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Sarko's Eclectic Economics

2007-06-18T14:28:28Z

New French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been labeled a free-market fan, a shameless interventionist and a spendthrift opportunist. So which of the labels fit? All of them. Sarkozy's economics are nothing if not eclectic. But in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, the new president has a better chance of galvanizing growth than any leader in decades. With a 65 percent approval rating, Sarkozy neared war hero Gen. Charles de Gaulle's record Inaugural score. Consumer confidence leapt to a five-year high in May. And Sunday's impressive win in lower-house elections gives him plenty of lawmakers to back his program of economic reform.

But what, exactly, is Sarkonomics? His mix of free-enterprise friendliness and state-coddling can seem erratic. But it's a pragmatic way to get results from the globalization-leery French, who need to be reassured as much as they need to get moving. The president has won kudos from economists by promising supply-side reforms like the end of the 35-hour workweek, a curtailing of union power and more-flexible work contracts that would make firing easier. But his first steps have been muddled with some gratuitous spending, and they've tended toward demand-side change, boosting purchasing power via things like a too-generous mortgage-rate cut, instead of fixing French firms' competition problems.

A look back at his history does little to clear up the picture "as Finance minister in 2004, he privatized key state-owned businesses but bailed out others; he strong-armed supermarkets even as he tried to increase competition in the retail sector. Still, Sarkozy's brand of fair-weather laissez faire has the backing of the people (67 percent of voters say they are ready for major reform all at once), a crucial first step. Sarkozy was Finance minister for a mere 235 days, but he made them count. One of his most famous moves was the rescue of the near bankrupt engineering giant Alstom. German arch rival Siemens was circling for the spoils. But Sarkozy took up the torch of "national champions," and cut a rescue deal with Brussels' competition chief. The state took on 21 percent of the firm in a debt-equity swap, and Sarkozy got credit for saving 25,000 French jobs.

Three years on, the deal looks pretty smart "the state sold its stake in the reinvigorated firm last year for a tidy ‚¬1.26 billion profit. Predictably, this was a huge boon on the campaign trail. "In some economic sectors, the market isn't the be-all and end-all," said Sarkozy during a TV interview in March. "The market sees short term." But former Sarkozy adviser Jacques Delpla says the Alstom deal made sense, even to a free-marketer, since Alstom, saddled with debt from previous management, essentially had a cash-flow problem. "The long-run business was viable," Delpla explains. Meanwhile, experts like David Spector, of the Paris School of Economics, argue that Sarkozy's success with Alstom is less important than the message it sends, which is that French companies can still expect bailouts: "It doesn't incite great efficiency in the market."

Even more appalling to economic liberals was Sarkozy's use of state power to bully mass retailers like Carrefour and Leclerc to drop prices. Delpla defends his old boss, noting that years of bad laws regulating retail competition have artificially raised prices. Delpla contends Sarkozy tried to go the free-market route, changing the law, but was vetoed. "[Former president Jacques Chirac] is the most backward person you could imagine on this. He hates la grande distribution [volume retailers]," he says. So, with little time left at Finance to send a public message on a key issue, Sarkozy resorted to arm-twisting, says Delpla. Outsiders, like Morgan Stanley economist Eric Chaney, say he did the best he could with a bad situation: "The system before was absolutely Stalinist. So it went from Stalinist to Leninist," Chaney jokes.

For all his statist noises, Sarkozy also partially privatized plenty of key businesses, most notably the power company EDF. "What he did that I thought was clever is that he managed to get a deal with the CGT, the union that [dominates] at EDF and that could switch off the lights in the whole country," explains Delpla. "He kind of bought their approval by [promising] shares at a very low price, at a discount."

This sort of political savvy and pragmatism is crucial in France, where economic debate is still built around the state. But the toughest battles are undoubtedly ahead. France's arcane labor, tax and social systems don't lend themselves well to quick fixes. And economists are still waiting for promised supply-side reforms, particularly labor-market liberalization, which some believe could turn France into another Germany by better leveraging a strong skill base to boost growth.

Pushing them through won't be easy "already, a new draft fiscal package is being bashed by unionists. Still, Sarkozy's chief advantage over his predecessors, argues Chaney, "is the fact the strategy has been thought through in advance." No previous president has so clearly laid the groundwork with a specific reform agenda during a campaign, he says. And with a strong and stable majority, he has a clear mandate to push it through. While the agenda leaves out some crucial issues, like the liberalization of trade and services, success may beget future opportunities. "I think it will take two terms to do reforms in France," says Chaney. No doubt this consummate politician is already thinking about that.

Another Win for Sarko

2007-06-11T22:52:22Z

Was it only six weeks ago that political suspense reigned in Paris cafes? Could conservative Nicolas Sarkozy really win the nation's highest office? People wondered if he might be thwarted by the Socialists' comely comer, Segolene Royal. Or perhaps even trumped by the engaging centrist François Bayrou? Well, no. And since Sarko's triumph on May 6, this take-charge kind of guy has, yes, taken charge. In the first round of legislative elections yesterday, his UMP party steamrollered much of the opposition and it looks very likely to finish the job in runoffs next Sunday. So here's a prediction for the next five years of French politics: all-Sarko all the time.

Of the 577-member National Assembly, a record 110 candidates were elected outright last night by winning more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. Of those, 98 are from Sarkozy's UMP party. Only one is a Socialist. Projections for next Sunday are wide-ranging, but all forecast a Sarko landslide. With between 383 and 501 seats for the right (compared to 60 to 185 for the left), this will be the first time since 1978 that power in parliament won't have changed hands from one election to the next.

As Sarkozy racked up incredibly high poll numbers over the past month (a run of proposed tax breaks apparently expunging memories of the polarizing, riot-inspiring figure he'd been portrayed as only weeks before), his parliamentary victory took on the air of fait accompli. Indeed, while last month's presidential elections set a record for voter turnout (nearly 84 percent), many registered voters took yesterday off like any other sunny Sunday in June "setting a record for voter abstention (39.5 percent).

In fairness to those absentees, the Socialists looked like they'd taken a hike, too. Acrimonious squabbling among contenders for party leadership began live on television minutes after Sarkozy's election was announced, and the current Party Secretary François Hollande soon stopped talking victory and started warning against the dangers if the left faced a "crushing" defeat.

In the event, the Socialists themselves might have done worse yesterday. The party's 24.7 percent of the vote is actually better than it did in the first rounds of the two previous legislative elections. But the minor left-wing parties that used to fall into line behind the Socialists did miserably, so the left as a whole is likely to be insignificant on the floor of the National Assembly.

In fact, the Socialists are not only headed for some soul-searching, they may soon present a very public display of disaffection. Last night, Royal made it obvious that she is looking to edge out Hollande, her longtime partner and the father of her children, as party leader. She signaled her intentions by addressing the country about the election results only minutes after he did. Today, the Socialist couple seemed divided on whether or not to solicit Bayrou for an alliance this week, with Hollande publicly cool to the idea.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy has managed to bring supporters of one traditionally nettlesome party on the right, the National Front, into the UMP fold. Jean-Marie Le Pen's candidates, with 4.29 percent, notched up their lowest legislative election score since 1981.

FranÃ§ois Bayrou, whose tractor-branded aw-shucks image earned him a fleeting flood of support and magazine covers in March, may find himself sitting alone in the parliamentary cafeteria. A would-be king- or queen-maker only five weeks ago, Bayrou tried to parlay his strong third-place showing in the first-round of presidential elections (18 percent) into a new breakaway centrist party, the Mouvement DÃ©mocratique (preciously known as the MoDem).

But today the spotlight flickers. Bayrou's party earned only 7.61 percent of yesterday's votes. The MoDem can now score no better than four deputies next Sunday, and could be reduced to one: Bayrou himself. That's well short of the 20 members needed to form a parliamentary group that gets vital government subsidies. Meanwhile, Bayrou's erstwhile mates, the ones who stuck with the right under the name Nouveau Centre and have joined forces with Sarkozy, probably will top the 20-plus threshold. Sarkozy's defense minister, HervÃ© Morin, once close to Bayrou, won his seat outright yesterday (50.5 percent) and won't have to face a second-round ballot Sunday. The Bayrou candidate Morin faced, Philippe Raviart, scored only 5.4 percent.

Photo: Michael Urban / AFP-Getty Images

Hairy Politics

2007-06-04T21:21:32Z

It's official: France now has the hairiest government in recent memory. While previous government leaders have tended to grayness and baldness, President Nicolas Sarkozy has brought change on the follicular as well as the political front. It's not that Sarkozy, 52, has the thickest coif on the planet. Long gone are the lengthy hippy-era locks of his youth, replaced first by a curly little '70s nest and more recently by a more efficient and candidate-like Brillo wave. That said, by France's thin and pasted-back presidential standards (set during World War II), Sarkozy might as well be Samson himself.

His Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, 53, also has an acceptable little broom of hair. (No, he can't compare with the heroic salt-and-pepper-mane-in-the-breeze of his predecessor Dominique de Villepin, but who can?) Unfortunately, Fillon decided to trim down his traditionally side-parted flop into a schoolboy snip, circa 1954, upon being named to his new gig. But they are just the starting point in a government of 15 mostly next-generation ministers, many of whom came of age in the late 1960s.

The lion's share of the hair--and the greatest change marked by France's new government--can be seen atop seven other ministers, all female. There is the short brunette wave of new minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, 41. Then there is the soccer-mom-meets-movie-star blond coiffure of ValÃ©rie PÃ©cresse, the 39-year-old minister of Higher Teaching and Research, who earned her stripes as a pugnacious campaign spokeswoman.

And don't miss the Janet Reno-like butch cut of Roselyne Bachelot, the 60-year-old minister of Health, Youth and Sports (whose hair, incidentally, doesn't appear particularly youthful or sportive). Or how about the silver helmet-head of the new minister of Agriculture, Christine Lagarde, 51, who might need its protection as she leads France into intense World Trade Organization negotiations over eliminating subsidies that protect some French farmers.

Fortunately, the best hair from the previous government has been, ahem, preserved. That much-merited title goes to new minister of the Economy, Employment and Job Creation, Jean-Louis Borloo, who often wears an unruly mop of corkscrew curls that make him look like a long-lost member of the Rolling Stones.

For now, the French are smitten with this new-look government, and many of the most hirsute ministers are enjoying sky-high approval ratings. One poll says that more than seven people in 10 approve of Dati, while another places the feathered do of minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist, in the stratosphere at 78 percent. And while it would be difficult to define a definitive hair mass-to-popularity ratio, it is worth noting that the two prominent ministers with the lowest initial approval ratings look most like the shiny-headed politicians of decades ago. They are Alain JuppÃ©, a former prime minister and Chirac protÃ©gÃ© who has been named minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, and Sarkozy intimate Brice Hortefeux, who is the minister of Immigration. Their honeymoon seems over even before its begun, with initial polls reflecting approval ratings of just 55 percent. But perhaps it's not about the hair they arrive with, but how much they still have when they leave.

Sarkophant Media?

2007-05-23T22:03:23Z

Nicolas Sarkozy has long been tight with the media. He's often called editors, or their bosses, on deadline to urge them to downplay unfavorable stories. He's joked with journalists that they'd better treat him well because their bosses are his pals. His industrialist friends do indeed hold major stakes in much of the French media, especially the press, but the problem isn't so much the potential conflicts of interest when his new government begins making decisions affecting megacorporations owned by Sarkozy's buddies; it is some of the Fourth Estate's coverage of Sarkozy.

France's new president has been on the cover of so many magazines in recent years that his mug has sometimes felt like a part of magazine cover logos. In mid-April, the conservative weekend magazine Le Figaro--owned by an industrialist friend of Sarkozy, Serge Dassault--ran Sarkozy on the cover for three out of four weeks. Their first headline: "Nicolas Sarkozy: What I still have to say to you."

If the coverage sometimes made it feel like such publications were already working for Sarkozy, it turns out that some of their staff soon will be. As Prime Minister Francois Fillon's new government of 14 supporting ministers settles into place this week, Catherine PÃ©gard is taking up a role as a special adviser at the Élysée. Until the announcement last week, PÃ©gard was the top political writer at the conservative weekly magazine Le Point, meticulously--and positively--recounting Sarkozy's political rise of recent years, thanks to remarkable access to prominent off-the-record voices in the corridors of power. Following in Sarkozy's footsteps, Fillon hired Myriam LÃ©vy, a reporter for Le Figaro's newspaper, as communications adviser. (During the campaign, LÃ©vy dished out biting coverage of Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal.)

Sarkozy is hardly the first French president to work the media; but as president he may have the most intertwined media relations of any French head of state in history--and his term is just beginning. Pre-presidency, Sarkozy was repeatedly accused of shaping editorial judgment on articles, and even hiring-and-firing decisions. Early this month reporters at the Journal du Dimanche, a USA Today-like newspaper, discovered that his wife, CÃ©cilia Sarkozy, didn't bother to vote in the presidential run-off on May 6. They put together an article that reportedly included a photo of a public-vote roster that backed up their case, but the story never went to print.

The Web site Rue89.com, which is run by former staff from the left-wing daily Liberation, broke the story about the article's nonpublication and asserted that Sarkozy friend Arnaud LagardÃ¨re--whose investment group owns majority stakes in the tabloid Paris Match, Elle, Europe 1 television, and the Journal du Dimanche--nixed the article. LagardÃ¨re denies it, and the newspaper's editor, Jacques EspÃ©randieu, insisted to Agence France Press that he killed the story after reporters failed to get a response from Mrs. Sarkozy. EspÃ©randieu acknowledged, however, that he received calls from Sarkozy's entourage arguing that publication would violate the family's privacy.

In his independent-media defense, LagardÃ¨re could point to Paris Match's attention-grabbing 2005 cover photo of CÃ©cilia Sarkozy sitting next to a man who was widely reported to be her lover, Richard Attias, during a temporary separation from her husband. But LagardÃ¨re would be more convincing on that front if he hadn't canned Paris Match boss Alain Genestar, who greenlighted the cover story, half a year later. (LagardÃ¨re insists the ouster was over declining circulation.)

There was also a book by ValÃ©rie Domain, essentially an extended puff-piece touching on the Sarkozys' personal and political partnership, prepared with CÃ©cilia's cooperation. When the Sarkozys separated, and as the book's publication date approached, puff took on new meaning. But, amid gathering interest, the account was never published--at least not in its original form. A book by Domain was later released (by another publishing house), but as a novel, entitled "Entre le cÅ"ur et la raison"--Between the heart and reason--focusing on ostensibly fictional characters named "Celia" and "Guillaume" (which is Sarkozy's brother's name). In a belabored preface, Domain explained that her novel is based on another oeuvre that "circumstances independent of our will interrupted the publication of."

Sarkozy may not be able to control every aspect of the media, but that doesn't mean that he isn't tempted to try, if you believe his detractors. Take the biting political magazine Marianne, which published a lengthy and incendiary indictment of Sarkozy's "unstable" personality prior to his presidential victory, under the cover title, "The True Sarkozy: What Big Media don't want to or don't dare reveal." In a recently published book entitled "An off-the-record Campaign," political writer Daniel Carton cites a meeting between Sarkozy and top staff at Le Figaro magazine, in which the candidate reportedly declared, "I already know what I will do as soon as I get to the Élysée: I will personally deal with Jean-FranÃ§ois Kahn." Kahn is the founder of Marianne and the man who penned "The True Sarkozy." For the true Sarkozy, it may not be possible to get too close to the media.

Bernard Kouchner: A Morality Tale

2007-05-18T22:16:58Z

France's new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, first came to fame in the 1970s and '80s as an idealistic physician out to heal the world. The French public and international press saw the founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (the original Doctors without borders) as a dashing young man defying tyrants while calling on the international community to have a conscience. The political and diplomatic establishment thought him dangerous. In fact he was both, albeit with the best of intentions.

Now 67, Kouchner is a veteran of previous cabinet posts under French Socialist governments and a stint administering Kosovo in the wake of the 1999 war fought to stop a Balkan genocide. He's learned the uses of statecraft and diplomacy; he has an unparalleled record of on-the-ground experience, and he's shown a penchant for warm relations with the United States. In all respects, he presents an enormous contrast with his predecessors in the foreign ministry, and one many Americans will welcome.

But as rumors of Kouchner's appointment circulated earlier this week, I started rifling through the notes I've made of our various conversations since I first met him in El Salvador in the early 1980s, and they make pretty disturbing reading. His good intentions were so worthy and so moral that I found them convincing back then, and in my gut I still do. But Kouchner's idealistic activism helped open the way for "humanitarian" military interventions that ended in mires of moral ambiguity or outright disaster, and not only for France. Kouchner helped to force the ill-fated intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s. In a real sense, Kouchner also helped create the conditions for the current war in Iraq, and, indeed, he was one of the few public figures in France who defended the American-led invasion in 2003. So the record of his approach is worth thinking hard about now, especially given his recent calls for international military action to protect aid convoys in Darfur.

"Humanitarianism is not pacifism," Kouchner likes to say, nor is moral outrage sufficient to meet the world's needs. That epiphany came to him, by his own reckoning, in 1979 on a god-forsaken island called Poulo Bidong. Thousands of Vietnamese refugees fleeing their country in open boats had drifted onto the beaches there like so much human flotsam, and Kouchner was puzzled, then appalled, by the passivity of the victims. The refugees' boats were often attacked by Malay pirates. A handful of lightly armed cutthroats would rob, rape and kill anyone they wanted, and no one on the boat would raise a hand. The victims "did not have enough sense of solidarity to defend the families next to them," Kouchner recalled.

The spectacle touched too close to home for a man whose grandparents had died in the Holocaust, a man who never understood, he said, how it was "that when the Jews were in the trains, in the convoys, they did nothing."

"Is it possible to protect people from massacres, from genocide, from awful things?" Kouchner asked himself. "Is there a duty of the international community?" Could people be protected, in fact, from their own governments? The notion of a "right to interfere" began to take shape.

But Kouchner's passionate message, adopted and adapted by the French government in the late 1980s, soon evolved into a particularly Gallic blend of cynicism and ideals, guilt and guile. (When the regicides of Paris wanted to spread their revolution more than two centuries ago, you'll recall, they espoused "The Rights of Man.") Kouchner's own generation suffered from France's shame over capitulating to the Nazis in 1940 and collaborating vastly with them through most of the war. The result was what an American friend of his called "the leftist spasm" of student revolt in 1968 and "a romantic attachment to the idea of resistance" against almost any form of authority almost anywhere.

When former French president FranÃ§ois Mitterrand tapped Kouchner in 1988 to become minister for humanitarian action, he provided, in fact, a new tool for projecting French influence. Most countries, after all, have only four traditional means of affecting events outside their borders: diplomacy, finance, the military and espionage. To that list the French added the humanitarian portfolio, and it was not always what it seemed. Thus Mitterrand sent French troops to Bosnia, ostensibly to protect the Muslims but in fact to prevent any concerted military action against the Serbs attacking them.

Rony Brauman, one of Kouchner's successors as president of MÃ©decins sans frontiÃ¨res, came to despise this confusion between the role of the state and the role of independent humanitarian organizations. "Once the 'right to interfere' gets into the hands of the government," he warned in the early 1990s, "it can be used by the government when it's in its interest, forgotten when it's not." And, indeed, when the genocide came in Rwanda, France not only supported the killers, but called for their defense once they were defeated. (By then, Kouchner was no longer in the government.)

But Iraq was the most complex case. It was in Kurdistan in 1991 that Kouchner got his first great chance as a minister of state to protect people "from massacres, from genocide, from awful things," as he had dreamed of doing so many years before. The Kurdish exodus to the mountains had begun on April 1, 1991, after Saddam Hussein was driven out of Kuwait by an American-led coalition, but then allowed to crush internal uprisings. By April 5, with heavy lobbying from France, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 688, insisting that Iraq permit immediate humanitarian access to the Kurds and all other refugees and displaced persons in the country. By April 17 a "greatly expanded and more ambitious relief effort" was announced by then-President George H.W. Bush. "We're working with the French, who've taken a leadership role in a policy to encourage Kurds to return to the cities," said Bush, adding in his inimitable way that this would save lives "much more sanitarily."

What it did, in fact, was create the groundwork for the semi-independent Kurdish area of northern Iraq that continues to exist, and thrive, to this day--while at the same time providing legal justification for attacks on Saddam Hussein. Baghdad was bombed repeatedly during the 1990s with Resolution 688 given as the rationale, and it would provide, along with other U.N. resolutions, part of the second Bush administration's legal argument for going to war in 2003.

So, it will be interesting to see, now, just how much Kouchner has learned from these lessons of the past. And it's also an open question how much leeway he will be given by France's new right-wing president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who named him to the foreign ministry. There is widespread speculation that Kouchner took the job because he feels he's never been properly appreciated or promoted by the stalwarts in the Socialist Party. But Kouchner is quintessentially a member of the generation forged in 1968, representing a spirit that Sarkozy has said explicitly he hopes to extirpate. By joining the new government, Kouchner undermines Socialist hopes of making a strong showing in next month's legislative elections, but there is no known guarantee he won't lose his job once he's served that purpose.

What Kouchner has, at any rate, is the backing of the French people. Polls show that more than 70 percent approve his appointment. He reminds them, still, of what they'd like to be: adventurous, righteous, risk-taking and romantic, and if they were looking for a new government that represents change, in him, they've got it.

Photo of Kouchner by Benoit Tessier / Reuters

Odd Couple: Sarko and His New PM

2007-05-18T00:56:21Z

These are the 24 hours François Fillon has waited for. The man from Le Mans today becomes President Nicolas Sarkozy's copilot, the prime minister who will help accelerate his new boss's reform agenda. Fillon, Sarkozy's top political adviser during the hard-fought presidential campaign, becomes his No. 2 and the head of a government to be named tomorrow. The pair are poised to drive through the most comprehensive reforms in modern French history. But they sure make an odd couple.

Sarkozy, 52, and Fillon, 53, are the youngest ticket to lead France since 1980. Yet both have political experience beyond their years. In 1981, Fillon, at 27, became the youngest parliamentarian in France. Sarkozy became the country's youngest mayor two years later, at 28. They've both headed a range of ministries; Fillon, a five-time minister, has headed Education, Social Affairs, Information Technology and the Postal Service. Today, the pair, now the most powerful in France, jog together, often photographed side by side during the campaign, sweat-drenched, in shorts. Fillon races cars and climbs mountains in his spare time. Both have young children; Sarkozy's son Louis is 10; Arnaud, the youngest of Fillon's five children, is 5.

But the similarities end there. Indeed the tensions between them were well enough known that as recently as 2003, Sarkozy reportedly quipped, "They say he's the anti-Sarkozy. It's true. He's neither effective nor popular!" They were rivals for the leadership of the right-wing RPR party in 1999 and in the past disagreed on fundamentals. Sarkozy, apart from a few recent campaign digs at the European Central Bank and the strong euro, has been a fairly faithful European; Fillon, a eurosceptic early on, voted "No" in the 1992 referendum on the Maastricht Treaty that led to the creation of the EU.

But Fillon finally found common ground with the pugnacious future president. After pushing through tough retirement reforms as Social Affairs minister in 2003 despite millions of demonstrators in the streets, he felt he deserved more. When he didn't make the list for Dominique de Villepin's government in 2005, he fought back. "When people look back on Chirac's record, they will remember nothing, except my reforms," he snapped to a Le Monde reporter. Fillon felt betrayed. "In throwing me out, they've made me [Sarkozy's] future campaign director," he declared.

Fillon--generally calm, courteous, prudent, at times even meek--complements Sarkozy, the hyperactive provocateur with the hot-button temper. The Fillons make the Sarkozys, with their pop- star friends and flashy holidays, look like Britain's favorite celeb couple, the Beckhams. Fillon's wife of 27 years, Penelope Fillon, nÃ©e Clarke, is from Wales. An unpretentious homemaker, she faded into the background in her loose-fitting gray and brown outfit at this morning's brief handover ceremony, as her husband stood, prim and awkward, next to the outgoing de Villepin, much taller and oozing Gallic flair. The Fillons are more comfortable in their chateau, with their horses, in Fillon's native rural Sarthe region than within the Paris beltway; Penelope is said to have made her husband promise to quit politics as soon as he is old enough to retire.

Reputed a fine negotiator, Fillon enjoys the respect of union leaders and has cast himself a reformer on the strength of his performances at Social Affairs, Education, and as Postal Service and Telecommunications Minister in the mid-1990s, when France Telecom's monopoly was ended. (He's known defeat, too. As Education Minister in 2005, he had to leave a measure reforming the high- school-leaving diploma out of his wider system reforms when students took to the streets for months and shut down their schools.) The title of his 2006 book, a reform manifesto, translates as "France Can Handle the Truth."

But one truth Fillon himself can handle will be of great convenience to the new president. Sarkozy is likely to be an exceptionally hands-on head of state, and he will need his prime minister to be no more than a solid sidekick. While their disparate personalities may moderate each other, there will be no question who's boss. That should suit Fillon's personality just fine.

Uncle Sam Makes Nice

2007-05-18T00:46:23Z

In the hours before Nicolas Sarkozy was inaugurated as France's new president, you could practically hear a page turn in the book on Franco-American relations. It was when, over a breakfast of croissants and orange juice, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, on a visit to Paris, highlighted the victory of Sarkozy--who by French politicians' standards seems rabidly pro-American as a generation-changing presidential victory with a broad mandate.

Yes, Washington is ready to begin a new chapter in bilateral relations, strained since the start of the war in Iraq. In that context, Negroponte offered a survey of the great challenges of our time, like a tutorial for a new government whose leader is not known for his foreign-affairs prowess. There is, of course, no shortage of crises for Sarkozy's France to show its mettle, Negroponte made clear during the breakfast that was organized by the French-American Foundation and the U.S. Embassy. France is already fighting alongside Washington in Afghanistan, or with Washington's approval or collaboration in Lebanon and Haiti, Negroponte noted, as well as helping to search for solutions to intractable crises from Iran to the Middle East to Darfur, all of which might benefit from further French involvement. The former U.S. National Intelligence director placed particular emphasis on the danger from failed or failing states amid the international war on terror. "These states need partners," Negroponte said, or else they will destabilize others. "Now is the time to work ever more closely."

Sarkozy has yet to offer a clear international vision, as extra-European affairs were largely absent from the presidential campaign. But prior to being elected, he did note that the "long-term presence" of French troops in Afghanistan isn't "decisive," spurring concerns that France might withdraw its 1,000 troops who are stationed near Kabul. "I don't think there's any doubt that there are challenges in Afghanistan," Negroponte acknowledged, noting the strong commitment of NATO partners like France--"and we would hope that commitment would continue to hold." North Africa, traditionally a French zone of influence, is another growing area of "concern" in the war on terror, Negroponte noted, in response to a series of recent bombings attributed to radical Islamists there. Summing up the big picture, Negroponte concluded, "It is only by working together that we're going to be able to deal with this [international terror] threat."
Whether it all amounted to wishful thinking about burden-sharing while the US is heavily invested in Iraq, or simply an overture to make a positive difference where France can, the deputy secretary of State wrapped his views and comments in history. France, a nation that has helped the United States in the past and that has been helped by America in return, has a proven willingness to fight "and sacrifice" for its ideals, he said, adding that France works to protect "freedom everywhere."

Plenty of Americans are also hungry for warmer bilateral relations. Eighty percent of Americans today believe that it is "somewhat" or "very important" for the United States to have good relations with France in the coming years, according to a survey commissioned by the French-American Foundation. Will Sarkozy make the difference? Sixty-two percent said that they don't know what impact he will have. Washington is clearly hopeful that he will back up the nascent change in the tone of bilateral relations with plenty of substance. If he does, the next State Department breakfast might just be over French toast.

President Sarkozy's First Day

2007-05-16T23:29:01Z

Nicolas Sarkozy, long known as the "man in a hurry" of French politics, has finally calmed down. Yes, the former interior minister has long known how to play calm by slowing his speech and lowering his voice, but the frenetic, impatient and temperamental Sarkozy never seemed far beneath the surface. Today, though, he finally seemed to have achieved serenity as he reached his destination: his inauguration as the sixth president of the republic.

His "arrival" was trumpeted in multiple ceremonies, wreathed in tradition and dusted with the gravitas of France's war-scarred history of occupation, liberation and survival. If the dozens of metal-helmeted guards on horseback, a 21-cannon fire salute and a convertible limousine ride up the Champs-Élysées didn't tell him that he'd finally made it, perhaps it was his private meeting with outgoing President Jacques Chirac, when the new president was given France's nuclear "football" codes. As he escorted his predecessor down the red-carpeted steps of the Élysée Palace and to the waiting car that drove Chirac off toward a post-presidential life. Sarkozy waved warmly, and for once appeared genuinely and preternaturally calm.

Perhaps it was simply the satisfaction of achieving a lifelong ambition. Or perhaps it was the gravity of ceremonies--often steeped in clichés of pomp and circumstance à la française, but that conveyed the weight of history nonetheless. Regardless of the reason, Sarkozy's striking serenity as he stood before the eternal flame at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier that flickers beneath Paris' Arc de Triomphe, suggested that he might finally sense, as he says, that he is a part of something bigger than himself. Earlier in the day, he spoke to 500 guests, allies and supporters in the Élysée Palace's salle des fêtes and to millions of French people watching televisions around the nation--in an effort to link the heroic France that survived the epic struggles of the 20th century with the France of 2007, whose more existential challenges spring from the changes that the fast-mutating world economy requires of a nation steeped in tradition. " On May 6 there was only one victory, that of the France that doesn't want to die. - There was one single victor, the French people who don't want to give up." He continued: "I think with solemnity of the mandate that the French people have confided to me - and that I don't have the right to disappoint." Of the mandate he claims, Sarkozy added, "I will scrupulously fulfill it."

Later in the day, Sarkozy was presented with the collie--or necklace--of the National Order of the Légion d'Honneur. The collier is a symbol of the weight of history that will bear down on the new president. Etched onto the weighty 16 gold-link chain are the names of French presidents, now including Sarkozy's. The collier represents the legitimacy that democracy gives to the president and the unity symbolized by the presidency itself. A more elaborate version was originally given to General Charles de Gaulle after the end of World War II, as remembrance for his liberation-era heroism. The front of de Gaulle's chain consists of two crossed swords that ran into a small plaque where a Latin motto is inscribed: Patriam Servando Victoriam Tulit. (In serving the Fatherland, he achieved victory.) Like de Gaulle, there's little doubt that Sarkozy intends to battle for his country . During his brief presidential speech, he promised to "fight" for the nation, in the great Gaullist tradition, and "battle" for a Europe that protects its own, as well as for human rights and against global warming. It is a fight, he says, that will be "drawn out." But such endless international struggles have long proved convenient to French presidents, who use them, de Gaulle-like, to rally the people around their leadership. (Take President Chirac's 2003 push against the US-led drive to war in Iraq; it drove his approval ratings deep into the 80 percentile range.)

The real questions involve the more immediate fight on Sarkozy''s home turf. How will President Sarkozy engage in the nation's defining (domestic) battles: the modernization of the economy, the death match with chronic unemployment (and influential unions), and the rebirth of many disabused immigrant ghettos? He has promised to come out swinging in the first 100 days, and to pass all of his major reforms in just two years, in a country that tends to like change better in theory than in practice. As the clock starts ticking on President Sarkozy, the nation that elected him is about to find out whether their new leader has indeed morphed into a calmer and more grounded man, or whether he is just a man in a hurry who merely paused to catch his breath.

The End of a Presidency: Chirac's Final Address

2007-05-15T22:03:13Z

At the end of 12 roller-coaster years as president, the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac offered a warm and vibrant farewell to the nation in his final televised national address this evening. France's grandfatherly president was visibly touched as he spoke the words: "I want to tell you about the strength of the link that, at the bottom of my heart, unites me with each and every one of you. This link is one of respect . . . of admiration. It is one of affection for you, for the people of France. And I want to tell you to what extent I have confidence in you."

It was vintage late-era Chirac. And in a country whose leadership has been cold and distant, it marked a strikingly human contrast to other presidential departures, which have often been tinged with tragedy. President Georges Pompidou, who suffered from a mysterious "flu," suddenly died in office in 1974 from what turned out to be a rare cancer. The ailing François Mitterrand--who also suffered from cancer and who died within a year of departing the Élysée Palace in 1995--gave no farewell speech at all, simply issuing a farewell declaration. And then there was the icy departure of the youngest and most physically active president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1981. In a televised appearance that satirists continue to mock with striking regularity a quarter of a century later, d'Estaing ended a monotone televised adieu to the nation with an awkward pause and then the word, "Goodbye," before standing up and quietly leaving the room as the camera continued to film his empty chair.

President Chirac's five-minute farewell, by contrast, was full of the kind of love that he has taken to expressing in recent months; even if his lucidity about the state of the nation is questionable. He encouraged France to follow the path that "we" have already undertaken in order to enjoy greater progress and prosperity (even though Nicolas Sarkozy has made eminently clear that he plans a major overhaul of the French economic model). Chirac also spoke a bit optimistically of France as a land of equal opportunity and solidarity that is a driving force in European construction, even adding that it is a "generous nation, at the forefront" of global challenges involving peace, development and the ecology.

As of late Wednesday morning, the legacy of Chirac's presidency will be left to historians. The former president and his wife, Bernadette, will provisionally move into a luxurious two-story Parisian apartment owned by the family of former Lebanese prime minister and personal friend Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in Beirut in 2005. After a vacation to an unpublicized location, Chirac promises to oversee the creation of an international foundation for sustainable development and a "dialogue of cultures," following in the footsteps of former U.S. presidents like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton who have taken their big-issue shows around the globe.

Ultimately, despite his rose-colored view of the France he leaves Sarkozy and his hashed-over weaknesses, the French remain fond of Chirac, the man; they simply don't think much of his presidency. Fifty-four percent of French people, according to a recent survey by the BVA polling firm said that his tenure was "bad," while 44 percent believe the opposite. "Still, a political survivor like Chirac knows that public perceptions are ever-evolving. "I know that the new president of the republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, will have in his heart to drive the country further into the future, and all my wishes accompany him in this mission," Chirac said, noting that the job is "the most beautiful that exists," and the most demanding. If Sarkozy's promised mega-makeover upsets the balances that Chirac labored so hard to retain, without making the French feel like their lives are improving, it just might spur a wave of nostalgia for the Chirac years.

A Vacation Fit for a President

2007-05-10T17:45:38Z

Poor Nicolas Sarkozy! When he promised to be president of a France that "wakes up early," he didn't realize that he might have to give up sleeping late. And when he declared on the campaign trail that he'd cut off the golden parachutes of failed CEOs, it wasn't readily apparent that people might examine the gilded gifts that CEOs offer him. Nor, it seems, did a candidate who promised to make the French work more and harder--and with a thinner social services net--conclude that he might need to forego the extravagant tastes long granted to French presidents in favor of a more sober presidency. After learning on May 6 that he would become France's next president, Sarkozy and his family retired to the palatial Hotel Fouquet's BarriÃ¨re on the Champs Élysées, with its sleek and elegant suites at rates from 1,500-2,000 euros ($2,000-$2,700). The next day, they were transported to an airstrip at Bourget, outside of Paris, where a luxurious Falcon 900 EX jet zipped them off to Malta. Sarkozy may have campaigned on increasing the purchasing power of the French, but such a round-trip journey--including an elaborate in-flight meal--is hardly a bargain at more than 80,000 euros (about $108,000). Fortunately, the jet is owned by a company run by his longtime industrialist friend Vincent Bolloré.

Ever the glad-hander, Sarkozy ignored the VIP arrival's section at the Maltese airport and joined with the common travelers, according to a detailed report in Le Parisien, the USA Today-like French publication. But he and his family returned to the lap of billionaire luxury soon after when they boarded the Paloma, a 2.5-million-euro 60-square-meter über-luxury yacht. The multilevel cruiser, with its 12 cabins, Jacuzzi, four plasma-screen televisions and stunning array of additional accessories, was upgraded in a 5-million-euro renovation a few years back, according to the Parisien, which took relish in the details. But Sarkozy's increase-the-purchasing-power discourse took another hit when word hit the French press and television that the yacht rents for 173,693 euros (more than $235,000) per week--in low season anyway. (If he'd waited until high season, the week would have cost another 20,000 euros.) Fortunately, the boat trip was a gift from Bolloré, as both the industrialist and Sarkozy later made clear. The high style of the sejour spurred no less of a luxury authority than Italian billionaire (and former conservative prime minister) Silvio Berlusconi to comment that "Sarkozy has taken me as a model." Yes, the Parisien picked up that quote, too. And yes, President-elect Sarkozy has finally made the big leagues.

But to the president-elect's surprise, when word--and paparazzi photos--of his "Yacht People" vacation spurred political enemies to criticize his billionaire-style holiday as "indecent" and "shameless," the former minister of finance, as usual, refused to back down. "I have no intention of apologizing," he told Europe-1 radio by mobile phone. "I'm taking two-and-a-half days. I don't think anyone can argue with that." But the issue even seemed to chase him out onto his Maltese jog, where he told a flock of journalists: "I have no intention of hiding myself. I don't intend to lie. I don't intend to excuse myself." He was confident that there would be no misinterpretation. "The French are very lucid people who reason and who know - the reality of things." The reality, of course, is that Sarkozy has just completed a relentless six-month presidential campaign - or was it eight years--as he began plotting his detailed path to the presidency at the end of the last century. And in Sarkozy's France, such a relentless worker clearly deserves a break? Although not a very long one, it seems.

The yapping back in Paris spurred the president-elect to come home late Wednesday night, well ahead of schedule. So it's back to pre-presidential work, including a ceremony to commemorate the end of slavery alongside President Jacques Chirac on Thursday. (Sarkozy had planned to miss the event, as he spent part of his campaign encouraging the French to stop flogging themselves over the murkier aspects of their colonial history.) On Friday, he's set to meet with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to talk about a simplified EU treaty to get the European project back on track. Sarkozy may even join President Chirac at the French Cup soccer final in Marseille, even as he oversees the creation of the first Sarkozy government and helps to choose replacements for himself in the various party and political positions that he still holds. Blair and Chirac, of course, can handle the schedule, as they're both on the verge of retiring as heads of state, but poor Sarkozy has five long and tiring years ahead of him.

Can the Socialists Regroup?

2007-05-08T22:21:20Z

The middle finger works here, too. In the street outside Socialist Party headquarters in Paris Sunday night, on the rue de Solférino near the Musée d'Orsay, giant screens projected the election night telecasts to a disappointed young crowd. Their fallen heroine, Ségolène Royal, had minutes before concluded her unsettlingly smiley concession speech with a rousing, "Vive la Republique! Vive la France!" to plucky cheers. But when new President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy chose the same couplet to close out his victory speech, up rose from the crowd a flutter of birds, as it were.

That wasn't the last this night would see of that universal gesture. But among Socialist Party veterans rendered hostile by defeat, most would prove proverbial and aimed within the family. For any political ornithologist, it was plain to see: This would be the night things got ugly for the Socialist Party. Yet with make-or-break legislative elections on June 10 and 17 now just weeks away, there's hardly time for cranky reflection, never mind rebellion or revolution, if the party wants to limit the damage of Sunday's loss.

Unusually, Royal conceded victory to Sarkozy less than five minutes after polls closed on a heavy Socialist defeat - with the tally now officially 53.06 percent for the new president, 46.94 for Royal. The loss marked the party's third in as many presidential elections and the Socialists' lowest score in a leadership run-off since 1965. Of the now-six presidents of France's Fifth Republic, Royal's mentor, François Mitterrand, remains the only left-winger to have claimed the top post, in 1981 and again in 1988. Against that backdrop, Royal's instantaneous address made sense.

"I gave it all my strength and I will continue with you and alongside you," she said, at once conceding the presidency and vowing to lead the party into the crucial legislative polls. "What we began together, we will continue together," said Royal. "You can count on me to deepen the renewal of the left and the search for new confluences beyond its current borders. It is a condition for our future victories." She'd thrown down her gauntlet.

Within minutes, the knives came out. Dominique Strauss-Kahn led the charge. The left-of-center/center-of-left Socialist Party veteran was tipped as a favorite to be Royal's prime minister had she won. Now that she'd lost, he spoke as a detached observer, an innocent bystander, but an angry one. "It's a very grave defeat," declared Strauss-Kahn (known as DSK) on television. "The left has never been so weak- because the French left still hasn't renovated itself. For five years, we haven't renewed ourselves."

And DSK, who was runner-up to Royal in her landslide victory in the November primary, volunteered to take over. "The social-democratic renewal that I initiated has yet to win over the Socialist Party. We must now carry out this renewal. It's the condition for hope and I am available for that."

DSK and his brethren mixed thin, requisite compliments to their defeated candidate with ready and lengthy listings of what went wrong. Laurent Fabius, the other Socialist primary loser, a social-democrat himself before he shifted strategies and swung well-left, lamented, "We didn't sufficiently convince people that our candidate could be head of state." And Fabius criticized Royal's go-it-alone campaign style, "The left is 'we' not 'I.'"

Royal's partner, the Socialist Party leader François Hollande, called for unity Monday and said he wouldn't tolerate "the settling of scores." But if you have to ask, it's too late. Strauss-Kahn Monday morning persisted, complaining of a lack of clarity in the Socialists' campaign.

"When at the end of the day, we aren't clear in what we are telling the French people, the French people cannot follow us," DSK said on radio. "We talk to the French people about nuclear energy, but we aren't clear on the subject. We talk to the French people about protectionism and the value-added tax, but since every position exists in the Socialist Party, well, we aren't clear [there] either."

There is little doubt of the need for the Socialist Party to reform. When Mitterrand first won the presidency in 1981, he could rely on strong Communist Party support to buffer his numbers through the second round. But while the French far-left can still field six candidates (including at least three Trotskyites this year), its hold on the Socialist imagination far outweighs its heft at the ballot box.

The options for renewal are complex - unite the left, shift to the center, or do a little of both by consolidating with a part of the wayward left (say, the Green Party), and shedding the reds, while cozying up to the most palatable elements rightwards (say, François Bayrou's new centrist party). When SÃ©golÃ¨ne Royal began her meteoric rise more than a year ago, she was remarkable for her centrism, questioning leftist unquestionables like the 35-hour workweek. But her independent flights of fancy soon gave way to political imperatives.

Trouble is, the evidently divided party cannot risk implosion or engage in real reform now this close to the legislative elections. There just isn't time to really stir things up. Or as Vincent Peillon, one of Royal's campaign spokesmen, told NEWSWEEK at Socialist headquarters Sunday night, "If they want to give Sarkozy another present, let's have palace revolutions on the rue de Solférino." He added sarcastically, "The French people will be very interested in that."

The party cannot, however, afford to spend too much time on recriminations. On Saturday, it must discuss future directions at the Socialists' National Council strategy meeting Saturday. Electoral lists for the June polls are due by May 18, with all the alliance-making and horse-trading implied in keeping President-elect Sarkozy's right from holding all the power in the next legislature.

What's next for the Socialist Party? As the palace burns, it's too early to look for the ashes, never mind the phoenix. But the feathers are flying on the rue de SolfÃ©rino.

Smoke Signals from the 'Hood

2007-05-08T21:48:30Z

A photo of Nicolas Sarkozy's wide grin fills televisions in apartments throughout the graffiti-stained slab-architecture housing projects of La Forestiere. He has just been declared the next president of the French Republic, one that suddenly feels further away than ever for many residents here. In an apartment living room 14 floors up -- where a wooden board fills in for a broken window- democracy doesn't feel very fair in this moment. "I'm disgusted that 53 percent of French people could vote for Sarkozy," says a heretofore hopeful college student, Yousra Chergui, as she fights back tears. "I live in the suburbs," says the prim 21-year-old. "It will get worse and worse now."

Chergui lives here in Clichy-sous-Bois, amid the open sore that has resulted from decades of France's failed economic and ethnic integration (Islam, Integration and Assimilation ). But more immediately relevant to Chergui, this neighborhood is the incarnation of the domestic challenge that Sarkozy may be least able to deal with. The incoming president has promised to "solve the case" of Clichy, words that sound especially callous in housing projects where time and change are marked by decay.

Downstairs, I speak with Byron, a comic book artist who finds creative inspiration from the lives of young people around him. He sits astride his cruiser bicycle inside of a building entrance, but the breeze still tussles his American-style sweatshirt because the glass faÃ§ade and the glass doors were destroyed years ago and never replaced by building management. This is Byron's de facto office, his window onto the future. "'Solving' Clichy will be Sarkozy's last concern," he says with scorn. "He is a provocateur. Everyone knows that. Only [French ethnic] 'purists' like Sarkozy. To them, we're all just 'immigrants' here."

Anti-Sarkozy sentiment in Clichy could hardly be clearer - and it isn't just the crude graffiti messages to him that he will surely never see. Fear of and anger with Sarkozy drove turnout up to an astounding 80 percent in Clichy-sous-Bois, with 61.70 percent of the vote going to Socialist SÃ©golÃ¨ne Royal. (For more on the 'Hood's electoral mobilization against Sarkozy, see: Sarkasm: Rapping le Vote ). But with newfound political involvement, comes disappointment, as is clear from the tears welling up in Chergui's eyes upstairs. And as all of France learned during the riots of 2005, the tears of Clichy-sous-Bois can quickly turn to fire.

A quarter of an hour after the election results were known, word reached the La Forestiere apartment complex that young men were amassing on the same street where pitched battles with cops and riot police marked the beginning of three weeks of rioting across France in 2005. That time, the pressure cooker blew after police chased a trio of French teenagers (children of immigrant parents) into a power station where they were accidentally electrocuted. Two died. Sarkozy, who was then minister of the Interior, quickly declared that the kids were thieves. (A subsequent investigation proved him wrong.) Days earlier, Sarkozy had made a highly publicized late-night visit to the tough Parisian suburban ghetto of Argenteuil, where he promised to "get rid of the scum." Young people in such neighborhoods - and in Clichy-sous-Bois -- felt like he was talking about them.

So it was no surprise in Clichy that by 8:30pm on election night, smoke rose from a car in the center of a housing complex known as Les Bosquets. Firefighters - accompanied by undercover police in an unmarked van -- worked to douse the acrid black smoke. Hidden by a vast tree nearby, two-dozen kids dressed in hoodies watched attentively. Some were surely wondering whether the fire would spread, as it did in 2005.

It did. During the night, no fewer than 730 cars burned in urban France, including 35 in Paris itself. On the streets of Paris, as well as several other cities -- hundreds of anti-Sarkozy anarchists and others fought pitched battles with authorities in riot gear amid picturesque settings like Paris' Bastille, the Place de la Nation and the Place de la Republique. As per French tradition, protesters threw projectiles like bottles or rocks at the cops who responded with tear gas. In all, during the night, nearly 600 people were detained and 78 police were injured.

But looking toward the future, the real concern for France lives in the ghettos. As night fell out in front of the Gout du Halal (Taste of Halal) Sandwich shop in Clichy-sous-Bois, passersby contemplated the future. A somber 30-something man in black Nikes, who didn't want to give his name, didn't condone the burning of cars, but he understood why it happens. "What future does a 16-year old have in the ghetto? If he wants to work, what can he do? Where does he have to go? He's got nothing."

Biting ghetto-humor arrived as a man drove up yelling: "Sarko got 53 percent. I have residency, but you guys are screwed!"

Not everyone was laughing, though. A soft-spoken man in a skullcap and a wispy three-inch beard approached me in front of the sandwich shop to ask what I thought of Sarkozy's victory. Monder, a devout 33-year-old Muslim on his way to the nighttime prayer, converted to Islam after returning from Bosnia, where he fought in the 1990s. He didn't vote because, well, God's vote is the one that counts. "If Sarkozy won, it was God's will to issue us a challenge," he said philosophically. But he did issue a warning to Sarkozy. "If Sarkozy wants to go up against religion and the Creator, he will have problems." As kids in another nearby project set another car ablaze minutes later - and as they rained rocks down on firefighters who arrived to put it out - it was clear that Sarkozy's France already does.

Sarkozy's Election: Readers React

2007-05-07T07:25:22Z

Some readers send their thoughts to Christopher Dickey's mailbox: shadowland@newsweek.com. Here's a sampling of their reactions to the Newsweek Web Exclusive story on the election of France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, which is also posted below on Le Blog. The texts are unedited except for the deletion of obscenities:

Name: marlow
Hometown: Los Angeles
Comments:
Oh [expletive deleted]...My heart goes out to the French people who tried to stop this... I'm with you. Vive la France.

Name: Leonard Muller
Hometown: Chattanooga, TN
Comments:
I think Hillary should now be looking for work outside of the public sector. If France (yes France) will elect a conservative, pro-American, with a NON FRENCH name, the liberals in America most know that there reign here will be brief.

Name: karin osborne
Hometown: oceanside ca
Comments:
I am disappointed for the French and their French Poodle. More will be suffering in France as well as in Iraq and here at home.

Name: CathyHometown: Rennes/France
Comments:
About President Sarkozy, your article is excellent.

Name: Bob Boyd
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Comments:
Sarkozy will have to take care about how close to Bush he gets. After all, in 2 years we will have a new President and he/she won't be like Bush. Get too close to Bush and Sarkozy won't be welcome in Washington for the last 4 years of his term.

Name: dan tobin
Hometown: charlotte, nc
Comments:
i think its about time the french people elected a real thinker to their government. perhaps he can reverse the liberal moronistic attitude the french have had for decades. If france wants to be a world leader ever again they have to get into the 21st century.

Name: Debessay Gabriel
Hometown: Alexandria, Virginia
Comments:
Did Sarkozy really say the USA is the "greatest democracy in the world"? I am sure NOT A SINGLE Frenchman or woman for that matter believed him when he said it. All Europeans, at least the majority believe that the USA is run by a bunch of crazy NRA menbers - a kind of modern WILD WEST, preaching democracy & enforcing it with guns with the zeal of modern day evangelists. Sarkozy may not be aware that black people live in America and for him to use the superlative "greatest" is offensive considering the difficulties blacks are subjected to in this "Great" democracy of "OURS".

Name: Terry Peterson
Comments:
Americans need to understand that conservatism is France and in Western Europe in general is not the same as conservativism in the United States. Chirac also was a conservative in French politics. Conservatism in France is closer to our idea of centrism. Therefore while wanting to mend ties with the US, he is not goign to be a buddy of Bush because the French people are not likely to permit that.

Name: Roger F de Anfrasio
Hometown: New-York City N.Y. 10022 U.S.A
Comments:
As a Frenchman living in the US for more than 50 years let me tell you what I think about the new president Sarkozy,well! It is a but time that we have someone who understand the international politics for a better relationship with other allies country who need us like we need them. It two way street no matter what we do, because like we said people need people, and country need country, good luck for France and the french people.

Name: Rich
Hometown: Payette, Idaho
Comments:
I thinink that Sarkozy will be a refreshing change from the Chriaq crap that we have been used to.

Name: m ross
Hometown: baltimore
Comments:
you said nothing about him--who he is? is he married? how old, children etc? Nothing!

Name: Jeff Young
Hometown: St. Louis, MO
Comments:
I think it's great that Sarkozy won. Chirac is a [expletive deleted].

Name: George R. Costich
Hometown: Cape May
Comments:
America has to learnfrom it's friends-and it's enemies- that it's past casual, cavalier, irresponsible attitude toward Diabetes,Planned Obsolescence,the Population Explosion, and Global Warming, is a path to Global Isolation and National Suicide.

Name: JerryG
Hometown: Chicago, ILL
Comments:
Good luck with your citizens too used to 35 hour weeks, in the 46 weeks acutally spent working! No wonder the asians are beating us all!

Name: mark mywords
Hometown: dallas texas
Comments:
guess we can go back to calling Freedom Fries, French Fries--- with this election of the lapdog Freedom Poodle. Good luck to the French in protesting this baboon, probably import some rubber bullets from the USA

Name: Martin Greenberg
Hometown: Chigwell Essex U.K.
Comments:
A Good choice for FRANCE the U.S.and the U.K.Tony Blair and his bunch of crooks for the chop next!

Name: blake chanberlinHometown: lafayette , la
Comments:
maybe there is hope for the french after all!!

Name: Dr. Mervin G. Rhamm, Ph. D.
Hometown: San Francisco, CA. 94102
Comments:
I agree with your assessment in re the election result. I believe that Sarkozy's election will bring our two countries closer. Vive la France!

Name: Ken Park
Hometown: Pullman Washington
Comments:
Thank God! And it must be hard for NBC to swallow.\

Name: Oliver NgodoHometown: Lagos, Nigeria (but right now a PhD candidate at University of Malaysia, Sarawak)
Comments:
I love this guy. He sounds every bit the suitable French President we Africans, particularly we Nigerians, will love to do business with. The world has changed. France needs to lead her African associates to the inevitable new level. You are very welcome Sarkozy.

Name: Michael D. Kanner
Hometown: Longmont, Colorado
Comments:
As a professor of post Cold War economics and security, I have be conjecturing that Sarkozy was the "Margaret Thatcher" for France. It also indicates what students of European politics have been saying about the difference between elite and popular opinion. While the politicians have been trying to maintain the status quo, the french workers have been seeing their jobs and industries going away.

Name: Stephen
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Comments:
"Darker American side"? A bit anti-American I would say. You seem disapppointed Sarkozy won. This was a great day for France, America and their allies. A very bad day for the socialist left. I loved "Summer of Deliverance" by the way.

Name: Dennis Papp
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Comments:
As a first generation American, born on Constitution Day in 1942 of Hungarian parents, I say that Liberty, Fraternity, Equality and France are all DEAD. Heil 'la National Security State.

Name: Anonymous
Comments:
I'm going to start drinking French wines again.

Photo of young Sarkozy supporters celebrating in Place de la Concorde on election night by C. Dickey

A Modern Lafayette?

2007-05-06T18:48:13Z

Does France's new president speak American? Sure looks that way. Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy has defeated his Socialist Party rival, SÃ©golÃ¨ne Royal, by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. Royal, the first woman ever to come this close to the French presidency, conceded within minutes. So now the man set to govern the oldest (and arguably the most temperamental) ally of the United States for the next five years is someone whose message will be easy to translate: lower taxes, harder work for more money, greater consumption as the key to more employment and ever tougher measures against criminals and terrorists.

Braving derision by political rivals branding him the new "poodle" of President George W. Bush, who has long been as unpopular in France as he is these days in the United States, Sarkozy made a high-profile visit to Washington last September. Just weeks ago, the French candidate published an American edition of his campaign manifesto, "Testimony: France in the Twenty-First Century" (Pantheon), with a new introduction that makes him sound like the best friend the Yanks have had in Paris since the Marquis de Lafayette.

How Sarkozy's ideas will play with the notoriously protest-prone population he now has to lead is an open question. Testifying to the confrontational mood he brings to the office, police contingents were reinforced today in the same outer-city ghettos that erupted with inchoate, incendiary anger in 2005, while Sarkozy was in charge of public order as the minister of interior. Large contingents of cops were also on hand in Place de la Concorde, the heart of central Paris, in case victory celebrations by the right wing degenerated into outright confrontation between Sarkozy's supporters and those who hate and fear the man "or just want to use the occasion to raise hell.

"The choice of Nicolas Sarkozy is a dangerous choice," Royal said as campaigning drew to an end on Friday, claiming she had to "sound the alarm" about "the violence and brutality that will be spawned in the country. Everyone knows it, but no one says it. It is a kind of taboo." Sarkozy responded with undisguised contempt: "Ah, well, she wasn't in a good mood this morning. It must be the polls."

While Sarkozy's ability to ram through major changes in the way France and the French do business looms as the imponderable and possibly ominous theme of the weeks to come "he has vowed to push his programs into law in 100 days "his pitch to Americans is clear, concise and conciliatory.

Sarkozy writes in the preface to the U.S. edition of "Testimony," "I have no intention of apologizing for feeling an affinity with the greatest democracy in the world." Opting more for Bushism than Gaullism, Sarkozy extols the transatlantic alliance with the United States "that enabled France and Western Europe to preserve their freedom."

While he tends to wriggle around the question of French opposition to the war in Iraq, hinting he would eschew the kind of "verbosity" shown by outgoing President Jacques Chirac when Sarkozy was serving in his cabinet, the former interior minister is unquestionably a hard-liner in the wider fight against terrorists. "Now at the start of the 21st century, the United States and France again stand together in the same camp against a serious threat to global freedom." Every time "terrorism strikes," he says, "it is freedom that is the target. Facing such a threat, free countries have no choice but to pool their forces and work together."

Indeed, quiet but effective cooperation between Paris and Washington in counterterrorism reached new heights during Sarkozy's two terms as interior minister, and that's not the least of the reasons he has been received so warmly in the past by U.S. officials, including Bush. "I have always done all I can "even when our two countries disagreed, as we did over the Iraq war, for example "to ensure that our security services cooperated on a daily basis, in full transparency." (Transparent to each other, that is. Only rarely did the extent leak into the public sphere.)

What may be most appealing and accessible about this son of a Hungarian refugee (albeit an aristocratic one) who has worked in politics since he was a teenager to become president of France is his faith in the American dream. "In the United States there are all sorts of opportunities for those who know how to seize them. Americans don't ask about the diplomas or social origins of someone who comes up with a new idea; they just ask whether the idea is good or not. Past failures [and here we should say Sarkozy himself had quite a few] if they're honorable ones, should be seen as an opportunity to learn, and not as a stain on one's reputation."

But, manifestos and rhetoric aside, just how "American" is Sarkozy, really? During his tenure the French passion for gloire and the sometimes eccentric attachment to "exceptionalism" may not change on some key issues. "Certain aspects of American society would never suit France," he writes. "I am proud, for example, that France devotes a large part of its resources to provide a social safety net for those who have the least. I believe that possession of handguns is too dangerous not to be strictly regulated. I admire the way the French people are interested in global affairs - Finally, I like the way that France seeks to give its immigrants a new identity within the Republic, rather than continue to define them according to their ethnic origins. These are not minor differences. They will remain part of what is unique to France." (Some American political candidates might consider whether there's something to learn here -)

But the darker side of Sarkozy "the darker "American" side, if you will "is reminiscent of those Republican candidates in the United States in the 1970s and '80s who set out to capture the unsavory votes of erstwhile bigots like Alabama Gov. George Wallace while distancing themselves from the tainted man himself. In France, the equivalent figure is perennial ultra-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, who stunned the nation by making it into the runoff in the 2002 presidential elections. Sarkozy, playing to working-class French voters who feel overwhelmed by foreign immigrants, even adapted a loaded phrase from the troubled America of the 1960s to attract Le Pen's voters today: "France, love it or leave it." Since 2002 at least, Sarkozy's law and order rhetoric tended to make France seem a more dangerous place to live than it actually was.

Most importantly, Sarkozy's economic ideas "so familiar to Americans "remind the French of what they fear most about unrestrained capitalism in the United States and around the world. It's the notion, quite bluntly laid out by Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan in the late 1990s, that "job insecurity" "what the French call "prÃ©caritÃ©" "is actually a good thing because it helps grease the economic machine. For a society that's gotten used to the 35-hour work week, Sarkozy's campaign catchphrase, "work more to earn more," sounds plainly foreign.

Will Sarkozy's grand plans for revitalizing France bring the kind of progress he promises, or massive unrest, or, perhaps both? He's not the first French leader to promise a revamp of the country's economic machinery. Twelve years ago President Chirac tried to push through similar measures, only to back down in the face of nationwide strikes and protests that shut down the country for weeks.

Sarkozy, the self-styled man of action, loves to run against the clock. For months a digital counter on his Web site has been ticking off the days, hours and seconds until the results of the election contest would be made public at 8 p.m. Sunday night in Paris. He's given himself 100 days after the election to get the legislation he needs, even though elections for the national assembly won't be held until the middle of next month (campaigns for those seats are just beginning).

France may not be able to keep up with him, in fact, and the French, put to the test, may not want to. But if at first Sarkozy doesn't succeed, he will doubtless pick up another maxim from American culture, "try, try again."

For more than 75 articles outlining the background of the French elections and tracing developments throughout the campaign, as well as events following the release of results, visit Le Blog PrÃ©sidentiel.

Caption: The Victor: Sarkozy says France will 'stand together' with United States in terror fight

Chirac: He Says Goodbye, They Say Allee

2007-05-05T07:57:19Z

The French rarely give warm welcomes, but once they get to know you their farewells are gracious and full of politesse.

Take the case of Jacques Chirac, the wily president of the last 12 years. The French have complained about him. They've affectionately or ruthlessly caricatured the man. They've marched against him and battered him like a political punching bag. More than anything, though, they've disapproved of President Chirac. At one point, after the public overwhelmingly rejected the EU Constitution in 2005, Chirac's approval ratings sat near historic lows for months, cascading down into the 20-percent range. When Chirac mused about potentially running for a third presidential term; how many French people wanted him to? A mere one percent.

But just two years on from the failed referendum, as Chirac moves toward the edge of the political stage, the old man is being reassessed. If extra-European affairs were almost completely absent from the presidential campaign, it is because the candidates (as well as most of the French) find little to disagree with in Chirac's main international stances, especially on Iraq. And here at home, the president's every action is no longer widely seen as some Machiavellian maneuver to retain power, even if long-time enemies do accuse him of plotting to avoid post-presidency justice for corruption scandals dating back to his time as mayor of Paris.

In some ways, Chirac's presidency feels like it has been over for a while. He's lain remarkably low in recent months, not making a single campaign appearance in support of his political heir on the right, Nicolas Sarkozy. (See Chirac: Endorsing with Faint Praise. ) And his international encounters - with Angela Merkel in Germany or with African leaders in southern France -- have had the feel of a private farewell tour, rather than news-inspiring international encounters. Perhaps it is his absence from the stage in France -- or a comparison with the candidates who are angling to replace him -- but the French heart is once again, amazingly, growing fond of Chirac. Surveys in recent months have shown his approval ratings steadily increasing. And these days, more than half of French people actually feel good about their chameleonic 74-year-old president once again for the first time in years.

Chirac is known for the epic ups and downs of his presidency, but how is it that he has clawed his way back yet again? "It is normal because he isn't running for re-election," says StÃ©phane RozÃ¨s. "We don't have the sense that we are supporting someone with a personal career ahead of him, but rather, someone who has been president. We are remembering him as a consensual figure, not his more problematic sides."

Indeed, Chirac's final public acts as president are almost without exception unifying. Two days after the election, he will, for the last time, light the flame of the Unknown Soldier on the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. On May 10, he will commemorate the abolition of slavery. And then, some time before the end of the day on May 16, at the latest, he will hand power over to the nation's newly elected leader.

And at some point, Chirac will welcome the president-elect into the presidential bureau at the ElysÃ©e Palace for a private conversation. Outgoing president FranÃ§ois Mitterrand surprised the incoming Jacques Chirac in 1995 by restoring the French presidential office to the exact state that it was in when President Charles de Gaulle left it in 1969. Mitterrand later recounted that he asked Chirac to "take care of the ducks" in the garden.

France's incoming leader will surely face great challenges and the sorts of ups and downs that have characterized all of France's modern presidents. Perhaps Chirac will remind him or her that if you endure until the end of your term(s), the French will give you a warm send-off.

Also of interest:

Chirac's Multifaceted Farewell

The Smell of Victory?

Video: Fareed Zakaria on What's Next for France