François Fillon to Become Next French President

He’s the best option in Les Républicains’ primary. Fillon has taken a hard line on Muslim assimilation in France in the past. The most popular description of Fillon in the media today is that he is a French “Thatcherite.” TIME Magazine writes of Fillon:

The former French Prime Minister has the most business-friendly platform of the center-right candidates: He has called for an extension to the retirement age, seeks to slash benefits, scrap the 35-hour work week and cut 600,000 public sector jobs in order to fund tax breaks for companies. This approach is likely to trigger massive strikes, but Fillon is ready to battle the unions.

“My fellow Frenchmen have told me, everywhere, they want to break away from a bureaucratic system which saps their energy; everywhere they told me their desire for authority,” Fillon, who admires the late U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told his supporters on Sunday, Reuters reports.