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"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity."
His solution is force-feeding secularism. It's also about Islamophobia. It's increasing dangerously. Right wing extremism fuels it. Sarkozy's neo-fascism shares blame. The French umbrella Muslim group CFCM said attacks and insults rose 22% in 2011.
Interior Ministry figures show dozens of reported cases. According to CFCM's president Abdallah Zekri, official numbers way understate reality. Many victims stay silent.
They face physical attacks, insults, provocations, Koran burnings or profanations, as well as incidents affecting mosques and cemeteries.
How likely winner Hollande handles these and other vital concerns won't likely please voters. They're being set up again for disappointment. They especially want pocket book issues addressed. Hollande's agenda is opposite of what they need.
Ahead of the May 6 vote, he pledged more structural harshness. He supports worker layoffs. Hard hit French companies plan them. Sweeping ones are likely. So are more plant closings, wage and benefit cuts, and other measures on top of everything harming labor so far.
Called "Mr. Normal" by some, his political record is noticeably undistinguished. Perhaps he's the least worst choice, but France deserves better.
New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik calls him "the inoffensive, myopic, weight-conscious Socialist candidate, a man so milky-mild that one has to project onto him a secret life to make him seem not just a fully credible politician but a fully credible human being."
His appeal rests on Sarkozy's failure and Le Pen's extremism. His rhetoric belies what's coming with him as president. He supports austerity, deficit reduction, social spending cuts, and other polices serving finance capital.
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