[lbo-talk] French Elections

Shane Mage shmage at pipeline.com
Thu Apr 19 21:55:31 PDT 2007


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



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