French Politics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

French Politics - investigate Paper ExampleSarko represents UMP (Union pour un mouvement popula ire). He is neo-liberal, authoritarian, pro-American and pro-Israeli. Except for Socialist Francois Mittereands 14 long time reign, France has been ruled by right wing forces since 1958 when Charles de Gaulle ushered in the new Republican regime. Paving the way for the electoral victory of the 52-year old leader of the French Right were the simultaneous decomposition of the French Left and Sarkozys happy unification of the three streams of the Right - neoliberal, national and fascist.When Sarkozy became Monsieur le President de la Republique, the 23rd French principal of state, the sixth since the new Constitution of 1958 that initiated the Fifth Republic of France, his true intentions for promised new directions were still ambiguous.Upon the election of Nicolas Sarkozy at that place was a strong current in the media - both in France and internationally - claiming that things had chang ed. Sarkozy, it was said, was the man who would cut bandaging the gluttonous French state, modernising the economy by curbing the power of the unions and replacing the France of the 35-hour-week with a new to a greater extent flexible culture that valued hard work. French workers had to prepare for Sarkozys onslaught. As we have seen with Novembers racecourse strikes, university occupations and rioting in the suburbs, resistance to Sarkozy is deep-rooted. Some activists have used the catch-cry Sarko-facho (Sarkozy-fascist) portrayed him as nothing precisely a lickspittle of George Bush or, as the Iranian media now have it, a Mossad agent. Yet most of the French Presidents pronouncements seem to be in tune with the anti-working class, conservative and authoritarian political tradition of General de Gaulle.On the other hand, Sarkozys underlining of great national objectives means distancing France from the spirit of liberal free trade.The French Left accuses Sarkozy of beingness a uthoritarian and of unstable reputation. The Lefts electoral campaign early this year aimed at trying to rouse his ire and demonstrate his incapacity of leading la douce France. The crude reality is that while the French Left claims a monopoly on morality, the political Right dominates this largely conservative, extremely traditional nation.We only have to think stomach to spring 2006 when the previous UMP Gaullist government attempted to introduce the CPE law to undermine young workers occupation stability, or 2005 when it backed the EU Constitution. The continuity in the history of the French right is examined in few detail in the latest issue of the Ni Patrie ni Frontires journal*, which devotes some 62 pages to assessing the character of so-called Sarkozyism. Sarkozy has taken on great personal power, setting great store by his experience image and casting himself as somewhat of a national saviour, in the mould of de Gaulle or a Napoleon.The assertion that Sarkozy represent s an