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France
Sarkozy still seen as a reformer after two years in office
by Marco Chown Oved
Article published on the 2009-05-06 Latest update 2009-05-06 15:53 TU
French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Brazzaville, 26 March 2009.
(Photo: Reuters)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy marked two years in office in an uncharacteristically modest way: no celebrations, no press conferences. 6 May 2009 is not, for the president, a milestone to be marked. Yet it does provide us with an opportunity to look back on this president who has shaken up French political culture, and established himself as a darling – or pariah – of the media around the world.
Two years in, 85 per cent of French people call their president “dynamic”, and 75 per cent “courageous”. 66 per cent say that Sarkozy “knows how to make difficult decisions”, but only 30 per cent say that he delivers solutions to their problems. Finally, a mere 26 per cent would say that Sarkozy listens to his constituents, all according to a poll conducted by CSA, published in the French press Wednesday.
While the international financial crisis has derailed many of his plans for free market reforms, Sarkozy started off campaigning on a platform of “rupture” with the political culture of the past - and he certainly delivered.
At his inauguration ceremony, Sarkozy proudly displayed his non-conventional family including two sons from his first marriage, his second wife Cecilia, two daughters from her first marriage, and their young son. The glamorous “reconstructed” family appeared in glossy photo spreads in the classy society magazine Paris Match, marking a decisive break from the more traditional presidential families of the past.
This reputation was only reinforced when Sarkozy soon became the first president to divorce in office, leaving Cecilia, and less than one year later the first to marry in power, tying the knot with former model and singer Carla Bruni, more than ten years his junior.
Sarkozy defended his flashy style by saying that former presidents had simply hidden their expensive habits. By comparison, he was being "honest" and "transparent". These two words would, together with "reform", become the leitmotif for his first two years.
Not long after moving into the Elysée, Sarkozy opened up the presidential palace expenses to public scrutiny and gave himself a raise of nearly 150 per cent, arguing that it would free him from having to dip into shady expense accounts.
The early reforms were economic, pushing France away from the highly regulated statist economy, if only using baby steps. Sarkozy introduced a minimum service to guarantee that trains would run and that children would have teachers to welcome them at school during strikes. He then introduced a tax ceiling, capping the maximum amount of income tax anyone could pay at 50 per cent – a move derided by detractors as a gift to the rich.
Ushering in a constitutional reform, Sarkozy assumed the right to personally name the leaders of parliamentary commissions, and then passed a law that explicitly gave him the power to nominate and dismiss the heads of public radio and television – both defacto powers his predecessors exercised before him.
The president took on school and university reform, though stiff opposition has prevented these modernization schemes from going ahead as planned.
Undocumented immigrants, who have a strong presence in France, have experienced an unprecendented crackdown under Sarkozy. Unlike Italy and Spain who recently presided over mass regularisations of immigrants, France has chosen to set high quotas for their deportations - first 25,000, now 27,000 per year.
Sarkozy took on an international profile when France took on the rotating presidency of the European Union, where he tackled the Russian invasion of Georgia and the Irish "no" to the new European Constitution called the Lisbon Treaty.
An open lover of the United States, Sarkzoy showered his praise on everything American and made no secret of his support for Barack Obama before and after his election. This was a far cry from the French refusal to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which led to the infamous removal of French moniker from the fries served in the US Congress, redubbed Freedom Fries as a result. Since Sarkozy’s election however, French Fries have reappeared in Washington, and the freeze in transatlantic relations has begun to thaw.
This was made explicit when France re-entered the military command structure at Nato, ending a principled arms-length relationship established by Charles de Gaulle in protest of American dominance in the alliance, and continued for decades as a way to assure an independent voice for France on the world stage.
Wishing to put his name on a project of historical dimensions, Sarkozy recently launched Le Grand Pari, a play on words meaning both "the big Paris" or "the big wager": a design competition for architects from around the world to develop a plan for an environmentally-friendly French capital of the future.
Whether he will succeed in bringing his vision for a more dynamic, modern France to fruition, Nicolas Sarkozy has already shaken up French politics, forever assuring him the reformer title he so eagerly sought.
