When a conservative writer makes a reference to France or socialism, it's often negative, and it's not typically directed at Republicans. Denis Boyles of conservative magazine National Review turns both tendencies on their heads in a headline to a recent post asking, "How do French Socialists resemble American Republicans?" He doesn't answer his own question explicitly, but outlines a frustrated insurgence in France that in some ways resembles conservative political sentiment on this side of the pond.

"Everybody's fed up" with French President Sarkozy, he explains, who "filled his cabinet with political yes-folk" and is doing less reform than "choppering into immigrant neighborhoods to give pep-talks to cops and donating Romanian holidays to gypsies." But returning a Socialist to power in place of Sarkozy faces some familiar-sounding obstacles: "in order to upset Sarkozy," explains Boyles, "the Socialists need ... an idea. The only idea they have going for them is that none of them are married to Carla Bruni." Also, they need a candidate for 2012, but "the normal reservoir of political insiders is unappealing to say the least."

Boyles doesn't say which of these factors, exactly, lines up with American Republicans, but we'll leave it to your best guess.

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Heather Horn