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No good.
- Nicolas Sarkozy has become the most unpopular French president ever —-primarily due to his personal behavior.
- France’s public finances deteriorated in 2007, hovering close to the Maastricht 3% mark.
- Public spending (54% of gross domestic product) is the highest in the European Union.
- Nicolas Sarkozy has launched some reforms, which were needed, but which will not suffice.
- He created a bureaucratic body supposed to propose economic reforms, but will the French politicians act on them?
- The free-market philosophy is still view as devilish (and the Americans and the British are viewed as evil, since they are the ones who push for free markets and free trade) —-even by the French people who vote for the Right.
- I don’-t see much emphasis made on the virtues of working, inventing, innovating, creating startups, spreading modern knowledge, etc. I see people talking about how to take longer vacations (to the point that the French economy comes to a halt, each year, in the month of May, on top of July, August and December) and how to retire early (at the expense of the youngsters).
- Unlike urban China or the Silicon Valley, France is not vibrant —-the French are consuming their future, instead of planning it.
- Overall, my sentiment is negative.
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Don’-t expect more posts about Sarkozy from me, in the future, here. I did this post because one betting Irishman in London keeps querying Google for “-midas oracle sarkozy”-. 
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For more info, see The Economist, Bloomberg, or CNBC. But the best link to visit is the first one I published in the text above.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- Prediction Markets
- Meet professor Justin Wolfers.
- Become “friend” with me on Google E-Mail so as to share feed items with me within Google Reader.
- Nigel Eccles’ flawed “vision” about HubDub shows that he hasn’t any.
- How does InTrade deal with insider trading?
- Modern Life
- “The Beacon” is an excellent blog published by The Independent Institute.