Ribbit! Ribbit! croaked the Budweiser frogs.

Lionel Jospin is your archetypal third-way socialist. He did some good things as Prime Minister of France, like introducing a shorter working week and offering more health insurance to the poor. Sadly, he also pursued privatization of many state companies and various other right-wing economic policies, losing support from much of the French left. He also lied about his involvement in a fringe communist organization during his youth. The French, having a fairly well-established tradition for radical politics, probably would've forgiven him for his involvement in the radical group. The fact that he lied about it did more damage to him than anything else. Ultimately, Jospin caused a fragmentation in the French left which led to a humiliating elimination of the Socialist party in the first round of the 2002 presidential elections, making the second and final round a competition between the center-right Chirac and the far-right Le Pen. Chirac's party gained control of the French parliament in an election shortly after. Not a very good showing, overall.

Jospin was the former Socialist Prime Minister of France. The interesting part about their government is that the head of state and the head of government are both elected leaders. Unlike other countries where the head of state is simply titular, the President wields a significant amount of power. The head of government, which is the prime minister, heads up the Parliament, which has power almost equal to the President. It's a dual system designed primarily to fit Charles De Gaulle's ego, one of the giants of the 20th Century. He assumed that the Parliament would be docile to his initiatives and that as a popularly elected leader he would be able to politically influence the elections. De Gaulle did get his way during his time there, but there have been periods in the history of the 5th Republic where you've had the Head of State from the conservative party and the head of govenrment from the liberal party. This ends up becoming tricky when France is party to a foreign treaty and it must be determined who is the negotiator and signatory. But normally this is determined well in advance, they haven't had any clashes on foreign representation. Split government over there works very similiarly to how it works here in the US. If the President is a Republican and the Congress is Democratic, the result will probably be moderate policies that are tempered by negotiation. In France, Jacques Chirac was elected President in 1995 on the conservative party line narrowly against Lionel Jospin, who is a socialist. Chirac called parliamentary election in 1997 and his conservative coalition ended up losing, thus putting Jospin, as leader of the socialists, as Prime Minister. Jospin's goal in that office was to moderate Chirac's fiscal austerity programs needed to enter the European Monetary Union. He averted 2 strikes that threatened to freeze the French economy, cut the work week back to 35 hours. He espoused the same third way liberalism that Tony Blair brought about in Britain and Bill Clinton advocated in the United States. It was very difficult for Jospin to maintain his liberal base content; he was seen as very pro-business because he wanted to continue privatizing state owned French industries. The word socialist here means very little. Jospin wasn't as strong of a supporter of deeper European integration as Chirac is. He challenged Chirac for the Presidency in the 2002 elections, but he lost out in the 1st round of balloting to a right-wing fringe candidate. Politically, he lost his core socialist constituency by advocating moderate policies. He failed to run a good campaign. Subsequently the conservatives won back Parliament and they elected a new head of government that of the same party as Chirac. I wonder why the French have to complicate everything so much, even their political system.

Il a fait de grandes choses

This man makes Chirac look like a honest to gosh cowboy.

He's French....enough said.

He is a French and a socialist... can it get any worse?

GONE! at last, and I hope for good.. WE DON'T WANT YOU LIONEL, SOCIALISM IS DEAD, AND SO ARE U, SCUMBAG

he is playing into the hands of global powers.

Most French politicians suck - I don't know much about LJ but I suspect that he sucks too....

defining the future of the left?