As the rest of Europe wonders if the French elections prove the old adage that in all countries the government lies to the electorate, but in France the electorate lies to the government, John Kay in the today’s FT offers reasons why the French voted as they did. Basically France is a nice country to live in, with better bread and more free time, and the French want to keep it that way. He has a point, though cynics might note that Kay lives in France but works in Britain.
3 Responses
Feed: A Fistful of Euros
March 31st, 2004 at 11:45 am
There is, I believe, an altogether more plausible explanation for serial voting preferences in France. It is that the electorate can usually be relied on to produce a majority for the proposition that continuation of the present situation is unacceptable, whatever it is. The one possible exception in recent times seems to be Mitterrand’s presidency.
March 31st, 2004 at 5:28 pm
I’ll toss David a 100 euro note to translate the above posts. I see many posts saying the Spain vote was a great display of democracy and the people speaking. Do you in the “eu” truly feel that an attack against commuters that kills 201 and maims 1000s and changes the outcome of an election 3 days after is really a “display of democracy”
Why so easily frame these attacks in madrid or baghdad in your little minds as attacks against the US? these are attacks against people who want to live like you, almost.
You cast the Spain vote as a democratic vote? With that in mind you believe that it then was, and is, democratic for a islamo-fascist group of cowards to influence a “democratic” election with death?
Both ETA AND the islamo-fascist cowards are behind these attacks. This are people who have come to live among you, people who have come to your land to accept your generosity and welfare dollars and lack of oppression that they faced from their “brethren” in their homeland. They are living among you like dirty flies at a picnic, simply waiting to apply their brand of Islamo-fascisim to your society. You fools on the left in Spain coddle and embrace these murdering coward monkeys as if they were part “of your struggle against modernity”.
Si, Do blame the spaniards, there is no other focus to take. 1 week prior to the elections Aznar was slated to win, 1 week before elections 1/2 ton of explosives were found in a van with ETA members on the way into madrid city. They were stopped. Bombs explode on the trains and of course ETA is suspect immediately. Can you imagine in this “politically correct” environment that the Spanish govt comes right out and says “it was muslims, or it was al queda”? the left would cry foul racism before that news blurb even ended.
I can tell you I feel the “eu” is quite quickly turning itself into a modern shithole along the very same lines that destroyed her beginning in the 1930’s. the patterns are entirely similar.
There is a sense of real world reality in the “eu” that is viewed through a very tainted and un-focused lense.
It is indeed a shame that spain’s vote shows to the world that your hatred of the US and bush is greater than any love you had for the dead.
They disgrace the memory of those murdered by permitting a group of bearded cowards who came to the country to seek welfare monies and freedom to effect the outcome of the election.
Look at Kosovo for a moment- in March ‘04 22 people were killed, MORE THAN HAD BEEN KILLED IN one DAY in BAHGDAD the same day. The first responses were for the US and the UK to begin to send additional troops in.
What is the NEED to have US troops there on EU soil ? What is the reason behind the “eu” need to have US troops on her soil? Greece hires a US security firm to oversea the Olympics, and calls for a US fleet to remain offshore. Why cannot the nations of the “eu” get anything done without US help? What has either the “eu” or the disgraced UN (wait for oil scam to be published manana) done within Kosovo that has been successful?
This is hypocrisy that baffles the average american.
There will not be one more drop of US blood lost for anyone in the EU. It would be a wonderful thing to see every damn one of our troops to immediately leave the fetid and tainted “eu” soil. You do not even deserve even the wind of our collective flatulence let alone the lives of our young men and woman. You are pathetic pieces of human misery who are helpless with even your own simple struggles.
We in the US have shed too much blood for you damn fools over the last century.
Keep this in mind “eu” nutcases- The 9-11 cowards lived, planned, and carried out the attacks from the cozy base in europe. What is it about life in europe that makes those who come seeking your generosity and welfare spend a few years among you and then want to go out and kill all things western? Have you welcomed and charmed these newcomers to your society so much that they then lose their minds? Do you explain the sordid conditions of your cities and economies as being the fault of the jews and the US? Is it THAT which then turns them into virgin seekers so readily?
I really have to laugh at you pathetic assholes- the US re-built Germany and Japan, among others, and created the constitutions and democracies that exist there today. Don’t offer you child-like explanation that you have taken care of that “thank you for assisting us” BS already. It’s been just 50 short years and just look at you jackasses.
We go into Iraq to topple the savage saddam and you then demonize our president, you demonize the people of the US as American fools, you say we are bullys for attempting the same thing for the iraqis as we did for those who suffered under the GERMANY bred cowardness and their leader hitler’s cowardness.
Think about that for just one second you flea brained fucks. All the US is doing in iraq is simply the same attempt at fixing YOUR country which YOU fucking broke. I won’t forget the other dozens of countries you butchered and broke and the US fixed. Don’t apply your “eu” brand of selective memory to reality either.
So in short it is best to simply offer a majority of the tainted minds in the EU a hearty FUCK YOU. Your on your own for the duration of your pitiful existence. Without the phony restraints placed upon us by the disgraced un and the embattle/hasn’t even got off the ground “eu” we in the US can now take our gloves off and beat the virgin seeking cowards into the ground. Perhaps the US may leave a few troops in europe to prevent the re-introduction of the ottoman empire, but I hope not as the US (who make up a far greater proportion of people from around the world who live, work and govern among us as Americans, and a far greater intellectual diversity) would like to see how the new “eu” performs and succeeds… with ANYTHING.
Prove to somebody, anywhere on this planet, that you have the capacity to succeed in one damn venture of yours. France’s navy (I use the same ships in my bath tub) trains alongside the great chinese dictatorship yesterday- a democratic “eu” country threatening a democratic Tawain vote of independence along side the butchers of Tiannemin.
The next step is for germany to sell the the nuke reactor that german PEOPLE do not want to China, and the france will re-arm china. France and germany- who the will clean up that mess? you desperate fools.
The bright minds left europe over the last 3 centuries. leaving nothing but a bunch of nanny state welfare laden minds who can not see any brightness to the world even on a sunny day.
So in short it is best to simply offer a majority of the tainted minds in the EU a hearty FUCK YOU.
March 31st, 2004 at 5:56 pm
It gets worse - or better, depending on one’s point of view. A recent survey in The [London] Times of the views of teenagers in Britain reported:
“Teenagers? views on government were equally traditional. Two thirds said they preferred the ‘Royal Family and Parliament’ to a ‘presidential system’. Most, however did not believe that the Prince of Wales would make a good king, with 71 per cent thinking the crown should pass straight to Prince William. They have a strong sense of right and wrong too, with 76 per cent saying the war with Iraq was wrong and 82 per cent saying they distrusted Tony Blair.” - from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1033293,00.html