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The Sarkozy Show
France's Nicolas Sarkozy has been back in the Interior Ministry only four weeks and has already declared war on gang violence, do-gooder judges and Turkey.
The popular leader of Jacques Chirac's UMP party, who is fancied, not least by himself, as the centre-right's candidate for the presidency in 2007 demonstrated that he means to pick up where he left off. This time, however, his policies have been reactive: We must wait and see what Sarko has planned as the main focus in this, his second stint in the job.
His tough new stance on gun crime was inspired by the horrific killing of an eleven year old boy, caught in crossfire between two warring gangs in the "sensitive" suburb of La Courneuve, just north of Paris. Responding to calls from despairing residents, Sarkozy pledged to "clean up" the housing project, which, like many others in France, has fallen victim to stratospheric youth unemployment and gang-related violence. Liberal Paris sneered at Sarko's Noo Yoik approach to the problem, but within hours crack police squads were swarming over La Courneuve's grim tower blocks - and the minister, accompanied by dozens of journalists, promised the same zero tolerance policy for other troubled neighbourhoods. The reign of "the thugs" is over, he claimed.
Liberal judges were the next target of the minister's ire. Two years ago, Patrick Gateau was released by a judiciary committee, having served thirteen years for murder. Now Gateau is the prime suspect in an almost identical murder, this time of 37 year old mother of two Nelly Cremel, who was shot while jogging near Paris three weeks ago.
Sarkozy response sent shockwaves through Paris. The judge who freed Gateau, he said, should "pay for the mistake" of letting him out to kill again. This time, the Interior Minister seemed to have overstepped the mark: "Sarkozy does not understand the law," said one commentator, noting that it was a panel of three judges, not a lone do-gooder, who freed Gateau. A judge on the panel - who is also believed to have freed a notorious gangster, "Pierrot le Fou", accused the Interior Minister of "demagoguery."
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin stepped in. In a radio interview on Friday, de Villepin warned that there was "no question" of compromising the independence of France's judiciary - remarks designed to slap down Sarkozy's criticism of the judge.
Even President Chirac got involved. In a carefully-worded statement, Chirac said that the separation of powers is "untouchable," but, nevertheless, "The circumstances of this drama confirm the need to examine and approve as soon as possible changes to the law on conditional release and the treatment of serial offenders."
Another strike then, to Sarkozy, despite howls of fury from France's elite - who he has so often set himself against in the past. Sarkozy delights in playing the little guy facing down France's ruling classes, despite being a ruthless and gifted political operator himself. Sure, he didn't attend ENA, the top school for France's administrative and political class - but he did become mayor of Neuilly, Paris' poshest suburb, at a remarkably young age. Still only 51, he has enjoyed a stratospheric rise through the various incarnations of France's centre-right parties, despite losing the trust of the Chirac clan for backing another presidential candidate in 1995. More annoyingly for Chirac, he positioned himself as Chirac's successor long before present difficulties made it practically impossible for the President to run for a third term in 2007. In this endeavour, at least, he has the wholehearted backing of the UMP party, who voted overwhelmingly to elect him as leader last autumn.
If the UMP (apart from Chirac and de Villepin) loves Sarko, the left hates him. Unsurprisingly, Sarkozy glories in the left's disdain. He blames Champagne Socialists in the opposition party for gliding past France's problems in chaffeur-driven limos, tut-tutting but refusing to challenge the media-political-cultural status quo that prevents any action being taken against crime. The mainstream left, often too dim to realise that it is being used as the fall guy in Sarko's campaign, predictably and obligingly reacts by accusing him of populism. For Sarkozy, populism means doing what voters want - and he presents himself as the only mainstream politician willing to listen.
Here he is last week, berating Socialist Party deputies in the National Assembly: "I understand why the people have turned against you: It's because you forget the people. You don't talk like them, you don't understand them and you offer no response whatsoever to what they experience on a daily basis."
And this may give a clue to Sarkozy's future strategy. As recent events in Germany have demonstrated, leftwards populism usually means pointless, but punitive taxation and much nonsense gibbered about "locust" foreign business. Centre left politicians, at least in western Europe, have the luxury of some leftwards flexibility to steal votes from far left parties. Centre right parties rarely allow themselves this luxury: Even Chirac, for all his numerous faults, has never sought to play on the natural territory of France's far-right National Front.
Sarkozy isn't planning to steal Jean-Marie Le Pen's thunder, but he does reckon he can deprive him of up to fifty percent of his votes. A Sarkozy adviser, interviewed in the International Herald Tribune, says that half of those who usually vote for Le Pen could switch to Sarkozy, provided he demonstrates that he listens to their demands. This would provide the valuable service of bringing 2 million of the 4.6 million voters who backed Le Pen in 2002's election into the political mainstream, but would also give Sarkozy an unassailable lead in the 2007 election.
Sarko might conclude that the other 2 million are beyond help - after all, when Britain's Conservatives brought core right-populist issues like immigration into their 2005 election campaign, they barely increased their vote, and may well have scared off more liberal Tories. Besides, an Interior Minister who has called for positive discrimination to assist France's Muslim minority can hardly position himself as an anti-immigration ideologue.
However, as Manuel Aeschlimann claimed in the IHT, law and order is likely to be a priority.
Another strand in Sarkozy's strategy is Turkey, or, more precisely, blocking Turkey's membership of the EU. Sarkozy has long opposed Turkey's accession. Chirac, like most of Europe's leaders, claims to support it. However, popular feeling in France is strongly opposed to allowing this large, poor and Muslim country into the EU.
In the months leading up to France's EU referendum, Chirac became so spooked by the prospect of anti-Turkey campaigners making the vote a referendum on Turkish membership he promised France a separate referendum to approve Turkey.
Turkey was barely mentioned in the constitutional campaign - but the issue has not gone away. Speaking yesterday, Sarkozy demanded a freeze in EU expansion. Bulgaria and Romania, both set to join the EU in 2007, should be allowed to complete their accession, he said. After that, Europe has to "suspend enlargement at least until the institutions have been modernised."
Accession talks with Turkey begin in December, though full membership is not expected before 2015.
Sarkozy has previously supported a "privileged partnership" for Turkey that falls short of full member status. In this respect, he shares common territory with Germany's opposition leader Angela Merkel, who, as EURSOC discussed yesterday, is expected to replace Gerhard Schröder as Chancellor in the autumn. It puts him in conflict with Tony Blair, however.
Blair and Sarkozy are reported to admire one another (interestingly, Sarkozy is also said to hold Blair's likely successor Gordon Brown in equally high regard). A France led by Sarkozy rather than Chirac is high on British wish-lists: While Sarkozy is no neoliberal, he has talked of reform. He has questioned France's sacred social model. Furthermore, like many successful Frenchmen outside the elite class, he does not share Chirac's hatred of the United States.
But Blair will not get too excited. On the Common Agricultural Policy, Sarkozy's advisers have warned that their man is "closer to Chirac" than to Britain. Moreover, Sarkozy may be a populist but he is also pragmatic: If elected President in 2007, he will not want to squander his honeymoon period scrapping with the trade unions.
Reform, if it happens, will be slow. Too slow, perhaps, for Blair. In serious danger of believing his own hype, Blair has become transfixed by the vision of reshaping the European Union to face up to the challenge of globalisation. Sarkozy could probably go along with the need for change, though might be less impressed by the prospect of Blair leading it. (Sarko's rival for the centre-left candidacy, de Villepin, discounts change altogether: He spoke last week of how "Globalisation is not France's destiny.")
Any change will have to wait until Chirac retires. His term ends in Spring 2007. Blair has already promised to step down before the end of his own term. Many thought he would go sooner, rather than later - indeed, the expected British rejection of the EU constitution was thought to be an ideal cue for the Prime Minister to call it a day. But Blair has had a stroke of uncommon luck. France, then Holland rejected the constitution, effectively wiping out any prospect of a vote in Britain. With the EU in seeming disarray, Blair is being urged to seize the opportunity to lead it out of the wilderness of high unemployment and low growth to the high ground of renewal and prosperity.
Blair has fire in his eyes again, which is always impressive. However, his colleague and rival Gordon Brown is itching to take over, and will surely demand a decent spell as PM before 2009's expected election. Much of Blair's Labour Party, mindful of how voters care less about the PM's foreign adventures than Blair himself does, supports Brown.
While it would be unfair to force Blair to go before his enemy Chirac retires, Blair cannot hold Brown off forever. But he must ache to discover where a Blair-Sarkozy-Merkel alliance could lead Europe - even if sceptics insist that the chances of reform are slim, if not minimal.
The Sarkozy Show may be running again in France, but Europe will have to wait two years to see what a President Sarkozy can do, and if a Brown-Sarkozy-Merkel axis could work.
