25 years of backstabbing, plotting, lying, decieving, shaking hands, kissing babies, touching cows, and saying "non!", have taken its toll on the old man.
There is no doubt History will remember him as a failure. He was involved in murky deals for most of his life. He would be prosecuted for corruption after his presidential term if politicians were slightly less untouchable. He sold his soul, his convictions, and his beliefs to become President, and changed his political beliefs more often that most people change their underwear.
Through-out his career, he has been a eurosceptic, a europhile, a protectionnist, a liberalist, a fighter for the poor, a reformer, a conservative, a racist and anti-immigration promoter, a uniter, a divider, a coward, a lier, and a grand-father figure to us all.
He made arguably the biggest ****-up in French politics, calling for fresh elections, losing them, and spending 5 years in the wilderness of the cohabition with a socialist Prime Minister.
Above all, he has been the perfect exemple of a french career politician: devoid of belief, integrity, or moral backbone, and only interested in achieving personal political ambitions.
He has, however, been a good supporter of the French Football team, so that's good.
And of course, he got it right on the Iraq war, which is no small feat.
History, though, will not be kind to him.
And now, a new leaf of French politics has been turned. He was the last of his generation, the pre-war politicians.
The two contenders for the next Presidential elections are Segolene Royal, a cute if slightly bland lefty, and Nicolas Sarkozy, a diminutive right-wing LePen-light.
And yet, despite all his flaws, most French people have some sort of affection for the old man. Yes, he was a crook, a lier, and a backstabbing opportunist. But he was also from the France Profonde, an old-school Frenchman who represented a dying breed of Frenchness, like the grandfather we all wish we'd had.
Drinking, passionate, a Football fan, Hated by the English, Headbutted by Zidane (fake?), Best Friend of Bush, no, really!
And a few memorable quotes:
Quote:
The French worker, who works all day, as well as his wife, all for a tiny sum of 15000 Francs a months, and who sees, next door to his coucil flat, a family of immigrants, the dad and his three or four wives, their twenty children, crammed in a flat, earning 50000 Francs on benefits, without of course doing a single day's work... Add to this the smell, and the noise, and the French worker goes crazy! And no, it is not racist to say this!
Quote:
There can be no doubt that having Spaniards, Portuguese, or Polish people working in France, poses a lot less problems than having Muslims, or blacks.
Quote:
What I offer you, is to regain a public morality, with leaders that lead by exemple!
Quote:
I am completely hostile to a Euro-zone with a common currency
Quote:
I don't think it's a worry. There is a guy, called Mr LePen, that I don't know personally, and who is probably not that nasty. He says certain things that we all think, a bit louder and bit better than us, and in a more popular way
Quote:
This story of European enlargment is ridiculous. Today it's Turkey, tomorrow Zimbabwe!
Quote:
I am proud of the French colonial history! Only lefty-intellectual-masochistic idiots can criticize it.
Au revoir, Super-Menteur!
Edited, Mar 13th 2007 2:38pm by RedPhoenixxx
Edited, Mar 13th 2007 2:45pm by RedPhoenixxx
) sort of way, but hardly down wit teh Gangstaz 
