New French Revolution?????????????
Posted on 09/03/2006 5:38:30 PM PDT by blam
Sarkozy woos young with call for new French 'revolution'
By Henry Samuel in Paris
(Filed: 04/09/2006)
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Right's brightest hope to succeed Jacques Chirac next year, kicked off his unofficial presidential campaign yesterday with a rousing speech to thousands of young party faithful.
The interior minister and head of the ruling UMP party outlined a series of detailed proposals to "reinvent the Republic" and "create a new French model" in an address timed to coincide with la rentrée, the nationwide return to work after a lengthy summer break.
Mr Sarkozy's rally cry, which closed the UMP's youth summer conference in Marseille, was received by an audience of 6,000 with a fervour usually reserved for rock stars.
Appropriately, the country's most popular crooner himself, Johnny Hallyday – once a die-hard Chirac supporter – was there to back his new friend. Mr Sarkozy arrived on stage to one of Hallyday's best-known hits.
One of the country's top rappers, Doc Gynéco, a black singer from Guadeloupe, was also there to greet the presidential hopeful.
Mr Sarkozy said a "rupture" from past ways of governing – and by implication those of Mr Chirac and his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin – was vital.
The choice of a young audience drove home the point that the dynamic Mr Sarkozy, 51, embodies the post-Chirac generation. Quoting the lyrics from a Hallyday hit, Mr Sarkozy pledged to end disillusionment with politics. "I want to give you back the desire to desire," he said.
In a speech peppered with the first person singular "je", Mr Sarkozy detailed a list of "new rights" and "revolutions" designed to win over young voters, many of whom are still furious over the handling of last year's suburban riots.
The new rights include a six-month civic service for 18- to 30-year olds to replace the defunct military service.
This would be offset by incentives including the right to continuing education; interest-free loans for students and guaranteed work experience. Young entrepreneurs would have the right to interest-free loans to start businesses.
Mr Sarkozy's revolutions include reforms linked to the environment, creating a "new humanism" and reforming taxation.
Mr Chirac had to abandon his pledge to slash income tax by 30 per cent, but Mr Sarkozy made clear that he intends to put more spending power in French pockets.
Mr Sarkozy's most ambitious goal, he said, was to bring unemployment down to five per cent within five years from 8.9 per cent.
The 35-hour working week – introduced by the previous Socialist government and already watered down by the UMP – was one of the major causes of unemployment, he said.
There are eight months to go before the presidential elections. The UMP will officially back a presidential candidate following primaries next January. Other candidates from the party can still run if they choose, but they currently stand no chance against Mr Sarkozy, with or without party backing.
A poll published yesterday showed that 45 per cent of French people would like to see Mr Sarkozy run for president next May. That figure rises to 80 per cent among UMP voters.
Mr de Villepin, who came in second, only garnered eight per cent overall support and six per cent among UMP supporters. Mr Chirac, who refuses to rule out running for a third term even at 73, had not increased his standings despite his recent diplomatic success in the Israel-Lebanon conflict: he only garnered three per cent overall and two per cent from UMP supporters.
Michélè Alliot-Marie, the defence minister, refused to rule out her candidacy. "I don't believe in electoral campaigns won from the outset," she said.
However, in yesterday's poll, only four per cent nationwide and two per cent from the UMP backed her.
I notice there's not one word about Le Pen.
I shudder to think what would happen in France if the French revolted against their own government. The instability would provide an open door for the muzzies. What an invitation for takeover. It would be just the opportunity they'd be looking for.
He is so lame.
"Leading star of the French Right."
Hahahahaha.
Oh, that was for real. I didn't know there was a French Right.
He's a tax and spend liberal from the sound of things. So is Le Pen, for that matter. As far as I can tell there is no small government party in France. Perhaps the Libertarians should start one there.
...Because Le Pen isn't running for the UMP nomination! If he wants to run, he will do so in his own party. He will, however, be about 80 years old, and if he doesn't consider himself too old to run, others in his own party might.
Incidentally, you do realize that Le Pen is not a U.S.-style conservatibe/European-classical-liberal (In Europe, free marketers are called liberals), don't you? Even Pat Buchanan has said he has made "radical and foolish statements." Although there is a conservative tendency to figure anyone attacked by the U.S.-style-liberal press must be a good guy, Le Pen is definitely more a David-Duke Democrat than a Tom-Tancredo Republican.
And what of Le Pen's younger coleagues in his Party? The liberal media there must find it important to black-out any reference to Le Pen's successors and fellow candidates/advocates.
He wrote a book about the need for faith in a new France. Sounds good, right? Except in the book he basically puts out a bunch of multiculti rubbish about the need to embrace Islam along with other faiths.
Wrong answer.
"He's a tax and spend liberal from the sound of things."
He is an authentic Catholic who wants to slash income taxes, eliminate the minimum work week, reform (i.e., limit) immigration, and oppose the Islamification of Europe.
Let's put it this way... He is a HELL of a lot stronger on protecting his country from the Muslim immivasion than President George W. "Religion of Peace" Bush.
I like your spirit but I believe 'the jury is still out' on Sarkozy. I liked what he was saying during the Muslim rioting. Talk is easy though.
Lol...
The liberal media is the same on both sides of the pond!
Look up "1958", "4th Republic", "5th Republic", "DeGaulle".
I was there a few months ago and let me tell you it's too late to stop a take over of France. They don't count ethnicity, nationality, etc. in the census there but I've heard some pretty high estimates as to the percentage of the non-native population and even those, just based on observation, must be too low.
New French Revolution?????????????
Ah, yes,"the defunct military service." That's the story of western Europe.
Were these the same young people who filled the streets to protest a law intended to reduce unemployment by empowering the employers to fire the incompetent? If so, they aren't the stuff of revolutionaries. They're the stuff of self-righteousness, large talk, expansive rhetoric, and absolutely no substantive action whatever, and the lucky among them will have a sinecure within French academe and government, and the rest will sip coffee and talk darkly of a revolution they don't have the guts to effect. I'll be happy to apologize if they prove me wrong.
>> I like your spirit but I believe 'the jury is still out' on Sarkozy. <<
I would be dangerously proud spiritually if the worst that anyone could say of me was that I was ideologically optimistic. :^)
Des that mean what I think it means?
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