Sarkozy dangles "empty chair" threat over Europe

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a Sunday newspaper he is serious about pushing for more trade protectionism in Europe and tighter external border controls, hinting he could take a stand as tough as Charles de Gaulle's 1965 "empty chair" policy.

The conservative leader told the weekly Journal du Dimanche in an interview that he meant business with an election campaign pledge last month to push for a "Buy European Act" and a threat to pull France out of Europe's open-border Schengen zone unless external controls are tightened.

Sarkozy has shifted right, attacking low-cost competition and uncontrolled immigration, in the run-up to the two-round presidential election starting on April 22 as he battles to catch up with Socialist Francois Hollande, who leads opinion polls for a May 6 run-off by around 6 points.

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Sarkozy's lag is due in part to a slip in support for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose voters he needs to back him in the second round if he is to beat his Socialist rival.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/07/uk-france-election-sarkozy-idUKBRE8360CW20120407

[WCGreen]

1. Scape goating is such an easy way to get elected but an awful way to govern....

[fasttense]

2. Reuters considers Sarkozy's stance a rightward turn

"attacking low-cost competition and uncontrolled immigration."

In the US this is considered a more left turn. But I understand that conservatives in Europe are mostly anti-immigration. Though uncontrolled borders is the game plan for Free Market dunderheads.

[pampango]

6. Sarkozy is battling the National Front for the far-right vote. The Front is very anti-immigration,

anti-trade and anti-EU, so Sarkozy is going after its voters on the issues they value. Those issues may be "considered a more left turn" by some in the US, but the fact is that teabaggers and republicans are more anti-trade (though their politicians are not) and anti-immigration than are Democrats.

Progressives have historically been more low-tariff, pro-immigration than conservatives and still are in Europe and most of the rest of the world. In the US, though, you are right that some on the left look at immigration and trade in a way that is consistent with the way that the right does in Europe (and historically in the US) and calls it a progressive stance.

From the 1880's to the 1980's republicans passed higher tariffs in 1890, 1897, 1922 and 1930. Democrats lowered tariffs in 1894, 1913, 1936, 1947 and 1994.

"The GOP under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush abandoned the (traditional Republican) protectionist ideology, and came out against quotas and in favor of the GATT/WTO policy of minimal economic barriers to global trade." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history#1980s_to_present

[denverbill]

9. Sorry but I disagree with almost your whole post.

Republicans prior to the 20th century were progressive and Democrats were conservative. The positions eventually reversed culminating with Reagan. Now the conservative Southerners who hadn't voted for a Republican since the Civil War vote almost exclusively Republican.

Regarding the tariffs, the tariff increase in 1930 had nothing to do with being progressive. Raising tariffs was a response to the depression when the government couldn't pay it's bills. Tariffs were raised to fight the deficits. Also, though Clinton signed NAFTA, I wouldn't exactly call him progressive.

IMO, the progressive position in any policy is the position which favors the disadvantaged or the advantaged. Although some people might argue lower tariffs help the poor by decreasing the cost of goods, I don't buy it. The poorest people in the country aren't buying that many manufactured goods to begin with since they don't have the money, and they are even less likely to have money if American jobs are destroyed by cheap imports. The people who benefit from cheap tariffs are the importers and the upper class, and the middle class Americans who still have jobs.

And as for immigration, I would also argue being anti-immigration is progressive. Historically, employers have used immigration to force down wages and laborers opposed it for the same reason. While it is progressive to want to help people from other countries improve their lives, it isn't progressive if you have to hurt Americans to do so.

[pampango]

10. Republicans Harding (1921 and 1922) and Hoover (1930) passed higher tariffs with repub congresses.

Woodrow Wilson (1913), FDR (1934) and Truman (1947) passed lower tariffs with Democratic congresses. I think it is difficult to make the case that Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover (with republican congressional support) were more progressive than Wilson, FDR and Truman (with Democratic congressional support).

"The tariff (Harding's 1921 tariff act) was supported by the Republican party and conservatives and was generally opposed by the Democratic Party and liberal progressives."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney%E2%80%93McCumber_Tariff

"During the 1928 presidential campaign Hoover promised to raise tariff rates again." Hoover was pushing higher tariffs before the Depression started.

"In their certitude that tariff hikes were the answer, no matter what the question, Smoot’s Republicans resemble today’s Republicans, who put a similar faith in tax cuts."

(http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/eb6357c0-3d1a-11e0-bbff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1EaoLpkGn)

"Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke against the act (Hoover's 1930 tariff) while campaigning for president during 1932. ... The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a reflection of Republican Party policy. In his 1932 election campaign platform Franklin Delano Roosevelt pledged to lower tariffs. He and the now-Democratic Congress did so in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act

Historically lower tariffs have been a liberal policy, higher tariffs a conservative one. That is still the case in Europe where it's the conservative political parties (particularly those on the far right like the National Front) that propose dismantling the EU (with its free trade zone) and raising tariffs.

The same is true with immigration legislation. republicans Harding and Coolidge passed very very restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924, while Democrats liberalized immigration laws in 1965.

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act (Pub.L. 68-139, 43 Stat. 153, enacted May 26, 1924), was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well as prohibiting the immigration of Middle Easterners, East Asians and Asian Indians.

Democrats liberalized the immigration law in 1965.

"The 1965 act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system "nearly intolerable". After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture."

[Ken Burch]

11. Slight correction

If Truman passed ANYTHING in 1947, he passed it through a REPUBLICAN Congress(the same one in which Nixon and Joe McCarthy sat as freshman members of their respective chambers, and the same one that passed Taft-Hartley).

[xchrom]

3. Interesting. Nt

[earthside]

4. I wouldn't be for Sarkozy ...

... if I were a French citizen; I'd prefer the socialist.

However, whether characterized as 'right' or 'left', I think that almost all of these so-called "free trade" treaties and agreements have been a disaster for the poor, working and middles classes in most countries, as has open immigration policies.

[Schema Thing]

7. My gf is strongly for Bayrou

But it looks like he's getting no traction except as a potential kingmaker.

[Hubert Flottz]

5. He will upset the globalist conspirators.

And threaten der "New World Order"

[DallasNE]

8. Sarkozy Is Taking A Queue From American Republicans

And is playing the hate card in an effort to hold on to power. With France in recession that likely won't work.