Ah, the French

Nicolas Sarkozy's party didn't fare well at the polls recently:
"The expected vague rose -- pink wave -- enabled the Socialist opposition to take 15 big cities from centre-right control, including Toulouse and Strasbourg, but not Marseille as they had hoped. One of the left's more impressive victories was the capture of the eastern city of Metz, which had been under rightwing control since 1848. The left now run a handsome majority of large towns. They comfortably held on to Paris and Lyon, the two biggest. Of historical note was the fall of three Communist bastions: the channel port of Calais, Montreuil, and Aubvervilliers, on the eastern edge of Paris. Montreuil was won by Dominique Voynet, a veteran Green party figure who becomes the first écologiste to run a big city. On the other fringe, Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National got nowhere. With the old bogeyman nearing 80, it is unlikely that his movement will survive... Sarkozy is helped by the shambles among the Socialists. Their mayors may do a good job at running towns, but nearly a year since Royal's presidential defeat, the national opposition remains headless and rudderless. About 10 of its barons and rising stars are manoeuvering for the top job when François Hollande, its lame-duck boss, leaves in the autumn. Like Britain's Labour party in the 1980s and early 90s, the Socialists have no plan for running the country. They are nowhere near adapting their old Marx-based creed to the modern world. Their failure to do so is reflected in polls that show that however poorly Sarko is deemed to be doing, a majority do not believe that the Socialists would run the country any better.