2008 Woodie Awards
Viva le French!!!
Scott Cullinane
Issue date: 5/15/07 Section: Opinion
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Sarkozy is a conservative that breaks with what has been French political orthodoxy. France has grown to be synonymous with the words, socialist, big government, and anti-American, but the new French President is none of those things. Sarkozy is pro-American, pro-free market, and wants to reform France.
Sarkozy may not be Reagan, but he is moving in the right direction.
Sarkozy beat out a socialist women named Segolene Royal for the top post and even did it winning a healthy margin of victory. The election was even more stunning when you consider the fact that they had an 84 percent voter turn out rate, something we can only dream about here in America.
Sarkozy, a man who has been described as a workaholic will need every bit of strength he has to fix France's problems. First, he must tackle the problem of France's weak economy. Because of the huge amount of regulation France has, their economy could best be described as a squirrel weighed down by cinder blocks. The socialist state's spending and taxing is incredibly large and keeps the economy from reaching its full potential. The negative effects of this can be seen is the per-capita GDP of France and the fact that one in four (of those that do work) work for the French government. This quarter of the work force just regulates the rest; this is what Sarkozy must fix.
One of his major ideas for solving this is to lower taxes to try and encourage more of the French work force to actually work. The other thing he wants to do is to try, and rein in the giant workers unions that have so much control over French politics. His other major platforms include taking a strong anti-crime stance and addressing the immigration problem.
France has a huge number of Muslim immigrants and they are not assimilating into French culture or society. A big reason the French need these immigrants is to prop up their failing socialist state, but in doing so they are also harming France. Sarkozy wants to make it harder for these immigrant workers to bring their families to France, hence encouraging them to just work in France and not move to France permanently.
Perhaps most importantly to the U.S., he likes us and wants to have good relations with America. Hopefully Sarkozy will bring new life to the French economy and France's relations with America.