Sarkozy in first place as Antichrist
UPDATE 1-France's Sarkozy urges free elections in Egypt
Fri Feb 11, 2011 7:03pm GMT Print | Single Page[-] Text [+] PARIS Feb 11 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Egypt to take steps towards free elections following the departure of Hosni Mubarak on Friday.
"France ardently hopes the new Egyptian authorities will take steps that lead to establishment of democratic institutions through free and transparent elections," he said in a statement issued by his Elysee Palace office.
Sarkozy described Mubarak's decision to quit as "courageous and necessary" at a "historic moment" for Egypt after weeks of protest and demand for change.
"France urges the Egyptian authorities to proceed as fast as feasible with the reforms needed to turn Egypt into a free and pluralist society," he said in a statement. (Reporting by Brian Love; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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What Is Really Behind the Mediterranean Union?
From the desk of John Laughland on Wed, 2008-03-12 13:52
There are moments in history when the geopolitical balance seems to shift clearly in one direction or the other. Currently within the EU, power seems to have just moved noticeably from France to Germany on a clear issue of substance. It is not the first of such shifts and, while it may not be the last either. But it is substantial and merits comment. I refer to the issue of the Union of the Mediterranean.
The Union of the Mediterranean is a project conceived by Nicolas Sarkozy, the mercurial and hyperactive French president known for his capricious sex life and his loose tongue. Indeed, the former may be an subconscious cause of his proposal to create a political “Club Med”, since all three Madames Sarkozy have been of distinctly Southern European blood, as indeed Sarkozy is himself. The first Madame Sarkozy, Marie-Dominique Culioli, was Corsican; the second, Cécilia María Sara Isabel Ciganer-Albéniz, was born of a Jewish-Russian (possible gypsy) father, André Ciganer (né Aron Chouganov) and a Spanish-Belgian mother; while the third Madame Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, is still even now an Italian national while having become the First Lady of France. Sarkozy himself, of course, is the son of a Hungarian émigré and he was in fact brought up by his Greek-Jewish maternal grandfather as his father left the marital home when he was three.
Sarkozy originally came up with the idea of a Mediterranean Union during his campaign in 2007 to become president. He announced his intention to hold the founding summit during the French presidency of the European Union, i.e. in July-December this year, and the latest news reports indicate that he has been successful: there will indeed be a summit of all heads of state and government from all the countries of the Mediterranean in Paris on 13th July, and they will be invited to stay the night and attend the Bastille Day celebrations the following morning.
The geopolitical and political motives behind this proposal seemed fairly obvious at first sight. Politically, Sarkozy’s interest in setting up the Mediterranean Union would be to offer Turkey an alternative to full EU membership. This is certainly how the plan is being peddled in Paris. The second geopolitical motive would be to reinforce France’s weight on the world stage. European enlargement since the end of the Cold War has been directed almost exclusively at countries which are more or less in the German geopolitical orbit – not just the former Communist states integrated in 2004 but also Austria, Sweden and Finland which joined the EU in 1995. The creation of a political “Club Med” is perhaps a typical example of the French love of the politics of the grand gesture, but there seems little doubt that it would institutionalise France’s leadership role in an area where she has huge historical ties and considerable political influence, from North Africa to Lebanon and Syria.
On closer inspection, however, all is not as it seems. First, Sarkozy has effectively abandoned his opposition to Turkish accession. In the summer of 2007, France voted in favour of opening new “chapters” in the accession negotiations with Turkey. Paris has not put the freezing of those negotiations on the agenda for the French presidency later this year, and there will never be a “French” presidency ever again because the Lisbon treaty abandons the principle by which the European Council is chaired by one country every six months. More insidiously, Sarkozy is campaigning to remove Article 88.5 from the French constitution, which requires that a referendum be held in France on all new accessions to the EU. Any referendum in France would almost definitely lead to a No vote.
Moreover, the latest news is that France has capitulated to Germany’s demand that all EU states be included in the new Union. For the last few months, indeed, there has been bad blood between Paris and Berlin as two summit meetings were cancelled at short notice by the French, apparently because of disagreements over Sarkozy’s new Mediterranean Policy. The Germans objected to the plan because the EU already has a forum for Mediterranean Policy, the so-called Barcelona Process, and it says that a new structure would only undermine that part of EU policy, over which Berlin obviously has a say. Austria has concurred: the Austria Foreign Minister has said she does not see the point of Sarkozy’s new initiative. Thanks to a recent deal between President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel, the new Union will indeed be launched on 13th July – but all EU member states will belong to it. Any geopolitical advantage for France is thereby completely neutralised and the new “Union” is nothing but the Barcelona Process jazzed up.
So why did Sarkozy agree? His capitulation is all the more mysterious because Germany herself was one of the prime movers behind the creation of the Council of the Baltic Sea States in 1992. This organisation has 12 members – Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Iceland and the European Commission. Apart from Iceland and the European Commission, these are all Baltic states, as the name of the organisation suggests. On what possible grounds can Germany object to being excluded from France’s Mediterranean Union when France is excluded from Germany’s Baltic Union?
Perhaps the motives behind the Mediterranean Union lie elsewhere, therefore. The plan, indeed, bears some resemblance to the “Greater Middle East” project favoured by the American neo-conservative strategists. Although the membership of the two proposed bodies is different (the Greater Middle East encompasses Arabia, Iran, Central Asian states and even Afghanistan and Pakistan) the ideology is the same: supranational and anti-national. The idea is to neutralise the Arab-Israeli conflict by “integrating” the Middle Eastern countries into a single political unit, rather as the Franco-German conflict was allegedly neutralised by the creation of the European Community. For there is nothing the neo-cons want to neutralise more than Arab nationalism.
Even more striking is the resemblance between Sarkozy’s plan and the existing Mediterranean Dialogue set up by NATO in 1994. The relevant page (in English, French, Hebrew and Arabic) can be seen here. Numerous Maghreb states have already signed partnership agreements with NATO. In other words, the Mediterranean Union would be but a political superstructure over a military organisation which already exists and which is under US leadership. Sarkozy is known to be extremely friendly to the US and Israel (the Israeli president has just been in Paris, the first head of state to be received with full honours since Sarkozy was elected last year) and his plans therefore resemble those which led to the creation of the original EEC which was also set up on the back of an existing US-led military structure (NATO was created in 1949, the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951).
The goal of Sarkozy’s Club Med is therefore not, after all, to reinforce the geopolitical weight of France, but instead to consolidate the power of NATO and the United States over the Middle East. That is why Germany, America’s senior partner in Europe, was determined to be involved – and that is why Sarkozy has agreed to it. I predict that, in due course, he will agree also to another American policy, the accession of Turkey to the EU.
Daniel 9:27 (King James Version)
27And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
by Steven Masone
Sarkozy is the 'Architech' EU leader of the Mediteranean Union,and President designate of EU has Islamic states onboard to be in "The Image of the EU (first beast) so we see he is confirming (the covenant)with many"
What kind of "Covenant" will it really be?
**** The Hebrew Tenach says “ he will forge (give strength to) a covenant (alliance) with the great ones (Hebrew: rabim – many, strong ones) for one week. So who are these strong, great ones? If he is giving strength to the covenant (alliance), it already exists...The EU and UfM.
Daniel 9:27 (King James Version)
27"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate."
Notice it does not say Israel is in agreement with him. Israel is not mentioned, or its holy people. A covenant is just an agreement or alliance. It may have nothing to do with peace.
As I see it, and examine below, the alliance is formed to meet common goals and needs, and take a strong stand against Israel. When you think about it, each time Israel gets attacked by one or several enemies, Israel wins. We are still waiting for the Ezechiel 38 war, in which Israel wins its most amazing victory, with God’s help.
The only way to defeat Israel now, to those who do not understand that God helped with the Ezekiel 38 victory, is to completely gang up on it in an incredible way. The entire middle east would have to attack it.
Also Rev 17 :12"And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." This looks like UfM who will wage war against the "saints, and destroy the "Whore" (Rome controlled EU through an economical ruin of the Euro dollar).
The French meaning of the name Nicolas is "Victorious: Conqueror of the People."
The meaning of Paul is "Little"--a possible reference to the prophecy of the "little horn".
The meaning of Stephane is "Crown or Garland"--note the rider on the white horse in Revelation is given a crown.
The meaning of the name Sarkozy is "prince of darkness (or tribulation)." And the UfM is c urrently headed in a co-presidency by Sarkozy and Egypt!
Revelation 13
1"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." ( Islam denies Jesus' divinity)
Seven heads,ten horns,ten crowns = 27 The number of EU members! With Sarcozy taking the Helm over it and the UfM which also lines up with numerical divine stamping for the Mediterranean (UfM) is a multilateral partnership that encompasses 43 countries from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 27 member states of the European Union and 16 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. However, Greece has been stripped of her voting rights while in EU "receivership" and 42, a nummber associated with Antichrist rule.
It was created in July 2008 as a relaunched Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (the Barcelona Process) in 2008, when a plan to create an autonomous Mediterranean Union was dropped. France is approaching a Muslim population well exceeding their Christian. France is actually funding the building of mosques.
The Union has the aim of promoting stability and prosperity throughout the Mediterranean region. Nevertheless, its 2009 and 2010 Summits could not be held due to the stalemate of the Arab-Israeli peace process after the Gaza war.
Sarkozy organizing all these "MANY" together to "Confirm the Covenant could mean the clock has started, and midway through the "WEEK" we will know! Will we see Sarkozy receive a mortal wound (symbolically/politically) to his head and recover?
Was Gaddafi shot dead on Sarkozy’s orders?
- Image Credit: AFP
- An image captured off a cellular phone camera shows the arrest of Libya's strongman Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte. The authenticity of the image could not be verified.
Dubai A French secret serviceman, acting on the express orders of Nicolas Sarkozy, shot dead Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi and not a lynch mob of rebels as he lay trapped and cornered in a sewage pipe in his home town of Sirte.
The agent is said to have infiltrated a violent mob which had encircled the Libyan dictator on October 20 last year in a sewage pipe in his home town, and shot him in the head, the Daily Mail reported.
Quoting diplomatic sources in the Tripoli, the Mail said the motive apparently was to stop Gaddafi being interrogated about his highly suspicious links with Sarkozy, who was the president of France at that time.
Other former western leaders, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, were also extremely close to Gaddafi, visiting him regularly and helping to facilitate multi-million pounds business deals.
Sarkozy, who once welcomed Libyan dictator as a ‘brother leader’ during a state visit to Paris, was said to have received millions from Gaddafi to fund his election campaign in 2007.
The conspiracy theory will be of huge concern to Britain which sent RAF jet to bomb Libya last year with the sole intention of ‘saving civilian lives’.
Mahmoud Jibril, who served as interim Prime Minister following Gaddafi’s ouster, told Egyptian TV: ‘It was a foreign agent who mixed with the revolutionary brigades to kill Gaddafi.’
Diplomatic sources in Tripoli, meanwhile suggested to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra that a foreign assassin was likely to have been French. The paper writes: ‘Since the beginning of Nato support for the revolution, strongly backed by the government of Sarkozy, Gaddafi openly threatened to reveal details of his relationship with the former president of France, including the millions of dollars paid to finance his candidacy at the 2007 elections.’
One Tripoli source said: ‘Sarkozy had every reason to try to silence the Colonel and as quickly as possible.’
Rami Al Obaidi, the former head of foreign relations for the Libyan transitional council, said he knew that Gaddafi had been tracked through his satellite telecommunications system as he talked to Bashar Al Assad, the Syrian leader.
Nato experts were able to trace the communicatiosn traffic between the two, and so pinpoint Gaddafi to the city of Sirte.
In another sinister twist to the story, a 22-year-old who was among the group which attacked Gaddafi and who frequently brandished the gun said to have killed him, died in Paris on Monday.
Bin Omran Shaaban was said to have been beaten up himself by Gaddafi loyalists in July, before being shot twice. He was flown to France for treatment, but died of his injuries in hospital.
Sarkozy, who lost the presidential election in May, has continually denied receiving money from Gaddafi.
UPDATE
UPDATE
'It's my moral duty': Nicolas Sarkozy says he 'has no choice' but to run for president again in France's next elections
- Mr Sarkozy is quoted as saying: 'Given the state of France, I will have no choice in 2017'
- He also allegedly said: 'Morally I can not discard the French'
- This is despite fact he is still facing a corruption probe
By PETER ALLEN
|
Second public life: The former head of state was said to claim 'moral' reasons for a return to high office
Nicolas Sarkozy will make an audacious bid to become President of France for the second time in 2017, it was claimed today.
Bruno Le Maire, his former agriculture minister, is said to have heard the former head of state claim 'moral' reasons for a return to high office.
This is despite the fact that the 57-year-old conservative, who lost the presidential election in May after five years in power, is facing corruption enquiries in France.
Le Canard Enchaine, the Paris investigative weekly, quotes Mr Sarkozy as saying: 'Given the disastrous state in which France risks finding itself in five years' time, I will have no choice in 2017.
'The question is not whether I return, but whether I have a choice morally in regards to France not to return. Morally I can not discard the French.'
Such confidence will raise eyebrows among those who believe that Sarkozy's electoral defeat to the Socialist Francois Hollande was indicative of how little he achieved.
After originally styling himself a French Margaret Thatcher who would reform his country, he presided over a period of economic decline.
There were frequent corruption allegations, with official enquiries into alleged wrong-doings still active.
Judge Jean-Michel Gentil believes that Liliane Bettencourt, the L'Oreal cosmetics heiress and France's richest woman, may have illegally contributed two payments of 400,000 euros (335,000 pounds) each to Mr Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign.
Big talk: Such confidence will raise eyebrows among those who believe that Sarkozy's electoral defeat to the Socialist Francois Hollande (pictured) was indicative of how little he achieved
Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke is also set to question Mr Sarkozy about his part in the so-called 'Karachi Affair', which involves illegal arms sales to Pakistan and the murders of 11 French workers in a bomb attack.
UPDATE:
PARIS |
(Reuters) - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his first political appearance since losing power, staging an appeal to hundreds of conservative lawmakers on Monday to help save the UMP party from financial ruin.
Greeted by a mass of fans as he arrived at UMP headquarters, Sarkozy called for donations to prop up the party after France's top legal body ruled last week that it overshot spending limits on his failed 2012 re-election campaign and must repay 11 million euros ($14.15 million) in state subsidies.
While Sarkozy denied the meeting marked the start of his political comeback, the former president has made clear that he is mulling a re-election bid for 2017 and opinion polls show more than half of UMP supporters want him to do so.
Many on the right see Sarkozy as the only person who can reunite a party that fractured into two feuding camps, one with a hardline stance on immigration and the other more moderate, after his May 2012 defeat to Socialist Francois Hollande.
"This is not my political comeback," Sarkozy tweeted as the meeting began - his first statement on Twitter since his election defeat. "When I return to the podium it will be to speak to the French people about France."
Recent surveys by pollster Ifop show only 40 percent of voters want Sarkozy back as president, but among UMP supporters 58 percent want him to run in 2017, leagues ahead of his closest rival and former prime minister, Francois Fillon, at 16 percent.
Respondents gave the UMP's president, Jean-Francois Cope, a Sarkozy ally who says he will only run if his mentor does not, just 10 percent support. Other potential candidates had single-digit support.
Cope told Monday's meeting that since the constitutional council's ruling on Thursday, some 4,000 people had joined the UMP and it had raised 2.3 million euros in donations out of the 11 million it needs to raise before end-July.
Sarkozy only fanned speculation he is plotting his return by telling the audience that it was not the moment to talk about the next election. "The day that I make a comeback, I'll make it known," he said.
Any comeback will hinge, however, on the outcome of a rash of legal cases involving people close to him, including allegations of illicit campaign financing and political rigging in an arbitration payout to a high-profile businessman.
A public prosecutor has recommended Sarkozy be dropped from a probe into whether L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt was duped into handing over funds for his 2007 election campaign, but other investigations could take months to come to a conclusion.
Sarkozy has immunity for life for any official acts carried out while he was president, but would suffer if investigations lead to charges against people in his inner circle or if he is found to be at fault over his 2007 campaign funding.
The problems at the UMP come at a time when the far-right National Front is enjoying a surge in support as disillusioned voters shun the ruling Socialists over Hollande's failure to bring down rampant unemployment. The far-right came close to winning a third parliament seat in a recent by-election.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (C), French UMP political party head Jean-Francois Cope (L) and party member Nadine Morano (R) leave the UMP political party headquarters in Paris July 8, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Philippe Wojazer
PARIS |
(Reuters) - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his first political appearance since losing power, staging an appeal to hundreds of conservative lawmakers on Monday to help save the UMP party from financial ruin.
Greeted by a mass of fans as he arrived at UMP headquarters, Sarkozy called for donations to prop up the party after France's top legal body ruled last week that it overshot spending limits on his failed 2012 re-election campaign and must repay 11 million euros ($14.15 million) in state subsidies.
While Sarkozy denied the meeting marked the start of his political comeback, the former president has made clear that he is mulling a re-election bid for 2017 and opinion polls show more than half of UMP supporters want him to do so.
Many on the right see Sarkozy as the only person who can reunite a party that fractured into two feuding camps, one with a hardline stance on immigration and the other more moderate, after his May 2012 defeat to Socialist Francois Hollande.
"This is not my political comeback," Sarkozy tweeted as the meeting began - his first statement on Twitter since his election defeat. "When I return to the podium it will be to speak to the French people about France."
Recent surveys by pollster Ifop show only 40 percent of voters want Sarkozy back as president, but among UMP supporters 58 percent want him to run in 2017, leagues ahead of his closest rival and former prime minister, Francois Fillon, at 16 percent.
Respondents gave the UMP's president, Jean-Francois Cope, a Sarkozy ally who says he will only run if his mentor does not, just 10 percent support. Other potential candidates had single-digit support.
Cope told Monday's meeting that since the constitutional council's ruling on Thursday, some 4,000 people had joined the UMP and it had raised 2.3 million euros in donations out of the 11 million it needs to raise before end-July.
Sarkozy only fanned speculation he is plotting his return by telling the audience that it was not the moment to talk about the next election. "The day that I make a comeback, I'll make it known," he said.
Any comeback will hinge, however, on the outcome of a rash of legal cases involving people close to him, including allegations of illicit campaign financing and political rigging in an arbitration payout to a high-profile businessman.
A public prosecutor has recommended Sarkozy be dropped from a probe into whether L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt was duped into handing over funds for his 2007 election campaign, but other investigations could take months to come to a conclusion.
Sarkozy has immunity for life for any official acts carried out while he was president, but would suffer if investigations lead to charges against people in his inner circle or if he is found to be at fault over his 2007 campaign funding.
The problems at the UMP come at a time when the far-right National Front is enjoying a surge in support as disillusioned voters shun the ruling Socialists over Hollande's failure to bring down rampant unemployment. The far-right came close to winning a third parliament seat in a recent by-election.
Nicolas Sarkozy is back in play and calculating the odds
But to see off Francois Hollande and Marine Le Pen, France's 'bling president’ is having to undergo a radical reinvention
8:59PM GMT 25 Nov 2013
There are few more improbable places from which to start a revolution than the Casino de Paris, a late 19th-century music-hall where Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker and Zizi Jeanmaire once strutted their stuff. Thanks to a popular campaign led by a French-Italian actress, Annie Girardot, it narrowly escaped the developers’ wrecking ball, to be reinvented as an edgy-ish concert venue at the turn of the 21st century.
Perhaps it is hoped that the newly revamped Casino will serve as a clever metaphor for Nicolas Sarkozy’s political career: at any rate, the appearance of France’s former president there, last Friday, upstaged his very willing wife, Carla Bruni, for the first of her three shows. Slipping, supposedly inconspicuously, into a stall seat after everyone else had sat down, but before the lights went out and the music started, Sarkozy drew a roaring blast of applause, renewed at the intermission and during those songs Carla wrote just for him. “Nicolas, reviens!” his fans screamed in the hall, while a tanned, relaxed Sarkozy signed autographs smiling a lot and saying very little.
The feeling, said concert-goers, was that of his 2007 victorious campaign, rather than a defeated politician’s private outing. “His arrival was timed to perfection – at every show. And the entourage was watching out for him,” one said. “Well, you don’t expect Carla’s audience to be anti-Sarkozy anyway.”
Coming, as it did, two weeks after a flattering television documentary on his 2012 campaign, in which he appeared as a loving husband, doting father and all-round domestic paragon, this was a second testing of the public waters by a very cagey Sarkozy, intent on toning down the personal image that cost him his job a year and a half ago. The personal has always been political, in France as elsewhere; but never more than for the most polarising president of the Fifth Republic.
A series of costly mistakes, starting the very evening of his election with a VIP dinner organised at Le Fouquet’s, a luxury restaurant on the Champs-Elysées, which was amplified by a short cruise on a billionaire friend’s yacht before his inauguration, stamped Sarkozy indelibly as “the bling president”, “friend to the rich”. Cellphone cameras did the rest, unhelpfully capturing his brusque, demotic style (“Get lost, you sad b—————d”, he famously told a heckler at the Paris Agricultural Fair) . When Sarkozy lost to the bland François Hollande last year, the feeling was that most of the 565,534 voters he lacked to win had been turned off by his personality, or their perception of it.
8:59PM GMT 25 Nov 2013
There are few more improbable places from which to start a revolution than the Casino de Paris, a late 19th-century music-hall where Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker and Zizi Jeanmaire once strutted their stuff. Thanks to a popular campaign led by a French-Italian actress, Annie Girardot, it narrowly escaped the developers’ wrecking ball, to be reinvented as an edgy-ish concert venue at the turn of the 21st century.
Perhaps it is hoped that the newly revamped Casino will serve as a clever metaphor for Nicolas Sarkozy’s political career: at any rate, the appearance of France’s former president there, last Friday, upstaged his very willing wife, Carla Bruni, for the first of her three shows. Slipping, supposedly inconspicuously, into a stall seat after everyone else had sat down, but before the lights went out and the music started, Sarkozy drew a roaring blast of applause, renewed at the intermission and during those songs Carla wrote just for him. “Nicolas, reviens!” his fans screamed in the hall, while a tanned, relaxed Sarkozy signed autographs smiling a lot and saying very little.
The feeling, said concert-goers, was that of his 2007 victorious campaign, rather than a defeated politician’s private outing. “His arrival was timed to perfection – at every show. And the entourage was watching out for him,” one said. “Well, you don’t expect Carla’s audience to be anti-Sarkozy anyway.”
Coming, as it did, two weeks after a flattering television documentary on his 2012 campaign, in which he appeared as a loving husband, doting father and all-round domestic paragon, this was a second testing of the public waters by a very cagey Sarkozy, intent on toning down the personal image that cost him his job a year and a half ago. The personal has always been political, in France as elsewhere; but never more than for the most polarising president of the Fifth Republic.
A series of costly mistakes, starting the very evening of his election with a VIP dinner organised at Le Fouquet’s, a luxury restaurant on the Champs-Elysées, which was amplified by a short cruise on a billionaire friend’s yacht before his inauguration, stamped Sarkozy indelibly as “the bling president”, “friend to the rich”. Cellphone cameras did the rest, unhelpfully capturing his brusque, demotic style (“Get lost, you sad b—————d”, he famously told a heckler at the Paris Agricultural Fair) . When Sarkozy lost to the bland François Hollande last year, the feeling was that most of the 565,534 voters he lacked to win had been turned off by his personality, or their perception of it.
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Sarkozy, rightly as it transpired, predicted during the campaign that Hollande wouldn’t be up to the job, but even he couldn’t have expected France’s seventh Fifth Republic president to be breaking new unpopularity records every week. In private, Sarko is scathing and agitated as he describes the “mess” Hollande is making of France.
From the rising unemployment to the tax revolt, and above all to the skyrocketing poll figures of Marine Le Pen’s Front National – Polling Vox reported yesterday that an astonishing 42 per cent of the French “do not discount the possibility of voting for the FN” at the March municipal elections – Sarkozy feels that irreparable damage is being done. He also feels that he, Sarko, could fix it. In 2007, he’ll remind you, he had managed to beat Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father and the FN founder, down to 10.44 per cent, a quarter-century low. Less than a month later, FN candidates had been crushed in the general election, polling a grand total of 4.3 per cent of votes.
But that was then. Now, all major parties are similarly rejected by crisis-battered voters, who don’t believe any of them can change things for the better. Taxes started rising sharply in the last two years of Sarkozy’s term, as the economic crisis bit. And Sarkozy talked tough on immigration, but did less than voters would like. There was a time when Sarkozy, in full “hate the sin, love the sinner” mode, had managed to lure back potential Front voters, convincing them that he felt their pain and had better solutions for them than the Le Pens père et fille. But that time may very well have passed for good
So, the old faithful who turned out at the Casino de Paris last weekend aside, can Sarkozy convince the rest of the French that he is born-again, experienced yet changed, softer yet tougher, the only way out of the present doldrums? There may be over three years to go, but for now Hollande is getting nothing right; Sarkozy’s old acolytes on the right are tearing themselves apart; and Marine Le Pen looms like Godzilla. It is, from Sarko’s peculiar vantage point, ideal.
Sarkozy, rightly as it transpired, predicted during the campaign that Hollande wouldn’t be up to the job, but even he couldn’t have expected France’s seventh Fifth Republic president to be breaking new unpopularity records every week. In private, Sarko is scathing and agitated as he describes the “mess” Hollande is making of France.
From the rising unemployment to the tax revolt, and above all to the skyrocketing poll figures of Marine Le Pen’s Front National – Polling Vox reported yesterday that an astonishing 42 per cent of the French “do not discount the possibility of voting for the FN” at the March municipal elections – Sarkozy feels that irreparable damage is being done. He also feels that he, Sarko, could fix it. In 2007, he’ll remind you, he had managed to beat Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father and the FN founder, down to 10.44 per cent, a quarter-century low. Less than a month later, FN candidates had been crushed in the general election, polling a grand total of 4.3 per cent of votes.
But that was then. Now, all major parties are similarly rejected by crisis-battered voters, who don’t believe any of them can change things for the better. Taxes started rising sharply in the last two years of Sarkozy’s term, as the economic crisis bit. And Sarkozy talked tough on immigration, but did less than voters would like. There was a time when Sarkozy, in full “hate the sin, love the sinner” mode, had managed to lure back potential Front voters, convincing them that he felt their pain and had better solutions for them than the Le Pens père et fille. But that time may very well have passed for good
So, the old faithful who turned out at the Casino de Paris last weekend aside, can Sarkozy convince the rest of the French that he is born-again, experienced yet changed, softer yet tougher, the only way out of the present doldrums? There may be over three years to go, but for now Hollande is getting nothing right; Sarkozy’s old acolytes on the right are tearing themselves apart; and Marine Le Pen looms like Godzilla. It is, from Sarko’s peculiar vantage point, ideal.
I realize this post is several months old, but wanted to respond nevertheless. All I can say is WOW
ReplyDelete- my thoughts were of Sarkozy/Antichrist for some time and just today decided to surf in search of others who might have a mind to think the same. Many feel the best candidate is Javier Solana - personally, never thought so. Time will tell.
I am making a copy to keep in my file, sent a link to many in my address book and now we wait and see. Maranatha.!!..
chilternseedsdirect
ReplyDelete"The 11th Hour Truth is a concept often associated with eschatological beliefs, particularly in some religious contexts, signifying the urgency and imminence of significant events or the end times."