Dartblog

Nicolas Sarkozy has been declared the winner of the French presidential election, with 53% of the vote. In his victory speech at the Arc de Triumphe, he adressed himself to the United States: “…and let me say to our American friends, they can count on our friendship.”

The Guardian reports on the election thusly:

As thousands of his flag-waving supporters prepared to gather at Paris’s Place de La Concorde, where heads rolled in the first French revolution, Sarkozyites were promising a new turning point in French history from a man who has promised an “economic revolution.”

Instead of calling for the end of the monarchy, they had rallied round his cry to “liquidate the legacy of May 1968”, end the nanny state, loosen the grip of “political correctness”, lesson the power of unions and break the 35-hour week in the name of a nation that wanted to “work more to earn more”.

Fresh, crisp, clean, revolutionary goals—for a tired country desperately in need of them.