El Economist vota Sarkozy
abril 13, 2007 | 1 Comentario

El Economist, que sigue siendo el semanario financiero más influyente del mundo, vota por Nicolas Sarkozy.
El Economist valora de ese modo a los tres grandes candidatos:
Ségolène Royal, socialista: She has other attractions: the first woman to be a serious contender, the boldness to push past the elephants in her party to win the nomination, a willingness to break with Socialist taboos by praising Britain’s Tony Blair and criticising the French state’s imposition of a maximum 35-hour working week. Unfortunately her policies are woolly even by modern standards. And in economics, she stands squarely behind all the old left-wing shibboleths: state intervention, rigid labour protection and high taxes.
François Bayrou, centrista: His pledge to curb the public debt is more credible than Ms Royal’s and even Mr Sarkozy’s. But he has failed to promote a free-market agenda—he is distressingly fond of farm subsidies and state intervention. Nor is it clear how he would form a government: his centrist party is tiny, and his vague musings of drawing in like-minded leaders from left and right smack of the lowest common denominator.
Nicolas Sarkozy, conservador: After a quarter-century of drift Nicolas Sarkozy offers the best hope of reform [ .. ] Unlike the others, and despite his long service as a minister under Mr Chirac, he makes no bones of admitting that France needs radical change. He is an outsider, born to an aristocratic Hungarian émigré father; he openly admires America; he is enthusiastic about the economic renaissance of Britain. He plans an early legislative blitz to take on hitherto untouchable issues such as labour-market liberalisation, cutting corporate and income taxes and trimming public-sector pensions. [ .. ] But there are two doubts about Mr Sarkozy. As he showed in his brief stint as finance minister, he has most of the traditional French politician’s meddlesome economic instincts, favouring a strong industrial policy, protected national champions and even interfering in supermarket prices. Recently he has taken to heaping blame on the European Central Bank for France’s self-inflicted failings. [ .. ] On the evidence of his career and his campaign, Mr Sarkozy is less a principled liberal than a brutal pragmatist. Yet he is the only candidate brave enough to advocate the “rupture” with its past that France needs after so many gloomy years. It has been said that France advances by revolution from time to time but seldom, if ever, manages to reform. Mr Sarkozy offers at least a chance of proving this aphorism wrong.
The Economist, 12 abril 2007. France’s chance.
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[…] El Economist, el semanario financiero más influyente de Europa, que apoyó en su día a Bill Clinton y Tony Blair, consagró la semana pasada su portada a Nicolas Sarkozy, afirmando, “Él encarna la mejor esperanza de reformas, en Francia”. La agencia Reuter insistía ayer, recogiendo las opiniones de numerosos líderes europeos: “Los responsables europeos votan a Sarkozy”. […]