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| Europe |
| France may have elected Francois Hollande, but she really needs a Napoleon Bonaparte |
| 2012-05-06 |
| It looks like Socialist Francois Hollande has won the French presidency. His platform: raise taxes on business to fund a lower retirement age and more spending. Things don’t look good for poor old France. Either Hollande will stick to his promises and ruin the economy or he’ll u-turn and reveal himself to be a reckless opportunist. Whether he's a fool or a knave, this election cycle has exposed just how broken the French political system is. The kind of economic reforms that are necessary to put the country back to work simply can’t be enacted under the present arrangement. France needs to change. She needs another Napoleon. Ever since the French Revolution of 1789, the French have struggled to keep a constitution going beyond two or three generations (there’s a reason why la grande dame is on her fifth republic). The cause is the imbalance between “government rooted in law” and the free expression of “mass democracy.” On the one hand, the French revolutionaries wanted to create a government that limited powers and liberated the economy (one of the first things they did was abolish serfdom and end regulation of the grain market). On the other hand, to give the new government legitimacy they acknowledged the political authority of the Parisian mob. What was the point of democracy if children starved? The policies passed by elected delegates had to be rubber-stamped by the sans-culottes. The result was that within a few years of the revolution, the constitution (by far the most admirably liberal in the world) was suspended and terror was the order of the day. Food prices were set by the government and paper money was printed to keep the mob happy. A consensus was reached that veered between moments of chaos and stultifying bureaucratic corruption. Eventually the rotten system was brought to an end by Napoleon, on 9 November 1799. Napoleon kept what was best about the republic and established an empire in its place. This is the pattern of French history: revolution, chaos, consensus, breakdown and a coup led by a strong man who “embodies” the nation. Charles de Gaulle did it twice: first as the leader of the Free French in the 1940s and second in 1958, when he formed the current Fifth Republic. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #16 I don't care what Warren Buffet says, BUY GOLD!! The left is so thoroughly polluted the sensibilties of the average citizen, they are willing to committ economic suicide. I wonder how Hollande is going to handle the Muslim problem? Bon Bons and tea? Conciliation or the airline ticket? |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2012-05-06 22:48 |
| #15 IRRC, see also FREEREPUBLIC > FRANCOIS HOLLANDE HAS TEN MONTHS TO AVOID/PREVENT FRANCE BOND CRISIS. FYI, apparently a large number of anti-Sarkozy = pro-Hollande Supporters really wanted to do bad thingys to Sarkey, e.g.... > Force Sarkey to wear a Burqua. > Demanded that Sarkey be put in prison. > Shoot him just because they want to. BOY-O-BOY, YA'D THINK SARKOZY WAS ONE OF 'CUZIN PARIS "HANG 'EM HIGH" HILTON'S CRIMINAL PENCIL ABUSERS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-05-06 22:36 |
| #14 ROFLMAO, #2 tipper! Too true. :-D |
| Posted by: Barbara 2012-05-06 21:50 |
| #13 Where will the money come from once all the wealthy French have departed for other countries? |
| Posted by: USN,Ret 2012-05-06 21:19 |
| #12 Well whaddaya know, the FNS CV CHARLES DE GAULLE'S wily "We command the Ship, not the Captain or HQ" Propellers are a treasure to Mankind??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-05-06 19:54 |
| #11 Equating the EU with Bonapartist France is ignorant and dangerous. In the EU protesters military service is essentially voluntary, and rioters protesting government policies are mollycoddled by the police. In Bonapartist France millions of people were compelled into military service leading to vast death and destruction, and rioters protesting government policies were met with a "whiff of the grape". The ability of the vaunted EU to do anything is based on the willingness of the people there to tolerate it. People may not like it, but they tolerate it. The ability of the French Empire to do anything was based on its willingness to kill anyone who disagreed. For comparison, I guarantee that if Spain exited the EU tomorrow not one EU soldier would invade Spain to change its policy. Napoleon sent over 300,000. |
| Posted by: rammer 2012-05-06 18:52 |
| #10 Well fed bears reproduce. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-05-06 17:46 |
| #9 Remember when you're running from the bear you don't have to be faster than the bear, just someone else in the group. Bon chance, mes amis! |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-05-06 17:41 |
| #8 France has lost her collective mind and now is going to destroy her own economy. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2012-05-06 17:32 |
| #7 The thesis is anything but insane. The new Napolean is already in place and gaining strength. It is called the EU it is the anti-democracy with nary a demos in sight. IF, and that's a big if, Hollande tries to buck the EU elites with his economic policies he will be brought down quickly through whatever mechanism is at hand. If he proves a liar and elite toady than France will just become one more vassal state of the EUSSR. He is not charismatic enough to buck the EU and survive even if he wanted to try and regain a sovereign France. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2012-05-06 17:30 |
| #6 A lodestone or loadstone is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-05-06 17:09 |
| #5 A lodestone is a magnetic rock. A loadstone is...I'm not quite sure, but I'm sure I don't trust any writer who doesn't know the difference. |
| Posted by: gromky 2012-05-06 16:50 |
| #4 Napoleon and Hitler were cut from the same cloth. Nobody ever needed either one of them. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2012-05-06 16:45 |
| #3 This thesis is completely insane. To argue in favor of a new Napoleon is to advocate a future for the French and Europeans both disenfranchised and filled with organized mass slaughter; death on an industrial scale that the Islamofascists could neither imagine nor create. All civilized people recoil from such a vision. |
| Posted by: rammer 2012-05-06 15:50 |
| #2 As the mighty P.J.O'Rourke said: 6. Whenever you’re unsure about what course to take in life, ask yourself, “What would France do?”You see, France is a treasure to mankind. French ideas, French beliefs, and French actions form a sort of loadstone for humanity. Because a moral compass needle needs a butt end. Whatever direction France is pointing in—toward Nazi collaboration, Communism, existentialism, Jerry Lewis movies, or President Sarkozy’s personal life—you can go the other way with a clear conscience. |
| Posted by: tipper 2012-05-06 15:39 |
| #1 That's all they need, More Socialism. |
| Posted by: newc 2012-05-06 15:18 |