French Election Results Pending

It looks like Nicholas Sarkozy is heading to victory in elections over Segolene Royal. No Pasaran has the exit polls, which showed Sarkozy pulling away. Voting is quite heavy.

Royal has claimed that if Sarkozy won, there'd be violence and brutality:

Thousands of riot police will be deployed in Paris tonight after warnings that victory for Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate in today’s presidential election, could spark violent protests.

Fears of a repeat of the rioting that swept France two years ago intensified as the final opinion polls pointed to an overwhelming victory for Sarkozy. A crowd of up to 40,000 Sarkozy supporters was expected on the Champs Elysées in central Paris to celebrate the result. Police believe that gangs of youths from the suburbs might confront them.

Sarkozy has promised a “fraternal” republic but said last week that he did not regret having described young delinquents as “scum” in 2005 in remarks widely believed to have ignited the rioting.

The interior ministry said that 8,000 riot police were being placed on stand-by in the suburbs — equivalent to the force deployed at the height of the violence, when 10,000 cars and dozens of businesses were burnt in three weeks of mayhem.

Sarkozy, 52, a Hungarian immigrant’s son who wants to modernise France, enjoyed a nine-point lead over Ségolãne Royal, 53, the Socialist candidate, in one of the last polls taken before the second and final round of voting. In a desperate effort to catch up with him, Royal, the first woman to reach the second round, warned that Sarkozy would trigger “violence and brutality” and was a “dangerous” choice for France.

There's a reason that the violence has been a major issue. High unemployment, few job opportunities and a French government that is reluctant to engage in basic law enforcement in many regions around the country for fear of causing violence.

That's right - there are no-go areas in France where the French police simply do not enter because their presence is supposedly going to cause violence to ensue. Sarkozy intends to put an end to that kind of situation and bring law and order to the country and improve the economic situation in the banlieus.

Royal has nothing to work with except her fearmongering considering that it is her socialist views that have gotten France into this mess in the first place. In addition to the refusal to assimilate immigrants into French society, the work rules (including the 35 hour work week), mean high unemployment and few opportunities for people to get into the workforce and become productive citizens.

You have rampant unemployment in the banlieus and radicals have seized upon that situation to further their own agenda - including Islamists and others that want to undermine the French government. It's a ticking time bomb of demographics, economics, and failed social policies and the solutions are nary in sight.

The Times notes that one shouldn't expect much in the way of change in France and they're right - the unions and student groups are resistant to change the rules, even if it means a better economic situation for the nation at large because it is seen as a threat to their own existence, though it is quite the romantic vision considering the staggering problems:

How can that be? The candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, each promised to remake France, deploring the joblessness, the bloated bureaucracy, the lack of entrepreneurial spirit. Mr. Sarkozy has proposed something approaching the Thatcher revolution, while Ms. Royal even suggested scrapping the Fifth Republic. But all that talk ignored two realities:

First, life in France is, on the whole, plenty comfortable. The French flirt with the idea of change, but few in the mainstream want to risk losing France’s “exceptionalism” — that warm bed of traditions and entitlements that lets so many enjoy the benefits of living here.

And the benefits are great. Listen to the conversation with the waiter at the table next to you in a Parisian restaurant at lunchtime and more often than not it will involve a nuanced discussion of what is best to eat and just which wine to drink. Later, the diners will often pay with meal vouchers from their employer.

Cumbersome and costly as the system may be, it’s not exactly broken. So why risk trouble?

Not broken? The same New York Times that complains about unemployment in the US when it is at 5% ignores the fact that the rate in France is 8.5% and closer to 25% in the banlieus? The same New York Times that complains about the US sluggish economy excuses the French economic situation when it is even slower than the US?

The truth of the matter is that the French government has to change because French society has changed. Foreign born immigrants and their progeny are not assimilating into the country whether by choice or design. The status quo only exacerbates the problem. Sarkozy offers the possibility for that change; Royal doesn't.

UPDATE:
It's over and Sarkozy won decisively 53-47 in heavy turnout. And predictably the anarchists decided to throw themselves a car-be-que in Lille. There were riots at Place de la Bastille in Paris as well. What's ignored is that the rioters got a head start on the violence yesterday. There's video of the rioting, and there are reports of rioting in Marseilles.

And some of the folks on the left aren't happy about this turn of events as Sarkozy is pro-American, which is a major shift in French views. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the Europeans change their tune as well. In the meantime, the leftists and anarchists are throwing a serious hissy fit.

Just how many cars will be torched? Well, I'm figuring a couple hundred tonite, which is incidentally about the regular toll on a daily basis.

UPDATE:
Sarkozy's acceptance speech mentioned that the US can count on French friendship. That's not going to win him a lot of support among the left here in the US or overseas. However, no matter what Sarkozy says, it is what he does that will matter. Will he change France's course of diplomacy on a wide range of issues towards the Americans or will he simply pay lip service. I hope it is the former and not the latter.