Les Cent Jours.

It seems that most of the action in the news has been going on in Europe rather than in the US in the last few days , which is why, we are writing yet another posting on the recent developments in France.

On the one hand, we have the most unpopular French president in the Fifth Republic - with an approval rate down to 24%. (down from a 90% during the crisis leading to the war in Iraq)
And on the other hand, we have a Napoleon admirer and a poet, Dominique de Villepin as the new Prime Minister, at the head of a government with a rather popular American-style Minister of the Interior, Nicholas Sarkozy who in many respects has the upper hand ... and the two men hate each other. Talk about unity! It's going to be Dallas or Dynasty.
Better still ... yesterday, the French P.M. promised to restore confidence within a 100 days. To a lot of French people, les Cent Jours rings like the period when Napoleon came back to power in 1815, but les Cent Jours utlimately ended in the bitter defeat of Waterloo, and this is not mere coincidence from a man who wrote a book about Napoleon precisely called 'Les Cent Jours ou l'esprit de sacrifice' [The 100 days and the spirit of sacrifice].

Does de Villepin live in la-la land or what?