"In Sarkoland", por William Pfaff (artículo sobre Francia en NYRB)

En el número del 14 de Junio de este año el New York Review of Books incluye un interesante artículo sobre Francia y el triunfo de Sarkozy, llamado In Sarkoland. Fragmentos:

He certainly does not belong to the old French reactionary tradition of family-work-religion, anti-republicanism, and xenophobic nationalism, nor to the boisterous modern manifestation of that tradition in the party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. In his election campaign, he efficiently destroyed Le Pen as a political force in France by restating Le Pen's themes, such as his opposition to illegal immigrants, in more acceptable form and stealing Le Pen's votes. (Le Pen was eliminated with some 11 percent of the first-round vote—his lowest result in twenty-five years.)

…

The French problem has been a well-recognized failure to deal with recent social and structural difficulties, including immigrant unrest and persistent unemployment. However, France is a leading exporter of construction, municipal, and financial services. Air France–KLM is the biggest and most successful European airline. France possesses Europe's most extensive high-speed rail infrastructure and is the principal exporter of high-speed rail technology.

France remains in other respects the leading high-technology country in Europe. With Russia absent from civil aviation and British Aerospace (BAE Systems) now effectively an American company, the Pentagon its largest customer, France arguably is the second-ranking aerospace power in the world, concentrating much of Western Europe's defense, aerospace, and electronics industries, including Airbus and Arianespace (which controls 40 percent of the world's satellite-launching market)—both of them French initiatives in which France remains the most significant actor. Moreover, the Dassault company is a principal military and business jet producer and a leader in computer design. France is also the world's leading exporter of nuclear energy technology and nuclear electricity plants (78 percent of France's own electricity is nuclear-generated).It will take a while for the economy to crash.

Link: In Sarkoland, por William Pfaff

La imagen es un Bonnard.