Dutch Rightist politician Verdonk sees Sarkozy as example

This is a Dutch comedy video about Rita Verdonk.

Dutch Rightist politician Rita Verdonk has broken with the “Rightist liberal” VVD party, and is starting her own ‘political movement’. Interviewed by Dutch daily NRC, she was asked:

Is there any politician who inspires you?

„At this time, French president Sarkozy.”

Ms Verdonk said that on the same day that Mr Sarkozy had both his divorce and a big strike against his social and economic policies on his hands. Try again, Rita.

From Reuters:

Sarkozy faces controversy over communist hero

Published: October 21, 2007, 23:04

Paris: A plan by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to commemorate a young communist resistance hero shot by France’s wartime Nazi occupiers has stirred controversy and sparked accusations of manipulation by the government.

Sarkozy ordered just after his election in May that the farewell letter of Guy Moquet should be read out in French schools on October 22, the anniversary of his death.

Moquet, a 17-year-old member of the Young Communists, was one of 27 French hostages executed in 1941 in retaliation for the assassination of a German officer by resistance fighters.

Patriotic sacrifice

His letter, beginning: “My darling mum … I am going to die!” was seized on by Sarkozy during the election campaign as a symbol of patriotic sacrifice.

After initial objections that the commemoration was too nationalistic, other young resistance heroes, including Germany’s Sophie Scholl will be included.

But some teachers have been angered by what they see as presidential interference in the classroom, saying that Moquet should not be treated as an isolated icon but discussed in the full context of the war.

“Although I respect the memory of the young man shot in 1941, I believe above all, that the president of the Republic cannot dictate to me what I teach,” Pierre Albertini, a Paris history teacher, wrote in a letter to yesterday’s Le Monde.

The left, already annoyed by Sarkozy’s habit of citing leftwing heroes like early Socialist leader Jean Jaurès in his speeches, has also accused the president and his centre right UMP party of trying to appropriate another symbol of the left.

Supporters of Sarkozy, who created a ministry of “national identity” when he came to power in May, have fired back at “politically correct” objections to the event.

Henri Guaino, one of his closest advisers, told Liberation that national identity had become a vital issue with spreading globalisation and increased immigration and it was “completely incomprehensible” that teachers should refuse to take part.

The appropriation by Sarkozy of people of the political left, who are dead and cannot defend themselves any more, is really cynical. Certainly if one knows that the French right has historically always attacked the left as “anti French” and dominated by “foreigners” (sometimes specified as “Jews)”. Ever from the 1871 Paris Commune to Jean Jaurès, murdered in 1914 by a rightist nationalist for opposition to the start of World War I; to the French communists in the days of Guy Moquet and later.

French Bosses Seek Revenge on the Anti-Nazi Resistance Movement: here.

Corruption scandal in France: here.