And it is also significant that the first protests in Istanbul s Taksim Square concerned not a mosque, but a shopping mall. Fear of sharia law is matched by anger at the rapacious vulgarity of developers and entrepreneurs backed by Erdoğan s government.

With his over familiarity, simplicity, and occasional vulgarity, Sarkozy undermined the dignity of his sacred function. This was not forgiven, and was judged more severely than the shortcomings of his presidential record, which was not significantly worse than that of his predecessors.

No direct link exists between that result and the dramatic Dominique Strauss Kahn scandal in New York, but in the immediate aftermath of DSK s arrest, Italian women and young voters decisively mobilized to defeat Berlusconi s party (led in Milan, ironically, by a woman). These voters could no longer stand the combination of machismo and vulgarity that had once served so well the man Italian humorists now call Berlus Kahn.