Schools in the US. They charge about the same as dentists here.”
My dentist in Paris is in the private sector. He repaired my teeth when they were broken in an accident. His work was as good as the work of my American dentist, and considerably less expensive. My wife has had the same dental care in America as in France. We see no difference in the standard of care. We see a MARKED difference in the price! American dentists are as good as French dentists. They are not better. They cost twice as much.
“Why do you continually mislead people here into believing that France is some kind of social paradise, if only the Muslims would go away?”
I don’t.
“The French themselves don’t believe that for a second.”
Checking, checking. You’re right! I don’t!
“They know their system is bloated, outdated, and in need of massive reform and change.”
And Americans who are honest with themselves know that their system is bloated, inefficient, corrupt and in need of massive reform and change. Does anybody anywhere ever remember a time when the money wasn’t tight and the times weren’t hard? No. That is the human condition. French government is no worse than American government, but it is certainly cheaper, overall. And there are aspects of it, like Social Security and Medicare and public education, which are much better than their American equivalents.
“The high income earners and professional people are leaving France in record numbers to earn more and have more opportunity for advancement.”
Yes, and high income Americans are flocking to China in record numbers for the opportunities there. This does not mean that America is inferior to China. Professionals go where the work is. A country cannot be designed around appealing to high income earners and professionals. Their interests are important, but the interests of the state as a whole are more important.
“The stupid French retirement system of forced retirement that you so highly praise has forced people like Dr. Luc Montaignier, the discoverer of the AIDS virus, to move to the US and work and teach in an American University (Queens College, part of the NYC University system) because the French system refused to employ him after he turned 65.”
Yes, the mandatory retirement age is a travesty and should be ended. But having the state funded single-payer pension insurance is precisely the right solution, and should be adopted by the United States as well, just as US Medicare, which is essentially the same as French Medicare, should be expanded to cover all Americans, and not merely start at 65.
“Four out of the last 6 French Nobel prized were awarded to French living and working in the US.”
Good for them!
“If it weren’t for the Muslim question, would you be in the Socialist camp?”
No.
And I do not consider it a “Muslim” question.
I don’t think that most Beurs are Muslims at all, any more than most French are Catholics. They are Muslims or Catholics in name only. What most are, are secular. I think the problem with the Beurs is the lack of economic opportunity coupled with a marked lack of discipline in Beur areas, which has deprived them of some of the benefits of French education.
If it were not for the law and order problem, I would be UDF. But the law-and-order problem is so pervasive and so threatens the stability of the state and the future of everyone, that if it were not for Sarkozy I would be for the Front National, because Le Pen would break crime.
But there is Sarkozy, so everything is ok.
My objections to the Socialists are manifold, and they are precisely along the lines of the very things you wrongly accused me of at the beginning of your e-mail: they ARE devoted to class warfare and “tax the rich”. I find class warfare to be odious. I believe in equality before the law. That means I believe in flat tax rates, that impact all euros THE SAME. Which is why I believe that a flat wealth tax is the proper tax, because it hits absolutely everybody in precisely the same way, at the same rate, and taxes absolutely everything. That is fair. A system in which capital is favored over wages (the current French system, and ESPECIALLY the current American system) is class warfare - in favor of the money elite. The system that the Socialists always propose of steep progressive taxation and greater wealth redistributions, is class warfare - motivated by jealousy of the money elite. I do not either favor nor hate the money elite. I refuse to acknowledge their existence as a class of people different from anyone else. Everybody should pay the same taxes on the same basis at the same rate. That is egalitarian. Obviously a 2% wealth tax hitting someone with 200,000 Euros of wealth will only produce 4000 Euros, while the same tax striking 20,000,000 Euros of wealth will produce 400,000 Euros, but the effect is precisely the same, and it is not a heavier or lighter tax on either person. It is precisely proportional. Nobody proposes anything like that. The Right wants to take away all wealth taxes, even inheritances. And the Left wants to maintain a wealth tax on high wealth only, and slap on many new taxes. I oppose both of these approaches. Fiscally, I believe that the tax rate should be set sufficient to balance the budget and produce a slight surplus for the paydown of debt. Accordingly, I do not favor tax cuts in either France or America now, where the tax revenues do not match expenditures. However, I do favor shifting the burden around in both places to make it more equitable. No part represents me in these matters in even the USA or France. The UDF comes closest. In America, the Clinton tax policies were the closest compromise position, as they taxed the different areas of the economy more or less evenly, and produced a debt-reducing surplus. I think French taxes should be left alone, and American taxes should be restored to the Clinton taxes. But what I really think is that the tax programs should be scrapped completely in favor of a wealth tax. No party offers this.
The Socialists are odious to me on other grounds. They hate capitalism and nationalize industries, seizing private property for public use. I do not like it when a city in Connecticut takes people’s private homes to give to a drug company for development, and I didn’t like it in France when the Socialists nationalized the banks. Quite the opposite of my wealth tax, which I believe to be class-neutral and fair to all, and merely the necessary expedient for raising the necessary taxes for the operation of the state, the Socialist class-warfare concepts of confiscating private property in an unbalanced way, focusing on a particular social class (the financiers) and seizing their property, not to pay government debt, but for the purposes of waging class warfare and making a statement, I found odious. I believe the people should be secure in their private property, and in their ability to accumulate it. Which is why I oppose unbalanced taxes on wages and income from different sources, and favor a simple, uniform wealth tax. The Socialists would never accept this.
Further, I dislike the Socialists “Internationale” concepts. Europe is a good idea as a trade area, and also to guarantee fundamental human rights. But the Socialsts never miss the opportunity to try and impose rules to confiscate other people’s property using law. Essentially, I think that the Socialists are obsessed with controlling all money, and I find this to be greedy and immoral.
I don’t like the Socialist’s dislike of the nation and its symbols. Le Pen’s strongest asset was always his honest patriotism.
I don’t like the Socialists’ opposition to national defense.
I don’t like the Socialists’ anti-capitalist driven excessive opposition to America.
So, no, I would not be a Socialist at all, and never would have been a socialist, anywhere.
Social Security and Medicare are not socialism.
Of course, because France has never believed in unfair trade practices with foreign countries. (stiffled laughter)
“Of course, because France has never believed in unfair trade practices with foreign countries. (stiffled laughter)”
France attempts to practice trade practices that are good for France and the French.
America is practicing trade practices that are bad for American national security, bad for the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, and bad for an increasing number of Americans, but which are very good for an class of international money elites who have no particularly deep loyalty to America.
France’s trade policies have been self-interested.
America’s trade policies favor a class of people that are not perforce Americans, and they have the effect of undermining America itself in the long term.
In other words, France’s trade practices are in France’s self-interest, and are intelligent.
America’s trade practices are suicidal and idiotic.
I guess you can’t see that the Bush tax cuts have led to the strongest economic growth in world history. As Ronald Reagan said, “a rising tide lifts all boats”. Everyone in America is doing better. The largest segment of the population to benefit from the tax cuts is the middle class, ie, almost everyone in the US who works.
In this country we had a Revolution over taxes,and raising taxes is a very unpopular idea. It also does not work.
There is no such thing as a “capital class” unless you are a Marxist.
All people don’t live the same lives. Thew people who actually create the wealth for millions of others, like Bill Gates, live better than anyone. And yes, life isn’t fair. But taxing the people who are the most productive and contribute the most to society is no answer.
My dentist in Paris is excellent. He is French and was trained in graduate studies at University of Miami. He charges as much as my NY dentist, and is just as good.
Which explains France's postion in the world, and her economy, and America's.
France has been waiting, eagerly, for America to self-destruct a long time. Y'all've got a lot longer to wait, but if it pleases you, feel free to continue to pretend France is a paragon of the virtues, while eeeeeevil America keeps screwing up and expanding its economy and making the world a better place for bordeux-sipping nobodies who've contributed zero to the world since WW2.
So sad that Sarkosy’s father could not afford the airfare to America. Instead he wound up in 1956 in a small insignificant state consumed by its lust after colonial adventure in Africa. Sarkosy is french? Only if he is by that definition a loser.
Opinion polling
Before the second round of vote
Polling Firm Date Source Sarkozy Royal
TNS-Sofres 29 April 2007 [11] 52 48
Ipsos 29 April 2007 [12] 52.5 47.5
Ipsos 28 April 2007 [13] 52.5 47.5
Ifop 27 April 2007 [14] 52.5 47.5
Ipsos 27 April 2007 [15] 53 47
Ipsos 26 April 2007 [16] 53 47
BVA 26 April 2007 [17] 53 47
Ipsos 25 April 2007 [18] 53.5 46.5
TNS-Sofres 24 April 2007 [19] 51 49
Ipsos 24 April 2007 [20] 54 46
LH2 23 April 2007 [21] 54 46
CSA 22 April 2007 [22] 53.5 46.5
BVA 22 April 2007 [23] 52 48
Ifop 22 April 2007 [24] 54 46
Ipsos 22 April 2007 [25] 54 46
[] Exit polls first round
“Which explains France’s postion in the world, and her economy, and America’s.”
No, actually, sheer size explains those things.
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