Roland Flamini | Bio (Related) | 11 May 2007
World Politics Watch Exclusive (Related)
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's newly elected president, takes office on May 16. Not for the French a two-month transition following elections, as in the United States. He will then announce a prime minister and a government that could remain in office for less than a month -- if French voters decide to balance a conservative presidency by voting for the Socialist Party in the upcoming parliamentary elections in June.
However, the prevailing view in Paris is that Ségolène Royal's defeat in the presidential run-off has left the socialists bruised and weakened. Sarkozy's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, therefore, stands a good chance of making a clean sweep, thus strengthening the new president's mandate for change.
"What's fascinating about Sarkozy is not his commitment to change, but can he succeed in doing it?" mused Philip Gordon, the specialist in French politics at Washington's Brookings Institution shortly before round two of the elections. In victory, it remains the key question.
An editorial in the French newspaper Le Monde pointed out the contradiction at the heart of Sarkozy's victory. "Sarkozy's France is a France that is aging," the paper noted. In fact, Sarkozy received 61 percent of the vote in the 60-69 age group, and 68 percent of the over-70s. This is not a constituency that normally responds well to change, unless it involves more security, generous pensions, and better health care and social services.
But Sarkozy also did well among higher paid men and women between the ages of 20 and 34 (57 percent), who expect him to improve their earning power. His socialist opponent received more of the youth vote (58 percent) and those aged 45 to 59. So one of Sarkozy's most pressing tasks as president is to remove these sharp age divisions and be "the gatherer" -- as Le Monde put it -- the leader that brings the nation together.
Analysts expect him to start with less controversial proposals such as exempting overtime from taxation to encourage people to work longer than the mandated 35-hour week, and introducing his income and inheritance tax cuts ($92.5 billion over 10 years). The tougher battles will come when he tries to rewrite France's labor laws to reduce pensions in some areas of the public sector -- notably the railroads -- and to give employers more latitude in hiring and firing workers.
Le Monde says foreign policy issues were absent from an election campaign that was "inward looking." Former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing called it a campaign "behind closed shutters." But that will not spare France from involvement in the world's problems. Sarkozy's friendly signal to the United States in Sunday's acceptance speech has been widely quoted. Its core sentence was: "I want to tell [Americans] that France will always be at their side when they need her, but I also want to say to them that friendship means accepting the fact that friends can think differently."
Reflecting the mood of the moment, commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have emphasized the first part of that statement. There is no question that France's new president wants improved relations with the United States, ending France's instinctive anti-American reflex. Even so, the speech also warned that French loyalty should not be confused with Blair-like British acquiescence. In the same speech, Sarkozy urged the Bush administration to cooperate on fighting global warming, an issue on which Europe and the United States continue to differ.
Sarkozy likes to talk about the pleasure of re-reading Hemingway, and watching reruns of movie classics like "The Maltese Falcon." But extending a hand across the Atlantic doesn't mean changing France's position on Iraq, and Sarkozy has also talked of pulling French troops out of Afghanistan.
What Sarkozy admires most about America -- aside from its popular culture -- and what has influenced his reform agenda, are its work ethic and to some extent its market economy.
But Sarkozy's first priority is to define his government's relationship with Europe. Significantly, Sarkozy's first working trip outside France next week will be to Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency, and Sarkozy also wants to put some life into the Franco-German relationship.
For the past few years, France has been more a spoiler than a constructive force in the European Union. The EU constitution has been moribund ever since the French voted to reject it two years ago, with the Dutch following suit. The overwhelming refusal by France, one of the founding nations of the European Union, was a political earthquake that sent shockwaves throughout Europe. During the presidential campaign, Sarkozy proposed bypassing the draft constitution, and instead signing a European treaty that would incorporate many of its component parts.
The new French president also has some explaining to do in Brussels, having publicly stated his opposition to Turkey joining the European Union. He is opposed to Turkey's bid ostensibly because he doesn't want further EU enlargement, even though negotiations for Turkish entry are already underway.
Roland Flamini is a former Time magazine correspondent and an author.
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