Greetings from France. There are just a couple of days left before French voters vote.
The Polls
The post debate period is in high gear. Pro-Sarkozy operatives are hard at work spinning polls to their liking. Le Figaro newspaper published a poll expanding Sarkozy s lead by 5 points and; the Herald Tribune ran the story as fact. Other pundits are pushing the same line.
No where in the mass media do they speak about the errors in polling.
A couple of years ago French voters were asked to decide if first time workers should spend 2 years on probation, i.e., they could be fired with out cause.
The polls showed a wide margin for a yes vote......saying that they should. They spun those polls results to convince others to vote yes;
Well; voters rejected that anti worker proposition.
The polls were dead wrong.
Cops Ordered to Deploy
In another Sarkozy action? Paris police were put on alert to be prepared to fight against demostrations on Sunday night; if Royal wins. The message is clear. Don't let the rabblerousers control the street. Sort of like the Terrorists alerts in the USA at election time.
We shall see.
Stay Tuned.
Mike Tolochko, Paris
1 comment:
Thanks to Mike Tolochko for these posts on the French elections which are receiving very little coverage in the U.S. The French Right, like the Right everywhere, starts with the premise that they are superior, the people are boobs who can be manipulated endlessly, and, when confronted with reality, one can always say what Groucho Marx did in the haughtiest way possible, "what are you going to believe, me or your own eyes."
Fortunately, the Right isn't as powerful in France and the presidential elections are a lot fairer, given the multiparty candidates and runoffs(I also don't think that TV can be monopolized so easily as it is here.
By the way, I saw much of "Le Debat" on CSPN and was struck by Sarkozy's arrogance, and also, his sexist treatment of Royal(who was calm, cool, and effective in making her points). He kept on saying that she was all over the place(my reading is "scatterbrained woman") and overly idealistic as socialists are(my reading, soft-headed woman)
In any case, if Royal wins, I expect that U.S. media will minimize it and if Sarkozy wins, it will be seen by U.S. media as another example of the "decline of socialism.:
Norman Markowitz
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