OPENING and CIVILIZATION

Since his election Nicolas Sarkozy upsets the style and the rhythm of public action leaving the Frenchmen perplexed. The process is too fast or too slow for some, ineffective for others because it is no more than a simple announcement.

 It is difficult to definitely judge a method which has hardly begun, because years of pervading conservatism subdued the reforming will of our fellow countrymen. Even if he admitted that he “had perhaps made some mistakes”  Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to continue because what he is undertaking will require more than 5 years. Nevertheless, if he assesses his Ministers every month, he will be judged by the Frenchmen in 2012.

Within 7 months, essential reforms have either been voted, or are well underway : autonomy of universities, minimum service in public transport, tax exemption on overtime, fiscal protection, inflexible prison sentences, medical franchise, merger between ANPE and Unédic, judicial cards, general revision of the public policies, the immigration law and measures concerning the purchasing power. He knows that France is not a simple country to reform. That is why he combines determination and respect for social dialogue, which leads to less audacious reforms, even if they are fundamentally less radical.

The modernization of universities implies their autonomy and 15 billion euros over 5 years. This entails transferring the patrimonial, budgetary and wage competence to universities, softening their rules of management and their opening to the world of companies. Despite the students counter reaction, the impulse has been given. The resistance against giving access to companies on the campus, the persisting taboo regarding the selection and the massification of higher education result in producing unemployed and hinder all possible progress. The omnipresent globalization will make no concession to the students who refuse to live in step with their century. The mission of the public authorities is precisely to create the conditions of a new situation.

The reform of the judicial card, the possibility of divorcing by mutual agreement without a court judgement, represent facilities for the citizen but they clash with the corporatism of the magistrates and the lawyers … After the strikes of last November, the railway employees have been obliged to abandon the special regimes, compensated by expensive measures spread over roughly ten years. At last something has moved – the trade unions have finally given way. Wouldn’t it be wise to take advantage of the trade unions good disposition to negotiate and establish a true minimum service in public transport ?

For 2008 the program continues by the reforms announced on the labour market, the trade-union representation, vocational training, pensions, hospitals … However the second stage will handle what the President calls " a civilization policy  " that he assimilates to the “new Renaissance”. He wants to rebuild the city and the school of the 21st century, to restore to the Frenchmen the taste of adventure and risk and moralize financial capitalism.
Indeed a vast program …

The opening to left-wing candidates should be spread to the municipal elections. On the other hand, the breach is especially visible in the style of presidency embodied by Nicolas Sarkozy, rather than at the level of the economic and social field where he has succeeded in establishing a dialogue with his interlocutors. His very personal management and his will to push aside political cleavages leads him there where he is not expected.

On an international scale he surprised everybody by asserting his friendship with the United States and by warmly congratulating Vladimir Poutin's electoral victory. The treaty of Lisbon (only apparently simplified) that he defended, will be put for approval to the National Parliaments that are more predictable than public referendums. This method upsets the image of our European commitment because it does not bring the answers to the fundamental reasons of the sanction vote in 2005. However, Europe will then be able to work with 27 member states and influence the evolution of the world to benefit from globalization instead of undergoing it. But basically, the treaty will only take on its full value if there is a true European will.

The project of Mediterranean Union is a beautiful, but a rather hazy idea. Can we concretize a long-term project with the unpredictable Mouammar Kadhafi, with Algeria perturbed by attempts, with Turkey’s European dreams or the Middle East seething with unrest? It seems impossible today. We can dream because this project would replace our region and France in the dissonant Mediterranean concert. 

The municipal elections that will take place within 2 months are most usually precarious for the party of the Government which has 3 trump cards : a promising assessment concerning Sarkozy, the Socialist party is still convalescent, and the opening. What will be the impact of the opening cherished by the President and about which Georges Pompidou said that "we only provoke drafts, we prepare its own eviction" (1) ? We shall have the opportunity to verify this in Marseille where 2 leading personalities are in confrontation. On the one hand, Jean-Claude Gaudin, the present mayor, vice-president of the UMP party, who has been joined by Philippe Sanmarco, ex-dauphin of Gaston Defferre. On the other hand, his opponent Jean-Noël Guérini, the irremovable president of the County council. He is widely supported by the opposition and has been joined by François Franceschi ex-RPF and former UMP national secretary.
For 2008, we hope that the opening or even the breach will offer the Frenchman what they are missing, for the good of everyone.

 

(1) “C’était Georges Pompidou” by Alain Frerejean – published by Fayard.