Is Sarkozy a Socialist?

Here are some thoughts jotted down rather haphazardly as a way of responding to a reader's comment. I consider it "off-topic" because it is an editorial, not a translation.

Is Nicolas Sarkozy a socialist or is he not? This question is often raised at French websites. For most of those who comment at French nationalist websites, he is indeed a "socialist" and they have been saying it for a long time. Some took longer than others to come to this realization, but after his election, it became too obvious to deny.

However, I put word "socialist" in quotes, because, obviously he does not belong to the PS, nor does he run as a socialist, and in the eyes of the international MSM he is "right-of-center" or "conservative" or something comparable, leading (and misleading) the world into a false image of the man.

There are all kinds of problems attendant to a topic like this one, and time does not permit me to discuss it at length. In American politics we have a saying: "If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck!"

His heart is with the Left because that is where he draws his self-confidence and the expiation for his sin of being a "conservative". The signals emanating from Elysée point to the Left, whether it is Sarkozy's left-wing wife; his political appointees; his multi-culturalist agenda which will destroy the French nation if it isn't stopped; his rush into the EU; his globalism (which is nothing more than a recast version of socialism, and not to be confused with capitalism: a system of self-enrichment through one's own effort, along with the right to keep the fruits of one's own labor); his supra-nationalist, non-sovereigntist, non-French agenda; his inability or unwillingness to stop immigration (despite some token gestures that can mislead outsiders); his anti-racism agenda which is a disguised version of a Communist agenda, i.e., coercion and possibly violence employed in the service of a broad, universal, and totally fallacious ideal, a Utopia that all must adhere to or face ostracism, or jail, or worse, sometimes much worse.

But possibly I am giving the word "socialism" too broad a definition. A reader recently reproached me for calling Sarkozy a socialist, saying that in France socialism is meant to help the poor, and he does not see Nicolas Sarkozy as a friend of the poor, but rather as a creator of chaos. He wrote:

"Sorry, I totally disagree with this idea of Sarko being a socialist, at least the way we understand "socialist" in France. In France we expect a socialist to be concerned with the welfare of the poorer classes in the country. This is not what we are talking about here with this guy! The UMP destroys our values by promoting homosexual marriage and adoption, by favouring excessive immigration... The aim is certainly not to have a socialist government (even if there are similarities), it is to create chaos, to destroy the fabric of society so as to leave the way free for the market economy on a world level! If Sarko takes on "socialists" in his government, I wonder if it is not to show what traitors they are and discredit them!"

I don't disagree with my reader's view of Sarkozy, and I appreciate his comment which raises many questions. But I don't define socialism as a system that helps the poor, even though the French may understand it that way. Some social programs work well, so long as they are properly administered and so long as the only beneficiaries are persons who have legitimate claims (our American Social Security system, for example worked well for several decades, but is now breaking down, as the number of retirees outpaces the number of workers who pay for these retirees.) Social programs cease to work when the beneficiaries are undeserving persons such as illegal immigrants, when the number of beneficiaries grows beyond the capacities of the system, or when these programs are just bribes to seduce people into believing they are being helped, when in truth, they are being hurt. A good example from my own personal experience was the labor union I belonged to as a school teacher. They offered you "help" - medical benefits, or dental benefits, or job security, or a lawyer if you unwisely decided to sue a student who threw a chair at you. It amounted to absolutely nothing because as they dole out these counterfeit benefits, they destroy the very reason for being a teacher in the first place. The labor union openly sided with issues such as minority rights and student rights, placing the teacher squarely in front of the most hostile and unteachable classes imaginable, turning a deaf ear to any complaints until we realized that it was not our place to complain, but our place to be grateful to the labor union for free root canals or for some inept legal defense that usually lost in court to a left-wing judge anyway! Under the labor union, the schools sank further and further into violence, but we were always treated with contempt when we complained, or when we did not follow "official labor union thinking", which as early as the 70's was veering rapidly into multi-culturalism, indulgence towards criminal behavior, refusal to acknowledge intellectual differences between students (especially when race was a factor), easy pedagogy where no one could fail, and eventually into the farce of a worthless system where teen pregnancy, uncontrollable classrooms, domination by tyrannical minorities, and low-level academic accomplishment (if one can speak of accomplishment at all) were the hallmarks of what had once been a rigorous and successful education system. What happened in my city happened everywhere else in the country, in varying degrees, until no major city was left unscathed by the demographic and cultural changes, totally supported by the Left (in America this means the Democratic Party, but the Republicans weakened in their moral resolve also, and did not provide the opposition needed to stop the general decline).

Note that I am not saying that the labor union actually caused the demographic upheaval but that it seized the opportunity immediately, recognizing with the scent of a bloodhound the easy prey that terrified teachers would be. This is how socialism works - it seizes upon fear, it offers gifts, it soon FORCES gifts upon you, it expects gratitude and no complaints, it collaborates with whatever violent forces in society are needed to keep the fear alive. Thus in America in the '60's we saw the Left aiding and abetting the black rioters. Was this not also obvious in Europe from the recent violence in which the Socialist and Communist parties rioted alongside their pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist comrades?

Sarkozy may indeed have some qualities that separate him from socialism, and he may be, in the end, a self-promoting media personality more than anything else. Also, and perhaps most importantly, we must not forget that a major portion of the Establishment Right is by nature and by education left-leaning, pro-immigration, pro-EU, anti-racist, etc... So Sarkozy can very easily talk officially as if he were part of the "Right", and act unofficially as if he were a socialist. He CAN have it both ways.

While some insist on calling him "Sarkozy the American", it still remains that in his actions he shows a decided and fundamental preference for socialism and socialists. (Nor is it surprising that he, like his wife and so many socialists swooned over Obama, and feared the weakling McCain).

In nearly everything Sarkozy has done, or so it seems to me writing from a distance, we see this collaboration with or acquiescence to violent forces (Islam, street criminals), and the promotion of the nation-destroying factors (EU, immigration/invasion, anti-white racism, building mosques, creating government agencies to track down "racists") that characterize the imposition of some unifying unrealizable dream, in this case, a one-world ideology, that must be socialist in nature, because as massive movements of peoples change the demographics of every nation, these people will have to be clothed, housed, fed, educated and treated medically, by those who are the working backbone of the host countries. Therefore, the "market economy on a world level" must also be a socialist economy. As this system becomes more violent (which I think is inevitable), the Left will increase its pressures to help these helpless squatters and single mothers and teens-out-of-work, etc... All the while claiming to be against globalism and against the world market, the Left will capitalize on these phenomena to force even greater socialist measures on behalf of the least deserving. For example, why do the socialists rush to the aid of squatters, and demand free housing for them, instead of demanding that they be returned to their homelands?

Not all members of the Left want to be part of such a vision, and some break away. Men like Finkielkraut, or Louis Chagnon, or even Robert Redeker have seen the light, or part of the light. Hubert Védrine has voiced his opposition to the loss of sovereignty suffered by nations who join the EU. I'm sure they are not alone. But they do not appear to be numerous enough to change the general drift of the Left into this extremely large and powerful bloc, aligned with violent forces such as Islam, which is in turn supported by men like Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair, and the mayor of Brussels, and many others like them.

So, even though he does not have a membership card in the PS, Sarkozy honors the socialists, panders obsequiously to the most violent forces in his country, and even wants his people to intermarry with them! How different is he from Ségolène Royal who swooned over Obama at the inauguration, or Socialist Party chairman Martine Aubry who has said (I don't have her exact words) that she feels much happier seeing faces of all colors rather than just Frenchmen?

Of course, as my reader says, he creates chaos. His actions go in all directions, his focus changes from minute to minute, he tries to talk like a conservative while acting like a socialist. He exhausts and confuses people. But what has he done to show that he is a conservative? Nothing much. Am I too hard on him? What about his desire for "métissage"? That racially leveling process he claims is the future of his country.

Please do not think that because he has rich friends with yachts, or because he dines at Fouquet's that he is absolved from the accusation of being a socialist. I have never known a socialist that did not either have money or love money or make lucrative investments or live off the fat of the land. They make you think they want to help the poor, but they only help to create more poverty so that frightened people will keep voting for them and needing their "safety net", never seeing that the net will eventually break and the chasm beneath is deeper and darker than anyone could have imagined.