Actually, I was very much for Sarkozy up to a the 11/2005 riots. Nothing to do with the riots as far as I'm concerned, but it was then more or less that he kind of took a fully populist approach to politics. Usually, I'm quite UMP. I'd probably be DL if they didn't confuse being economic liberals - and libertarians to some extent - with being US poodles. They even give me the impression that promoting US policies right or wrong is more important to them than economic liberalization. Ideologues ya3ni, not rationals. The UMP is on the right enough, so economically it's less worst than what's out there - pity it's statist/dirigist, not liberal - and I like its usually gaullist foreign policy (not with Sarko though). But Sarkozy's speech has really become more and more populist and made less sense. Granted, that's a trait of French politics, but it's pushing it a bit too far in this case. I'm not just talking about his immigrants or visible minorities attitude here, but very much economy, he started riding the wave of anti-capitalism in France, claiming the 4th republic left inheritance, promising to moralize finance and defend artisans and workers, playing on the French fantasies about big coporations and funds.

As far as immigrants and minorities, left and right suck, all always did, even though the general perception is very wrongly that the left is better because of the lip service it pays to them. No rational proposal coming from anywhere either. Plus economy primes as far I'm concerned, even when it comes to this topic. No amount of good intentions if there were really any would replace a good economy for immigrants and minorities emancipation.

Obviously, I'm not PS and will never be for that jurassic park trotskyist refuge.

Bayrou. He's mediocre, but that's a French trait in politics too. I find him less agressively populist than Sarko though, and his politics come as less statist than the UMP's actually. Mind you, he's got the support of part of DL.

Sarko will be at the 2nd round and will probably win. I don't really care about that. But I sincerely hope it'll be Bayrou at the 2st round against Sarko, not Sego. Chances that it happens are dim but not null. If the PS doesn't make it to the 2nd round for the second time in a row, the UDF might become the new left in France and the PS would have to either update itself the way the labor did in the UK with Blair, or it would join the bunch of radical left parties who are just noise in elections.

Apparently Sarkozy also toyed with using the word 'identity', which has become a new catchword for the racist far-right - witness the new EU parliament far-right faction.

So PS never went through a post-communism maturation phase? curious.

Vous vous situez à gauche. Aucun parti ne correspond exactement à vos opinions. Cependant, le parti dont vous êtes le plus proche: Alternative Libérale [ puny neoliberals, right? - alle ] mais, en règle générale, vous accordez plus d'importance au contexte dans lequel les gens évoluent (ou moins d'importance à leur responsabilité personnelle). Alternative Libérale soutient la candidature de François Bayrou.

Very nice test, that's a pretty accurate description of me. But it irked me that there was no possibility to ask for freedom of speech and personal integrity issues (antiterror laws etc). I suppose there's no debate on that in France. But also, there was nothing on foreign policy? Odd.

Apart from that, a good test. From now on, I'll start defining myself publicly as a left-wing social-context-libertarian with a Bayrou tendency.

Alternative Libérale is actually the spiritual descendant of DL. With the same shortcomings: a bunch of Bush-War-On-Terror there's-an-islamist-under-every-bed hysterics, MENA-US-like foreign policy right or wrong ideologues. Just younger than Madelin.

This reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a franco-maghrebine colleague of mine, as we half watched some atrocious French commentary show.

The commentator, in that specially deluded French Enarquist fashion called Sego "a breath of fresh air..." or something to that effect.

To which my colleague turned to me and said "You know, that's pretty funny in itself."

shaheen - That's a shame. Libertarians used to be such a nice crowd, all conspiracy theorist San Francisco satanists on LSD, but now they've gone dull and Republican. To me, the Illuminatus! Trilogy will forever remain a more powerful case for individual liberty than Atlas Shrugged.

lounsbury - On what you wrote above, about Sarkozy more likely to bust balls. I agree he is, but isn't it also something of a hawk-dove problem? Meaning, if Royal wins, she'll be aiming for at least some reforms (she doesn't seem completely unreasonable for a Socialist candidate). Since she won't have herself in opposition, and will have some credibility on the left, she can get more of them through the system than a right-winger would, even if he aimed for more. I'm not saying she's the best option, but that maybe there's a neat silver lining to the (moderately) dark cloud represented by a Ségolène victory.

I'm not very familiar with French politics, so perhaps I'm way off here. Were I French, I'd probably do as the test told me, and vote Bayrou.

Just to mention I like the turn Bayrou's taking. He was criticizing both the securitarian conservative agenda of Sarkozy and the economically irresponsible agenda of Segolene. He's more or less renaming his party (Parti Démocrate), I'm crossing fingers so that there would be at last a choice with a significant non-statist constituency in France (I won't dream about libertarian).

Mmm - for those who don't know the details of French presidential elections: Bayrou is being courted by both Segolene and Sarkozy for the second round after he lost but had a base strong enough to play a referee role. Legislative elections follow closely though, so Bayrou gets a chance to gain direct influence through parliament if he succeeds in consolidating his independent third way.