Transatlantic Politics

The 5th Republic has a new leader: Nicolas Sarkozy. Voted by an overwhelming majority, during Sunday elections, Sarko is now the heading the destiny of France, with 53,06% of the total votes. And he’s about to do it the RIGHT way. Last night, during the popular rally in the Place de la Concorde, he declared: “I will grant everyone equal chance. But they should be worth having it, by working hard”. The main newspapers of the Hexagon commented thoroughly today the implications of Sarkosy’s coming to power in such a particular country as France. Jean d’Ormesson, a distinguished French writer, also member of the Académie Française, dedicated an entire page in Le Figaro, to Sarkozy’s profile:

“What is he actually doing? He reinstates the lost dignity of the right. Ever since Vichy, the right has been the living image of the unhappy conscience. It creeps in the shadows, it hides and it is ashamed of itself and of what it stands for. The brilliance is left, the good conscience is left. An icon of a Socialism that has not fathered him, but that he nevertheless represents, Mitterand has ended up in pursuing, in all impunity, right spanning policies: well, he could do it because he was a leftist. Voted by the right, Chirac was constrained to embark upon policies rather of a radical-socialist origin than Gaullist approaches. Sarkozy is explicitly on the right, in a healthy and provocative way”

Many experts and commentators have insisted on the very technical aspect of the campaign. And some, as is the case of Claude Karnoouh, in an interview he gave me yesterday, has even called this race “the race of two future prime-ministers, and not presidents”. That is because traditionally, in France, the president establishes the general framework of foreign policy and is the Commander in Chief of the French Army. Yet, both Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy have insisted on domestic issues, as the welfare system, the reforms, the economy, the work period in one week (35 hours). Sarkozy was regarded as the one who has more concrete solutions for France’s problems, while Segolene was granted the label of the supporter for distributive democracy.

As Sarkozy addressed the crowds last night, he was surrounded by his antourage, by his family. One of them is particularly important. It’s François Fillon, Sarkozy’s main political advisor who is highly regarded as de Villepin’s successor at Matignon Palace, as future prime minister of France. Quoted by Le Figaro today, while he answered a question for the French TV channel TF1, he declared that the future government “will personify the openness”.After 10 days of relaxation in the Greek Islands, Sarkosy will be sworn in on the 16th of May. Legislative elections wil take place on the 10th and on the 17th of June, and UMP is expected to take the lead, followed closely by PS and the UFD, on the third position (as showed by today’s Le Figaro estimates). Le Parisien notes that in New York Sarkozy already has been nicknamed “The American” (page 13, printed edition). George W. Bush and Angela Merkel passed their greetings last night to the newly elected French President.

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