I read both the New York Times and The Economist, which gives me a terrific
point-counterpoint on hot-button issues in global news.
This week:
Battle Over the Banlieues, the New York Times Magazine. “[What Sarkozy said
at the riots] was the antithesis of what a government minister was expected
to say. … I canât remember a single political conversation in any of the cités I have visited in the last year, on any subject—jobs, discrimination, France herself—that wasnât prefaced by at least a few almost ritualistic denunciations of Sarkozy.”
vs.
France’s Chance: After a quarter-century of drift Nicolas Sarkozy offers the
best hope of reform, The Economist. “He is the only candidate brave enough
to advocate the ‘rupture’ with its past that France needs after so many
gloomy years. It has been said that France advances by revolution from time
to time but seldom, if ever, manages to reform. Mr Sarkozy offers at least a
chance of proving this aphorism wrong.”