There are 577 seats in France's National Assembly and, as the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, Nicolas Sarkozy's slightly rightist Union for a Popular Movement is likely to win from 402 to 425 of them in parliamentary elections this month. The Socialists and their allies may win from 111 to 151 seats, the Communists from 4 to 12 and the rest together at most 12. This includes LePen's Front, the Greens and what are now completely marginal grouplets in French politics. The riots which broke out the day after Sarkozy's own electoral victory have stopped. The Socialist Party, having nominated a dip for president, is now in tatters, both ideologically and as a simple matter of fact. The French government is no longer a declared enemy of the United States, and not an undeclared enemy either. (The Democratic Party has to face the fact that most of our allies are actually allies, George Bush, no George Bush.) But Sarkozy will make his mark with a domestic agenda. The WSJ's David Gauthier-Villars counts four issues as the keystone of his parliamentary effort: "loosening France's legislated 35-hour week," a nut-case program paying a 40 hour salary for five hours less of work; reducing the highest rate of income taxes from a Draconian 60% to 50%; lowering the age that youths can be tried as adults from 18 to 16 (this is aimed at the ideologized thugs in the banlieux); and setting minimum sentences for second offenders. Sarkozy is no George Bush. He has Bernard Kouchner at his side to prove this. If you haven't read Paul Berman's absolutely brilliant and gorgeously written essay in this week's TNR on-line, one a day for five days, today's being the fourth section of the serialization, you should. You will be happy you did, and much better informed about France and Europe.