French Transit Strike is a Referendum on Sarkozy

As France’s transit strike enters its eighth day, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stood firm in his first attempt to extract concessions from a set of workers, in seeking to curb some of the pension benefits for new workers. Transit workers are able to retire as young as fifty, rather than the minimum cutoff of 60 for most other French workers.

At this point, as many as 38% of the transit workers have sought a return to work.

Sarkozy announced, “France needs reforms to meet the challenges imposed on it by the world,” and he’s absolutely right about that. There’s simply no need, in an age when people are living longer and healthier lives, that some workers are allowed, even encouraged to retire at FIFTY years of age!

When Jacques Chirac sought the same concessions from the same Unions back in 1995, the unions paralyzed France for three weeks and Chirac backed down. That scenario seems highly unlikely today, as Sarkozy has gone about playing public opinion against the transit workers. As a lure, Sarkozy is considering proposing cuts in the labor taxes, in exchange for concessions from some of the workers who now enjoy “special pensions.”

Another Victory for “France’s Giuliani?

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France appears poised to continue its hard lurch to the Right as opinion polls and projections through the second round of voting scheduled for June 16 predict that Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) and its center-right allies will win over 42% of the vote — under France's proportional representation rules, that would give the President and his allies between 410 and 430 of the parliament's 577 seats.

After promising “No mass legalizations,’ and “No backing away from the scheduled mass deportations,” as well as major revisions to France’s failed welfare state and ill-conceived labor laws (the 35 hour work-week and eight weeks paid vacation may be going by the boards), Sarkozy's popularity seems as high as it's ever been.

Food for thought; if France (FRANCE!!!) is talking mass deportations and refusing to legalize its illegal migrants, then why shouldn’t America take a cue from that?

I mean, after all, the NY Times and other Leftist organs have been begging America to emulate many of the failed French policies. Why not look to emulate one rooted in real common sense and true compassion?

SEE:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1631020,00.html

SARKOZY!!!

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Man, could we clone this guy and get him to run over here?

Seriously, this guy’s going where few American Pols Left or Right seem willing to go.

He’s recently gone on record saying NO to any mass legalization of illegal immigrants in France and now, as part of his overall reforms package he’s looking to exempt overtime from social security charges (NOT BAD), NOT replacing half of retiring public servants as they retire (GREAT), forcing the unemployed to accept work (ABSOLUTELY AWESOME) and ending special pensions enjoyed by some in public sector (ALSO GREAT).

Of course, Mr. Sarkozy is going to need a lot of help (in Parliament) to get that agenda passed and he’s hoping to gain a large amount of parliamentary support in the upcoming June Parliamentary elections.

Polls suggest his UMP party may win 40% of the vote, giving it an absolute majority in the national assembly. The polls indicate the UMP could get at least 365 of the chamber's 577 seats - far more than the opposition Socialists, who are predicted to win 28% of the vote.

The legislative elections will be held in two rounds, on 10 and 17 June.

I’ve heard the charge here, that “Sarkozy would be a Centrist Democrat here.”
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REALLY?!

Which “Right-wing Republican" running has had the balls to offer such promises here?!

Any Democrats standing firm against “any kind of mass legalization of illegal immigrants?”

Not a chance!

Again, can we clone this guy???....PLEASE!?

Sarkozy Looks Poised for Victory in France!

After a devastating head-to-head debate, in which Segolene Royal began shouting, only to have Nicolas Sarkozy question whether she had the "emotional stability" to govern France, Sarkozy's lead in the French polls has ballooned to over 10 points.

Yesterday (Friday, May 4, 2007) Ms. Royal took the tack popularized by many Western radicals, by warning of massive violence should Sarkozy be elected Sunday.

But is that really an effective argument for appeasement ("They're already here in big numbers, so we'd better just learn to live with and accept them") or is it really a defense of Sarkozy's warning about "the Muslim menace within?"

To date, no radical anywhere, not communist George Soros, not radical Michael Moore, nor his protege Cindy Sheehan, not anyone, has made an effective argument in favor of "conciliation with Sharia-based Islam."

Perhaps the argument just cannot be made!

After all, if the Muslims in France are really the threat that Segolene Royal claims they are, then that would seem to be an argument in favor of even harsher measures than those proposed by Sarkozy and not the appeasement that Royal and the radicals are calling for.

Certainly one couldn't seriously take that warning as an argument in favor of "surrender" - "They're already here, it's too late to fight, so we just better learn to adapt to and accommodate these new-comers."

The latter is a rationalization for suicide!

Thankfully, it looks as though it's failing.

One socialist acquittance of mine has long argued that "socialism just hasn't been done right."

Of course, history says otherwise. Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Castro among others have ALL proven that property rights (private property) gets in the way of socialism and makes "equality" impossible, thus land (property) reform must always be the first step of any socialist regime and that first step can only be achieved through mass murder...and worse, the mass murder of a nation's most productive class - it's property owners.

No, socialism has been tried many times and in many ways and it has been rightfully declared dead.

Let's hope that France realizes that there is no hope in trying to revive a dead ideology, even one advanced by a pretty face.