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Sarkozy did not reject socialism and niether di the French people. But he did promise "reforms" to open up opportunities. He ran a well polished campaign and came across as strong were as Royal seemed to be off balance and all over the place. She did not want to defend the old guard of the left which is entrenched and doesn't really like her, but they themselves are sadly out of date and touch with the French people. Though the left actually represent the French people's interest more then Sarkozy who really got strong support from the wealthy business class and of course he got support from the right wing.

Royal ran a weak campaign and did not instill a lot of confidence but the election was not a landslide or anyhting. There were demonstrations of thousands of people across France out protesting already.

Sarkozy definitely ran on fear and simplistic solutions to complex problems. He promised to protect the environment and is pro Koyoto Treaty and he promised to protect the French worker yet he is strongly pro business. We will see what the French people think after they feel the effects of his "reforms."
Duck,

I'm pretty sure I don't agree with your opinion of the Germans and Spanish, but the Muslim immigrant issue was a big reason why Sarkozy won.

People have immigrated to France for the longest time, but they became French. The Muslims want France to become another Iran or Syria.

Same here in California. The Mexicans don't give one sht about becoming Americans. They are interested in forming a country with American prosperity and Mexican culture (a contradiction if ever there was one) called Aztlan.

DF
Sarkozy is an out spoken critic of Muslim immigrants. These immigrants have high unemployment, face harassment by police and racism. During the riots Sarkozy called for harsh measures and made derogatory remarks about them. Royal predicted the same poor youths would riot again. It was a poor thing to say and a desperate last minute try, same as trying to tie the elction to Bush. Shows you how bad a campaign she ran.

Still, she only lost by about 5%. Decisive but not a landslide rout. She did not instill confidence in the people and immigration is a hot button issue there also.

She did say she wanted to model France after the Scandanvia model but sort of left it to the background.

Muslims in France want to be able to hold onto their culture. All first generation immigrants, even in America, held onto their culture. Some became citizens and learned English but some did not. It was usually the second generation that grew up in America who chose more to identify with America then the "old country."

Some Mexicans are here to work and then go home while others that plan to stay do learn English and try to assimilate.

Many Muslims here have assimlated and are hard workers.

People should not fear diversity.
quote:
Some Mexicans are here to work and then go home while others that plan to stay do learn English and try to assimilate.


Some do, but many or most Mexicans have no intention of learning English or assimiating into American culture. I know, I'm surrounded by them. There are many reasons to control our border and immigration; that's another topic.

But, fear of diversity is not an issue. Please, man, get a grip.

DF

p.s. La Manch is the Channel? I learn stuff every day.

DF
We are talking about immigrants. The majority of them do want to come here legally and work legally. They come here because of job loss through Corporate Globalization and NAFTA and they need money to feed their families. They are being denied the opportunity they need. We need to open up our immigration policies and they will be here legally.

As the elections in France shows immigration is also throughout Western Europe. It is a world wide occurrence. It is caused by Corporate Globalization, poverty and wars. If we address the root causes it will cut down on the number who leave their home countries. It's not easy to leave your home country. There has to be little future or hope there.

I have worked and know Mexicans for over 10 years. Not all are good and they will be the first to tell you that, but many are. And they come here out of necessity.

Some assimilate and some don't. Many go back after they have made the money they need. As I said, usually the first generation has some trouble assimilating and it falls to the second and third generations.

I grew up in Jersey City New Jersey during the 1950's and 60's. A fairly large city and back then every one complained about the Puerto Ricans, but today second and third generations are proud Americans. And like all other Americans they are proud of their heritage.

Immigrants are being scapegoated. We are losing good paying jobs and wages are stagnating for the average worker. It is putting a squeeze on the middle class. The Corporate Class is looking to deflect the blame from their greed and immigrants are the target. They have always been scapegoated, as far back as the 1850's when the Irish came here.

As far as the plot to commit terrorism three were illegal, two were legal and one was a citizen. Although it looks like they have evidence you have to be careful because many of these cases are built on informants entrapping people into making inflammatory statements. So let's wait and see what the video and evidence really shows.

They may be guilty but the government has over stated it's case numerous times only to have the case fall apart and defendants convicted of lesser crimes like immigration violation and other minor crimes. The government likes big flashy headlines but when it comes down to what really happened it's buried in the back pages or not even covered.

Don't forget Padilla and the so called "Dirty Bomb."

It looks like they are guilty but let's wait and see before we convict them in the media without a trial.

And why are they attacking us? They say straight out, because we have a war against Islam. We are in the Mideast for power and profits and the world knows it.
Here there is a lot of "Muslim Bashing" and racism.

Bush and the corporate media lie and say we are being attacked because they hate freedom and infidels but bin Laden has written about freeing the Mideast from Western control since the 1990's. He has stated it numerous times also.
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NashBama:

We already have 1/10 the population of Mexico living in our borders now. Letting illegals in freely is absolutely absurd. Close the borders and they'll be forced to fix their own country and stay out of ours.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

To start with they are here already and we should legalize them and open up our immigration policy. Because of our economic policies of NAFTA and Corporate Globalization they are being forced to come here.

Actually Bush and the Corporate Class want a "guest worker" program so they will be here anyway but they will continue to work for low wages, be exploited and under cut the American worker.

But there is some truth in what you say but you may not like the results. There are basically two ways to do this, we can work together with the people of Mexico to reform these policies to benefit working people throughout the Hemisphere, and world. Or if we turn our backs the people of Mexico may just band together and do something about the conditions themselves.

If Bush and the Corporate Class felt they couldn't live with Orbador and he was too much like Chavez we may wind up facing someone even more radical being elected, like the head of the Zapatistas, Commander Marcos.
That's simply a dumb idea. When you allow a third world country into our borders, it does not lift us up, it takes us down. Come to Nashville and drive down Nolensville road, see it for yourself.

You say workers should get a fair wage, it's the illegals that drive wages down. You can't allow illegals into the country and expect a fair living wage at the same time, the two contradict each other.

The solution is to crack down on those who hire illegals for cheap labor. The business owners are taking advantage of a desperate people while Americans are out of work. Close the borders, eliminate jobs for illegals, and create an Ellis Island type of system where immigrants can be checked out, documented, and if approved, then let into the country. No one with criminal backgrounds or diseases will be allowed and the flow can be controlled.

It was the amnesty in the 80's that caused the problem we're seeing today. Repeat the mistake again and expect worse problems. It's basic common sense.
We do have an "Ellis Island" type system. The problem is the quota's are too low, especially for Mexicans. They want to be legal but the waiting list is years. Most don't have years, they need money to feed their families now.

But unless you address the root cause of this immigration it will continue. Simply making it illegal will not solve the problem, like the War on Drugs, it makes it worse.

Immigration is a world wide occurrence, it's an assault on workers world wide by Multi National Corporations and has to be address by International Unions. Simply thinking we can just close ourselves off from the rest of the world won't save the American worker. Corporations continue to send our jobs overseas to sweatshop labor and bring in Legal Immigrants and under pay them to under cut the American worker.

Illegal immigrants drivedown wages because they are illegal. They have to accept less. Some have phony papers while others have no papers. They need to be legalized and unionized. Workers have to unite.

Many employers of smaller businesses are forced to hire them becasue they can't compete with cheap global imports. The American worker's wages are stagnate and there is less money to spread around. That's why discount stores like WalMart are thriving. People would like to support small local businesses but can't afford to. Their wages don't cover the cost of living.

If we reform Corporate Globalization these people will not need to come here and they won't and we can still have Fair Trade to help all economies.
quote:
But unless you address the root cause of this immigration it will continue. Simply making it illegal will not solve the problem, like the War on Drugs, it makes it worse.


You don't understand the problem. Sneaking into the country is already illegal. When you don't enforce the law, people will ignore it. That's what we're seeing today, we are not enforcing our laws and they are being ignored.

The root cause of illegal immigration is that the Mexican government is corrupt and no one is standing up to change it. The reason no one is trying to change it is because it's easier just to run across our borders. Close the borders and the Mexicans will be forced to fix their own problems in their own country instead of running from it and wrecking ours.

You are right about illegals driving down wages because they are illegal, but if you make them legal it will not raise their pay, it will cost them a job. Why keep a newly legalized person on the job that will cost more to hire when I can fire him and hire two more illegals? The newly legalized person is now entitled to welfare and government assistance for being unemployed, so now you've raised unemployment and attracted more illegals into our country.

You are constantly talking about how bad corporate America is, yet you defend them with illegal immigrants. Corporate America profits off of illegals while Americans lose out. Again, you can't demand fair wages and allow illegals into the country, economics does not work that way.
Just about everyone seems to be looking at the recent French election totally from an American perspective, and passing judgments solely on that basis. Consider the pathetic and petulant screed of Maureen Dowd on the Tee Dee editorial page this morning. For an important columnist, she seems to indulge in a Manichean cartoon-like take on this recent election.

In fact, the French showed an admirable 85% participation in their election. And the issues were not just simply the immigrants in the banlieue. The socialist policies lost some of their luster since the days of Mitterand. French feminists are far more sophisticated than to reflexively support a candidate merely because she is a woman. The French are more than ambivalent about the EU, although the NY Times is leading cheers for the EU. Some of it has to do with the essence of being French and the national identity.

Did the French make the right decision? That's really up to them to say, not us, and certainly not Maureen Dowd. After all, France is a nation.
I didn't see Maureen Dowd's column but everyone has an opinion on the elcetion. Immigration played a great deal in the election but so did the economy and complex issues like Nationalism.

Sarkozy did not reject socialism. He saw what happened when a year or so ago Chirac and another politican who's name I forget tried to do just that. The streets filled with thousands of protestors.

Sarkozy promised his so called reforms but he is very much pro big business and it's where he got a lot of his support, besides the anti immigration vote as well as the right wing. He did convince enough people to win a decisive victory but not a landslide rout or mandate.

Royal moved more to the center and the left threatened not to vote for her but it seems many came out anyway. How many didn't we don't really know.

The left leadership in France is made up of a lot of the "old guard" who do not like Royal but they are somewhat out of touch with the people also.

Sarkozy ran a well polished campaign where Royal did not seem to get her message across. He offered simple solutions to complex problems. We will see what the French people think a few years down the line.

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