Diminutive French president Nicolas Sarkozy ((B)UMP- Carla Bruni) seems to be channeling America’s Tea Party lately. From the New York Times:
PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy has used the crisis over the euro and his relationship with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to set a potential political trap for the Socialist opposition less than nine months before the French presidential election.
Hoping to show the French that he is a man of stature and responsibility, Mr. Sarkozy is pressing for a constitutional amendment to promote a balanced budget and making it a litmus test of fiscal responsibility for the Socialists, who oppose it.
Mr. Sarkozy has previously floated an idea he calls “the golden rule,” a legal requirement for a balanced budget, and a weak version has passed both houses of Parliament, where his center-right party has a majority. The Socialists voted against it, calling it a political maneuver and a “communications operation.”
The French left has also said “The deficit is the bastard child of the right, a mixture of ideological choices and payoffs for its electoral clients.”
Compare and contrast, in clear idiomatic English, the American left’s response to the balanced-budget-amendment crowd, compliments of California congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Water This):
“The Tea Party can go straight to hell.”
Which political discourse would you rather be part of?
Oh no, another LITMUS test, this time en France. Where else will this term pop up in the national discourse? It’s beginning to look a lot like litmus.