It's amazing the difference in the political spectra between France and the United States: friends of mine who teach in the French equivalent of an 'inner city' school in Paris, genuinely consider Sarkozy to be a fascist. Can you imagine an elected national politician in the U.S. -- let alone the President -- suggesting what Sarkozy is suggesting here... Ira Glazer
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No I can't imagine a major US official saying anything like that.
So then please help me unpack what your friends mean by Sarkozy's fascism.
I just read a wiki on Sarkozy and I have to report, I have no idea what those so-called controversies are about. They seem all over the political map to me. The funniest one, was deconstructing pediaphilia in the nature v. nurture matrix with a french writer. Wow. I am not sure a US political figure would dare pronounce the p-word, although I would have loved to hear Bush try.
Intercine french politics are amazingly complicated. They seem like a scaled up version of inside Berkeley City Council which is a hair splitting forest of nonsense---that unfortunately also has concrete consequences.
CG