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The Sarkozy No-Show
Where's Sarko? France is gripped by another outbreak of rioting. This time ageing hard-left fantasists are stirring up trouble as students protest against a new employment contract, but new reports suggest that thugs from the banlieu - who caused so much trouble last year - are already infiltrating the marches.
Prime minister Dominique de Villepin is defending the CPE reform, but his government colleagues, from the president down, are beginning to desert him. Chirac himself has urged Villepin to "enter a dialogue" on the CPE, which is French government code for "surrender."
So where's interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy? EURSOC receives regular emails from correpondents in the US who hope that Sarkozy represents a new start for France, one that isn't afraid of economic reality and that also realises the importance of friendly relations with America. Sarko himself has hinted at such changes, criticising the French social model and suggesting that France look outside its borders for visionary reforms.
So why isn't he defending de Villepin's very minor change to the way young people are employed?
It's disappointing, to say the least. De Villepin's reform - which offers a two year contract to workers under 26, which can be cancelled at any time by employers - is extremely timid. It might make a difference to youths in France's housing estates, where unemployment runs at over forty percent. It might help others break the cycle of short-term contracts and unpaid work experience that France's ultra-strict labour laws have helped create. It might persuade employers that it's worth giving youngsters a start, as the government is starting to be serious about letting businesses rearrange their resources as required.
But CPE doesn't extend to older workers. It won't help the estimated fifty percent of French jobless who remain without work for more than a year at a time. It won't help larger businesses break out of the current cycle of working their 35-hour-week workers like horses, rather than take the risk of employing new staff. It won't limit union power, create private sector jobs for experienced workers or allow start-ups to compete with their nimbler equivalents across the Channel and the Atlantic.
In effect, it's a very minor adjustment to French labour laws.
So why can't Sarko bring himself to support it? In fact, it's the opposite - he was one of the first in the French cabinet to distance himself from de Villepin, and yesterday declared that the law be reduced to a six-month trial measure.
It doesn't take a political genius to figure out Sarko's game here. De Villepin, his rival for the centre-right presidential candidacy next year, has been wounded by opposition to the law, which is said to run at 70 percent. De Villepin's arrogance in forcing the measure through without parliamentary consultation has been mocked throughout the media - Sarkozy doesn't want to be tainted with criticism that he is detached from the people. Any governmental spokesman who supports the law risks having his or her popularity rating slashed, as de Villepin has discovered.
If de Villepin doesn't back down, the opposition could ride a tide of popular anger and steal the election next year. If he does, he will be weakened - few French politicans have gone on to greater things after humiliation in the street.
Moreover, Sarko sees this as payback. Back in November, when France's hoodlums were rioting, the interior minister's tough talk on the thugs was pointedly not backed by de Villepin or Chirac, who enjoyed the spectacle of the interior minister under assault from the media, which had decided to "understand" rather than condemn the rioters.
Further back in June, de Villepin slapped down Sarkozy when the interior minister claimed that a judge who released a criminal who went on to murder again should "pay for the mistake." De Villepin this time sided with bien pensant outrage, which saw Sarkozy stepping over the line of judicial independence.
And then there's the presidential bid, again. Despite their claims to the contrary, Sarkozy's team are spooked by the success of Ségolène Royal's bid for the Socialist Party candidacy. For the first time since he "declared" his interest in the presidency, there's a rival who has led him in the opinion polls.
The socialists are, as you might expect, attacking the CPE and the government ferociously. Polls suggest that they have France's support. Does Sarkozy really want to expend his capital publicly supporting a law that France doesn't want - and one that will give his rival a boost if it does succeed?
It's tragic for France that presidential ambitions and rivalries are blocking reform. Sarko might not be able to persuade the marchers and rioters to support the law, but he could lend it much-needed credibility among his base. It's lamentable, too, that rather than stand by their PM, French ministers are jumping ship at the first sign of trouble from the streets.
Perhaps de Villepin only has himself to blame: Rushing the law through seems to have enraged his opponents further, though he could argue that had he put the CPE out to consultation, it would have emerged even more watered-down, if it emerged at all. De Villepin claims that youth unemployment in the nation's suburbs needs fast and radical action, not three-year discussions with unions and labour committees.
Sarkozy knows this too. And there's a warning there for him: If even this meagre reform crumbles in the face of opposition from the streets, what hope has Sarkozy of finding a solution to France's wider malaise? Cynical commentators might even suspect that Sarko has no intention of reforming France, he only exists to be elected.
One French business leader said that if the CPE fails, then French economic reform will be set back ten years. By not supporting the CPE, Sarkozy keeps his hopes of the presidency alive. But he also makes his job should he get there much, much more difficult.
