Sarkoland

Interesante aunque un poco largo y viejo (de mayo de este año) artículo sobre Sarkozy y las últimas elecciones en Francia.

Personalmente creo que el autor tiene razón al decir que la economía no se encuentra al borde del colapso, pero creo que exagera cuando describe su pujanza y potencial (visto en 100 Volando):

Sarkozy cannot be identified with any of the major rightist currents in the French past.[7] He is not a Gaullist (even if his party, the Union for a Popular Movement, UMP, is commonly called Gaullist; it broke with the Gaullist tradition long ago). Sarkozy's concerns have never been the great Gaullist themes of France's unique destiny, and he seems indifferent to the geopolitical concerns of De Gaulle.

He is not really an economic liberal in the European sense either, pro-business and a free-trade advocate— as in the liberal parties across Europe. He advocates some deregulation of the French labor market, cuts in bureaucracy, and reduction of debt, but he also believes in "economic patriotism" and government interventions in industries important to the French economy. As economics minister, he arranged the state rescue of Alstom, France's huge power and high-speed rail manufacturing conglomerate. He has also said that it was a mistake for France to have allowed the Indian Mittal Steel group to buy Arcelor, the French-owned Franco-Belgian steel giant. He wants the European Central Bank to be required to respect European political and industrial interests in setting interest rates.

He certainly does not belong to the old French reactionary tradition of family-work-religion, anti-republicanism, and xenophobic nationalism, nor to the boisterous modern manifestation of that tradition in the party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. In his election campaign, he efficiently destroyed Le Pen as a political force in France by restating Le Pen's themes, such as his opposition to illegal immigrants, in more acceptable form and stealing Le Pen's votes. (Le Pen was eliminated with some 11 percent of the first-round vote—his lowest result in twenty-five years.)

Sarkozy is not a religious conservative, a defender of the natural order, hostile to money values, capitalism, and modern secularism. Yet as the campaign drew toward its end he repeatedly denounced the influence of "1968," saying in his last big campaign speech a week before the final vote that the "events" of 1968 had "made the difference disappear between good and evil, between true and false, between the beautiful and the ugly," undermining authority, courtesy, respect, ethical and moral values—"leading the way," he unexpectedly and implausibly concluded, "to unscrupulous capitalism, golden parachutes, and criminal corporation presidents."