Blood in Paris and beyond...

What follows is a sort of smorgasbord-compass that I have put together to help me, and hopefully others, get some idea of where this mess we now find ourselves in comes from and where it might lead us,

I hope the material quoted below might help to provide readers with a workmanlike framework for thinking about the new era we have entered into, with  ISIS' attacks on Paris...  a conflict which might be turning into the "Third Gulf War" or even WWIII.

We begin with what I would call the "mantra" to repeat constantly while reading, watching and hearing the news these days:

Multiculturalism is not a naive liberal aspiration — it is the reality of the modern world

Gideon Rachman - Financial Times

This is simply reality:

With globalization and its new communication tools, we have all been thrown together brutally, helter skelter, in a worldwide, multinational-economy-mishmash, with no regard for history, culture, faiths or national idiosyncrasy, like having several different, large families, who don't even speak the same language, shut up together in the same small flat, sharing, bedrooms, kitchen... and bathroom. And somehow we are going to have to learn to live like this together in peace and harmony or else.

The French part of all of this not that new, the unrest among young French citizens of North-African origin has been growing for some time, it came to a head 10 years ago:

In October and November of 2005, a series of riots occurred in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities, involving the burning of cars and public buildings at night.  The unrest started on 27 October at Clichy-sous-Bois, where police were investigating a reported break-in at a building site, and a group of local youths scattered in order to avoid interrogation. Three of them hid in a power-station where two died from electrocution, resulting in a power blackout. (It was not established whether police had suspected these individuals or a different group, wanted on separate charges.) The incident ignited rising tensions about youth unemployment and police harassment in the poorer housing estates, and there followed three weeks of rioting throughout France. The rioters were the children of immigrants from North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa for whom Islam was an inseparable component of their self-identity which strengthened their sense of solidarity, gave them the appearance of legitimacy and drew a line between them and the French. Wikipedia

Why are there so many  North-African Muslims living in France?

After WWII there was a literally wonderful period of never before experienced prosperity in France:

Les Trente Glorieuses (French pronunciation: ​[le tʁɑ̃t ɡlɔʁjøz], "The Glorious Thirty") refers to the thirty years from 1945 to 1975 following the end of the Second World War in France.(...) Over this thirty-year period, France's economy grew rapidly like economies of other developed countries within the framework of the Marshall Plan such as West Germany, Italy and Japan. These decades of economic prosperity combined high productivity with high average wages and high consumption, and were also characterized by a highly developed system of social benefits. Wikipedia

Because of this economic boom there was a tremendous need for low-paid manual labor, which the native French population couldn't satisfy and at the beginning of "The Glorious Thirty" most immigrants came from poorer southern European countries like Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal... white and Christians.  Many of them became totally assimilated, took French nationality and have become quite successful. The mayoress of Paris was born in Spain and so was the present Prime Minister's father. However in the mid-1960s the economies of these southern European countries also began to boom and they dried up as a source of cheap labor for France.

At this point, still booming France turned to its former colonies in North Africa for the workers who would accept low pay doing the dirty jobs the French didn't want to do and southern Europeans didn't need to do anymore... And when in the 70s, the economy cooled off, the North Africans were left stranded in immigrant urban ghettos, and unlike the southern Europeans, they had nowhere to go back to, as things were even much worse in North Africa than in France.

So you could say that in some way, today the French are paying their imperial "karma":

Paris, November 20, 2005 - 'We're here because you were there'
Three Weeks of urban rioting by thousands of children and grandchildren of post-colonial migrants have finally forced France to grapple with the bitter fruits of its fallen empire. The lesson should not be lost on any Western nation. It is encapsulated in the slogan that activists have been employing throughout Western Europe for the past few decades: "We are here because you were there." Gregory Rodriguez - LaTimes

What has turned the secular urban riots of 2005 - rather similar to the "burn baby burn" riots in the USA during the Civil Rights period of the 1950s and 60s - into the militarily organized horror of ISIS' attacks in today's Paris?

The answer is simple: Ideology, that is to say, structure for action.

Wahhabite Islam is the specific ideology that is structuring the turbulence. You might say that Whahhabism is a sort of Muslim version of "ultra-Calvinism", iconoclastic: lunatic-fringe, but very, very well financed:

Wahhabism has been accused of being "a source of global terrorism", inspiring the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and for causing disunity in Muslim communities by labeling Muslims who disagreed with the Wahhabi definition of monotheism as apostates (takfir), thus paving the way for their execution for apostasy. It has also been criticized for the destruction of historic mazaars, mausoleums, and other Muslim and non-Muslim buildings and artifacts. The "boundaries" of what make up Wahhabism have been called "difficult to pinpoint", but in contemporary usage, the terms Wahhabi and Salafi are often used interchangeably, and considered to be movements with different roots that have merged since the 1960s.But Wahhabism has also been called "a particular orientation within Salafism", or an ultra-conservative, Saudi brand of Salafism.

That's right, the center of this ideology is coming from the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, straight from the world's filling station, Saudi Arabia.  Literally every time you fill up your gas tank you might be financing Al Qaeda or ISIS (Daesh):

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books. Kamel Daoud - New York Times

I'll try to illustrate the center of the problem, past, present and future with this simple photo-montage:

Charlie Foxtrot

The the best caption I could find for these photos is...

Clusterfuck ‎(plural clusterfucks) (slang, vulgar) A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong. It is often caused by incompetence, communication failure, or a complex environment. Wiktionary

To be continued... DS

Greece is the horse's head in the left's bed

The best thing that can be said of the weekend is the brutal honesty of those perpetrating this regime change. Wolfgang Münchau - Financial Times

You may ask yourself why Germany, and those who follow her, are publicly torturing and humiliating tiny Greece in such a brutally inflexible and ugly fashion, ignoring contemptuously the democratically expressed will of the Greek people and much of European and even world opinion.

The reason behind it is simple... and to be effective it would have to be.

Frank and open brutality is never subtle, that is the whole point: its message must be clear to all.

The following is an excellent exposition of the message, "to whom it may concern" that has been sent  far and wide, using the misery of the Greek people as its vehicle:

One cannot pursue an even moderate left-wing policy in a system of global capitalism. Syriza never got a chance to apply any of the leftist policies that it says it favors, because it was busy negotiating with the creditors and because it had no genuine freedom of economic decision-making, since basically all its policies were dictated by the troika. Even if it had a margin for maneuver, it is hard to see how its moderately leftist policies (halt to privatization, higher taxation, greater role for the public sector) could be implemented. Notice that we are talking here not of some radical anti-capitalist program but of just broadly leftist policies that try to limit somewhat the unimpeded invasion of the market and private interest into all social spheres. Such policies are obviously unacceptable not only to the mainstream EU but also to many individual governments, which fear Syriza-like movements in their countries. Branko Milanovic - Al Jazeera

However brutality is often a sign of weakness, not of strength. The heartless, tone deaf response of Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble to the suffering of the Greek people reminds me and many others of the Soviet Union's response to the timid Czechoslovakian liberalization of the "Prague Spring" of 1968.  That was 1968 and "something was in the air", something contagious and the USSR wanted to make sure that no one under their rule "got any ideas" .

Paris - 1968

Today there is also "something in the air". Probably the most influential public figure to speak clearly about that "something" is Pope Francis.

The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home. Pope Francis: Speech at World Meeting of Popular Movements

The public humiliation of Greece, its government and its people may have exactly the opposite effect to the one Merkel and Schäuble desire. It is certainly a lesson to be learned, but the lesson people take away from this "class" may be one of greater political consciousness, one of unity and resistance, and not one of fear and submission. DS

Marine Le Pen is no Sarah Palin

Marine Le Pen

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Marine Le Pen is the leader of  France's National Front. Right now polls show her probably eliminating Nicholas Sarkozy in the first round of France's next presidential elections and facing a lackluster, Socialist, Martine Aubry, running as a hurried replacement for shop-soiled Dominique Strauss-Kahn  in the final runoff.

Le Pen probably wont win, but  before she loses, she is going to give a lot of people in power the fright of their lives.

Le Pen is a populist of the extreme right, someone who appeals to the disenchanted and stagnant middle classes and to working people struggling not to slide off into social exclusion in the present crisis. A glib American observer might be tempted to compare her with Sarah Palin or Michele Bachman, but, despite their having similar constituencies, in contrast with Palin and Bachman, this lady is nothing to laugh about.

The following snippet from Der Spiegel's English edition, will give you a taste of the style and the reality of Marine Le Pen:

Using her notes instead of a prepared speech, she speaks in short, hard-hitting sentences. She talks about issues like the loss of buying power, and about people who have no more than €50 or €100 ($71.50 or $143) left over at the end of each month. She warns against refugees from Tunisia, and against immigrants in general. She demands social welfare systems for the French instead of for immigrants. And then she finally gets to her central issue: the fight against globalization, which Le Pen says is destroying France. She wants to leave the euro, reintroduce customs borders and nationalize banks. Her vision is the antithesis of a Europe that hardly anyone, even in France, believes in anymore. "What are the others, the conservatives and the socialists, proposing? Nothing! They are busy fighting the National Front!" She rants and she is audacious, unlike the well-trained spin doctors normally seen on television, and she appeals to many people. "Elections are sexual affairs," the author Christine Angot wrote recently in the daily newspaper Libération. "Marine Le Pen appeals to 20 percent of us and fascinates 80 percent. A mannish woman, phallic, we like that. A woman who dominates her father and gets better results." Der Spiegel

Whew, now that is change you can believe in!

Marine Le Pen is a sinister lady for sure, but what you see is what you get... when you compare her to American politicians, even, or especially to a pair of clowns like Palin and Bachman, American politics seems like a Punch and Judy show, with one puppeteer doing all the voices and the same hands up all the puppet's bottoms. 

And it's not just Palin and Bachman, even president Obama, who was once sold as a sort of medicine show cure-all, about to re-found the Republic in progressive righteousness, has turned out to be a damp squib... to put it mildly.


Even the ballsiest lady in US politics, Hillary Clinton, is basically somebody's wife, with no fighting agenda anybody could locate in a dimly lit room. No, there is no American equivalent to Marine Le Pen. And despite this in-definition, the system seems paralyzed by partisan conflict... Most puzzling.

The question is really: is this all embracing, bland, gummed up, impassive, unmovable phoniness, where everything changes in order that things never change, finally the genius of our system or its ruin? DS

DSK: New Developments

(S)upporters raised the prospect of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s return to French politics, while snap opinion polls found strong popular support for a presidential bid from the man once tipped as the candidate most likely to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election.   Financial Times

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As far as I can see the proposed scenario is the following: So relieved to discover that DSK is not a pathological sex criminal, but simply a seedy, sordid, old scumbag, -- the sort of person Andrew Weiner would like to be when he grows up (if he ever does) -- the French people go and elect Dominique Strauss-Kahn the president of France.

I think that would be the "coup de grace" to what is left of their tattered, tired and tatty "grandeur"... if you'll pardon my French. DS

The bigger they are the dumber they fall

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Until this incident, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was favored to take the presidency of France away from Nicholas Sarkozy. Maybe he was set up... Sarkozy would be perfectly capable of that. 

But whether the chambermaid's story is true or not, I can't believe how dumb the head of the IMF is... He was in such a hurry to get away, he even left his cell phone... Not to mention samples of DNA.

I thought that only presidents of the USA did this kind of thing.

The way he behaved was panicky and dumb. A president may be required at times to be criminal, but to be panicky and dumb is unforgivable. DS

British in need of reality check

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The other day I went to a debate in a big Spanish bank about the EU and the “crisis”, which was held under the “Chatham House” rule so I can use the information, but I can’t reveal the names of the participants. I’ll just say that the star speaker was a very prominent British journalist, specializing in EU affairs. His greatest complaint was that the Germans no longer just signed the checks and silently nodded agreement to everything that the USA, Britain and France requested and that they had a strategic understanding with Russia due to energy.

Listening to him talk, I got the feeling that his reality was much more British weighted than reality itself is.

Germany is the most important country in Europe both economically and demographically and as the journalist pointed out they are no longer docilely following the traditional, "Russia out, America in and Germany down" script. And as the journalist also mentioned, if there is any bailing out to be done in countries like Greece or points east, it will be the Germans who do the bailing. It seems to me that this adds up to a very German slant to things in the near future. Who else is there, when you really come down to it?

Britain? France?

As the journalist also pointed out, the euro-skeptic Tories who detest the EU are set to win the next UK election and if we add to this that the British economy is now like some cratered giant Iceland and its financial industry disgraced (manufacturing left ages ago)... then except for Tommy Atkins, what else has Britain got left to sell, lease or rent?

As for the French, Sarkozy has tardo-Bush popularity levels and his enthusiasm for NATO and Afghanistan are not shared by the French people in any poll I've seen.

Except for the British government and Sarkozy does anybody anywhere in Europe in their right mind really want to see the Germans getting militarized ever again?

Since Af-Pak is going down the drain, at this very moment, the German reluctance to get any deeper involved in the coming debacle makes quite a bit of sense.

I would argue that the official German position fits EU public opinion better than either Britain's or France's.

So to sum up, the Germans are paying the piper and they are no longer reluctant to call the tunes. That for better or worse is the EU of today and tomorrow and the crisis is going to enhance that. They have the money, the population and their policies are more in tune with European public opinion... What could be more obvious? DS

Sarko blotto?

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Here is the video of Sarkozy apparently (obviously?) drunk at a press conference at the G8. It is one of the big hits on francophone YouTube.

I find it interesting for two reasons. First, that he allows himself to be seen drunk and second, the sort of drunk he seems to be... a weak, silly, (girlish?) drunk. Not Yeltsin class at all. Not even Dubya class.

It confirms for me the impression that I have had that victory has caused some sort of strange metamorphosis in Sarkozy. From the very first day as president of France he seems physically different. I noticed the change even in his first official photograph. It is something I can't quite put my finger on yet and I won't indulge in psychobabble trying to analyze that difference, I only invite readers to keep their eyes peeled and see if they notice what I do and help me define it.

There is a saying in Spanish, "si quieres conocer a Dieguillo, dale un carguillo". Which translates roughly as, "if you want to know what somebody's really like, put them in charge of something." Below I have included Charlie Chaplin's classic "globe dance" from "The Great Dictator"... maybe it's relevant. DS

Bonjour tristesse

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The first big question about Sarkozy's victory for all of us who aren't French or don't live in France has to be: is it contagious? Because, don't kid yourselves, Sarkozy has taken us a giant step down the road to making racism respectable. He has dressed Le Penism in the clothes of Horatio Alger... to deafening applause.

Personally I can't get beyond the "Karcher" remark. The question for me is if Sarkozy is really just a socially acceptable code word for Le Pen. I wonder if Josephine Baker (the beautiful lady in the collage above) would still feel comfortable in Sarkozy's Paris, or Richard Wright, or James Baldwin, or Sydney Bechet? Or moving away from African Americans for a moment, would Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald still waste any time on France. Something very important has been lost for all of us.

Predictions?

Sarkozy is a total opportunist and aside from his hunger for power there is probably no fixed point for him, however, to get where he is he has made rather a devilish pact with two contradicting forces. On one hand the super rich and their "bobo" wannabes who are looking for a lowering of taxes and the cutting of entitlements and lots of immigrants to clean their houses and care for their children and on the other hand the Le Pen voters, many of them hardscrabble proletarians who once voted Communist. These are people who depend on the welfare state as much as any beure. They will resist any flexibilization of the labor market or any other loss of their entitlements. (Remember that Hitler called his movement "National Socialism", not "National Free for All Capitalism).

What Sarkozy is attempting isn't that original, it is a French version of Nixon's "Southern Strategy". Southern poor whites had voted Democratic since the civil war. They were called the "Solid South" and were prime receivers of the New Deal's largesse. When the Democrats supported the civil rights movement, Nixon (the American Sarkozy? Le Pen the French George Wallace?) was quick to discover that southern poor whites hated black people more than they loved themselves or even their own children. Being offered "states rights" (code word for legal racism) they voted Republican, thus denying themselves and their descendants health insurance, good public education etc.

I really doubt that Sarkozy could pull anything like that off. Southern poor whites have this crazy, "Apocolypse Now" (John of Patmos not Coppola) streak that makes them so treasured by lovers of the grotesque like Tennesee Williams, Flannery O ' Conner or John Kennedy Toole. Just trying to imagine your average pisse vinaigre French workman in a frothy "born again" hysteria is a real knee slapper. To imagine that Frenchman (or his wife... especially his wife) voting against his pocketbook is impossible.

Sarkozy might be able to keep all the balls in the air for a while if the world economy doesn't falter in the slightest, but there are lots of red flags and flashing lights from experts warning of a probable downturn. In that case it will be impossible to hold such a coalition together. The Bobos and the Po' Whites will part ways. Sparks will fly.

The caveats in this leading editorial from the FT below are interesting. "Now he must put populism behind him" says the FT. Is that possible? The "Anglo-Saxon" press has tended to see Sarkozy as a reforming liberal, eager to Thatcherize France. But Sarkozy has taken the votes of Le Pen and these could prove a very heavy burden. Let us see how long the honeymoon lasts. DS

Sarkozy wins a mandate for change - Editorial - Financial Times
Abstract: The most disturbing aspect of Mr Sarkozy's campaign was his readiness to play on populist fears of excessive immigration and of unfair competition from globalisation in his drive to win voters from his right as well as his left. His attacks on the European Central Bank were ill-judged, in laying the blame for France's sluggish economic performance on outside forces, not excessive rigidity at home. Now he must put populism behind him. Immigration controls are not the answer to a failure of integration policies that has led to miserable ghettos in the suburbs. Improving education, creating more jobs and easing labour market flexibility will have far more positive effects. Hiding behind protectionist trade barriers and defending inefficient national champions are not the ways to make France more competitive. Reducing red tape and bureaucracy will do far more good. READ IT ALL

Ségolène's long weekend

"The Passion of Joan of Arc" - Carl Theodore Dreyer (1928)

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It looks pretty grim for Ségolène right now. The only surprise would be if there is a "hidden" vote.

Imagine how difficult it would be for any poll taker to interview a statistically significant number of Arab corner boys... What if they all turn out to vote?

Win or lose Sarkozy may have created his own monster. Any cynical conservative (that is not an oxymoron) would probably be much happier to have young French Muslims riot periodically and burn a lot of parked cars (rich folks don't park in the street) than have les beur turn out en masse to vote as a block.

It is said that Muslims now make up 10% of the French population. French Muslims, their parents and grandparents come from many different countries of origin and speak many different dialects and come in many colors. Giving a political focus to that demographic weight is not easy... However Sarkozy's referring to them as "scum" and promising to pressure hose them off the street like so much dog poop may have done the trick.

If they do feel the power of their vote now and in the coming legislative elections this summer, then the political map of France will have changed forever and so will Europe's relation to the Muslim world from here on out. DS

Sarko is France's answer to Sammy Glick

"La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid"
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782)- Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

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My theory of the French elections, which contains nothing original, is that the whole thing revolves around the personality of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy is the French incarnation of "Sammy Glick" the hero of Budd Schulberg's classic "What Makes Sammy Run?", eaten by ambition, without any known scruples, someone who has left scores of 'dead bodies' and walking wounded behind him in his climb to the top. In short, France is full of the enemies of Nicolas Sarkozy. This is their big chance.

Now, in the second round of the presidential elections, these enemies, perhaps even Sarkozy's wife, will come crawling out of the very woodwork. These two week are the culmination of his entire existence. His heart's desire is within his grasp. This is the cruelest moment for his enemies to strike. They will show no mercy. I have no trouble predicting that the next two weeks will probably be the worst of Sarkozy's life.

When you read this story from the Financial Times about Sarkozy's attempts to draw François Bayrou into a conspiracy against Jacques Chirac as far back as 2002, you will be struck by the timing of Bayrou's revelation. He didn't use it when it could have given him votes. He has waited till now, when the damage to Sarkozy will be the greatest. His goal is to destroy Sarkozy and inherit the French right. Indeed, revenge is "a dish best served cold". DS

Sarkozy sought Bayrou’s help to attack Chirac - Financial Times

Abstract: France’s presidential election took another twist on Wednesday with the revelation that François Bayrou, the self-styled kingmaker of the contest, rebuffed an invite from Nicolas Sarkozy to join forces in “a war” against president Jacques Chirac three years ago. Mr Bayrou, the centrist who came third in Sunday’s first round, on Wednesday refused to endorse either of the two remaining contenders for the presidency. He has been wooed by Mr Sarkozy, the favourite, and Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, who both need his 6.8m first-round votes for victory. The surprise revelation that Mr Bayrou fell out with Mr Sarkozy over his abortive anti-Chirac proposal in 2004 may complicate attempts by the presidential frontrunner to coax his centrist rival into supporting his candidacy in return for an electoral alliance. The website of the local newspaper Sud-Ouest unveiled the scoop on Wednesday, after keeping it under wraps at Mr Bayrou’s request since interviewing him with its readers on March 16. It said it decided to publish his comments to “clarify the gulf that separates the two men”. In the interview, extracts of which are being broadcast on Sud-Ouest’s website, Mr Bayrou said: “You cannot meet more different (people) than Nicolas Sarkozy and me. I have not spoken with Nicolas Sarkozy for three years.” Mr Bayrou recounted how a journalist and friend invited him to a meeting with Mr Sarkozy, shortly after the latter had become head of the centre-right UMP party, founded by Mr Chirac in 2002. Mr Bayrou said that at the meeting: “Sarkozy said to me: ‘I propose an alliance against Chirac. We’ll act the young ones and make him look old-fashioned, the old man. We’ll fight a war with him.’” The centrist said he replied: “That doesn’t interest me. I don’t want to form an alliance with you. I don’t want to form an alliance against Chirac on the criteria of age. That is not like me. So, you do what you like, but me, I won’t do it.” He added: “Since then its been like a chill between us.” The revelation confirms rumours that Mr Sarkozy actively tried to destabilise Mr Chirac, his former mentor, even though he served as interior minister and finance minister in his government for most of his final five-year mandate.(...) Mr Bayrou ran a surprisingly successful campaign as an alternative to the discredited two-party system. He criticised both leading candidates, but was especially hostile towards Mr Sarkozy. READ IT ALL

Ségolène and "la mesure"

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In trying to handicap the French presidential race I think we have to ask ourselves, why 18% of the voters cast their ballot for a moderate-conservative horse breeder like François Bayrou in the first place?

I would suggest that this was a deeply anti-"Sarkozy the man" vote, as the program differences between the two conservatives wouldn't justify it. The question is Sarkozy himself. His character, his personality.

Those who voted for him voted for that character and personality. I think everybody that really likes him has had a chance to vote for him already... That is all there is. I don't think we'll see a great mass of Bayrou's supporters rushing to vote for Sarkozy... they simply couldn't vote for a Socialist in the first round. Now comes the gathering together of those who fear Sarko and detest him. If Sarkozy tries to move toward the center the Le Pen vote probably will abstain and the moderates won't be convinced.

Remember when our beloved leader George W. Bush said that the problem of the French was that they didn't have a word for "entrepreneur"... He might have added that they don't have a word for "bourgeois" either. The French have, in fact, invented the universal word for "middle class" and they are famous for being the world's most bourgeois people. At the center of their values is "la mesure"... just the right amount of anything, not too much, not too little... balance. My feeling is that although Sarkozy is exciting he is too hot, too often angry. Not quite in control... not even at home. Madame Sarkozy is often quite openly seen to indulge in, to use a down home turn of phrase, "a slippin' and a slidin"... The French don't care much about what people do in bed, but they admire discretion, control... mesure.

Ségolène Royal, although without the benefit of clergy, has had four children with the same man and both of them have careers in the same organization without any tension or jealousy being evident... How balanced, reliable and steady can you get?

Like this article from the Financial Times suggests, I think the election will be a referendum about Sarkozy's character and I think that he will fail the test. I wouldn't be surprised if his wife, now that he is safely into the second round, chose this precise moment to humiliate him. Hell hath no fury... DS

Battleground moves to the centre - Financial Times
Abstract: The trauma of April 2002 weighed heavily on Sunday’s elections. Left wing voters were determined not to repeat the mistake of the last ballot when they spread their support among several candidates allowing Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, to sneak through to the second round. This time, the Socialist Party appealed for a ’vote utile’ (a useful vote) in the first round. They won it.(...) Support for the candidates of the extreme left fell sharply compared with 2002 as the left rallied around Ségolène Royal in spite of widespread misgivings about her campaign.(...) The question on everyone’s lips this morning is: can Ms Royal win? It is possible, but it will be difficult. A snap poll from Ipsos on Sunday night showed Nicolas Sarkozy would win the second round by a handy margin of 54 per cent to 46 per cent. However, five of the 10 defeated candidates immediately rallied behind Royal to form an anti-Sarkozy front; the others refrained from endorsing anyone. Ms Royal has shown that she is a remarkably resilient campaigner. Her opponents have underestimated her at their peril. She may also find it easier than Mr Sarkozy to move towards the middle, the battleground of the second round. As a woman of the left, with values of the right, she may make a better “cross-over” candidate. As Jacques Séguéla, the veteran advertising guru, once put it in an interview with the FT, there is a lot of Sarko in Sego, but not a lot of Sego in Sarko. It will be critical how the voters of François Bayrou, the third-placed centrist candidate, now divide. But it would be a mistake to believe that he has a single transferable block of votes at his command. Earlier opinion polls have suggested his vote could split equally between Ms Royal and Mr Sarkozy.(...) The vote on May 6 could well turn out to be a referendum on Mr Sarkozy. It is his election to lose; but the headstrong Mr Sarkozy is certainly capable of a rush of blood to the head that could cost him victory. READ IT ALL

Segolene and reading polls

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I'm just including this fascinating snippet from the Guardian on the first round of the French presidential election for the record. On Monday we'll see if the defacing of posters or the university poll had given us a winner which the normal polls found impossible.

These offbeat things can often be uncannily accurate. Take, for example, the "Halloween mask poll", which always shows who is going to win US presidential elections. It appears that the candidate that sells the most masks for trick or treating is always elected.

The Halloween mask poll had Bush getting re-elected as early as September 2004. So if these French versions pick the winner we can continues this thread on Monday. DS

Floating voters the key as campaigning closes in France - Guardian
Abstract: Mr Sarkozy's election team is said to have been rattled by hints that his campaign posters were being destroyed more than those of other candidates - and worse, defaced with Hitler mustaches. Concerns about the reliability of polling figures were heightened last night when a survey at the respected Paris Institute for Political Studies predicted a first-round victory for Ms Royal. The 1,000 students who took part in the mock vote gave her 39.8 %, Mr Bayrou 26.6 %, Mr Sarkozy 18.7 % and Mr Le Pen 4.8 %. A college spokesman, Hervé Marro, denied that those at the university, a hothouse for many of France's future leaders, were traditionally leftwing. "Not at all. There are a lot of students at Sciences Po who normally support the right, which is why the result was such a surprise," he told the Guardian. "Additionally, a lot of the left-leaning students are not those who support Ségolène Royal." He added: "The big problem with all polls is that saying you are going to vote for a candidate and actually doing so are two very different things." READ IT ALL

Snubbing Segolene - Newslinks Hillary Watch

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If you are trying to locate Hillary Clinton on the political map, this news may help. In Europe Segolene Royal is considered center-left and there are those who fear she may be another Tony Blair, (center-right posing as center-left). But Segolene is too hot for Hillary. Stay tuned. DS
Clinton and Royal - Sharing ambitions not handshakes? - Reuters
Abstract: One is French. One is American. Both may become the first female presidents of their country. But will Segolene Royal and Hillary Rodham Clinton support or snub each other in their battle? Speculation about the power women's relationship rose in France after a newspaper said Royal had postponed a U.S. trip planned for this month because Clinton did not want to see her. Socialist regional leader Royal, 53, a relative political newcomer with little foreign policy experience, has made little secret of the fact she would like to meet Clinton to bolster her international credentials. But after gaffes by Royal on a trip to the Middle East, the Democratic Senator from New York, who is believed to be eyeing a White House bid in 2008, was less than enthusiastic about being seen together with the French candidate, Le Parisien daily said at the weekend, quoting a Clinton adviser. "Hillary, whose candidature is far from assured, is very vigilant and cannot afford the slightest false move," it quoted the adviser as saying. "She does not want to be associated with Royal's recent comments. It wouldn't be good for her image." A spokesman for Royal said her trip, which was announced last month, had been postponed for scheduling reasons, declining to give further details. Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Clinton, said in Washington that: "There was never a meeting planned or scheduled." READ IT ALL

Exploding grannies and Segolene Royal

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Ségolène Royal is running for president of France, she is a very smart lady who knows how to read polls and to gauge public opinion. She may not be a big expert on the Middle East, but she has French public opinion cold. Haaretz put the photo of Royal above as an illustration of an article, entitled, "Islamic Jihad threatens to attack Israel 'in the coming hours'. That is a message. France has the largest Muslim population in western Europe, estimated at 5 million, it also has the largest Jewish minority of any country of the diaspora after the United States, a community which is very assimilated and influential. Ségolène knows what is waiting for her and she is willing to pay the price. As to the article below from The Observer, the way you interpret it may have a lot to do with your age. No matter what your politics, if you are combing gray hair, it will touch you. DS
Abstract from The Observer: In the centre of Beit Hanoun, there is nothing left of the 800-year-old mosque but the minaret. It looks like a lighthouse stranded in a sea of rubble. People whose homes were demolished during the latest Israeli army incursion sit on plastic chairs around bonfires. At night they bunk down with the neighbours. One of them is Watfa Kafarna. 'I saw the Israeli soldiers eye-to-eye,' she said. 'They took my four-year-old grandson, Mahadi, who has Down's syndrome. They shook him and yelled: "Where are the guns?" Now he is traumatised and wets the bed every night.'(...) Not his own bed - the Kafarna family is homeless, living off the charity of friends. Tears run from Watfa's eyes as she looks at her son, daughter-in-law and grandchild huddled around a brazier. Her husband, Diab, shuffles across the ruins towards his wife. 'Bossa!' he says, 'A kiss!' In a highly unconventional move, Diab kisses his wife on the mouth. 'She is my heart, my eyes, my light. We have lost our house but not each other.' During the incursion, Israeli soldiers detained all men aged 16-40, including Watfa and Diab's sons and grandsons. The army targeted the mosque, attempting to arrest militants hiding there. The women put up their own resistance, gathering as human shields around the mosque to help the militants escape. 'I am 72, says Watfa, 'but by doing this I felt 20, young and useful and ready to act.'(...) Two women were killed by the Israeli Defence Force that day. Watfa was bruised, as was 70-year-old Fatma Najar, hit by a bulldozer. Three weeks later, Najar blew herself up near Israeli soldiers, wounding two. In Gaza she is seen as a heroine. 'If the Israelis came to my house to gun down my children and I had a belt, I would do the same,' says Watfa. 'The woman is the biggest loser here,' says Khola, a neighbour, standing on the remains of a kitchen where flour is mixed with pulverised masonry. Two hundred homes were destroyed in Beit Hanoun. 'Fatma Najar, an old woman, did what many people don't have the guts to do. If you go back and research Fatma,' says Khola, 'you will see her home was destroyed on top of her head, her sons jailed, her grandson killed.' 'We want to believe in peace, but how can we when the warplanes still fly over our heads every night,' asks Watfa, 'making our grandchildren cry and wet themselves? When there are still tank movements on the border? I can't believe there will be peace.' Najar's family heard of her attack on the radio. 'We thought it must be another Fatma Najar,' said her son, Jihad, 35. 'It never occurred to us it could have been my mother. Then the crowds started to arrive and we knew it was true. We had mixed feelings, sadness at her irreplaceable loss. But pride too.' There is a huge shaheed - 'martyr' - poster of Najar on her house. It is shocking to see an old woman carrying an M16. Some of her 70 grandchildren and great-grandchildren play beneath the picture. Israa, six, wears a pink top with 'Happy Childhood' embroidered on it. 'My grandmother's gone to heaven. Because she shot the Israelis,' she says.(...) 'I think the final straw was the Beit Hanoun massacre [a family of 17 killed at dawn when Israeli shells hit their house]. Mother went to the family's home and asked the women: "Why leave it to your sons to die? If Allah allows, I will become a martyr." They said: "You think they will take an old lady like you?"' A fortnight later she was a suicide bomber, injuring two Israelis, decapitating herself.(...) It was only after her death, her family discovered she had been working for Hamas: 'They told us she had carried food, water, ammunition to the resistance at the front line. We had no idea.' The night before her suicide operation, Najar went to visit all of her children and grandchildren. She brought clothes and sweets. 'But she was always so good to us,' says Inam. 'As she left me for the last time, she looked back in a way that made me wonder, but then she was gone.'(...)'I know at least 20 of us who want to put on the belt,' said Fatma Naouk, 65. 'Now is the time of the women. Now the old women have found a use for themselves.' READ IT ALL

Ségolène Royal: A candidate out of the ordinary - Pfaff - International Herald Tribune

David Seaton's News Links
An easy prediction: Ségolène Royal is going to run away with this election. The big crisis in France is their feeling that they have ceased to be "cool". The French have alway (for centuries) defined what was cool... They haven't really done that since 1968... They are in pain. They want their mojo back... Ségolène is a star, she's the coolest thing to hit politics since John F. Kennedy. All the women will vote for her and if only two men do she'll have the election sewn up. But a lot of men will vote for her too because she is so beautiful and so intelligent and so... cool. DS

Abstract: After Ségolène Royal was elected last week as the Socialist Party candidate in France's 2007 presidential elections, she said a striking thing: "Don't be afraid."(...) why were the words familiar? Obviously I was recalling President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address in March 1933, when he said the only thing Americans had to fear "was fear itself." Royal undoubtedly spoke spontaneously. But the situation of the two countries at these two points in their histories - Americans as the Great Depression was extending its reach, and the French today - have in common a certain failure of nerve and a sense of stalemate. Another parallel suggests itself. From the start of her candidacy, Royal has been criticized as succeeding on mere looks and charm, and attacked for lacking a well-defined program, substituting what her critics call "populism" - an appeal to voters to write the program of a new government together with her. In the white blazer of her campaign appearances and the three televised debates, always addressing the people and not the other politicians, the photogenic Royal (Ségolène, as she now is universally known) was mocked in the press as "the Madonna of the Opinion Polls" - which she has consistently led since the beginning of her campaign. In 1933, the American commentator Walter Lippmann called the young governor of New York "an amiable man with many philanthropic impulses, but he is ... too eager to please. ... Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would like very much to be president."(...) Royal's victory last week unexpectedly became something of a beatification. The size of the vote for her, and the poll evidence of her wide popularity, silenced her critics. A usually acerbic columnist, Michèle Stouvenot, retreated into a respectful irony, writing that "In her white blazer, like the Immaculate Conception, she seemed standing on a little cloud, as if in levitation, transfigured, transcended by the force of destiny. She was General de Gaulle on the Champs- Elysées the night of Liberation." Royal said she would be the candidate of insoumission - meaning insubordination, unwillingness to be subdued. Even President Jacques Chirac's wife, Bernadette, remarked that "the hour of women has arrived," adding that she "used to consult her husband before speaking to journalists. I don't anymore." Stouvenot wrote: "Another victory for Ségolène. She has liberated Bernadette." READ IT ALL