He has a constant need to threaten non-favorable press. He called Liberation's owner, saying that state subsidies would disappear once he is elected if the paper remains against him. He had Paris-Match's director fired for daring to speak about his troubled wedding.

One of his main policies is brutal treatment of illegals, pointing the blame for crime on the "stranger". He is constantly supporting the police forces, destroying the balance between the executive and the judicial branches of government.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

Les partis politiques français, mauvais élèves de l'écologie

Le 12 décembre 2006, les quatre porte-parole de l'Alliance pour la planète (plus de 70 ONG d'environnement et de solidarité, soit plus d'un million de membres) ont révélé les notes attribuées aux partis politiques, à la suite de l'évaluation des décisions prises au Parlement et au gouvernement entre 1997 et 2006, en matière d'écologie.

Cette notation s'est effectuée à partir des 24 propositions que l'Alliance pour la planète estime fondamentales. Les résultats sont les suivants :

UMP : 4,5 / 20
UDF : 5 / 20
PCF : 5,5 / 20
PS : 6,5 / 20
Verts : 11 / 20

Ces notes permettent de relativiser les déclarations d'intention des candidats aux élections présidentielles de 2007 qui rivalisent dans la surenchère en faveur de la défense de l'écologie.

In a US notation system, UMP gets a F, UDF, PC and PS a E, and the greens a C.

I would continue to expect slightly better results form Royal than from Sarkozy in the future.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

His discourse on immigration, which stigmatizes immigrants and blames them for our deficits, is substantially similar to Le Pen's ; his discourse about criminals is similarly concentrated exclusively on repression (while not doing anything in practice - there are fewer police forces in Seine Saint Denis (93) than 5 years ago, despite Sarkozy being the minister in charge for most of that period).

And his control freakery and agitated interventionism in the economy (cf his few months in the ministry for economy) display little real liberalism and lots more corporatism.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

1. You are right that slinging words like "fascism" around is not productive. However, Sarkozy's current swing to the far right, in particular with the deliberate  reminder of Vichy implicit in the "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity", certainly provokes the "f----" taunt. He knows what he is doing and is fishing for extreme-right votes, so presumably any tears he may shed about being called a fascist will be crocodile tears. As to whether you should be called a fascist if you vote for him, it's rather up to your conscience to decide.
2. Yes, it's hard to track the programmes and propositions, since they're not always explicit, or, when they are, new policy proposals may surface, or old ones sink, as the campaign liner sails ahead (please admire metaphor). But, as far as I know, Royal doesn't propose to make the unemployed work - see the relevant page of her propositions, where the nearest thing to it is that young people would be personally monitored and, after six months without a job, given either vocational training or one of the "youth jobs" she wants to create 500,000 of (along the lines of the last PS government, I suppose).

   Bayrou's offer is to have all long-term unemployed (he speaks of the RMI, the social minimum benefit) work in jobs useful to the community. He cloaks this in language to do with his village, forgetting most people don't live in villages, but in much more abrasive environments. He doesn't offer any major financing for his plan, either. He has a tendency to go in for Café du Commerce proposals like this, that you can hear anywhere but which don't really betray much thought.

   I think the difference between Royal and Bayrou is significant here.

3. The "ecology" tag is not absolute. I'm aware that it's much more solidly pinned to Voynet and Bové than Royal. However, I think it's important, and worth underlining, that Royal represents a break-away from the traditional productivism of the PS, and that's why I brought her into the "ecology" group.

To what extent is the metaphor accurate? Is the system unified enough to display intent, an aim, a goal? Does the global system have a goal, at least implicitly? Is the shared goal of self-enrichment dominating the system enough to give the whole system an intended goal, which may be different from the actual outcome?

You don't need an explicit conspiracy to have people act in concert ...

You can easily observe that countries with stable political, tax and economic conditions receive a bigger share of capital investments, to their benefit (or dare I say the benefit of their people?).

No. At best this is a very generous oversimplification. At worst it's simply wrong.

The countries that receive investment are those that promise the highest return on it.

Instability can be a negative factor because it obviously increases risk. However - there's absolute no evidence that directly links investment to stability.

In effect, stability is only one means to an end. As globalisation spreads it's clear that stability isn't required - at least not to the extent of the European model - because returns from developing countries are so high that increased profits more than offset increased risk.

Also, developing countries are easier to 'manage' by force because they lack democratic traditions, and because workers have much lower expectations of representation and democratic effectiveness and a much higher tolerance for sweat-shop working conditions.

When a country's labour costs are less a tenth of what they would be in Europe, businesses can easily tolerate a bit of extra security spending, and perhaps the occasional riot, because the bottom line still looks better at the end of the quarter.