Not being in France my impression is that this election is not about "facts", but is about something else.

I would guess it is about fears of loss of cultural identity and the usual intergenerational tensions that occur in every age.

For the first time France (and other parts of the EU) is seeing non-western (that is "non-white"), non-Christian population growth and this has produced social strain and xenophobia. The US which has had a mixed population for 400 years hasn't learned to adapt without discrimination so it's not surprising that France is having problems. Earlier influxes such as Russians and Poles during the 1920's and 1930's (and earlier) were small, the immigrants were mostly intellectuals, and they had no trouble fitting in (or at least fitting along side).

I'm guessing that Sarkozy is the politically correct version of Le Pen and is banking on jingoism and xenophobia for his support. This is an appeal to raw emotion (especially fear) and can never be countered by references to logic and factual information.

Royal just doesn't radiate the sorts of head breaking persona that Sarkozy does and there is nothing that can be done about it. Let's just hope that France doesn't have to live through 40 years of Reaganomics before it realizes its mistake.

PS. Jerome, next time you put something like this together get a job on the campaign of the leftist candidate where you can influence the dialog from the beginning.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape