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No good.

1. Nicolas Sarkozy has become the most unpopular French president ever &#8212-primarily due to his personal behavior.
2. France’s public finances deteriorated in 2007, hovering close to the Maastricht 3% mark.
3. Public spending (54% of gross domestic product) is the highest in the European Union.
4. Nicolas Sarkozy has launched some reforms, which were needed, but which will not suffice.
5. He created a bureaucratic body supposed to propose economic reforms, but will the French politicians act on them?
6. 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) &#8212-even by the French people who vote for the Right.
7. I don&#8217-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).
8. Unlike urban China or the Silicon Valley, France is not vibrant &#8212-the French are consuming their future, instead of planning it.
9. Overall, my sentiment is negative.

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Don&#8217-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 &#8220-midas oracle sarkozy&#8221-.

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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.