France 2012: the official thread

[Iannis]

against Aubry, Sarkozy will win. Aubry is a very bad candidate for prime time : no charisma, no sympathy, muslim connection, stupid ideas,... and sarkozy is a .ng good candidate...

but against hollande, sarkozy will lose.

Idiot.

Idiot. You may be glad with what happened in Norway, probably. People like you really suck. I'm sorry to be that clear, but that's the truth. See what happened in Norway. There're some radicals who believe socialists are muslims and will do whatever they can to "stop" them.

Has anyone said that Aubry and socialists should be killed? Is it permitted to be, let's say, "radical" complaining of a multicultural society or muslim influence and presence without thinking of slaughters and without being blamed of sympathy with Breivik? I hope, because freddom of speech is important, and at the same time I wouldn't like to see anti-americanists, anti-israeli movements to be accused to be Al Qaeda supporters, for instance.

[Iannis]

It will be interesting to see if the next polls show a post-Senate bounce (and also how much impact the "Karachigate" will have).

I suppose I'll move to France if socialists beat Sarko in 2012, and everything goes as expected here and PP wins the GE as they did last May, winning everywhere...

If all the people that, taken by some political frenzy, declared (also in Italy) that they would emigrate in case of defeat, actually had done it, now some country would be half empty and others overcrowded. Needless to say that nothing ever happened

[Iannis]

So do the primaries have a run-off if no candidate gets a majority or is it a plurality system?

Yup.


Hollandists seem to be playing their last card : choose the candidate who can beat Sarkozy. I doubt it's a winning strategy though, it might seem arrogant. Also, Najat Belkacem on France Inter was pretty pathetic : we did a magnific campaign, everybody loved us but we lost because of evul pollz and tactical voting !!!1!!1!! But that's what you can expect from such a sectarian movement.

so, good news for Nicolas with a Abry victory!

[Iannis]

So do the primaries have a run-off if no candidate gets a majority or is it a plurality system?

Yup.


Hollandists seem to be playing their last card : choose the candidate who can beat Sarkozy. I doubt it's a winning strategy though, it might seem arrogant. Also, Najat Belkacem on France Inter was pretty pathetic : we did a magnific campaign, everybody loved us but we lost because of evul pollz and tactical voting !!!1!!1!! But that's what you can expect from such a sectarian movement.

so, good news for Nicolas with a Abry victory!

Aubry is perfectly able to beat Sarkozy. She has a slighter lead in 1st round polls, but still defeat Sarko by around 10 points in the runoff. And what's more important, she's, IMO, the most able to face an agressive campaign, far more than a consensualist wimp like Hollande.

Also Sarkozy is a campaign animal, actually

[Iannis]

2012 Big Bad Tracker #41 - 13 February 2012   

            
Each opinion poll is weighted with its sample and loses 25% of its weight each week: it will be the case until mid-February.            


      

Hollande   30,51
Sarkozy   24,66
Le Pen   17,82
Bayrou   12,6
Mélenchon   7,84
Joly   2,79
Villepin   1,39
Morin   0,35
Lepage   0,28
Dupont-Aignan   0,58
Boutin   0,18
Nihous   0,15
Arthaud   0,49
Poutou   0,23
Chevènement   0,14
Cheminade   0,00

Hollande   57,53
Sarkozy   42,47

BVA has started to test Cheminade, so I include him in my tracker. He can only go up
But having a LaRouchist in this tracker is enough to make me feel "happy" (I mean "amused": don't make any mistake, I despise Cheminade)... After all, now that I know I've lost "my" candidate and that my second round candidate is doomed with a failed strategy...

So, Boutin is out. Morin is set to drop this week too.
Even Villepin seems to have lost some enthusiasm.
I don't believe Lepage wants really to be a candidate.
And Nihous really seems to have difficulties in gathering signatures from mayors.
After, maybe we'll have only Dupont-Aignan, Arthaud and Poutou as small candidates.


The older I grow, the more Catholic I am.
I'm really disgusted by the leftist paradigm of medias and of teachers. I deeply believe that this modern or post-modern left, having destroyed the old 3rd Republic school, is the best ally of this mass-consumption capitalism which is only looking for stupid consumers.
I deeply believe that we are already in a society of genetic manipulations, of merchandization of the human body, of "good old" euthanasia like the 1930s Sweden, that we'll soon be forbidden to keep our children at home.
I deeply believe that all these so-called social advances are only the other face of our deep moral decline due to mass capitalism. It's only two sides of materialism.

And so, you know, how can I pick a candidate ?!?
I'm completely lost in the current political landscape.
Sarkozy is now a weird mix of rightist populism, of so-called colbertism and of some stupid reaganesque policies.
Boutin, who is a bit mad on a personal level, has dropped her bid.
Bayrou is a loony, who has betrayed his old political tradition and is unable to decide on anything.
Hollande is personally respectable, but is backed by all those leftists (please read "gauchistes", not "hommes et femmes de gauche"), especially the young ones, that are a real moral danger: Hamon, Bruno Julliard, Hammadie, Lienemann, Delanoë, Lebranchu, Aubry, Lang, Dray, Mamère, Joly, Duflot, Contassot, etc. Without any money, the left will only change things on social matters and I can't vote for that.

So, yeah, I'm now a zombie, like in Atlasia
It has no real importance anymore. President Hollande doesn't need me

Hollande is more dangerous for econmic reason. One strenght point of France are the big companies, the multinational, that can internationalise and make research & development, and this guy wants to raise taxes on these!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To do what? To spend more money on teachers!! With the deficit/GDP that France has!
He's a real danger for all Europe!

[Iannis]

The older I grow, the more Catholic I am.
I'm really disgusted by the leftist paradigm of medias and of teachers. I deeply believe that this modern or post-modern left, having destroyed the old 3rd Republic school, is the best ally of this mass-consumption capitalism which is only looking for stupid consumers.
I deeply believe that we are already in a society of genetic manipulations, of merchandization of the human body, of "good old" euthanasia like the 1930s Sweden, that we'll soon be forbidden to keep our children at home.
I deeply believe that all these so-called social advances are only the other face of our deep moral decline due to mass capitalism. It's only two sides of materialism.

OK, let me be as short as I can :

I. Don't. Get it.

It's very simple in my opinion:

 State-interventionist approach to people needs, basically poor people, is a failure, especially in big not efficient  countries, basicaly everywhere but small scandinavian countries, it's not efficient firstly ideally because it deresponsabilize the family and the individuals, weakening the social connections, the solidarity among individuals or families, or through NGOs etc, and the civil society, which are the structures that are the more naturally fitted to the needs of poor people. I think that a public functionaire will never be more efficient than the family or the neighbour or an association made by volunteer who have a REAL interest on the problem they face and try to resolve. It's simple, we see how in continental Europe the level of voluntary funding of charity isititutions is very low, people don't feel responsible for the poor, they rely totally on the State, they even find a shame to pay more than 5% of their income for personal education or health, giving all the responsibility to the inefficient State sector.
The high level of taxation needed for this system (started to help just the poorest without frinds and family and latere degenerated) is not only unequal (since basically everything is "free", so even rich people don't pay for a surgery operation), and is diseducative ,since people don't understand the real cost of what they use, like education, they are not ready to make donations for reasearch, it's all "up to the State", and private companies and multinational become the "evil" and young people don't invest in their own education enrolling in unuseful faculties, given they pay a only a very small part of this education.
It is also a damage, because it destroys the competitiveness of the economy, and we see it in Italy and France, and that's why Hollande's intention to rais taxes on the only possible source of productivity, the big companies, is really tragic.

[Iannis]

@ Antonio V, I would like to know why ishoud be "human right" to study sociology paying just the 5% of the family income and not, let's say, 15%. It's so nice to be so romantic and rhetoric unless we face the daily facts and we come down to the earth and we see so many young people that spending so little in university are not incentivated at all to learn some job unless they are forced at the end of a likely unuseful faculty, they are not incentivated to study something useful (i.e. with some loans they have to repay with work) or to graduate fast, in a word they are not incentivated to become productive for themselves and moreover for the society, for the poor people. Any money wasted in low university fees, in the total coverage of health system in Italy and France are money lost for poor people, in many ways: it's quite ironic that the surgery of a rich man is payed in a big part by the taxes of people muche poorer than him. All the money not spent by high middle income families in instruction (let's say by two affluent public servants who earn together more than 50000€ per year and spende just 1500 for the son's university, probably less than for holidays) are money lost for more reasearch and for more scolarships.
That's why I say that present welfare state has gone too far. We started paying the tuition for primary school for peasant's sons, and ended up paying 70% of the cost of studies for a affluent history student at university. Something has gone wrong, and we see it from the fact tha in Italy and France, taxes on companies are higher than in sweden, I say Sweden, not Ireland.
And you doubt that only companies with a certain number of emplyoyees are productive? You know whats' "economy of scale"? Do you think that a small company of 40 employees can be competitive in China, and make research and development? That it can have so muche reserves of money to spend for some investment that will be effective only after some years?

[Iannis]

Actually, in this video, Hollande answers that question directly:
"I hadn't requested to meet with David Cameron, today my priority was to meet my fellow friends from the Labour party, and maybe one day - if I manage to convince the French on May 6th - then I will meet Cameron. But for now, as you know, Cameron and Merkel and the Spanish conservative leader Rajoy are all backing Sarkozy."

Why should Hollande meet Cameron? He's not president, so, it's only a politician and is supposed to meet just his fellows of Labour party.
I'm comforted by the fact that 52% of Europeans is governed by who has signed the letter for a bigger european market and reforms for growth, basically Cameron, Monti, Rajoy.

[Iannis]

Actually, in this video, Hollande answers that question directly:
"I hadn't requested to meet with David Cameron, today my priority was to meet my fellow friends from the Labour party, and maybe one day - if I manage to convince the French on May 6th - then I will meet Cameron. But for now, as you know, Cameron and Merkel and the Spanish conservative leader Rajoy are all backing Sarkozy."

Why should Hollande meet Cameron? He's not president, so, it's only a politician and is supposed to meet just his fellows of Labour party.
I'm comforted by the fact that 52% of Europeans is governed by who has signed the letter for a bigger european market and reforms for growth, basically Cameron, Monti, Rajoy.

A wonderful panel.
A guy which has to rely on another party to have a majority, some guy who wasn't elected and lack legitimacy and a guy who got elected by refusing to say what he will do.

Using your verbal rhetoric every leader in the world has something to blame for. The fact is that any of these is perfectly legitimate, according to all the democratic Constitutions, probably it's better to look at the content of that letter and criticize that one, in case.

[Iannis]

BREAKING NEWS:

For the first time since DSK fell, Sarkozy is ahead of Hollande (28.5 - 27) in an IFOP poll tonight.
But still 54.5 - 45.5 in the second round.
At last, some suspense ?

Yeah, I've seen the poll on your blog. What a bunch of retards.

The pollsters or the voters ?

Don't lose your mind: even in mid-March 2007, some polls gave Sarkozy at 50,5 (or maybe even 50). I remember I was worried each morning to see another bad poll. And Bayrou was really close to Royal and would have beaten Sarkozy. Imagine how sad I was

Here, what have we ?
The entire mainstream right at 30 ?
And the worst second round poll for 6 months at 54.5 for Hollande ?
Come on!
THIS is really the result of a bunch of retards !

The voters, of course. I would understand if Sarko had given some stirring speach, had come out with a revolutionary idea or had found some way to prove his abnegations as "captain of the ship through the storm", or if Hollande had made a major gaffe, appeared as weak or flip-flopping on some issue. But here, what new happened ? Another retarded gaffe about halal meat started by the government in a lame attempt to pander to the far-right. A Terra Nova report showing that the wealthy have benefitted from 80% of Sarko's policies. Sarkozy unable to come up with anything new. So why ? That's all I'm asking. I didn't feel this way when Hollande was losing ground on november-december, because there were valid reasons for that. But what I don't accept is this sudden, undeserved Sarko surge. I really don't understand where it comes from : Mélenchon is a tad higher, but not enough to explain it ; as for Bayrou and Le Pen, they are at their usual level. It just looks like 2% of Hollande voters woke up and said "guess what, I change my mind, I'm going with Sarko". It's just ridiculous.

And yes, I know Hollande won't lose this. But a Hollande win under 55% would be a symbolic defeat, as I explained you last time.

You do'nt consider declared abstensions and undecided. Sarkozy is very likely to have gathered many "sleeping" former Sarkozy voters who had declared to be not certain who to vote, and have been woken up by the beginning of Sarkozy's campaign

[Iannis]

Economist editorial. Can't say I disagree with them, quite the opposite.

http://www.economist.com/node/21551461

I completely agree. In particular:

"The French live with this national contradiction—enjoying the wealth and jobs that global companies have brought, while denouncing the system that created them—because the governing elite and the media convince them that they are victims of global markets. Trade unionists get far more air-time than businessmen."

People simply don't realize where the wealth comes from, the productivity of large companies, they think that it comes from State's social services, while they are just a consequence of that productivity. Like in Italy in the media, in school, in universities, only rhetoric of trade union, of left-leaning teachers are heard, companies' world is quite mysterious and misundesrtood. French people will wake up quite hardly. Too bad they will just blame the evil anglo-saxon or german capitalist instead than themselves.