It was the weekend of grand slams. First Saturday evening when France beat England, the last obstacle between them and the Six Nations trophy, then Sunday when the UMP party received a similar hammering at the hands of the Socialist party who drove home a decisive victory of 23 out of 26 regoinal councils in the run off elections. Whilst rugby supporters nurse their happy hangovers, pundits mull over the politicial ashes and await to see if Sarkozy 2.0 will be a calmer more statesman like brand. Less than half the population voted however, signalling a large sense of apathy amongst some and strong anger amongst others towards modern politics and the incumbent party in particular. Le Figaro shows the new political map whilst also providing a background to the movers and shakers in Monday's cabinet reshuffle. Charles Bremmer at the Times gives a pithy view on the underside of this result.
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This weekend was also about President Obama's success in passing his Health reform, 219 VS 212 if I recall correctly. Then is was rejected for a procedure issue... It seems the US cannot get enough of those, although we couldn't expect the Republicans not to try anything to stop that.
About the French elections, everyone seems to forget that after the last regional elections (4 years ago? not sure how often the regions hold elections), only 2 regions were right-wing (Alsace and Corsica). According to my colleagues in the Politics department of TNS Sofres, that was a "sanction" vote against the former Prime Minister's (Raffarin) government. Of course you'd want your region to be left wing because in most people's mind, region = lycées and transport, so the cheaper the better, and the socialists would never raise the prices too much because their electors are the second to go on strike (the first being the radical left such as the Communists and all...). That's my right-wing opinion, of course. I mean no offence if you support the PS (or any other party) views. =)
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