Everything for France?

Everything for France?

August 24, 2016
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas SarkozyAlong with the launch of his bid to become French president for a second time, Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the publication of his new book called “ Everything for France”. It remains to be seen if this means that he plans to do everything for every Frenchman.

Sarkozy cut his political reputation when he was twice minister of interior under President Jacques Chirac. In the two years to 2004, he set out a visionary policy which included the creation of a Muslim council designed to represent the community’s interests to the government. He also deplored the lack of economic and social opportunity that created such unemployment and disaffection among Muslim youths. He presented himself as a politician dedicated to fixing the problem.

When he returned to the interior ministry after a year running the French finance portfolio, it was a very different Sarkozy when he was confronted by widespread rioting in the Paris suburbs caused by the death of two young Muslims. He called the protestors “rabble”, “hoodlums” and “gangsters” and authorized the police to crackdown hard. He later introduced tougher restrictions on Muslim immigrants and authorized tighter monitoring of the French Muslim community.

When he won the presidency in 2007, it was on a platform of radical reform to France’s labor market were workers enjoyed the world’s shortest working week and a feather-bedding welfare, health and pensions system that the country could simply no longer afford.

His problem was that hardly had he assumed office than the global financial system went into meltdown. With the French economy and banking system teetering on the brink of collapse, it was not the time to embark upon root and branch reforms.

France went into recession. Austerity is the friend of extremism and sure enough it boosted the standing of the National Front led by Marine Le Pen. Alarmed at the leeching of his center-right supporters to the Front, Sarkozy embarked upon a campaign to outflank the fascists, with Islamophobic policies on immigration and police surveillance. Probably his most deplorable racist act was to ban the wearing of head scarves in schools.

In 2012 when he sought, unsuccessfully, to be voted back for a second term, he realized that he had failed to counter the siren calls of the National Front bigots. Thus his campaign turned into a race to the political bottom in which where he did not actually embrace Le Pen’s Islamophobia, he did not come out and condemn it in clear and uncertain terms.

Pundits agree that Le Pen is likely to make it through to the second round of the presidential election. President Francois Hollande is widely thought to be political toast. France’s most unpopular post-war president is unlikely to make it to the final ballot, if indeed he chooses to stand again. If Sarkozy succeeds in being le Pen’s challenger, and it is still also a big if for him, it can be expected that he will not stint in his attempt to rob her of her racist political clothes.

Sarkozy, ever it seems the cynic, is not about to stand up for the Republic’s core values of Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood. Thus it must be wondered if his slogan “Everything for France” actually means that he will do absolutely anything and everything to get back into the Elysee Palace.


August 24, 2016
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