“Would a terrorist attack throw the elections to the defeatists, as it did in Spain, or would it finally wake the French up to their terrible danger? Hard to say.”
Not very hard to say.
A terrorist attack would anger the French, and push more of them to vote for the law-and-order candidate.
Spain, recall, was deeply divided on being in Iraq. The people didn’t want to be where the government sent them. When the attack came, it played on this weakness.
France isn’t in Iraq. The French are minding their own business, as far as the French are concerned anyway. They know terrorists want to attack France - the terrorists DID attack back in the 1980s. They don’t like the lawlessness and criminality. If there is a big terrorist attack in France, it will convince more French people than ever that they have to vote Sarkozy to fight it.
The disturbance in the Gare du Nord drove up Sarkozy’s numbers by about 2%, and drove down Royal’s by about 1%.
French people are dirigiste and really quite bad tempered. They want things run correctly. If France is just attacked out of the blue, within France, it will make French people mad as hell, and they will want the government to use its full powers to shut that sort of thing down.
All a terrorist attack would do would be to make more French people vote for Sarkozy. It’s not a bit hard to predict.
Hopefully, the terrorists understand this and won't try anything. Thank you for your analysis of things, and please keep postinng.