Why France Elected A Socialist President

France has elected only the second Socialist president in its history — the first being Francois Mitterrand, who spent 14 years in the driver’s seat back when French presidential terms lasted seven years rather than five, and who made a hard-right turn away from economic socialism and toward spending cuts after his first two years in office. The best France can hope for now is that the newly elected Francois Hollande takes a similar plunge into a pothole of pragmatism and douses any budding socialist ideas.

France is deeply in debt, so it’s really not the time to experiment with an ideology that has a poor track record outside of countries that are comparatively small and/or limited in freedoms. And it would be a mistake for those viewing France’s elections from the outside to presume that Hollande doesn’t actually know this himself.

I’d like to give Hollande a generous amount of rope in the wake of this election, if only to make an amusing yo-yo when he ends up warranting a tug.

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