ARTICLE: Sarkozy Wins, Vows to Restore Pride in France, By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore, Washington Post, May 7, 2007; Page A01

I think this is a great thing, especially as the son of an East European immigrant. France desperately needs to rejoin reality (by 2020, more than half of France will be over 55 years old) and the world desperately needs France to rejoin it (France obstructs progress in so many Core-Gap integration issues).

You've got Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy now in France, Brown soon in the UK and anybody soon in the US and I think the West's leadership is seriously upgraded (with Blair to Brown hopefully not being too much of a step down).

France has become recently what Poland always was for me as a kid growing up: the butt of all jokes. After 12 years of Chirac, his main accomplishment seemed to be making France the much derided laughingstock of the world.

Hopefully that goes away very quickly with a serious adult now in charge.