Voting Begins in France, Economy May Doom Sarkozy

[MRB_Doom]

Voting Begins in France, Economy May Doom Sarkozy

To our French counterparts / Doomers.

[Kira]

Voted. There are words about banks being ready to crush our economy once Hollande is elected in order to make him more cooperative with the City and Wall Street. Many aren't afraid to say they vote only to get rid of Sarkozy.

Tonight GMT+1 we will know who are the two guys for whom we will have to vote on the second round in two weeks.

[Phml]

Reasonably happy with what Sarkozy has done the last five years, mostly in agreement with his political program (the one black spot being his repressive stance regarding Internet freedoms), will vote for him.

Hollande has many good ideas, but unfortunately based on an unrealistic economic platform, and, truthfully, he just doesn't strike me as a credible leader. I wouldn't mind it too much if he wins, mostly because I have my doubts on his ability to do reforms to the extent he's promised, but I'm still concerned about France possibly losing some of the competitiveness we have left in the global economy with him behind the wheel.

Much more worrying in my opinion is the rising xenophobia. French people live in this fantasy where their 9-to-5 job pretending to push papers while hanging by the coffee machine is creating value equal to a worth not only every cent of the €1,500 per month they're paid, but even more than that, when the reality is that job could be done better anywhere else for less money. Minor candidates are playing on these insecurities and pushing for deglobalisation, painting this picture of foreigners as out for our blood and rich people as some magic piñata we just need to whack really hard to get the money flowing. Did I say "minor"? Both Far Right and Far Left candidates are likely going to hit ~15%, each. Ouch.

[printz]

Phml said:

painting this picture of foreigners as out for our blood

And guess what my former crow avatar was all about... HAHAHAHAHAHA! Fuck them (those candidates).

[Kira]

Well, actually if you think the far left is surfing on xenophobia you couldn't be more wrong as Melenchon wants to give much more rights to the foreigners.

[printz]

I'd rather there not be a president who also wants to destabilize politics, given the radical agenda he's coming with. No need for communists or similar.

[Gez]

K!r4 said:

you couldn't be more wrong

He can be more wrong, in fact he was a lot more wrong right at the beginning of his post.

[Phml]

K!r4 said:

Well, actually if you think the far left is surfing on xenophobia you couldn't be more wrong as Melenchon wants to give much more rights to the foreigners.

To foreigners living on French soil, most of which aren't really any more foreign than your average frenchmen. Mélenchon has no qualms making scarecrows out of foreign countries, especially the United States (always the ever convenient target).

[Kira]

Still, it's very different to what Lepen and... Sarkozy are selling us. In fact, I wonder if Sarkozy didn't do more xenophobia than Lepen with shit-words about UK, talking about Greece like Somalia and a long record of Roms hunting. Not to say he has a talent to find Ministers of the Interior who love saying other cultures are less evolved.

[MRB_Doom]

K!r4 said:

xenophobia

When I was in seventh grade, the girls in my class sang racist songs about Turks and said that only Turkish men like anal sex. I guess I could've said to them that I myself, who has Turkish-Armenian roots, that the Turkish fleet dates back, according to Turkey itself, around 200 B.C.

And that their civilization was advanced several hundred years before Europeans even knew how to wash themselves.

I like the scene with David Warner in the mini series Marco Polo from 1982 where he lectures several people who visits his prison cell and says something like this:

What's man's greatest enemy? IGNORANCE!!!!!!

God I love that outburst from Mr. Warner's character. Great scene.

[Phml]

No argument on Le Pen, that is what the FN is known for after all. Being better than the absolute worst nobody should ever seriously consider is a given. ;)

As for Sarkozy, I'm just not seeing it. There's been some small blunders that were for the most part, in my opinion, blown out of proportion by the media, as it's inevitable to make a few missteps when you actually do things. He's actually got a better approval rate in most countries but France (which while I can concede isn't necessarily related to how does he himself feel about foreigners, is still, I think, an indicator), he's been consistently involved in Europe and world issues.

His stance, as I interpret it, isn't to keep everyone out as much as just saying he's tired of giving one finger and getting his whole arm bitten off and would rather focus on people who are looking to build something rather than destroy something, which is something I can relate to as a white man living in Essonne for the last two decades. There are numerous people gaming the system - don't get me wrong, on both ends of the scale, but to see one of these ends also being labelled as the righteous one morally speaking gets old. Got old. Years ago. Especially seeing them laugh out loud in the open while cheating. Yes, admittedly a little bias from me here. :)

Not that I really want to be a Sarkozy apologist. He certainly has numerous defaults, and truth be told I don't like the man, but I don't want a president to be my buddy, I want him to do his job and he's done OK so far as far as I'm concerned. As shaky as this whole post might be I'll leave it as is because I've got a friend waiting on me to do much more important things - killing monsters in a video game.

[Kira]

I stay dubitative as Sarkozy tried to seduce FN's electors more than once. Anyway, I am afraid we couldn't agree anywhere if we are going to debate about propositions from each candidate, as it appears we have incompatible views about our society.

That's why we have a voting system anyway, let's wait for the results :)

[Phml]

I stay dubitative as Sarkozy tried to seduce FN's electors more than once.

Fair enough. And, agreed on the rest of your post. Freedom to choose and freedom to come in and go out of the country as we please - those are the two most important things. Good day to you sir!

[DooMAD]

"Hollande wins first round with 27.5 per cent"
http://rt.com/news/france-election-results-turnout-681/

[printz]

Ok, so it's just Hollande and Sarkozy. The percentages look tight. Also, more than 80% presence looks nice, at least people are still interested to vote.

[Csonicgo]

Good lord, and I thought the American south was racist/xenophobic.

[Kira]

You never herd a french guy who has never quit his town. They are some of the funniest specimens on Facebook.

printz said:

The percentages look tight.

Yeah, the road won't be easy for either of the candidates until May 6th. Lepen doesn't want to gift anything to Sarkozy and nobody knows how much from our center (Bayrou) will go to one of them.

Election results updated by Google: http://fr2012.election-maps.appspot.com/results/embed