Nicolas Le Pen into the trash bin of history

French voters have spoken and, as of 8 p.m. Paris time this Sunday,

Nicolas Sarkozy has been tossed into the trash bin of history.





On March 14, the Wall Street Journal published a caustic editorial

entitled "Nicolas Le Pen." The WSJ was decrying the way Sarko had

"ramped anti-immigrant rhetoric" in a cynical "attempt to woo

supporters of Marine Le Pen's xenophobic National Front ahead of the

first-round poll on April 22."





In between the two rounds, Sarko openly courted Le Pen's supporters,

intensified his anti-immigrant attacks--turning French citizens of

North African and Sub-Saharan extraction as well as Muslims into

scapegoats of all the problems ailing France.





And, when confronted on his turning into a clone of Marinne Le Pen,

Sarko would deadpan: "Just because Madame Marinne Le Pen says the sun

rises in the east that I should deny that fact!"





Sarko's extreme right-wing rhetoric got so venomous that on May 3 the

leader of the center-right party Mouvement Démocrate (Modem), François

Bayrou, who came in 4th in the first round of the presidential

election, took the unprecedented step of endorsing François

Hollande--while disagreeing with the political project of the

socialist candidate (now president-elect) and stopping short of giving

his party members voting instruction on behalf of Hollande.





Said Bayrou:





"I don't want to leave the ballot blank, that would be indecision and

in these circumstances, indecision is impossible. What's left is the

vote for Hollande, this is the choice I'm making."





Adding:





"Nicolas Sarkozy, after a first round's good score, carried out a

pursuit race to the extreme right in which we don't find our values,

in which what we do hold as our most profound and most precious belief

was shaken up and denied in its principle."





Right now in Kinshasa, we're mostly celebrating, not Hollande's

victory, but Sarko being tossed into the trash bin of history!