What's riding on a Sarkozy victory?

I'd like you to read something, if that's not too much of a nuisance. It's reasonably short, but I think quite important. It is by a man called Andre Glucksmann and is called Why I Choose Nicolas Sarkozy.

It's important because of its arguments - it demonstrates what's at stake in France and how much is riding on Sarkozy's victory.

And it's important because of its author. Glucksmann belongs to that group of left intellectuals that has bravely championed international human rights. He is an ally of Christopher Hitchens, of Paul Berman and of Bernard Kouchner. Here he unequivocally chooses the candidate of the right over that of the left. It is an early sign that one consequence of the war on terror might be a huge international re-alignment, changing what it means to be on the left and on the right.

(Hat Tip: Harry's Place)

Comments

[Pechorin]

I wish I could write something similar about the British Conservative leader.

[David Moss]

From what Mr Glucksmann says, the French Left has parted company with reality, it is wrapped up in itself, fascinated by its past and has nothing to say about Islam, whether in France or Chechnya, and nothing to say about Rwanda nor the various revolutions, whether Velvet, Orange or any other colour fabric. By contrast, he says, at least the French Right do have something to say, all the better because it departs from its previous tenets, which Mr Glucksmann still deprecates.

If there is a comparison to be made, it sounds as though the French Left is where ours was before Neil Kinnock's leadership 20 years ago.

Mr Glucksmann yearns for big leaders. He quotes de Gaulle's Olympian: "When France feels the cold, I'll be able to act, too". He hopes that Sarkozy will be a leader in the same mould.

20 years ahead, over on this side of the Channel, I think we've had a bellyful of grandstanding leaders with their vapid self-importance. The last thing we need is a Stalin, ref. Gordon Brown and Lord Turnbull, a congenital centraliser who believes dementedly against all the evidence that he knows how to allocate resources correctly.

I will be converted to Cameron if he slows down on the grandiose promises to solve problems on which he can have precisely zero effect and turns up the volume on slimming down our grotesquely useless and expensive central government while returning local, decision-making democracy to us with its own revenue-raising powers.

I prefer post code lotteries to standard incompetence.

Allons enfants -- when Mitcham feels the cold, Cheam will be ready to act. Aux armes!

[David Moss]

You say of Mr Glucksmann's article that "it is an early sign that one consequence of the war on terror might be a huge international re-alignment, changing what it means to be on the left and on the right". Really?

Glucksmann speaks approvingly of Sarkozy's wish to grant French state funds to build mosques "even if it means offending an established conception of the separation of church and state". So bang goes that principle.

He refers to France as "the birthplace of human rights". This is, surely, historically inaccurate. What about the American Revolution? What about our own Glorious Revolution a century before?

He refers to "a large-hearted France [that] has never forgotten the oppressed," among whom he lists Poles, Argentinians, Algerians, Russians, Bosnians, Kosovars and Chechens, and of whose plight he says "in no other country were these barbarities and the resistance to them discussed so much". I would love to see Robbie Millen's thoughts on the value to the victims of those discussions. But perhaps we can guess, see his hilarious The American "resistance" at http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/03/i_want_to_take_.html.

He claims to "respect" Royal but that seems a bit confused. He "can't swallow her opinions about the exemplary speed of the Chinese justice system". And, of course, he is recommending a vote for Sarkozy. In what way does he respect Royal?

He is certainly a man of the Left: "It was for the left that I struggled for forty years against its ideological ossification …". But I see nothing new about this Left. It remains an unprincipled, historically inaccurate, sentimental, self-regarding and confused talking shop childishly in search of a dominating leader.

Let's stop continually searching to prove that we live in a new world. We don't. We live in the same world we have always lived in. Agree with Tony Blair that we live in a new world, and he will thank you for the excuse to tear up the old Constitution and replace it with his own.

One other thing. You say of Glucksmann that he "is an ally of Christopher Hitchens, of Paul Berman and of Bernard Kouchner". I would love to be a fly on the wall to see the fireworks when Glucksmann tries out his France-is-the-birthplace-of-human-rights line on the admirably historically accurate and irascible Mr Hitchens.