More French Festivities

Rioting has continued in France overnight and the AFP has already taken its first shot at Nicolas Sarkozy with their headline for a story about the violence:

Sarkozy holidays as fresh violence hits French cities

PARIS (AFP) – France's president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy relaxed Tuesday on a yacht in the Mediterranean ahead of launching his radical reform programme, while back home "anti-Sarko" protestors burned cars and clashed with police in cities across the country.

Sarkozy boarded the yacht in Malta with his wife Cecilia and their 10-year-old son Louis on Monday at the start of a three-day break, far from the hectic post-election atmosphere in Paris.

The family arrived on the island on a private plane after the 52-year-old right-winger's election victory on Sunday. He won 53 percent of the votes to 47 percent for his Socialist rival Segolene Royal.

Sarkozy had pre-planned the break to recover from his gruelling campaigning and to mentally ready himself for France's highest office.

He takes over from President Jacques Chirac on May 16.

In his last major public ceremony as head of state, Chirac on Tuesday laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Paris to commemorate the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Sarkozy's election triumph has sparked protests across the country, many of them violent. They began late Sunday and continued Monday night, prompting the leader of the defeated Socialists to appeal for calm.

Overnight Monday some 500 youths shouting "Sarko, fascist!" went on a rampage in the Bastille district of Paris, burning 10 cars, looting two stores and smashing windows, police said.

More than 200 people were detained during four hours of clashes in which protesters threw stones and other projectiles at police, one of whom was injured. Fifteen people remained in custody on Tuesday.

Mind you, Sarkozy is merely the president elect and can't do anything about the violence, but they take the swipe at him anyway. Expect that to get worse as his presidency actually starts. But it is interesting that the "youths" have reappeared in the reporting. Meanwhile, in today's Washington Post, EJ Dionne points out that the election results in France and elsewhere in the world should be giving "progressives" pause.

Is Europe moving right? Is the democratic left in trouble?

The decisive victory of Nicolas Sarkozy over Socialist S?gol?ne Royal in France's presidential election on Sunday was the most recent example of the battering that moderate-left parties are taking from the forces of globalization and discontent over immigration.

A few days earlier, Britain delivered a rebuke to outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party in local elections. Last September, Sweden's Social Democrats were voted out of power, a blow to the progressive spirit in light of the country's standing as a model egalitarian society.

Earlier in 2006, in the land of single-payer health care, Canada's Conservatives under Stephen Harper came back from near-death 14 years ago to form a minority government. In 2005, Germany's Social Democrats lost their majority, though they cling to a share of power under Christian Democratic Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Interesting. So the rioting "youths" in France are just disgruntled progressives! They're progressively torching as many right wing, capitalist lackey Citroens as they can find. There's nothing like the smell of French-fired Renault in the morning. It smells like electoral defeat.