Opinion of Nicolas Sarkozy

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

bad-ass.

Couldn't really care less about his politics, France seems to be soldiering on as a beacon of awesomeness even with a "conservative" in office.

This is changing... Sarko is an admirator of "American model", what in French language, doesn't mean he loves America, but that he loves all that is currently causing America's collapse : destruction of the welfare state, communitarism, religious right and so forth...
Is Sarkozy wanted honestly to take a leaf out of America's politics, he sould before all remember its formidabl "check and balances" system, that managed to create a stable democracy. Contrary to what many people use to think (especially in Frnace, unfortunately), the french President is far closer to a dictator than American one, even taking Patriot Act into account.

Just a few things.

About "communitarism" which is to speak about a word that doesn't exist in English, which is the French word "communautarisme". We can't say it caused America's collapse. This word could maybe be translated by "communitism" in English, but even that, I don't really think there could be a word for that in US, this is their model of society quite since the beginning, an accumulation of communities, while in France we first think to the national community. Well, that's anyways a long and interesting discussion which is not the point there, but we can't blame US for their model of society in that realm, that's just different from ours, and that's anyways a model which is conquering ours, Sarkozy or not. Actually this guy is by no means the initiator of something significant, he's nothing but a follower.

For the religious right we already had the debate. He opened a door to religion here, I agree with this, but he's by no means this conservative right from the US. He's just a modern guy, who, like a lot of modern guys who has some moral problems with himself, tries to find some moral stability in, and spontaneously feels attracted by, its traditional religion and a part of conservatism.

And saying that he leans to something worst than Patriot Act is just, please, some non sense.

Then, I agree with Hashemite on what is the guy, nothing to add about that. But about the politician, I think he has no real ideas, the only ideas he had have been more or less non senses or "epic fails" as we say here (I'll go again with Guy Moquet, Jew children's memory, "policy of civilization", and I may forget some others...). The only good idea than this guy can have is to have a dose of pragmatism, and that's the only thing about which I will compliment him, so the only reforms he proposed that actually worked are more or less some necessary technical pragmatism.

Other than that, most of the time, when I see that guy at the head of the state speaking, I actually feel, each time, "damn, what happened, how this guy could have come here..."

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

And saying that he leans to something worst than Patriot Act is just, please, some non sense.

What I meant is that a French President has globally far more power that American one, due to our parliament's weakness, institutionnally as well as in political behaviour. This can easily be proved comparing the difficulties that Obama has to pass his agenda, even with a 60%-majority in both houses, and how easily the UMP-bloc manages to pass almost everything with only minor changes.

Ok, but Patriot Act was the really bad example to illustrate it. France has one of the most protective law concerning personal data and how they can be collected and shared, this thanks to Commission Nationale Informatique et Liberté (CNIL) ("national commission for data-processing and freedom") which has a strong independence and as long as someone don't officially erase this commission or weaken it from the inside, that's ok. And people are very vigilant about it in France, remember Hadopi? Remember all the reactions toward this law? A law which frankly just seemed to focus on illegal P2P and period, not that I support it, I already said i'd rather support "License Globale", but to me, the criticisms were very exaggerated. People are hard on this topic, because you know, we already had something worst than the Patriot Act, it was led from a charming part of Auvergne, you know...Vichy (the collaborationist French regime during WW2). Since this, people are very harsh on all what concerns data, maybe sometimes a bit too much, they should pay attention not to discredit themselves...