Round 2: Sarko vs. Ségo

By Scott Horton

Saturday morning I spent several hours at Charles de Gaulle Airport working my way through all the pre-election issues of the major French dailies, and last night I watched the returns trickle in on French television. The French commentators were pretty uniform in hoping for a classic left—right face down. It looks like they are getting their wish, and when the fight resumes on May 6, Sarkozy has to be ranked a favorite, but if Royal can manage a deal with François Bayrou (the centrist third-place finisher), she'll have a decent crack at it. A few observations.

1. It's amazing that foreign affairs plays so little role in the debate in France; hardly a mention. Several reasons for this, I think. First, France no longer plays the obvious leadership role within Europe it once did. Second, France has opted out of the US-led global war on terror, while generally having attitudes and interests that are closer to those of the United States than any other European nation.
2. Instead there seems to be broad agreement on a series of issues, namely the 35-hour-workweek is a disaster; the nation's social spending is out of control; and the population of the “banlieu”—namely the lower-class suburban ring around Paris—isn't happy or properly integrated into French society.
3. The French politicos love to talk about the “Anglo-Saxons” (it's a term of derision, by the way) and their economically driven attitude towards the world. The next French president, whether Sarkozy or Royal, will have a statist approach to governance - and will acknowledge that this approach has contributed to France's problems for the last couple of decades.
4. Sarkozy is in appearance and language rather like Rudy Giuliani—the no nonsense, law and order candidate who confidently believes that those who are doing well have earned it. Jean-Marie LePen did quite poorly in this race, pulling fewer votes than the pre-election polls suggested—one reason for this is clearly that Sarkozy is peddling a somewhat softer and more civil brand of the same message. Sarkozy will have no problem attracting the LePen vote, but this won't put him over the top. He will have to tack towards the center.
5. A lot of the French dailies (Le Monde and Libération, for instance) portray the candidates as less ideological, more pragmatic and more in agreement than prior left-right contests in France. In a French context, that's so. But frankly I have troubles seeing either Sarkozy or Royal dealing effectively with the immense economic and social problems they face. The French will take to the streets in protest and shut things down, and block any reform.

All of that is reason to be pessimistic about France's prospects. The more it changes, the more it's the same thing.