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Conservative Sarkozy Wins Presidency of France
Reader reporter tips us to a story just up at the NYTimes reporting that the tough-talking conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has won election as the president of France. His opponent, Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal, the first woman to get as far as the runoff in a presidential contest in France, has conceded defeat. The vote went 53% to Sarkozy and the turnout was a remarkable (by American standards) 85% of registered voters. Sarkozy is seen as a divisive figure for his demand that immigrants learn Western values (and the French language).
Sarkozy's views on innovation and free software
European conservatives generally cut taxes and also government spending compared to the left-sided parties. They also tend to look after business over their own citizens (though I fear that's a cross party issue).
Most important for slashdot readers: Nicolas Sarkozy is a lawyer and has a very strong pro-software patent stance and was behind the hardline DADVSI copyright law (our local DMCA). He was also behind the introduction of voting machines without paper trail requirements, and of the "secret" report about their validity (no citizen could get the report.
More in the PDF with his answers to the "candidats.fr" initiative here
Hard time for free software in France. There are still the parliament election next month, but last time french voters put the majority behind the president.
In reality, everyone knew since these polls where in, early in the morning, that she'd lose, it's just, they all sorta pretend not to know until it's "official". You see, french law has little influence abroad, so anyone with an internet-connection has been able to read these polls all day. Only in French media are they disallowed.
So, each and every journalist covering the election, and every politician aswell, knew the result (aproximately, but good enough since it wasn't a close race anyway) hours earlier.
In this setting it makes perfect sense to admit defeat at 20:01. It'd have been disrespectful of the law and the voters to do so any earlier, and pointless to wait much longer when the numbers where as obvious as they where.
From the link you gave, he's the worst of the lot:
Except for Sarkozy, the candidates also agreed that consumers should have the right to buy a computer without any preloaded software, ... Sarkozy was also the only candidate who responded with obvious hostility, remarking when talking about DADVSI that "I am opposed to the orientations implied by your questions."
He expresses his support for patent law on the grounds that it "encourages enterprises to innovate, it attracts investments, [and] encourages individuals to ... develop new inventions." In addition, Sarkozy supported the concept of intellectual property, and suggested that it was premature to talk about revising DADVSI before the end of 2007, when a review is scheduled. In answer to the question about open standards and free software, he replied that "it is not the purpose of the State, in my concept of freedom, to impose a model on anyone." Other replies were so general as to suggest that he either had not considered the matter or was avoiding stating his position. As Frédéric Couchet, a director of APRIL commented, Sarkozy's "was the worst response received."
You can read his response yourself, but the above is bad news.
Not that that's the most important quality in a president, but it would have been nice.
If standing up for French companies and citizens by supporting their software freedom is not important, I'm not sure what is. Your computer is your press, your store of important information and your telcom all rolled into one. No modern state can live without them and their security and ownership are tantamount to independence. Does he want CIA planted backdoors in his office?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In large parts of Europe, the Democrats are considered right wing, and the Republicans are considered far right wing comic relief, though the political parties on the left wing in Europe generally support the Democrats as the lesser of two evils, and the conservative parties tend to support the more moderate parts of the Republican party.
Come on, that's a fallacy. Not only is the 35h-week not implemented in small businesses, but white collars work in majority more than 50 hours, often 60 a week, due to peer and hierarchy pressure, and a stupid culture of thinking that it's the hours spent on your desk that count. And in contrast with our big neighbour Germany, or Scandinavian countries (Denmark has a 37h-week that is quite respected even for white collars), french white collars do not get paid for overtime.
In France, we have conservative politicians who somewhat favor business and increase the public debt.
The aim of Sarkozy is different :
- increasing debt a lot (both public and private)!
- by favoring the rich people and the big corp.
I had hoped that Slashdot would have definitely forgotten France. Instead of that, this -probably real bad- news is on the first page, one of so few first-page news about France in a year. (sigh).
What is he talking about:
- suppressing inheritance taxes
- easing private borowing of money (i.e. increasing bank profits for short time benefits and lifetime interests for poor people)
- "an ownership society"
- he is glorifying the "France of the Crusades". (discourse in besançon, March 13th 2007)
- "le travail rend libre" (one of the offical videos, first sentence)
- he thought some months ago that "France had been arrogant in 2003" while attempting to stop the Iraq war.
- if he survives two more weeks, he will realise his public lifelong dream: becoming president in place of The President.
- he is a lawyer with a speciality: fiscality. I have not written tax evasion even if you read that.
I love him! I am sure you won't.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
I don't know about France, but here in Germany the equivalent to the Republicans is also called Republicans.
For the benefit of Americans unfamiliar with German politics, this is a dig at the US Republicans, since Die Republikaner are generally considered a crypto-neo-nazi party and enjoy very little electoral support. The major conservative party in Germany are the Christian Democrats (CDU).
For those who don't know French, le travail rend libre means the same as Arbeit macht frei, the motto of the Auschwitz concentration camp — i.e. "Work makes one free". It seems that Sarkozy is practising dog-whistle politics.
It's interesting that you say "liberals" don't know what "neoconservative" actually means, then you say it is a term referring to "Jews in the 1980s." Although several top neocons are Jewish, not all of them are. They didn't just spring up in the 80s, and their story is far more complicated than your reductionist analysis makes it seem. That makes it difficult for anyone (liberal, conservative, or otherwise) to figure out exactly what the term means. Here's what Irving Kristol, one of the leading lights of the movement, says about neoconservatism. Note that he uses the term "neocon" a few times in the article. Maybe he does that because he thinks it makes him sound evil and war-like.
As for the bit about conservatives wanting to build a wall and liberals wanting no border at all, you may want to check in on that more thoroughly. The Republican Party had control of the House, the Senate, and the White House for almost six years and didn't change American immigration policy. One of the iron laws of politics is that when you have that degree of power, you use it. Look at the sweeping range of laws the Republican Party enacted over those same six years, covering every aspect of American life. If the party was truly unified in wanting to thwart illegal immigration, it would have done something.
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