Geeeeeez Ishmael. Nobody was prevented from voting anywhere. :roll: Just because a crybaby like John Kerry said so, doesn't make it so. Just because Rosie O' Donnel makes the claim, doesn't make it so. Don't you find it funny that last election, before election night, there were cries from Democrats on all major networks crying about "voter intimidation", voter "suppression", and all other nonsense. Then when the Democrats won, all those stories just disappeared. Actually Ishmael, I want to talk about Democrat corruption. You know, the real stuff. Not these fake Republican "scandals". No, I want the real deal, like Harry Reid's land deals. How about Nancy Pelosi's corruption with Star-Kist? What about Dianne Feinsteinn controlling appropriations to companies where profits went to her own husband and family? Some with business dealing with the Chi-coms. Wake up and smell the treason, Ishmael. And it ain't Bush. In your own mind Bush may be Hitler. And many Republicans may be corrupt. But let us not forget the slop the Democrats themselves lie in.

And your above "Rovian" "scandals" are nonsense.

Both draft dodgers? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Yes, SeaDeamon, it's all just another wicked Democrat's conspiracy.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16962753.htm

But anyway, since it is always wicked Democrat's conspiracies, I wonder why all major smearing campaigns since the sixties have been launched by Republican party then, including real hardcore conspiracies like Nixon and Watergate, Oliver North and Irangate and the CIA-supervised Crack-and-Cocain explosion on American streets during Reagan's love affair with the Contras to help them raising the funds to pay for their weapon buys.

Add to this highly suspicious irregularities during American elections (that without doubt are only conspiracies as well) of the last eight years, and suspicious law designs in several states helping to prevent anti-Republican minorities to vote on claims of criminalizing people for harmless things like wrong parking.

And in other news, a drastic attempt to save the thread was launched by baggy this morning..

Im glad this Sarkozy bloke was elected. From all accounts i've read and seen, he's gonna stand up and be counted on the international scene rather than meekly throw insults over his shoulder as he retreats from any confrontation. heeee

seriously though, it does seem as though he was the better choice of the 2, which is nice to see. and wow, an 84% turnout - thats incredible. not quite at our 100% yet..;)

Thanks, Baggy. Somehow every thread here gets turned into a blood-death idealogical struggle.

My personal take, on what little I know of French politics, I take this as a good sign. France is a great nation, they have much to be proud of. I'm hoping to visit again in about 2 years, if the dollar will ever recover :hmm:

A collection of reactions and quotes from the German press:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...481755,00.html

With such a large turnout for the election, they can say that majority of people wanted this president, not who could get supporters to the polls before closing time.

Good luck to France.:up:

Despite the run-off Sarko only had a 3% lead. That is hardly decisive and barely a majority. I almost would have preferred a lower turnout because then it wouldn't have been so telling about the enormous divide in France right now. Given the violence we have already seen... I am holding my breath to see how well these sides of the country are able to co-operate and move France forward. What is it they say, "a house divided against itself cannot stand?"

Yes it was a large turnout, but Sarkozy got just 53%, while Royal got 47%. That is not really miles apart, I would even say it was a thin outcome. The left is not as splitted, desperate and weak as let's say ten years ago, and French people are known for being easy to go on strike. Sarko will have to deal with a probably strong opposition (if it manages not to cannibalize itself again over party celebreties pushing their personal ambitions for power and influence again)

The one thing I do not like about Sarkozy is that he wants to tackle the independance of the European Central Bank, and wants to bring the Euro under direct political influencing, softening up the criterions for the Euro that already is not as solid and hard as the German Mark has been. I certainly do not want to get a pendant to the former French Franc, or the Italian Lira.

I was tuned out while the news was playing last night, but i believe he intends on lengthening the French working week, which is a paltry 35 hours. That WILL definately cause strikes. He's gonna have a heck of a lot to contend with over the next few months, poor fella

Actually, if one look at past results of French presidential elections, this is a clear victory for Sarkozy. There is more than 6% differences between him and Royal (53.06-46.94). The socialist party was hit hard and cannot contest the legitimity of Sarkozy as a winner and that the French voters want his project.

Another thing to consider, 3 on 4 people who voted for Sarkozy supported his project, on the contrary only 1 on 2 people who voted for Royal voted to support her project and the other one voted against Sarkozy. She was a terrible candidate throughout the campaign and the socialist party failed to convince the voters that they would bring some serious changes (in the good direction, lol!) to the country, so they lost. For my greatest pleasure, it is now the 3rd defeat in a row for the socialists, and as long as they will not get a reality check on various issues (economics, immigration, crime, etc...)and keep being idealists hypocrits, it will go on.

No he doesn't want to lengthen the working week, he wants to favor workers and companies who work more by exempting some taxes which currently penalise this.
He wants the 35 hours week as a minimum whereas the socialists wanted it to be a maximum. This issue is not going to cause strikes because those who volunteer to work more will benefit from it, others will not. The French economy will benefit from this measure too because currently its growth is 1% less than the Eurozone.

Anyway, he is likely to face some serious strikes on other issues though but the left and the syndicalists (who have almost no representativity in France despite their public nuisance ability) cannot ignore that the French want changes and they gave Sarkozy a clear mandate for this. He said after his victory that he was not going to betray our trust. We will see how things turn out soon enough.

i shall stand corrected then :)

Sorry, you are absolutely right, it is 6%, not sure what inspired me to write 3. However I stand by what I said earlier; of course Sarkozy's victory is legitimate - he broke the 50% - but with the enormous turnout the election suggests that the divide in France is going to present some challenges for Sarkozy.

And even if the opposition is in a slight minority and of mixed loyalty (as you said), we've seen how unfortunately vocal some of them can be :nope:

I'm not bumping this thread.

I'm hiccupping it. :()1:

Sry, but I don't speak french (and there's no subtitling for it).