Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The other big match

While the main focus here will be on Milan for the next few hours, having settled on cheering for the home team, it looks like most of France will not give a damn about the soccer and will instead tune in to the Sarkozy-Royal debate, taking place at nearly the same time. It will be live here at 2000 GMT.

UPDATE: Only switched over after savouring the sour look on Stretchface Ferguson's face one last time. So saw the last 45 minutes. Sego seemed to come out ahead in the exchange over childcare: She was ready to belittle his promise of an enforceable right to childcare in terms of mothers not having the time to go to court to enforce it, and Sarko then meandered into a very weak point about an enforceable right for handicapped children to join a normal school after 5 years -- which she was again ready for by pointing out the Socialists had actually implemented places in regular schools for the handicapped before it was abolished by the right. Sarko seemingly saw this as his moment to portray Sego as hysterical -- as she was clearly passionate about it -- but she held her cool.

From there Sarko recovered and did a better job of avoiding the off-camera interruptions that were making him seem argumentative. Sego also left a potentially major landmine in front of her with a seeming promise to push for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics if China doesn't become more responsive on Darfur. Sarko managed to drive home his positions on Turkey (against EU membership), the EU constitution (mini-treaty only, no referendum), and immigration (Sego's "case-by-case" approach sounds like it results in deportations for nobody).

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