I really didn’t intend to follow the presidential elections all that closely: it’s none of my business, after all. But all you hear in the streets, on the metro, or in the cafes is Sarko this and Ségo that.
On Wednesday, the night of the debate, the streets and cafes were empty. Everyone was home watching the debate. The bars were all crowded, though, and everyone was clustered around the TV: you might almost have thought there was a big soccer match on.
I watched most of the debate (French transcript here, or English excerpts here). It would never have flown in the States: it lasted 2 1/2 hours, without commercial interruption, and the candidates discussed actual issues in something more than 30 second sound bites!
I went in to the debates with a mild bias against Sarkozy and for Royal: he’s too ready to make immigrants the scapegoat for France’s woes and I rather like the idea of a woman president for France. After watching the debate, though, I don’t see how Royal can win. Her ideas seem too scattered, and she proposes to pay for them by raising taxes, already the highest in Europe, still further. Although I must say that I thought her very courageous for saying so bluntly that she planned to raise taxes. That’s something else you’d never hear in a US presidential debate! Sarkozy, on the other hand, seemed to have a solid grasp on France’s current economic problems and concrete ideas on how to deal with them.
It may just be a function of the neighborhood in which I live (with a young and largely immigrant population), but it seems to me that people are not so much for Royal as they are against Sarkozy (and quite vehemently against at that), and I don’t think that the debate will have served to inspire much positive enthusiasm for Royal.
In Oral French class, we talked about the debate a little: almost all of us had watched it. The consensus: we found Royal easier to follow than Sarkozy. She spoke more slowly and repeated herself more. We didn’t get into the politics!
