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Le Debat

Instead of reading the completely uninformative article on the French presidential debate in the Times (a lot of political journalism is pretty uninformative, but this one wins a prize), according to which the two contenders were even more vapid than the Republicans will be in California tonight, why not just read the transcript (via Debatable Land)? Update: The initial […]

Instead of reading the completely uninformative article on the French presidential debate in the Times (a lot of political journalism is pretty uninformative, but this one wins a prize), according to which the two contenders were even more vapid than the Republicans will be in California tonight, why not just read the transcript (via Debatable Land)?

Update: The initial moments of the debate clearly seem to have favoured Sarkozy.  Instead of answering directly the question posed to her, Royal went on the offensive, rattling off accusations against the government and her challenger, which provided Sarkozy an opportunity to come in and rebut, it seems fairly effectively, each of her points.  At the same time, he was able to maintain his somewhat overdone, but probably popular stance of attempting to unite the political spectrum behind a campaign for competence and common sense in government.  Just reading the first exchanges, I get the sense that this is actually a policy debate and not the pathetic excuse for presidential debates that we have. 

Royal then set up Sarkozy to make one of his expected law and order appeals, in this case making a promise to punish recidivism harshly and then proposed to try 16-year old criminals as adults.  Royal based her initial pitch around combating crime and inequality, and then proceeds to give Sarko the opportunity to dominate on the crime question from the very beginning.  Obviously, the effect on television may be very different, but Sarkozy comes off as doing very well against the rather excitable Sego. 

Second Update: The section on Turkey was quite interesting.  Sarko responds to accusations that he is being irresponsible and damaging relations with Turkey:

While it is a secular country, it is in Asia Minor.  I  will not explain to French schoolchildren that the borders of Europe are with Iraq and Syria….I don’t think that the stability of the world will be strengthened by killing Europe [bold mine-DL]….I prefer to say to the Turks, you will be associated with Europe, which will have a common market with you, but you will not become members of the Union for a very simple reason: because you are in Asia Minor.  

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