The Hyperpresident
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POLS & POLLS The Hyperpresident Philip Gordon t would be easy to predict the coming will trip up, exhaust itself, or create too many implosion of Nicolas Sarkozy’s still-new enemies before it gets anything done. I presidency. The French, after all, are noto- All that would be easy to predict but is, I riously averse to change and have a proven track think wrong. Sarkozy got elected running on record of stopping reforms in their tracks—just an explicit platform of major change and praise ask former President Jacques Chirac, who in for hard work, discipline, tax cuts—and even 1995 saw his modest plans for reforming the the United States. His victory by a comfortable, welfare state rejected by hundreds of thousands second-round margin of 53 percent to 47 per- of angry protesters. Or ask former Prime Min- cent for the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène ister Dominique de Villepin, whose even more Royal suggests that the French may be more modest efforts to tweak the French youth labor open to change than conventional wisdom had market ten years later were similarly rejected, suggested. Moreover, Sarkozy is blessed with a this time by the very young people the reforms hopelessly divided and demoralized opposition, were designed to help. unlikely to be able to challenge him anytime Even when the French do not bring down soon (in part because of his own cleverness in governments with their feet they bring them co-opting some of the most popular members down with their ballots—prior to 2007, in of the Socialist Party). And for all the rhetoric every parliamentary election since 1978 the about making a “clean break” with the past, French had voted out of office whichever party an image reinforced by the frenetic pace of the they had voted in the previous time. (Two pres- workaholic new president, Sarkozy has already idents during that period, François Mitterrand shown a willingness to compromise on issues and Jacques Chirac, did get re-elected, but in like the 35-hour work week, university reform both cases not until after the majority in parlia- and “minimum service” for public transport. ment had gone to the opposition.) Add to all Remarkably, Sarkozy’s popularity has actually this the non-stop pace of the ambitious Sarkozy grown since taking office. His stunning approv- and his defiant attitude toward French political al rating, over 60 percent, is higher than that of and social conventions (for example, by vaca- any French president since General Charles de tioning in America, taking boating trips with Gaulle after his return to power in 1959. rich friends, and jogging in shorts), and all the Sarkozy’s honeymoon, of course, will not last conditions seem to be in place for a regime that forever. The vested interests who oppose change will resist and try to sabotage his reforms, the Philip H. Gordon is a senior fellow at the government will inevitably make mistakes, Brookings Institution. He is author of Winning and, eventually, the opposition will find its feet the Right War (2007) and translator of Nicolas (and new leaders). Most important, if recent Sarkozy’s book Testimony: France, Europe and signs that the French economy is slowing bear the World in the 21st Century (2007). out, the government’s popularity—and its abil- HOLIDAYS (NOVEMBER/DECEMBER) 2007 1 POLS & POLLS ity to implement its promised reforms—will have to work harder if they wanted to get paid take a severe hit, as unemployment and bud- more, promised to cut taxes to stimulate the get deficits mount. Even so, it is hard to avoid economy, insisted on the need for labor mar- the conclusion that something significant has ket reform and expressed his admiration for happened in France. The French have elected the United States—all potentially unpopular a leader who has promised to break with thirty positions in France. He was an outsider who years of welfare-state stasis at home and conven- did not attend the prestigious École Natio- tional risk-averse diplomacy abroad, and whose nale d’Administration like most other French energy, dynamism and ambition have not been politicians and whose father had immigrated to seen since the foundation of the Fifth Republic France from Hungary. He had first appeared in 1958. Sarkozy’s success in reforming France on the French political scene as an ambitious over the next five years is far from guaranteed. twenty-year-old youth leader, challenged and More certain is that this determined hyperprési- defeated a Gaullist “baron” in his run for mayor dent is going to try, and that France will never of Neuilly-sur-Seine at age 28 (a job in which be the same again. he later risked his life by personally negotiat- ing with a bomb-carrying hostage-taker), and rolled the dice again (unsuccessfully, this time) The Road to Sarkozy in 1995 by splitting with his former mentor Chirac and backing a rival, Edouard Balladur, y all logic, or at least all recent precedent, in the presidential election that year. BNicolas Sarkozy should not have won the So if it was true that the French liked the 2007 French presidential election. As already appearance of change (new faces in office) but noted, the French have for a generation not actual change (that might threaten their shown an unparalleled proclivity for pleasant but ultimately unaf- kicking out their leaders, and fordable way of life), why vote Sarkozy was not only from for someone like this? The the incumbent governing alternative candidate, the party but a major figure in youthful and attractive Roy- it. The French electorate had al, offered the appearance of no reason to be more forgiv- change the French people ing in 2007 than in previous were believed to want. She years, and it would have been would certainly look dif- reasonable to expect voters to ferent from Chirac, but she turn to the Socialist Party after wouldn’t depart much from five years of rule by the Gaullist his policies—the perfect com- Jacques Chirac and his majority bination of attributes according in parliament. The Socialist-led gov- to the conventional wisdom. ernment of 1997–2002, after all, had But Sarkozy did win, and by performed reasonably well and a margin of more than 2.2 mil- had now been out of power for lion votes. His victory can in the seemingly mandatory one part be attributed to Royal, a electoral cycle. weak candidate who did not have Moreover, Sarkozy was running Sarkozy’s leadership skills, experi- on a platform of major change—a ence or mastery of issues, and who did “clean break” with the past—and not have the unqualified support of her had demonstrated such boldness in Socialist Party (including First Secretary his career to date that French vot- François Hollande, her then partner and ers had good reasons to suspect (or father of her four children). Sarkozy also fear) that he might actually mean benefited from the role played by the what he said. Sarkozy told centrist François Bayrou, who won the French they would nearly 20 percent of votes in the 2 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE HYPERPRESIDENT first round but then refused Royal’s offer to join pand employment. He has also set a ceiling for forces for the second, in which two thirds of the state’s overall tax take from any individual his support went to Sarkozy. Certainly Bayrou’s at 50 percent and eliminated the estate tax for impressive first-round score—more than three almost all taxpayers, again to try to put more times the votes he had received in 2002’s first money back in taxpayers’ hands. Unusually for a round—reflected voter discontent with both French politician, Sarkozy has no qualms about Sarkozy (who scared them) and Royal (who did “helping the rich”, and believes the French, like not impress them). the Americans he so admires, should reward None of these factors, however, under- and honor success rather than resent it. mines the interpretation of Sarkozy’s victory as The biggest domestic test for Sarkozy will a genuine French desire for change. It cannot come if he tries to liberalize France’s generous be said that Sarkozy was somehow elected by welfare state and notoriously inflexible labor accident (as Jacques Chirac may have been in market laws. He insists that France can never 2002, when he found himself facing far-right fulfill its ambitions if some workers are allowed leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round), to start taking full pensions at age fifty and com- or that the majority of French voters did not panies are burdened by overly restrictive rules know what they were doing. The genuine poli- on hiring and firing. Remarkably for a French cy differences between Sarkozy and Royal were politician, when critics question the French the greatest between two French presidential readiness to accept such changes, he favorably candidates since François Mitterrand proposed cites the example of none other than Margaret “breaking with capitalism” in his 1981 face-off Thatcher, who faced down massive protests and with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In 2007 the strikes with an “unbreakable will to get things French choice was between Royal’s reassuring moving”, leading to decades of prosperity in status quo and Sarkozy’s risky pitch for change. the UK. The analogy may be somewhat over- The French knew what they were getting when stated: For all its troubles France today is not as they chose the latter. badly off as was Britain in the late 1970s. But Sarkozy’s embrace of the Thatcher model does suggest a seriousness of purpose that should not A Not-So-Clean Break be underestimated.