This is the kind of Frenchmen I could find both extremely interesting and potentially at least a solid ally of the United States.
It's hard to say exactly what type of president Sarkozy would be but it's hard to imagine him being worse than Chirac by any measure.
Maybe between Pope Benedict and a new generation of politicians there just might be some hope for Western Europe after all. We'll see I guess.
Sarkozy's Rendezvous With Destiny
By Stefan Simons
It was like the celebration of a high mass. Some 78,000 supporters attended the congress at which Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the ruling UMP, was anointed as the party's presidential candidate in the election this spring.
AP
French Interior Minister and head of the ruling conservative Union for a Popular Movement party Nicolas Sarkozy getting ready to knock history out."Together, everything becomes possible." That was the soft slogan under which Nicolas Sarkozy, 51, appealed for unity among his conservative supporters on Sunday. His speech was preceded by a rocket launch-like countdown and electronic organ music accompanied him as he strode onto the stage -- a frenetic apotheosis for the man on whom the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party is pinning its hopes of winning the presidency.
The organizers of the party congress left absolutely nothing to chance. They hired a specialist who directs a popular musical talent show on French television. The stage was perfectly white, the backdrop could be lit up in the blue, white and red of the French national flag. There were video panels, mobile camera units and PA stacks. And there was a list of celebrity speakers whose fiery words whipped up the audience for Sarkozy's entrance like at a rock concert.
France's governing UMP party organized this mega-show to celebrate its presidential candidate in the exhibition hall near Porte de Versaille in Paris - a place usually reserved for the car industry to display its newest products, or for farmers to present their most beautiful cows, their fattest hens and their best wine. It was a "family celebration," a coronation mass, celebrated in the very place where Jacques Chirac, the current French president, officially founded the UMP's predecessor party 30 years ago.
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