On Thursday 5 January, French president Nicolas Sarkozy participated in a televised debate to discuss his new rescue package for the French economy. The €1.4bn financial plan will be used to re-finance the country’s banks. The president also intends to invest in infrastructure and social projects. And in order to save France’s disappearing automobile industry, professional tax will be cut from 2010.
Since the financial crisis struck last year, France’s chief car manufacturers have hit an all-time production slump, with Renault, Citroën and Peugeot all closing factories, while outsourcing of manufacturing to poorer countries such as Romania and the Czech Republic has led to a significant rise in unemployment. Sarkozy hopes that the removal of corporation tax will remedy this problem.
Watching the debate, one got the impression that this was a man feeling the pressure. On the eve of the formation of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA), the French president seemed acutely aware of the growing opposition from the resurgent left.
Yet in spite of the democratic appearance of such a public debate with the president, his interrogation by three regular French newsreaders was far from rigorous. The general strike which has brought Guadeloupe (a French department in the Caribbean) to a standstill over the past few weeks was not even broached, and what about his famous ‘plan banlieu’, the ambitious development proposal for France’s troubled suburbs? Nothing.
The only independent journalist who was allowed to question Sarkozy was the conservative Alain Duhamel, who has recently written a book called La Marche Consulaire (The Consular March) comparing Sarkozy to Napoleon and the current financial crisis to the aftermath of the battle of Waterloo!
When it came to the question of Europe, Sarkozy referred to Ireland twice. However, this time there was no mention of the ‘no’ vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Instead, Ireland was mentioned as one of the worst cases of the financial capitalist catastrophe! Needless to say, the United Kingdom was also criticised for its role in the sub-prime mortgage scandal.
It would be easy to forget, considering the ebullience of Sarkozy’s recent anti-capitalist rhetoric, that this was the man who proposed to introduce the so-called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model into French society during his 2007 election campaign. His slogan then was ‘travailler plus pour gagner plus’ (work more to earn more). The 35-hour limit on the working week was to be reformed so that people could be encouraged to work themselves to death!
One of the most interesting developments in French politics since the financial crisis is that both left and right (at least in France) seem to agree that capitalism as we know it is finished. However, the difference is that Sarkozy and the right want to rebuild capitalism with more secure foundations, whereas the French left – and here one can exclude the Parti Socialiste, as they abandoned socialism long ago – wants to see an end to the so-called ‘free market’.
The French president has a rather idiosyncratic way of speaking. He frequently follows a statement with the question ‘Pourquoi?’ (Why?) before proceeding to hammer home the answer. He also makes extensive use of repetition. These rhetorical devices have not gone unnoticed by Olivier Besancenot, the leader of the aforementioned NPA. Speaking on France Inter radio last week he said: “[Sarkozy] wants us to learn his policies off by heart, in spite of the fact that there is a considerable number of people in this country who know what they are and do not want them!” Besancenot is right. According to a recent survey, only 37 per cent of the French population are happy with the performance of the French president, with over 60 per cent expressing serious discontent.
Sarkozy showed remarkable dexterity in answering a range of highly predictable questions with platitudes and rhetorical flourishes. But the real debate is heating up outside the Elysée Palace, and as the general strike on the 29 January showed, French workers are becoming increasingly hostile to a Sarkozy relaunch of a bankrupt system.
metrogael.blogspot.com / gaelmetro@yahoo.ie
