French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

The French understand how to run a society.

Politically deadlocked, failing economy, with the judiciary doing political dirty work?

Government shutdown...convicted rapist as President.. ;-)

Huh, this made me find this wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_and_gov...

Seventh biggest economy with the 21st biggest population seems like an economy that punches above its weight. Plus a low GINI coefficient suggests there's less wealth divide than a lot of other places. Seems like they have a mature economy and don't need to grow forever like a tumor. Once you reach a certain point, optimizing for quality of life seems nice, and the French do seem to aim for that.

Well no. French person here. While this verdict is a great victory for democracy in itself, a lot of problems around it are still not solved.

- Prosecuting white-collar crime still takes ages and takes over a decade, long after the resulting sentences have a real impact

- People like Nicolas Sarkozy have powerful media relays (most of the TV/newspaper owners in France are friends of him or at least sympathetic) and they can smear the judgment, smear the judges in the media with impunity

- His allies are currently in power, he was invited for a short discussion by president Macron and got a visit in prison from the minister of justice Darmanin, which reeks of favoritism

So the road ahead is still long, and I'm not even talking about current political climate which is horrendous.

I think unfortunately both can be true at the same time, politically deadlock AND punching above its weight.

There's a lot to fix in France, and a lot of things going well.

Wild.

Norman Saunders: Saunders was alleged by the US Drug Enforcement Administration to have accepted $30,000 from undercover agents to ensure safe passage of drugs by permitting safe stopover refuelling of drug flights from Colombia to the United States. Video evidence showed Saunders accepting $20,000 from an agent. Saunders was convicted in July 1985 of conspiracy, though he was acquitted of the charge of conspiring to import drugs into the United States. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $50,000.

Then he went on to get re-elected. And then had an airport named in his honour. Nuts.

While "quality of life first" remains true in spirit for a lot of French people, this hasn't been supported politically since 2000 (when legal weekly work time was reduced to 35 hours - many people do more but they are compensated for it). And even that law was an exception. In truth, France has taken the neoliberal turn of the 80s almost as much as other countries, and growth and competitiveness has been the only mantra of governments for 40 years. We're mostly protected by laws passed before the 50s.

Although, as you note, it could always be better… it is still impressive that your system seems to be overcoming 2 and 3.

The grass always looks greener at the other side, right?

I would say that when it comes to political dysfunction, France is a fairly bad case. The Gaullist semipresidential system was a mistake. IIRC only Erdogan copied it.

"optimizing for quality of life seems nice, and the French do seem to aim for that."

Looking at economic trends, it does seem like optimizing for quality of life of the boomer generation at the cost of the future generations, which is not so nice.

Without major cuts to its welfare state (which is Europe's most massive one as a percentage of GDP), France's finances are unsustainable. The necessary tax revenue just isn't there and you cannot borrow indefinitely to spend on entitlements.

As of current trends, if something explodes the Eurozone, it will be endless accumulation of French sovereign debt. It is the same as once Greece was, but ten times as big.

We are losing our democracy, same reasons as the USA. We are just fighting as much as we can.

It's not Nuts. These guys are just front office foot soldiers of the Elite. Elites on all sides use these kind of characters to protect/expand their power.

The Elite all don't get along with each other, but in a "civilized" world where there is enough loot to share with everyone, they don't need to directly attack each other. Unless something really threatens and freaks them out.

But once in a while they authorize their foot soldiers in the military, judiciary, legislatures, media to attack each other. Which is all just a side show - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites

Seems like he was arrested in the United States under US law for conspiracy to import drugs into the US. I can see why people in the Turks and Caicos Islands wouldn't really care about a guy being arrested for drug smuggling in a foreign country. I might well vote for a politician who spent years in a foreign country's prison for breaking that country's laws.

compared to most countries you are still doing great!