On Sunday the people of France emerged long enough from a national malaise to elect a new president. Their choice of Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, sent their ship of state tacking to the right. That could mean tougher immigration laws, efforts to energize a torpid economy — and a warming of the long but sometimes frosty alliance that connects Paris and Washington.
After defeating socialist candidate Segolene Royal, 53, Sarkozy told his supporters that the U.S. “can count on our friendship,” as if to dismiss the frequent criticism that he is too close to a Bush administration unpopular in France.
Sunday’s election has to cheer a White House that tired of departing President Jacques Chirac’s second-guessing of U.S. policy. Expect Sarkozy to join the U.S. in supporting an expansion of international sanctions against Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear program; Sarkozy, known for his abrasiveness, has called Iran’s leaders “extremely dangerous.”
But most French voters had domestic, not foreign, affairs on their minds Sunday. The Economist magazine succinctly described those voters as “fed up and fearful” — fearful that their jobs will disappear abroad, that their children won’t find work, that their generous welfare system will collapse, that the impoverished suburbs of Paris will erupt again in fire and chaos as they did in 2005. The nation clearly needs economic renewal: Over the past 25 years, France’s gross domestic product per person has slumped from seventh in the world to 17th. The magazine characterized Sarkozy’s campaign as appealing to French workers whose pockets are squeezed, and who yearn for a return of values such as authority, respect, national pride and hard work.
Royal’s response to this slow-motion economic crisis struck many voters as fanciful: She posited that eliminating government waste, plus new revenue from economic growth that almost no one envisions, could pay for increased state pensions, a higher minimum wage, more public housing and state subsidies for small businesses that hire young workers.
Sarkozy, by contrast, thinks the French don’t work hard enough: He sees France’s 35-hour work week as absurd, and intends to make it simpler for companies to hire and fire. He proposes tax cuts and a smaller government bureaucracy as key elements of an economic turn-around.
It’s a stretch to say French voters “embraced” the divisive Sarkozy on Sunday. He has notoriously dismissed young law-breakers in housing projects as “scum” — and last week lambasted those who criticize his confrontational style: “People accuse me of encouraging public anger. But who is angry? The thugs? The drug traffickers? I can assure you, I do not seek to be the friend of the thugs.”
Sarkozy’s ascent to the presidency could make France the focal point of Europe’s attempts to grapple with immigration — especially from Muslim countries — that hasn’t become assimilation. Sarkozy himself is the son of a Hungarian immigrant and has advocated what amounts to affirmative action and other supports for immigrants. But the former interior minister’s tirades against lawlessness among immigrant youths invite accusations that he is too authoritarian. On Friday, Royal made a last-ditch attack, warning that Sarkozy was “paying homage to all that is dark in human nature.”
We’ll see if Sarkozy emerges as the dangerous force his opponents on the left fear. For now, Americans know that France has a president genuinely proud to call them friends. That should tighten the French connection that’s been a part of American history for centuries.
