COLUMN: 05-09-2007

Although the election of French President-Elect Nicolas Sarkozy is good for America in that his values are much closer to American views than all of his recent predecessors, he is a terrible choice for France in that he also represents the new extreme right wing of politics in Europe. This new group of leaders is virulently racist in their views of legal immigrants, which is especially surprising in that Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant to France.

Unlike America's major issues with illegal immigrants, the primary issue in Western Europe is that the native born population has not been producing enough children to even maintain their population, let alone grow it. The only way to keep their countries going is to constantly import workers, who come purely for economic reasons and not to adopt the local culture. The result of this is that the percentage of natives is constantly shrinking and this is leading to a reshaping of the local culture that is almost unstoppable. This is starkly contrasted to the immigrants who want to come to America and adopt the culture and values here along with gaining economic opportunities.

Europe's arrogant views of children as a burden or luxury for the past 50 years have resulted in the impending death of their civilization. They have two choices: let their culture completely die out or bring in more and more immigrants and accept the cultural changes that result. The latter is the lesser of the two evils and should be accepted rather than resorting to the racist views of Nicolas Sarkozy and his ilk across Western Europe.