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Mr. Sarkozy adores America and has declared himself proud that critics call him more American than French. Mr. Chirac courted the Arabs, while Mr. Sarkozy prefers the democracy represented by Israel. These are two powerful indicators that Sarkozy's values are in the right place. But there is more:
In 1993, when Mr. Sarkozy was simultaneously the mayor of the French suburb of Neuilly and France's budget minister, a madman took 21 schoolchildren hostage in Neuilly, threatening to blow them up. While the minister of the interior and the prime minister remained safely in their offices, Mr. Sarkozy drove directly to the school and offered to exchange himself for the children hostages. It is rather hard to imagine Mr. Chirac doing the same thing.
Mr. Sarkozy's career represents the French republican ideal at its best. The son of a Hungarian immigrant, of a Jewish mother and Catholic father, Mr. Sarkozy has in one generation come to dominate French political life. His rise proves that the implied contract between the immigrant and the French nation is not a fiction: Immigrants who agree to respect the universalist values of the republic are given full integration and social standing in return. Those who don't... Unless Mr. Sarkozy blunders catastrophically, he is going all the way to the top. Americans who long for a Franco-American rapprochement should be relieved. (Excerpts from Clair Berlinsky writing in the New York Sun).
For this and much more. Nicolas Sarcozy has earned the official endorsment of the Neocon Express for President of France. (Two Months to go before election day).
French Leftist Candidate's Polls Plummet
7 hours ago
I'm glad you found a French candidate that you like, but I don't think Sarkozy will be clamoring for your support. The Socialists have called him out as an "American neoconservative with a French passport", and will probably use this again as part of a last minute scare tactic.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mean that the French don't agree with much of what he says, but the connection in the French mind of "neocon" and "Iraq" could hurt him.
French Election 2007
Let the chits fall where they may. Socialists calling Sarkozy "an American Neoconservative with a French passport" is an "insult" only in the eyes of those who would not vote for him anyway. My bet is that they don't reflect the majority of the French people, they reflect the opinions of the French media elite and chattering leftist class sitting at their cafe's.
ReplyDeleteThat may be so, but as this election goes down to the wire he is bound to move to the center, which will include ensuring the French that he won't be an American "poodle" ala Tony Blair. I do hope that if elected he will move Franco-American relations out of the tension since the Iraq war, but he will likely always put Europe ahead of America.
ReplyDeleteI agree that he must run to the center as any US candidate (left or right) would do in a general election. I don't believe that Tony Blair is an American "poodle," this is a typical slur of a Euro-lefty to discredit a good man (who is well to the left of me). In any event it hasn't badly hurt Blair who is one of the longest serving Prime Ministers in British history. As for Sarkozy putting Europe first, I have no doubt that you are correct on that as well. As an American I would expect that. Most Americans are simply looking for a French leader who is not hostile, and who does not suffer from an inferiority complex that manifests itself in hatred of America.
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