The crowd in the hall where Sarkozy declared victory after the polls closed repeatedly sang the national anthem, La Marseillaise -- with its famous xenophobic refrain, "Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!" (Translation: Let us march, let us march, May impure blood soak the furrows of our fields.) And Sarkozy's campaign was marked by incessant appeals to racism and the fear of immigrants, symbolized by his adoption of a slogan used by the neo-fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, "France, love it or leave it," and by his proposal for a new "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity," which was widely criticized by the left and by anti-racist groups for amalgamating the two concepts and suggesting a fundamental opposition between the two.

In fact, the campaign strategy of "Sarko," as he is referred to in France, was based on his appeal to the electorate of Le Pen (right) and his Front National party, which in the last presidential election in 2002 had beaten the Socialists for the place in the run-off against then-president Jacques Chirac. That lurch to the right five years ago by a significant portion of formerly left voters was confirmed by today's vote, in which more than two-thirds of former Le Pen voters -- many of them from the one-time Communist-dominated working class suburbs -- went for Sarkozy, according to the exit polls.

Indeed, as the weekly Le Canard Enchaine -- which has the best insider political gossip -- reported a couple of weeks ago, a Sarkozy confident of victory had already discussed his long-term political strategy for remaining in power -- for, as Le Canard revealed, he plans to integrate the Front National into his ruling UMP party in his second term, uniting the hard-right and the neo-fascist extreme right in an alliance imitating that operated by the Italian Silvio Berlusconi with the "post-fascist" Alleanza Nationale of Gianfranco Fini (right), who was Berlusoconi's vice-premier.

[...]

Sarko believes in minimal government, a slimmed-down state that interferes as little as possible in the economy, an aggressively laissez-faire approach that is dear to the economic barons of the MEDEF, the French business leaders' association, whose tycoons were solidly behind Sarkozy's candidacy. Sarkozy has already promised to, in effect, abolish the ISF (the tax on large fortunes), accord more tax breaks to big business and the upper-middle-classes, and make more cuts in the state-run national health system (declared by a U.N. survey to be the finest in the world in terms of delivery of health services and quality of care.) Sarkozy's economic program is designed to help the already-privileged classes retain and extend their socio-economic position, to the detriment of the have-nots (the massive pro-Sarkozy vote in the upper-income neighborhoods today confirms that they understood Sarko's message to them.) And he has promised a major down-sizing of the civil service employed by state agencies.

What I was saying about the French trains running on time... maybe I should take that back.

This ability of the Bushes, the Berlus, the Sarkos, the Maggies, to present an elite upper-class agenda as if it would be a boon to the middle classes, and thus to woo those middle classes away from the national interest, i.e. encourage them to stomp on the backs of the poor to claw their way into the elite heaven (which they will never get to, as we all know, but oh how they love to believe they will)... it's just amazing.  Essentially they are running the country as a great big entertaining Survivor show and inviting the bourgeoisie to vote everyone else off the island.  And it works...  and then when the elite predators start preying on their own middle classes as they inevitably do, the victims can still be persuaded to blame Immmigrants or Women or Furriners (or sunspots or the Devil or whatever) instead of the guys whose hands are so conspicuously picking everyone's pockets.  It's like a stage magician who's incredibly, pathetically clumsy and obvious and yet the enthralled audience keeps cheering and clapping and somehow pretending not to see the wires 'n stuff.

I woulda thought that France's nuke fan club would be dreading the advent of Sarko.  After enough privatisation, crony capitalism, no-bid cost-plus contracts, secrecy and obfuscation, security apparatus repressing citizen participation, etc., I'm sure he can turn the French nuclear sector into the same massive fubar it is in the States.  The only reason it even seems to work (mho) is because of the high calibre of French public servants, the strong regulatory presence of the State and relatively open process.  Sarko plans to demolish all that, if he can get away with it.

I'm depressed...  the only bright spot, I suppose, is that if the Bush regime finally faces impeachment trials and there are convictions, publication of damning documents, etc. then Sarko will look a bit pie-faced for being such a Bush buddy.  If the Bush mafia were to take a serious dive, it might have beneficial repercussions in Oz, Canada, and France...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...