Chirac Shellaced

French voters gave president Jacques Chirac's party a firm slap in the face in regional elections yesterday. It looks like socialist and other left-wing parties will walk way with control of 80% of the country's regional governments.

Why are the Francais dissing their pres, you ask? Is it because he has left the Iraqi people high and dry just to snub the U.S.? Mais non! Is it because he is avidly pursuing the affections of the Chinese dictatorship while snubbing pro-democracy Chinese dissidents? Tu reves!

No, the reason Chirac has rubbed his electorate the wrong way is because he has endorsed economic policies that might actually keep his country from going bankrupt. France has an expansive welfare state and a pension system that is cleraly unsustainable. Say what you will about Jacques, he is generally more fiscally responsible than our own commander in chief (sigh).

Of course, in the U.S., most of Bush's supporters would be delighted if he would wake up and smell the fiscal coffee, and reign in his drunken-sailor approach to the budget. In France, however, no good deed goes unpunished and perhaps the only sensible thing Chirac has ever done has cost him dearly at the polls.

Not only do the French seem hell-bent on committing cultural, political, and economic suicide, they seem to be in a heck of a rush to do it.