Posted on 05/08/2007 6:37:22 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
Could Nicolas Sarkozy turn out to be the French Margaret Thatcher? In certain parts of London there was jubilation Sunday night as Sarkozy easily swept past Socialist Segolene Royal to win the French presidency. "France is on course for a Right-wing revolution," the Daily Telegraph proclaimed. "France's Only Hope for Reform Triumphs," chimed in a blogger for The Spectator. For Thatcher's heirs, it is self-evident that France needs a strong dose of privatization, tax cuts and union-smashing to revive its sclerotic economy, and they see Sarkozy as the man to deliver the medicine.
Sarkozy may well turn out to be an effective reformer. Yet to call him a rightwing revolutionary is to misread both Sarkozy himself and the nature of the office he has just won.
If you read through Sarkozy's books, or listen to his speeches, it is easy enough to gain the impression that he is indeed a neo-liberal. He talks of the need to reward merit and work, to encourage initiative, to reduce the burden of taxes and to make welfare less of a crutch. "The State cannot do for you what you're not willing to do for yourself," he has written.
Thatcher couldn't have put it better. But commentators have mostly failed to notice that there is one key tenet of neo-liberal dogma that is entirely absent, and that is the notion of government itself as a problem.
Sarkozy sees many areas where government should shrink, but, unlike Thatcher or Ronald Reagan, he does not see shrinking government as something that deserves to be done for its own sake. He wants to make the French state more efficient and less intrusive, but he still sees it as the foundation stone of the French nation.
In this sense, Sarkozy is a true Gaullist and has ties, through Gaullism, to a very old, very conservative and distinctly paternalist strain of French political thought. It is worth noting that in his victory speech Sunday night, the new president barely mentioned specific economic reforms. Instead, he emphasized "work, authority, morality, respect, merit ... and national identity" in a way that recalled Catholic conservatives of the early 20th century.
The nature of the French presidency itself also suggests that major reforms are not likely. The office, created for Charles de Gaulle, has very broad powers, including the right to dissolve the National Assembly and call referenda, and almost complete control over foreign policy. But it was also intended as a sort of elective monarchy, high above the political fray, speaking for the nation as a whole, and, in practice, this quality makes it difficult for the president to sustain a program of controversial reform. He must delegate his domestic program to a prime minister who lacks his stature and can quickly become a lightning rod for protest -- as the uncharismatic Alain Juppe did at the start of Jacques Chirac's presidency in 1995-97. And so there is the overwhelming temptation, at moments of crisis, to fall back upon grand symbolism and foreign policy, and the courtly game of managing the competition among one's heirs apparent, leaving serious domestic issues largely untouched.
Significantly for Sarkozy, this was very much the story for the last French president elected on a clear reformist platform: Francois Mitterrand. Upon taking office in 1981, the Socialist Mitterrand and his prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, moved to nationalize key sectors of the economy, raise wages, cut the work week and even name four communists to the cabinet. But economic crisis and protests against educational reforms quickly led Mitterrand to place the program on hold. And "King Francois" devoted more of his energy, during the remainder of his 14 years in office, to foreign policy and grand Parisian building projects.
There is, however, one area of domestic policy in which Sarkozy could conceivably carry out major reforms without paralyzing protests, and this is in the treatment of France's growing, and increasingly discontented, minority population.
Much of Sarkozy's miserable reputation on the left comes from his tough stance toward law and order in the desperately poor suburban areas where so many Muslims live. But Sarkozy has also shown far more flexibility toward the problem than most other French politicians -- starting with the simple recognition that there is a problem that cannot be solved by traditional methods of "republican integration." Sarkozy's calls for equal opportunity, combined with his emphasis on work, family and morality, will have considerable appeal for culturally conservative Muslims, and his calls for some variety of French affirmative action might help counteract the racism and suspicion that have made it difficult for young children and grandchildren of immigrants to escape from the suburban ghettos.
Moreover, the principal resistance to these policies will come less from the usual suspects on the left and in the streets than from "neo-republican" intellectuals within his own center-right camp. So in this domain, at least, President Sarkozy could conceivably make a large difference. But it is a difference that will increase the power of the French state, not the reverse, and make Sarkozy look even less like the Thatcherite he misleadingly appears, to some, to be.
© National Post 2007
http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/dacha/index.html
Our Dissident Frogman Dacha came out of hiding with his take on the newly elected official. We shall see. Like you said, it’s France.
Reform won’t save France. Only revolution will. And unfortunately, France has never had a talent for peaceful revolution.
I’m french and if you want my opinion, it’s at the last comment of this link :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1830016/posts?page=11
Rather than rush to pronounce this as just more of the same from France, perhaps we would be better served to give him...oh, I dunno....three months in office?
I’m no fan of France, don’t misunderstand. But it seems to me he’s 100% improvement over that idiot Chirac.
You won’t see this guy bowing before Arafat’s tomb, thats for damn sure.
Give him a chance. He’s in office for five years, plenty of time to attack him if warranted.
I seem to recall that one of America’s main goals in Europe is to have Turkey admitted to the EU. I wonder how Sarkozy’s opposition to this will cloud his future relations with the United States?
Would this be the same culturally conservative Muslims who are burning cars every night?
After decades of liberalism and a nation entrenched in the liberal mindset, what does the author expect ? A Ronald Reagan to emerge from nowhere and turn France around 180 degrees just like that ?
Admitting Turkey into the EU will be disastrous. I don’t understand why the Administration is pushing for it.
Post 11, 12 or the last comment in the op-ed?
Yes, 11 and 12.
True, but also remember that applies to the other side: This is FRANCE, and they elected a guy who is even THINKING about shrinking government. That is a HUGE sea change all by itself. They started MUCH further left, so a move to "well, maybe big intrusive government isn't ALWAYS good" is arguably a bigger shift than even what Reagan and Thatcher did! After all, at least in the US, we've always had a "smaller government the better" crowd aka conservative. France really hasn't since WWII (or maybe even WWI).
They would be smarter to look to aiding development in Morocco and Algeria. Forget Turkey.
“I seem to recall that one of America’s main goals in Europe is to have Turkey admitted to the EU. I wonder how Sarkozy’s opposition to this will cloud his future relations with the United States?”
Because geographically (and culturally), Turkey isn’t a European county and it will be cost a lot for european
to subsidize all the farmer and poor people they have. It also increase illegal immigration. I think that US administration want Turkey in UE because that mean the end of Political UE ! It’s also a good thing but it’s us you have to deal with this country and paid for that. No way !
BUMP!
It’s an election.
He WAS better than the alternative.
Is the U.S. any different? The left controls the culture though the mass media and mass schooling and politicians have to work within the rules they set.
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