Sarkozy Blames the Students

Sarkozy, who seems to have developed a penchant for grabbing his heart these days, wouldn't have been much of a laugh as a student I imagine. Films of him as a young UMP activist have been widely broadcast, but the question today must be asked. Did he leave any time for having fun?
Much as I disagreed with the CPE protestors, had I been a student I would surely have joined them. Because marching when you are a student is fun. And you can tell your children about it when you are older and your youthful ideals have gone a bit hazy. When I was at university, the overwhelming consensus was that the time of great causes and strong beliefs (the 1970s) was over. People didn't care anymore. They just watched Eastenders and smoked dope instead. Still, I jumped at the chance of waving a banner at the then Education Minister Harriet Harman, even if I didn't give a toss about why.
We forget that it was also a little like that in 1968, when French students riots provoked by the refusal to let men into women's dormitories escalated into a full scale social movement that forced De Gaulle to dissolve parliament and call new elections. Still, the gloss of history should mean any self-respecting once-upon-a-time student pay respect to the 68ards and their glory days.
Not Sarkozy. He attacked them today in a star-studded Paris rally, blaming the 'moral crisis' in France on the social protests over 40 years ago. 'The heirs of '68 have imposed the idea that anything goes,' he told a 20,000-strong crowd. They led France to the false belief 'that a hierarchy of values doesn't exist.'
Oo-er. He IS beginning to sound a little scary....

What should you do if your friend votes Sarkozy?

This was the question posed to me on Saturday night: If a friend trusted you with his or her procuration to vote, but you disagreed with their choice, should you follow their instructions?
Pressed a little further, and it was revealed that the person in question had been asked to vote Sarkozy, which they felt was like unleashing a plague of locusts on France. A moral dilema. Respect the trust of a friend, or contribute to the downfall of your country.
For me there was no question. If your friend trusted you with a task which you agreed with, there is no other option but to carry it out. You can try to persuade them otherwise, but ultimately, the choice is not yours. Not everyone felt the same, however. And I realised that not being French means my passions don't run quite as high.

The Sego-Bayrou non debate

In the end, there wasn't much of a debate. The debate about the debate was more heated. Should she? Shouldn't she? Will it break election broadcast rules?
In the end she did, much to the irritation of Sarkozy who thought she should be paying attention to him, and only him. Even election opponents get jealous, it would seem.
Amid bewildered American tourists, Bayrou and Segolene installed themselves in the ballroom of a central Paris hotel and let the BFM cameras roll. They sat down next to each other to underline the fact that this was not a traditional political showdown. The questions were incredibly earnest and serious, revealing disagreements on everything from the 35-hour week to the state's role in the economy. The smiling couple insisted the gaps between them could be bridged.
Yet if Segolene caves in to Bayrou, what does she gain? Most of his 29 MPs have already come out in favour of Sarkozy, and his electorate are volatile and will make up their own minds.
'He's like the a commander in battle whose troops have deserted,' said Stephane Baumont, a professor at the university of Toulouse. 'Bayrou has been inflated by the media.'

Sarkozy Gaffes Too

Sarkozy, despite being a man, sometimes gets things wrong. Though being a man, people don't tend to make as much of a fuss as they do when Segolene gaffes. In a televised interview on France 2 last night, Sarkozy said that Gordon Brown likes to meddle with interest rates to boost the economy and keep the pound under control.
'I like England very much,' he told Charles Bremner, the Scottish reporter from the Times about the Bank of England, a Scottish invention, and the Scots-born Brown. 'As soon as growth slows, Chancellor Gordon Brown and the central bank governor meet and decide to cut interest rates to make the pound fall.'
After decades of disastrous boom and bust economics, blamed on government meddling in the economy, Brown made the U.K. central bank independent 10 years ago. It was one of his first acts as chancellor, and is credited for much of the healthiness of the U.K. economy today. Much as he likes to tinker, Brown has largely left the central bank to do its job without interference.
I've been told by many French diplomats and politicians that the reason France is so critical of the European Central Bank is because it doesn't have the same tradition of central bank independence as Germany. But neither does Britain. We set the bank free because politicians realised it was better leaving the job to professionals. France's state-centric tendencies makes it difficult for politicians to surrender control, but they would do well to consider it. Given the extent of economic ignorance in France, it is quite incredible they think they could do a better job.

Why is Bayrou still here?

Why is he still here? Bayrou is having a remarkable effect on the second round of the presidential election, despite as Sarkozy pointed out on France 2's A Vous de Juger last night, being a loser. Sure, his 6 million voters will decide the outcome of the second round. But a curious spectacle is set to take place tomorrow: a televised debate between Segolene and the man she defeated in the first round. Either she is making a fantastic gamble given her gap in opinion polls with Sarkozy (who is crowing that more people voted for him in the first round than for General de Gaulle in 1965). Or, as some in the Socialist party are mumbling, she is inflating Bayrou's importance in a desperate bid to woo his traditionally centre-right voters away from Sarkozy.
The problem is that the smell tends to linger when you hang out with losers, and by agreeing to a televised debate with Bayrou, Segolene may well have sullied her stature. The duel is to be held late Saturday morning on BFM television, a time and television station unlikely to attract vast amounts of viewers ahead of a long weekend. The impression is that Segolene has marginalized herself by putting her ideas on par with those of Bayrou. She is not projecting the image of a strong leader that French voters tend to lap up.
Still, Segolene's flirtation with Bayrou was immediate. While Socialist flunkies were insisting there would be no compromise Sunday evening, Le Point magazine reported she delayed her victory speech to the nation in a vain bid to reach him on the telephone. She publicly reached out to Bayrou on Monday, saying she was 'available' for a public dialogue with him during a rally in the eastern town of Valence. Meanwhile, Sarkozy dangled the carrot of ministerial positions to senior UDF figures who back him.
Bayrou's challenge is to suceed in making the most of his first round score and he isn't ready to back either contender and risk a backlash from his new electoral base. The suspense of his decision ensures he continues to exist.. He gave a press conference Wednesday, where he announced that both candidates had left messages on his mobile phone, but he'd been too busy to call them back. He poured scorn over Sarkozy, comparing him with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Sarkozy's cosiness with the media, and his 'taste for intimidation and threats,' aggravated by 'his temperament' makes him a megalomaniac, Bayrou said. Royal, on the other hand, is merely misguided 'perpetuating the illusion that the state can take care of everything.' Sarkozy is a danger to democracy, Segolene to the economy, he said.
With the June parliamentary elections in mind, Bayrou announced the creation of a new 'democrat' party. His bet is clearly to unite his current UDF party (whose 29 lawmakers in the outgoing 577-seat parliament owe their poisitions to no-competition deals with the UMP) with disgruntled members of the Socialists. The success of such a bid depends on a strong defeat of Royal in next Sunday's elections. Backing Sarkozy may have made more sense, but either Sarko ain't taking the bait, or there is something about Sarkozy that Bayrou can't stomach. Leaving him to debate common ground with the woman he needs to loose.

Ce soir ou jamais

A truly fabulous television show. Ce soir ou jamais by Frederic Taddei.
The subject:
The French Election seen from abroad.
Why it was fabulous?
I should perhaps been impressed by my illustrious fellow guests - which included Goncourt Prize Winner Tahar Ben Jelloun and popular Cuban writer Zoé Valdès. But, perhaps betraying my inner Anglo-Saxonne, it was the mise-en-scene rather than the quality of debate which excited me. Entering the studio felt like being granted acess to an exclusive club. White fringes hid a mirror-ball interior decorated by impossibly fashionable and skinny people lounging around drinking champagne out of white or black opaque glasses. They spent much of the debate speaking to each other, but their lack of interest didn't bother me too much. I was too busy marvelling the fact that they had come to a television show on which I was speaking. I would occasionally zone out of the serious debate to admire someone's outfit, which only once made my mind race to find something to say when Taddei posed me a question I wasn't expecting.
My press attache had instructed me to speak up as much as possible.
'Every time you do your name and your book appears on the screen,' she told me as we sneaked under the heavy curtain to get my make up done.
I was perhaps a little over-enthusiastic against the largely male guests who were largely bemoaning the lack of intellectualism in the presidential debate.
'The intellectuals are despairing' of Segolene, Ben Jelloun bemoaned.
'So what,' I cried. 'This is not the election of the president of the intellectuals. The next president of France will be elected by all of France and many people have really problems which quite naturally they want their next president to fix.'

I thought I'd done reasonably well, holding my own againt the intellectuals. But when I sought support from my fellow Anglo-Saxon Peter Gumbel, author of French Vertigo and a 'grand reporter' at Time magazine, it was lacking.
'Hello, I know your boss,' I said bouncily after the show had finished, referring to Time magazine's Paris and Brussels bureau chief. Bad start.
'He is not really my boss,' Gumbel said sniffily. 'I work pretty much independently and am now working on several projects.'
'Oh really,' I said. 'What?'
'Secret projects,' he said. 'Excuse me, I've just got to...' and then he high-tailed it away from me.

Friends assured me later that I didn't make too much of an idiot of myself.
'I was just so impressed to see one of my friends on Taddei's show that I can't really be objective,' said one. 'I was too busy looking at what you were wearing. But you looked natural. You were great!'

Fairness vs Egalite

Fairness versus Egalite: That's how Bill Wells, an expert from the UK Department of Work and Pensions, described the difference between the British and French social security systems. Diplomatic speak during a briefing at the British Embassy in Paris for how the egalite of the French system helps everyone, including a lot of people who don't need it. While the British system focuses help on those who need it most.
'From a UK perspective the French system seems to focus on quite a lot of groups of people who might not need their help,' he said. 'The balance seems towards the advantaged as opposed to the disadvantaged.'
In the English, er uhum, the British system (even civil servants slip up sometimes), he said 'there has been an increasing focus on the most disadvantaged people. There is always a roundabout of jobs. The government sees its role as standing next to the roundabout of jobs and helping people onto it.'
The biggest difference in employment rates between France and the UK is among young people, women, and old people - the most vulnerable groups of the workforce - who find it harder to get a job in France.
The way the welfare system is funded can also have an effect on employment, he said. France, like the U.S., is based on 'social insurance' levying payments from employers and employees. The U.K. funds its benefits from the general tax pool. The OECD says the social insurance model is damaging to employment, Wells said, adding casually that the UK has the highest employment rate of all G7 countries. Insurance payments are regressive, he said. Because they are set at a fixed percentage of income, they punch the biggest hole in the poorest people's pockets. 'This means that people don't go to look for work.'
In response to criticisms that the British employment figures are supported by an abundance of McJobs - low paid, unstable and part-time - Wells said that the British system doesn't make 'value judgements' on different types of jobs. Students, mothers with children, those nearing retirement age, may wish for a job that doesn't come with the restrictive constraints that come from a standard contract. One size doesn't fit all. And less regulation can even lead to better jobs.
'The rules regarding temporary work are the most liberal in the world, yet there is a low level of temporary work,' he said of the UK system. 'Restrictions on permanant work means employers divert their attention to temporary work.'
'We don't have a code de travail,' he said. 'We have employment legislation which you could probably put on one page.'
Still, young people get more help than in France. And they have more security. Villepin's proposed CPE contract 'was less restrictive than the UK system,' he said because the period you can be fired with no reason is longer.