A Different Drummer

I don't think much about France these days, so the French election was only really a passing thing - I don't know enough about the candidates and the history of their parties to really understand what is going on....but....

Sarkozy is being celebrated by conservatives as a sign that France is moving to the right, and villified by progressives as a xenophobe and an authoritarian. Maybe all these things are true. It was quite weird for me to read that in his victory speech, he promised to "restore the status of work, authority, standards, respect, merit". In that order. Work first, authority second, followed by standards and respect? All valuable characteristics or things, but as a shopping list of your priorities, it seems a bit unbalanced toward the boot stamping on a human face forever side of things.

But - and there is a huge, 'ohmygod thank God for this but' sized but - he also said some pretty awesome things in his victory speech - things that show the difference between France and most other countries.

Biggest and coolest of them all, he proposed the establishment of a Mediterranean Union, bringing together Southern Europe, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

"...the time has come to build together a Mediterranean union that will form a link between Europe and Africa.

What was done for the union of Europe 60 years ago, we are going to do today for the union of the Mediterranean"

One of the biggest things I have learned since leaving Australia and traveling around - especially in this part of the world - is that the Mediterranean is much more of a natural region or even "continent" in a certain sense than most regions.

Italians have far more in common with Egyptians than they do with Norwegians. Watch some street life in Casablanca, Athens, Tel Aviv and Malta - you will see far more common bonds than you would doing the same in London, Berlin and Bucharest. The people surrounding the Mediterranean have been trading, eating, shagging and hanging out together for thousands of years, meaning that the ties between these countries - food, culture, music, borders, ethnicity, history etc. - are much larger than most people think.

The perception that Europe is one distinct place and Africa another place, an island separated by ocean and distance and vastly different cultures and societies, is just factually incorrect. I (and I think most Australians, and maybe most westerners) came out of school picturing Africa as being in complete physical and cultural seperation from Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. The borders are incredibly blurred - the continents are physically and culturally connected.

I like to call it the "people who live in beautiful sunny temperate places with epic histories, hot tempers, gorgeous beaches, public emotions and awesome food" region of the world.

The Mediterranean Union would kick ass when it comes to free trade. The agricultural and manufacturing potential of places like Egypt, Libya and Algeria is enormous. And the people of North Africa would benefit hugely from duty free imports of the various wonderful things that are produced by the people of Southern Europe. This isn't even factoring in the movement of people and workforce.

The best bit? Such a deal would be essentially impossible for North African governments to refuse (their citizens would be loving the idea of visa/work permit free entry to Italy, France, Spain etc) - meaning that Arab world countries like Egypt and Morocco would be brought into much closer contact with Israel. And Med countries like France and Spain already have a pretty good "honest broker" reputation in the region (certainly in Egypt) - definitely more so than the UK, US, Russia etc.

Maltese could become the Norwegians of the Med - I'm pretty sure no-one in the Israeli-Arab conflict would mind if negotiations were mediated by classy Med people with the world's most beautiful accents.

I've already written too much, but it is also worth mentioning what he said re: climate change:

"I want to issue an appeal to our American friends, to tell them that they can count on our friendship, which has been forged in the tragedies of history which we have faced together.

I want to tell them that France will always be by their side when they need it, but I also want to tell them that friendship means accepting that your friends may think differently and that a great nation such as the United States has a duty not to put obstacles in the way of the fight against global warming, but on the contrary to take the lead in this fight, because what is at stake is the fate of humanity as a whole. France will make this battle its primary battle."

This, plus his incredibly cluey Mediterranean Union proposal, means that for now, I am all about Sarkozy. Maybe he will just become an evil anti-Arab, anti-migrant weirdo, but if he follows through on these two issues - bringing together Europe and North Africa, and dealing with climate change - then he is two massive steps ahead of any other world leader of his stature.