European politics is a lot farther to the right than is usually acknowledged.
Well, certainly France and Italy at least have a far-far-right government at the moment. And the UK is likely to change its rightist governent for an extreme right one at the next election too.
As ever Europe catches the US diseases some 10 years late. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
Sarko always came across to me as "mostly harmless" [with apologies to Douglas Adams]; a self-absorbed little twit whose handlers substantially just continued Chirac's policies.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
He is ANYTHING but harmless. He is in fact extremely dangerous. He has done a lot to fight back the rule of law -the constitution is a joke under Sarko (as was its revision -obtained through buying MRG and threatening UMP representatives. In a secret ballot it would have been thrashed). He is a regular user of the judicial system as a political weapon (bear in mind that he cannot be attacked, not now, nor for anything he would do while somebody else is not president). The French public media is about to be turned into a fully fledged propaganda -not only will the president directly appoint -and revoke at will- its director, but the Government will pretty much decide what's in the programs. On top of that, there have been many cases of intimidation of the press -not just intimidation in fact, but ensuring that journalists got fired.
A climate of hatred is being nurtured.
From the very first days after the election, it was made clear that corruption would be welcomed with both arms, as Sarko was keen to accept huge gifts from very wealthy people who greatly depended on French State contracts.
France has managed in about two weeks to lose any credibility in Europe (back in May 2007), to the point that now even when France may be pushing for something positive, it tends to be a non-starter.
We now have -oh joy- extra troops in Afghanistan.
He has mismanaged the public deficit to colossal proportions. A huge margin for action was just burnt in a gift to people who did not need it -and something that seemed to reduce employment in the medium term, even discounting the effect of the crisis. On the other hand, civil servants just need to take a pay cut because, you see, "we are a broke state" (and here I quote the statutory but completely powerless prime minister).
Thankfully in a way, the crisis bit just soon enough, but you must remember that Sarko was actively pushing, in the summer of 2007 for France to emulate the US mortgage system.
Yes, it is a good job in a way that he is incompetent enough that he fails to carry through most of the terrible changes he promoted. But he will have done huge, lasting harm.
Now, there was an incredible achievement though: he managed to make Jérôme regret Chirac. That is quite something. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
