France turns to the "right"

From The Washington Post:

PARIS, May 6 -- Nicolas Sarkozy, the combative son of a Hungarian immigrant, was elected president of France on Sunday, promising a new generation of leadership to transform the country, restore its self-respect and reinvigorate ties with the United States and Europe.

Sarkozy, a member of the ruling party and France's former top law enforcement officer, defeated Socialist Segolene Royal, who waged a determined battle to become France's first elected female head of state, by a 53 percent to 47 percent vote, according to final results. Voter turnout was a near-record 84 percent.

In a victory speech before a jubilant crowd of supporters in Paris, Sarkozy said voters "have chosen to break with the habits and behavior of the past." He pledged "to give greater value to work, to authority, to respect, to merit."

"I want to give French people back the pride of being French -- to finish with repentance, which is a form of self-hate," he said, renouncing a pervasive national malaise fed by economic decline at home and sinking influence abroad.

An unabashed admirer of America, Sarkozy, 52, had a special message for the United States, which has had troubled relations with France under President Jacques Chirac, who led international opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq.

"I'd like to appeal to our American friends to say that they can count on our friendship," he said. "But I would also like to say that friendship means accepting that your friends don't necessarily see eye to eye with you."

In particular, he said, "a great nation like the United States has the duty not to oppose the fight against global warming, but to lead that battle, because what is at stake is the destiny of mankind." Sarkozy said he would make the issue a top international priority as president.

His election signals a shift to the right in French politics and could herald a major transition for French society. Sarkozy has promised to boost economic growth and employment by cutting taxes, reducing deficits, shrinking government and loosening labor laws -- the kind of free-market policies embraced by the United States and Britain, but long eschewed by French leaders.

In selecting the passionate, pragmatic and pugnacious Sarkozy, who is a lawyer by training, voters rejected Royal's prescription of continuing big spending programs to protect and expand France's vast social welfare state.

Only in France, well Old Europe in general, could a politician who starts off his victory speech by prattling about global warming be considered "conservative".

I believe that Sarkozy is sincere, but I do not believe that he will be successful. What is wrong with France was woven into the fabric of the nation by design. To restore the nation to health would mean giving up things which the average French person values too highly. That the various socialist handouts are what is killing the nation is something that the Frenchman's perceived self-interest will not allow him to see.

So what Sarkozy will deliver are basically cosmetic reforms which may, at most, buy a little time before the final implosion. Still I give the French some credit for at least being able to realize that Royal would have only driven the speedboat even faster toward the waterfall.