[lbo-talk] French Elections

[Shane Mage]

At the risk of appearing like a fool two weeks from Sunday, I tonight
have become confident that Royal will beat Sarkozy in the runoff. The
tipoff was Bayrou's concluding address which was all but a second-
round endorsement of Segolene.  With real passion he denounced
Sarkozy as representing a "Right" that he has opposed all his life. Then,
centrist symmetry obliges, he turned (with a voice lacking all 
conviction)   to a "Left" that he has opposed all his life.  And the 
personification
of that "Left"--none other than the PS figure most hostile to and
resentful of Segolene Royal, Leonel Jospin!  Le Pen's campaign also
is very interesting--it has been full of anti-establishment ("populist")
demagogy with a strong bias against Sarkozy (the most racist thing
about his campaign has been his denunciation of Sarkozy's Hungarian
parentage).  The votes gained by Le Pen will, on balance, by no means
turn out to be "rightist" votes in the runoff.  Add in an overwhelming
anybody-but-Sarko vote in the banlieus, and the runoff outcome
seems to be quite clear.  Only a hopeless sectarian should not be optimistic,
or so it seems to me.

Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and does not
consent to be called Zeus."

Herakleitos of Ephesos