François Hollande elected French President.

[happyslapper]

I really don't see the guy doing anything radical and I certainly do not see the French economy going down the drain. As for the Euro / dollar well there is the PIGS which are weighing down heavily on the Euro and Greece's political wavering is the most likely cause of recent devaluation.

There's no way he'd be able to do anything too radical anyway.

Much as I don't think he's the right person to lead a major European country right now (but that's by-the-by given that a majority of French obviously disagree with me there), my biggest concern is the effect this will have on european political psychology.

There's a worrying resonance of political extremism across the continent now. All those hundreds of thousands, even millions, who leant towards the extreme right during the election will now be joined by millions of centre-right voters, who have been let down and disillusioned.
Its like a wet piece of paper - yes Sarkozy was the soggy middle ground that made some silly decisions, but at least he was just about holding the two sides together.

I hope I'm wrong, but this could be the point at which a broader european electorate lurches to the (former) fringe.

[IconOfEvi]

I'm torn. On the one hand it's good to see our traditional enemy in dire straights. On the other hand we'll probably go down with them.

Well considering it was only thanks to a various turns of chance that you two are not kinsmen already, it is high time you are reunited with your frog-eating bretheren (random Hundred Years War reference)

More Ontopic, its rare you get to point to a single day that will set the course of the century for a whole continent. Bye bye Europe, its been a ride

[Holycrusader]

Well considering it was only thanks to a various turns of chance that you two are not kinsmen already, it is high time you are reunited with your frog-eating bretheren (random Hundred Years War reference)

More Ontopic, its rare you get to point to a single day that will set the course of the century for a whole continent. Bye bye Europe, its been a ride

Are you sure election of some guy in France is a sign of Europe apocalypse? Somehow I doubt it... He will not be worse than Sarcosy.

[Fargin]

Congratulation France!

Elections are always a celebration of democracy, obviously the celebration of democracy is fun more when your side wins he vote.

[wotsnext]

At least the French got the govenment they voted for, pity it did not turn out like that in the UK.

[happyslapper]

At least the French got the govenment they voted for, pity it did not turn out like that in the UK.

I don't know how to break it to you, Wots.... but in this country we don't have a President.

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

Actually they are in concubinage. It's a legal status once you live with your girlfriend under the same roof. I can almost smell the blood on the GOPers ranks. No marriage!!!!

I believe in the USA we call that "common-law marriage."

Basically once you live together long enough the government treats you as married (only recognized in certain states).

[wotsnext]

I don't know how to break it to you, Wots.... but in this country we don't have a President.

If we did no doubt we would fvck that up as well

[happyslapper]

If we did no doubt we would fvck that up as well

Then let's all hold hands and sing God Save the Queen!


(btw, the French Parliamentary eleciton is in a month, and currently no one party holds more than 50%.... just the same as here).

[TG211]

I suppose now the burka-ban will be rescinded? What was the Left's view on this obviously racist Sarko policy?

Nah, don't worry, it's there to stay. Or that's what I've understood. Many in the left want to keep the ban, since it's more than just "right-wing meanies"

And about the flags, yeah, I thought to myself the same thing... "Oooh, Algeria ! Oooh Morocco ! Oooh, Egypt ! Oooh Ivory Coast ! Oooh Urugay ! Oooh Chile !" I started counting and referencing all the non-french flags I was finding in the Bastille footage.

[DS73]

Muck

Never said that
However the medicine taken until now by several countries showed to be more poisonous to their economies than helping
The Greek, Italian, Spanish and ultimately UK one (and the last one has implemented a conservative policy way before the others) are hurt heavily

All of these countries are hurt because they live beyond their means. They borrow too much, make too little. French problem btw too.
Whatever you used, is made by somebody. Wast majority of it is not for free.

If you are taking history as example i can reverse your sentence : nowhere during history stringent economical decisions (either from within or imposed by foreign structures like the IMF) helped any country concerned to stand up rapidly

Brasil. Argentine when followed.

Quite the contrary in fact : all the countries that exited the IMF stringency motto fared better than their neighbors (look at the Asiatic Dragons, all were hit hard by the asiatic crisis, all said to gtfo to IMF, all are doing better.)

Wat??? Who said gtfo to IMF? Korea? Thailand? They all took the pil, used it and recovered. Quickly. That's another thing that they used normal economists and not jokes from IMF.(one should know who actually works there and how positions are filled. Proportionality rules to such extend that the HR idiocy of EADS in comparison is an ideal of merit based formation).

Argentina tried a rigorist budget at the beginning, lost a lot of monnetary "blood", then changed his mind and magicaly just after got better

Argentina went red financially when she turned red politically. Not earlier.

You get some good points here. However i ll emphasize on that idea of trust/distrust
First of all that damn "market" was borrowed with some of our money (yes ours as taxpayers). Had our govs have had more balls, they would enforce a minimum of forced market activity to sustain the economy. Because as it goes now, banks are sitting on huge amount of our monney (the billions that helped them out of the subprime pit) but do not reinject them in the economy.

Banks don't sit on huge amount of our money. They invented huge amount of money to charge us with. Huge difference.
btw. Unexpected gains coming to Germany originate in the changes of currency exchange. Euro is cheaper- hence there more euros. Can germans buy more oil than in 2011 than 2010? Rhetorical question.

That kills us too
And as you said this is a confidence problem : if cash is not circulating, people will keep it for bad days, making the wound festering a bit more

What he says, that everybody should live by own means and not hanging on the stronger neighbor. Your country has enjoyed german rates for 15 years, and what have you spend this extra credit on? Nothing.

Now to come back to Germany (because i was half joking half serious about the slef righteousness thingy, ya know )
Germany is often cited as an example forgetting several things
I know that you won't agree but :
You had a conjonctural re-structuration done during the re-unification
Basically it was "we reunite but every german has to pay"

Dude, Germany goes up not from "reunification process". They adopted program based significantly on the extensive and succesfull experience of Bavarian state. This program started in the end of 90s and started moving everything only in the middle of 2000s. Plenty of nice smart things that could work everywhere in Europe.

How many countries can build up their economical structure on such kind of events : none anymore in Europe; We are bond to work with our mature systems and chagne them tiny bit by tiny bit (or you'll have civilian unrests)

Sure thing, because french start "dialogue" with strikes and not use it as a last resort (which it is).
In 2007 french have lost 1.8 mln working days to strikes. (and it's underreported!) For comparison Germany 290000, the Netherlands 26000. You can use trade unions' data for Germany 725000. Still the difference is impressive. You do understand that in the end the population pays for these days???

Second point is that you built up your economical sucess within the eurozone. You can grant that at least. Yes it is french, spanish, italian customers that loaned money to buy german goods

No they didn't. They went for chinese crap. The whole difference between say Germany and the Netherlands comes exactly from less significant dependence of Germany on EU goods traffic.

You have now an easy time to point on people that helped your economy reach the point where it is
Check now the facts, and see how it gonna hurt your industry now that customer confidence is dead in Europe

"Customer" confidence is not dead. "Customers" have difficulties borrowing money. Oh horror.

And finally i was also half serious, half joking about your protestant side
But you cannot copy paste German mentality on others countries
I ll take a simple example
The lowest wages (the bulk of the salaries) are lower in Germany than in France
However in Germany you have also lower prices than here. So the quality of life is averagely (for the lower classes) the same in both countries (and maybe slightly better in Germany) even if the average lowest salaries in France are 10% higher than in Germany
Now imagine that we do like you are proposing i.e reducing the wages by 10-15% : how do you think it will end here ??

You have no idea what you are talking about. Medium and mininum "industrial" salaries in Germany are actually higher than in France.
Heck medium salaries are higher than in France. And cost of living is significantly lower.
Their economy is healthier. Because they try to think what they do.
The salary argument is just silly one. You can give what you have. OR borrow. Untill now everybody was "lucky" to borrow on german rates. It's not possible anymore. Are you sure you want to finance "growth" programs with 8% rates? You know that France already had such rates, do you?

Second example is your landers. You are right, some of yours are dong well. However they had a structuraly healthy economical basis. Talk me now about the others ones that are not doing so well
Life is not either white or black even in the economical area. And the German system cannot be transposed as such everywhere else in Europe. But by reading some of you (no offence here) it should be and everything would be solved like with a magic wand.

Problems can be solved when addressed, so far neither of french politicians even started to talk about them. One can start with this idiotic entitlement spirit which is sooo present in french society.

[Enosh]

Watched some live coverage of the 'celebration' tonight, what stuck to mind is that I don't even want to imagine what it would feel like to see Turkish flags waved in front of the Brandenburger Gate when a socialst wins the next election.

those pictures were amazing
would have been much less funny if I actually lived in france, but as it is now, I can't help but look and laugh
will be an interesting social study in a few decades

[Mordoror]

I suppose now the burka-ban will be rescinded? What was the Left's view on this obviously racist Sarko policy?

You'd be surprised
A huge part of the left is anti-clerical and pro-republican i.e they don't like visible religious signs in civil institutions
But this is largely trans-political boards
That's linked to the history of the country (separation of church and state, school of the Republic and the social struggle of 1905 etc)
So no the burkban won't be touched

[OneUp1911]

Congrats France,now the rich are leaving in doves.First excutive order?

[Cypriot]

Hollande's election means a victory for democracy ? I didn't know we were in a dictature.

well you are country has a lack of main human rights for example you do not allow muslims to wear that thing over their heads or the racism that exists between black and white people in france is high ( i saw that on the tv you can tell better about the racism problem ).