In other news, the French election

[dustdevil28]

In a Runoff between a conservative and socialist, the Conservative is enjoying up 55% to 45% with the socialist now threatening violence if she isn't elected. . I like this part of the article.

She's finishing in violence, in a certain state of feverishness," Sarkozy told reporters during a trip to the Alps. "When I hear her remarks, I wonder why a woman of her qualities carries such violent feelings. It adds nothing to the debate." [/color]

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PARIS (Reuters) - France risks violence and brutality if right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy wins Sunday's presidential election, his Socialist opponent Segolene Royal said on Friday.

On the last day of official campaigning, opinion polls showed Sarkozy enjoyed a commanding lead over Royal, who accused the former interior minister of lying and polarizing France.

"Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," Royal told RTL radio.

"It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)," she said.

Pressed on whether there would actually be violence, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring specifically to France's volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.

A relaxed Sarkozy laughed off her comments.

"She's not in a good mood this morning. It must be the opinion polls," he told Europe 1 radio.

Royal went on the offensive during a fiery television debate between the two on Wednesday night when Sarkozy, portrayed as ruthlessly ambitious by his opponents, questioned whether she was calm enough to become France's first woman president.

Sarkozy's performance buttressed his lead in the polls and a TNS Sofres survey published on Friday showed him at 54.5 percent, compared to 45.5 percent for the Socialist.

The last polls of the campaign, one by BVA and one by IPSOS, both put him even further ahead on 55 percent to Royal's 45.

"It is hard to imagine the trend being reversed," TNS Sofres deputy head Brice Teinturier told a news conference.

British bookmaker William Hill said bets on the election had been pouring in, with big money going on Sarkozy; one man had put 18,900 pounds ($37,660) on him winning the presidency.

A senior Royal aide conceded the situation was serious.

"I have said that if the difference between Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal was more than 5 points, the second round would be difficult," Royal's adviser Julien Dray told RFI radio.

Sarkozy topped the first round vote on April 22 with 31.2 percent of the ballot against 25.9 percent for Royal.

Analysts say a fresh defeat for the Socialists, who have not held the presidency since Francois Mitterrand retired in 1995, could spark a crisis in the party which has not undergone the painful reforms of other European leftist parties.

Royal refused to give up, saying polls could not be trusted.

"I want to tell voters to come and vote in great numbers and to not let themselves be manipulated by these opinion polls," Royal told France 3 television during a last-minute campaign whirl through the northwestern region of Brittany.

At the start of her campaign, Royal refused to refer to her opponent, but with time running against her she has changed tactics and has relentlessly lambasted him this past week.

On Friday she said he had exacerbated social tensions during his time as interior minister and added that he was unable to enter some neighborhoods for fear of provoking violence. The suburbs were hit by widespread riots in 2005.

"She's finishing in violence, in a certain state of feverishness," Sarkozy told reporters during a trip to the Alps. "When I hear her remarks, I wonder why a woman of her qualities carries such violent feelings. It adds nothing to the debate."

Campaigning ends at midnight ahead of voting in some of France's overseas territories on Saturday. The rest of the nation's 44.5 million voters will cast their ballot on Sunday.

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070504/wl_nm/france_election_dc

[youngstown]

A good example of , "Hell Hath No Fury, Like a Woman Scorned"?

[MrDoublel]

More like...Elect the socialist, or else!

Typical extreemist tactic. Hopefully she leads the violent protests and they can throw her commie ass in the clink.

[dustdevil28]

Looks like the French frontrunner isn't sitting back on this one.

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PARIS (Reuters) - Voting began overseas in French presidential elections on Saturday and frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy attacked "warlike" remarks by his rival Segolene Royal, who said his election on Sunday could trigger riots.

Polling stations opened in French Guiana, the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and the tiny overseas territory of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Canada's east coast, as voting got under way a day before polls open in mainland France.

About 1 million French nationals outside France can cast their ballot a day early, a move intended to boost turnout. The rest of France's 44.5 million electors vote on Sunday.

In an interview released by the French daily Le Parisien on its Web site late on Friday, rightwinger Sarkozy said his Socialist rival's warning there might be violence if she lost the election was a sign of desperation.

"This warlike language is the negation of basic democratic rules," Sarkozy said. "No doubt it's because she's demoralized," he added. Royal trailed by 10 points in the last polls published on Friday ahead of a pre-vote embargo.

"To explain that if people don't vote for one candidate there will be violence is quite simply to refuse the democratic and republican expression of opinion," Sarkozy said.

The full interview could not be published in Saturday's print edition of Le Parisien because of an election ban on polls and campaigning on the eve of polling, to ensure voters a "day of reflection" before the ballot.

On Friday, Royal told RTL radio that "choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," acknowledging that she was breaking a taboo by raising the prospect of violence.

"SCUM" JIBE

Pressed as to whether there would actually be unrest if Sarkozy won, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring to suburbs hit by rioting in 2005.

Critics of Sarkozy accuse him of heavy-handed policing as interior minister and say his "scum" jibe, directed at young thugs he said were ruining life in one multi-ethnic suburb, fuelled the worst riots in mainland France in 40 years.

Royal raised the tone in the latter stages of the campaign, in which candidates' personalities rather than their policies have dominated.

Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian immigrant, was portrayed as an aggressive hardliner whose overweening ambition was a danger to democracy. Royal was dogged by her tag as a gaffe-prone lightweight who lacked presidential gravitas.

Sarkozy campaigned for the "silent majority" of hard-working French people, vowing real change with reforms that would shake up the strict labor code, restore full employment, offer higher growth and more spending power.

Royal said electing a woman would herald radical change for France, her left-wing economic policies and softer views on social affairs offering "change without brutality." But proposals such as sending young offenders to boot camps rankled with some Socialists as too authoritarian.

Having lacked bite early in the campaign, Royal went on the offensive after the April 22 first round, attacking Sarkozy in a mid-week TV debate in a bid to win over centrist voters who analysts say hold the key to Sunday's ballot.

But Sarkozy has since extended his lead, two polls on Friday giving him 55 percent to 45 percent for Royal, suggesting the Socialist will need a political tsunami to sweep away her rival if she is to become the first woman president of France.

A Sarkozy aide said plans were in hand for celebrations on Place de la Concorde in central Paris should he win. Sarkozy told Le Parisien that if elected he would take a break before assuming office on May 17, then lead the fight for June parliamentary polls.

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070505/wl_nm/france_election_dc

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What does it say about you and your supporters when you will resort to violence when the election doesn't go your way?

[Merceditas]

youngstown said:

A good example of , "Hell Hath No Fury, Like a Woman Scorned"?

I really hate to say this, because I think it seems sexist...

But I was trying to think of how many women I've seen who are attractive really pull off a poitical authoritarian position very well.

The only females I can think of are not very attractive. Even Rice just doesn't come off as presidential material, to me, close, but not quite.

Now Thatcher........she was good!

But mainly Royal's problem is her politics, it's just plain ugly and makes her ugly too, imo.

[MrDoublel]

The sad thing is Sarkozy seems to be in favor of a more free market based society, one that would provide for more jobs and greater economic growth. Royal seems to want to go towards a socialized state, less jobs, less growth...stagnation.

Sarkozy's policies would be best for the working class and provide for jobs for the unemployed, the same people that will riot if he wins? Watch he wins by a large margin and there is no rioting afterwards.

[dustdevil28]

And Sarkozy has won

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PARIS - Au revoir, Jacques Chirac, and bonjour to a new U.S.-friendly French president who identifies with the American dream and happily affirms that the French like burgers, Madonna and Miami Vice.

To France's "American friends," Nicolas Sarkozy said in his victory speech: "I want to tell them that France will always be by their side when they need." He added, "I also want to tell them that friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions."

But Sarkozy's gaze in his first months in office will be directed more at home than across the Atlantic.

French voters didn't elect the conservative because he promises a warmer new approach to the often troubled yet also deeply rooted relationship between France and the United States. In fact, Sarkozy's America-friendly inclination was seen more as an electoral liability than an advantage.

The new president's priorities will be to get France's sluggish economy and Europe's stalled process of integration moving forward again.

With the exception of Europe — a national obsession in France, which sees itself as a natural leader of the continent — foreign affairs got scant attention in the long presidential campaign that was dominated by worries over jobs, the economy and how to compete against rising powers like China.

That means not much is known about how President Sarkozy will lead France on the world stage — even though foreign affairs are a major part of his new job, an area where Chirac had considerable expertise and where he often seemed more at ease than with domestic issues.

As Chirac's minister for the interior and, in 2004, for finance, Sarkozy worked with governments in Europe and Africa to combat illegal immigration and terrorism, represented France at the International Monetary Fund, and irritated Berlin by protecting the French engineering giant Alstom SA from the advances of Germany rival Siemens AG.

But it is unknown how Sarkozy would cope in a major international crisis.

"He's never done any serious, hands-on broad spectrum diplomacy," notes Francois Heisbourg, a leading French foreign and strategic affairs expert.

The learning curve for Sarkozy promises to be steep, and Iran will be a foremost challenge requiring immediate attention. Within days of Sarkozy's inauguration, which must take place before May 17, the international community could ratchet up sanctions against the regime in Tehran if it continues to refuse to suspend its nuclear program. France under Sarkozy can be expected to go along. He describes Iranian leaders as "extremely dangerous."

"It's the most sensitive and dangerous dossier in international relations today," he says.

Sarkozy's election could improve chances of unblocking the paralysis that has gripped the European Union since 2005, when French and Dutch voters blocked greater integration. Those votes were giant setbacks for pro-Europeans like Sarkozy who want the 27-nation bloc to become a veritable player on the world stage, with coherent policies to guarantee its energy supplies, to regulate immigration from Africa, and to protect European workers from the most cut-throat excesses of globalization.

He promises to be a tough customer in global trade talks, saying Europe should only open its markets to those that open theirs. He wants an EU-wide tax on goods from countries — he has singled out China — that have not agreed to cap their greenhouse gas emissions.

And at the World Trade Organization, "I want reciprocity and I do not want anyone to tell me that we don't have the right to do what the Americans do," he says. "We created Europe to act, not to submit," he also says.

Sarkozy says German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the British and Spanish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Jose Luis Rodrigues Zapatero, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have all given him a thumbs-up to his proposal that the bloc adopt a new treaty to unblock EU decision-making and give it an elected president.

But, ultimately, Sarkozy could make his greatest impact abroad, or at least in its region, by setting France on its feet again. By some measures, France has become the sick man of Europe. Only Poland and Slovakia have worse unemployment rates than France. Its economic growth rate is one of Europe's slowest — only Italy and Portugal did worse last year than France's 2.1 percent.

Reforming France and solving such problems, notes Heisbourg, "will have a lot more influence than any amount of foreign policy gesturing."

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070506/ap_on_re_eu/france_us_analysis

[Sailor]

Police battle anti-Sarkozy protesters

RIOT police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters gathered in central Paris today to demonstrate against the presidential election victory of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy.

The clashes took place on the Place de la Bastille where about 5000 supporters of the defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal had gone to await the election results, an AFP journalist said.

Up to 300 rioters, some of whom were masked, made running attacks on riot police who took up positions at the entrance to boulevards leading onto the square.

Earlier a small crowd of protesters, brandishing black and red anarchist flags, set fire to an effigy of Mr Sarkozy in the square before tearing it limb from limb and then stamping on it.

Supporters of the president-elect held their own giant celebratory party in another part of central Paris.

Mr Sarkozy beat Ms Royal by 53 per cent of the vote to 47 per cent, according to projections.

www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21684341-38200,00.html?from=public_rss

[youngstown]

Merc: I thought Jean Kirkpatrick was pretty cool.

[Merceditas]

youngstown said:

Merc: I thought Jean Kirkpatrick was pretty cool.

hmmmmm........The name is familiar. Maybe I was busy with my babies at her time in office.

Unless you want to refresh my memory, I'm going to have to look her up.