Samuel Harrison writes,

In the streets of Paris, it is not uncommon to see a large fluorescent-green truck driving slowly down an avenue, with a powerful pressure-hose sweeping dust, graffiti, and debris off surfaces and into the gutters. These trucks are produced by the German manufacturer Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co., the motto of which is “simply clean.” “Kärcher” has entered French vocabulary as a colloquialism to describe any type of high pressure street-sweepers. However, as the French Presidential elections draw nearer, the word has found new significance.

It is June, 2005, and Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, is questioned on an incident in which an eleven year old boy was killed by a stray gunshot in a suburb populated largely by Muslim immigrants. Sarkozy, using the well-known image of the pressure-cleaners, responds that the area should “cleaned out with a Kärcher.” He has since done just that, in a tough-on-crime stance previously rare in France’s domestic policy. Though immigration control and more stringent anti-criminal policy are hardly his cornerstone policies, his ideology has now been deemed “Karcherism”, his actions “Karcherizing”, and his supporters “Karcherists.”

Sarkozy, or Sarko as he has recently been nicknamed, a devout Roman Catholic of Graeco-Hungarian immigrant ancestry, could well be described as a pressure hose pointed at an otherwise “stale” French political world. His aggressive campaigning as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry over the past five years have served a resounding wake-up call to democratic-socialists, who had anticipated an easy victory in 2007. In his manifesto “Testimony: France in the 21st Century”, he sets out his sweeping reform schemes calling for a fairer taxation system, the need to “dynamite” France’s sclerotic welfare system, a lowering of the ludicrously high minimum wage, an end of France’s leather-bound adherence to the Revolution-born law of laïcité?—?separation of Church and State?—?, greater cooperation with the US and UK, a “full-throttle” French military mission to Iraq, and a strict control of immigration.

These bold and so-called iconoclastic policies have marshaled strong support for Sarko?—?support soon to be put to the test in the French primaries. Out of twelve runners, only four are considered to have very substantial support from voters. As the leading right-wing candidate, Sarko’s main competition for conservative votes will come from François Bayrou, a more moderate politician whose campaign platform remains murky, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, an extremely radical right-wing leader who has been fined and imprisoned for assault and battery of EU dignitaries and “minimizing the Holocaust”, and described by detractors as a neo-Nazi. On the left, a Hilary-esque Ségolène Royal represents the Socialist Party, who poled second at 22%, coming in just after Sarko’s 28%.

In the French system, all twelve candidates will be on the ballot for April 22nd. If no candidate accrues more than 50% of the votes?—?and, if the fractured poles are any indication, they will not?—?then the two highest-scoring candidates will face off in a secondary election. Based on poles by Ipsos, experts predict a close race in the primaries, with Sarkozy and Royal, who has managed to largely unite the left, coming out on top. In the secondary election, predictions hold that Sarkozy will be able to count on the defeated Le Pen’s 13% supporters and at least half of Bayrou’s 20%, while the 16.5% who made up the remaining voters will be largely divided between the two.

Kärcher reports a rise in sales by 13% since Sarko’s remarks. Sarkozy hopes to guide his country to a “brave, new vision for France as it engages the world of the twenty-first century.” In a country whose modern order and policies were born in misguided Revolution, some new vision is long overdue. Perhaps Paris’ streets, long stained with blood from the guillotine, will be washed clean with the none-too-gentle blasts of a Kärcher.