‘The People Have Chosen Change’ -News.Sky.com: Well, one thing is for sure, they cannot blame the U.S. for any of the disturbances happening now.
Riot police in Paris fired tear gas into crowds which gathered after Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential election victory.
The disturbances happened at the Place de la Bastille, a popular hub for demonstrations and strikes.
Thousands of police have been deployed in the capital and its suburbs.
Railway stations are also under high surveillance in case gangs of youths travel to disrupt victory festivities.
The trouble followed news that Sarkozy – a right-wing Conservative – is thought to have beaten socialist Segolene Royal by six points to replace Jacques Chirac.
The opposition candidate highlighted fears that a victory by him could spark unrest in the poor high-immigration neighbourhoods that were the scene of riots in 2005.
Mr Sarkozy, who was Interior Minister at the time, is a hate figure for many young people of black and Arab origin.
He has also been vilified as a hard-right authoritarian by many on the left.
About which result? The elections or the disturbances?
Funny, I think Rupert Murdoch’s SKY news headline is an exercise in wishful thinking.
The fact that Sarkozy and Chirac represents the SAME political party – and it’s not really that much of a change – (which is not a bad thing, in my view)..
Rightwingers in Europe are generally leftwingers here. The differences are usually over other issues. Sarkozy was elected because he is willing to stand up to Muslim rioters. Same way Blair is willing to say that black crime rates have to do with culture not poverty.
If Sarkozy actually does take away the 35 hour work week and other worker ‘protections,’ then I’ll believe he’s something different. That means he’s going after the other rioters in France who objected to the rule that you can fire someone after two years on the job.
It seems like some of the people living in France didn’t like the democratic choice the French made yesterday. Maybe they feel threatened by that choice and by what the new President means for them. I sincerelly hope France to be able to restore its national identity and order. Europe is collapsing from the inside and rioting in France has been a major symptom of that collapse. The very undemocratic riots themselves came to prove the point that a strong leader is needed and that Sarkosy was indeed the right choice.
The French have a long history of rioting and mass protest so this reaction doesn’t surprise me. Given the rise of Germany and the expansion of the EU, France has to come to terms with not being the influential entity that it once was. I believe that Sarkozy knows this and will do his best to move the country out of the 19th century and into the 21st.
This will inevitably piss a lot of French people off and the question that remains is if Sarkozy will remain steadfast in making reforms despite their immediate unpopularity.
Interestingly, French make riots only when it is safe to do so.
Anyone can point me out to any riots (against Germans) during WWII etc?
😉
Who the hell riots the results of a democratically run election? Oh wait…the French do.
11. Who the hell riots the results of an undemocratically run election? Apparently the USA doesn’t.
11. South Korean students have been well known to protest democratic election results.
12. People are still talking about this? Amazing. If you don’t like how the electoral college elects a president, maybe you should petition having the constitution amended. If Gore was able to carry his home state or Clinton’s he would have been the next president and we wouldn’t even be hearing this gripe. Somehow it comes down to a Bush and Florida conspiracy. Tennessee / Arkansas would have made Florida a non-issue.
But hey, who knows? Maybe Gore may run in 2008 and win.
The French protest for everything, period.
Sadly, the US government has pretty much the same rule as France has. After two years, you’re “career” and you can’t be fired for poor performance alone, only truly egregious things like not showing up for six months straight, sending emails to your entire building ranting against your boss, pr0n on your computer, and the like.