Paris Calling

One year in

Is Jacques Chirac owed an apology?

As we all know, Nicolas Sarkozy triumphed to power a year ago by promising a break with the past, that oft-cited rupture. His presidency would be a glowing series of courageous reforms, turning to new pages and a celebration of new faces.

For the first few months, it indeed seemed the case, but as many of have noted, that all turned sour, with the emergence of Sarkozy the everyday man, a character  manifestly incapable of portraying both dynamism and the consistency of power as the French are used to  it. Sarkozy is too unstable a man which makes him too inconsistent a leader (no follow through, you could more simply complain).

And so what?

That's where Chirac comes in. Sarkozy's predecessor was President of the Republic for twelve long years and during that time, as Sarkozy himself tells us ad infinitum, nothing happened. Chirac became an almost spectral presence, letting his ministers handle the everyday implementation of power, while he rarely came beyond his Elysee windows and only to make brief and passing pronouncements.

But it didn't really matter. France continued, carried along on the one hand by globalisation and Europe, and on the other by the modern citizen's increasing ability to lead a life without politics (unless it it becomes particularly moving or entertaining).

Under these terms Chirac presided, bearing witness to the fact that power and consequence was manufactured elsewhere, in a mysterious continuum  uniting Brussells, Davos, military patrols in Sadr city or Afghanistan and France's comfortably numbing retreat into a globalist consumerism.

Eyeing Chirac from below the pedestal, Sarkozy failed to appreciate this historical powerlessness. He couldn't fathom that Chirac's effacement was not in fact a failure, but an actual reflection of what the job offered, what being President of France, as lived, actually meant.

So he chose to remedy an ailment that has no a cure, exploding into late 2007  with his barrage of announcements, promises, challenges and affronts. Sarkozy wasn't Chirac, he was on the move, making things happen.

But, for what?  What Chirac came to realize in his tenure is that France's Presidency is about silence and bearing witness. It is about having nothing to do, about just watching where the chips actually fall and claiming them , if you want (but dishonestly), as your own.

Sarkozy hates silence, he hates an empty table with no one to see him, engage him. In that case, he must hate being the president, because when it actually matters, when things are actually important, he must sit there silently and watch that infamous abyss stare back at him.  Here, action, almost always, ends as a mistake.

And Chirac, all along, could have told him that.

Philippe Ridet's "President and Me"

Philippe Ridet of Le Monde has followed Nicolas Sarkozy for years and now he's written a book about it.

Le President et moi seems a confession, if a reluctant one. As one of the most influential journalists in France (front page Ridet stories handedly helped legitimize the rising Sarkozy in the eyes of France's elite) there is a clear sense when you finish reading, that now, with Sarkozy safely ensconced in his Elysee Palace, the journalists who unwittingly helped him get there have been left behind; forgotten Falstaffs to a Prince Hal who's moved on.

This isn't to say Ridet was co-opted. But anecdote after anecdote confirms that Ridet, like so many others, couldn't help being charmed during Sarkozy's long, single-minded ascent to the Presidency. But now, with Sarkozy warm and remarried inside, journalists like Ridet  continue to sit on the bleachers outside, forgotten and, insult over injury, widely accused of corruption by the "ayatollah's of the blogosphere", as Ridet bitterly calls critics of France's mainstream political journalists.

In a chat plugging the book with l'Express, Ridet reiterates his cool bitterness: Sarkozy's worst enemy is himself, he writes; all proximity and tutoiment is now for naught since phone calls are neither made nor returned ("using the tu with Sarkozy today is as useful as finding franc coins in an old coat").

The implications are a little too great to say that old hand journalists like Ridet feel betrayed, but I think in some ways they do, and maybe that's become a handicap to Sarkozy as he tries to move his struggling presidency along. From Sarkozy's shining light, Ridet and the others are slowly getting used to the cold and   covering Sarkozy without Sarkozy working his magic in the background - a journalism closer to what at least some of the "ayatollahs"  had in mind?

[In the Express chat, Ridet chides Airy Routier of the Nouvel Obs for clumsily passing along the Cecilia SMS scoop ("If you come back I cancel everything")by calling it "playing with matches". I've thought all along that the story was sourced from Cecilia's camp  or Cecilia herself. With the match metaphor, I infer that Ridet does too.]

Sarkozy faces party civil war over GMO's

A few months ago Sarkozy gave one his great Presidential conferences, the Grenelle de l'environment. In it, he announced a long series of measures to save the environment and even stave off global warming. It was all quite left-wing.

One promise, one remembered by most, was a commitment to impose a moratorium on genetically engineered crops in France. (The topic is a bete-noir for the French,  a dazzling intersection of environmentalism, pastoralism and good ol' anti-americanism!).

At the time, it all seemed so ambitious and grandiose, but should have been merely suspect. Sarko was introducing these decrees, promising tham as laws, but the French National Assembly had yet to have its say, the agricultural lobbies had not had their moment. It was disingenuous for anyone, especially we journalists, to begin even parsing the Sarko-show that evening, because like with all his Sarko-shows, real politics had yet to weigh in.

And yesterday, it did. Not surprisingly, Sarko's UMP is up-in-arms about the GMO moratorium and probably expected Sarkozy would find a quiet moment of his own to drown it in the Seine. He still hasn't. Last night, sensing a chance to embarrass the right with only a handful of UMP members present in the hemicycle, the opposition introduced and passed an unambiguous anti-GMO law. No small feat when the left faces an absolute majority.

Facing the bitter embarrassment of the right-wing parliamentarians, Sarkozy's latest favorite, junior environment minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, pointed  at Jean-Francois Copé, nominal head of the parliamentary UMP, and Jean-Louis Borloo, her boss and number two of government. An army of cowards, she said, for delaying delivery of Sarko's Grenelle promises. Copé for one, was quick to lash back (and she's since apologized).

But the guilty one is Sarkozy obviously, and we journalists to a lesser degree. Do the simple arithmetic, and it's  clear that the Grenelle de l'environment was all smoke (with a keynote speech by Al Gore as mirror!).  Sarkozy and his coterie still thought themselves on the campaign trail, where promises are fulfilled in some abstract future. Last night, in the French National Assembly, the Left offered a rare wake-up call, showing the  real chasm between many President Sarkozy announcements and the political reality he is stuck with.

This was all perfectly predictable all those months ago. Hope we remember it at the next Sarko-show.

No more fear on the Rue de Tangiers?

When I first arrived back to France in January 2005, police had just arrested a "terror cell" of youngsters dead-set on doing jihad in Iraq. The men were talked into volunteering by a young preacher, Farid Benyettou, who worked out of the mosque on Rue de Tanger in the 19th Arrondissement. This, the political set claimed at the time, was the beginning of a vicious wave that would connect mayem in the Sunni Triangle to the streets of bourgeois Europe.

Not long after, I found myself passing metro Stalingrad on a bike ride and noticed the street and for about a kilometer, until I passed Barbes onto the safe shores of Montmartre, I was in fear, pedaling at a brisk pace, unsettled by the North African men who, who knows, may have wanted to get their hands on a crusading yank.

Oh fear! Three years of post 9/11 New York had done a number on even wise ol' me.

But time passes. For now, and isn't this how life works, I live a block away from Rue de Tanger and its mosque; thinking of buying a place in the neighborhood too. And perhaps I will: as the trial wraps up for these jihadists manqués (though two of the seven on trial did make it to Iraq), The New York Times says my fear of jihad that afternoon may have been just a tad overblown.

More French in Afghanistan: Is Sarkozy THAT smart?

Sarkozy is sending a few hundred more troop to Afgahanistan to fight evil-doers. Charles Bremner calls it a fumble. Who am I to argue?

But I swear to eat my shoe if Sarkozy turns his whole AngloSaxon lovefest, into a viable pan-European defense policy that has legs and that stems from France's inching closer to the center of NATO. 

Now that would be the coup of the  new century. Send the troops to Kandahar I say!

Shoe drops in Chad

Bakchich.info seems to think that the pardoning of the six members of Zoe's Ark is being very carefully choreographed, mostly to avoid any semblance of quid pro quo between presidents Sarkozy and Deby.

Seems that General Noury, a figure of the Chadian rebellion, is planning a major invasion, this time avoiding the capital N'Djamena. With the six zozos out of jail, Deby probably hopes he can cash-in another chip with Sarko.

Wonder what Bourgi has to say about all this.

Meanwhile, the zozos are most likely ready for their close-up having been silenced since their return to France late last year. Stay tuned to French television to see how loopy these krazy kids end up really being.

And if you happen to see 10,000 rebels in your rear-view mirror while driving West from the Darfur, pull over, wave them through and call the Elysees Palace.

Is Sarkozy Anti-French?

It is well known that Nicolas Sarkozy's disintegration in the polls was caused primarily by his personal life. Its patent instability finally chipped at his president persona and he's been in the survey dumps ever since.

Another element has to be the effet d'annonce;  about six months into his presidency, the French caught onto the fact that an announcement, no matter how heartfelt and dramatic, is just an announcement. What matters is the substance that comes after; and in Sarkoworld, there is far too little of that.

The trip to England changes nothing on that score. While a poll bump is a likely  reward for donning the sash and being "worthy of the post" as tongue-waggers here insist is de rigeur,  one can wonder what substance will  come of all the pomp and circumstance? What will grow from Queen Elizabeth's 96th state dinner at Windsor?

Probably nothing except, eventually, more distance between the President and his peuple. Because what's slowly coming across from the UK visit is subtle confirmation that  somewhere in that elaborate mind of his, Sarkozy loathes France, its continentalism,its prejudices. If only France, Sarkozy dreams, could cut its own ties, its own history and subsume itself into the Anglo Saxons'; a history where history itself is forgotten, or so he assumes.

Indeed, we can call Sarkozy  a neo-conservative in the sense that he sees Western, Anglo-saxon civilization as the summit of human history, and the Others (call them socialist, muslim, Corsican or French) as fodder for condescension where  respect comes in exceptions. (In this light, Sarkozy prefers Israel to Arabs because Israelis are culturally Anglo-saxon. Indeed - to Sarkozy no doubt - Israel is part of Europe, because, yes, close to America).

Obviously, this love for Anglo-Americana, is a part of his complex character, and gets contradicted elsewhere.

But there is a consistent line. From his giddiness on the trips to the US and the UK, to his despondency while on the road in North Africa, Brussels, or France,  the  psychology of these political outings tells us everything about the map of his mind, if little about the substance of his presidency. And the French, feeling rejected (a rejection Cecilia told us Sarko's own children feel), are reacting.

Two thoughts on Carla B.

The trip seems to have been a success. Beyond the com, cynical newsroomers seemed focused on two things.

1. She's pregnant. The Dior Jackie-O frock didn't adequately hide the bump.

2. She's barking (as the English say).

God save the President

It's a childhood dream maybe, an accomplishment of  a life clawing  to the top: Nicolas Sarkozy goes to England to meet the queen. Mother is not  in tow -too ill they say- but Carla Bruni is there, her mother too.

Charles Bremner tells us this is the centerpiece of a new drive to give a more stately image to the Sarkozy presidency. But the shrinks, quoted here in Le Monde, aren't convinced he can hold it together.

After the happiest day there ever was in NY (see photo), can Nicolas just move on already? Tough call.

Villepin fires... reloads... fires again....

I'm not sure where the man spent his summer vacation, but by the looks of it, it might well have been at an Al Qaedq camp near Kandahar because Dominique de Villepin is one fearless crusader right now.

Last we checked, Villepin was on his way to jail. With prosecutors preparing charges against him in the Clearstream affair, Sarkozy had beat his longtime rival once and for all.

But no. Villepin, this whole time has been writing another book on Napoleon: "The Dark Sun of Power". And since it's "la rentree litteraire" it's time to publicize the damn thing, and Villepin is doing the radio rounds and at each stop he skewers the Sarkozy presidency like the Socialists can only dream of doing.

"I'm worried that the president is surrounded by flatterers," he said on France Inter. "I suggest everyone read and rerread the Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Moliere," he suggested, (insinuating that the new President is delusional and vulnerable to yes-men - if my third grade memory of the play serves me correctly).

"With no effective opposition in France these days, I'm only doing what Sarkozy always did in the Chirac era," he says. (Ouch!)

Does Villepin know his goose is cooked and whistling his way to oblivion? Whatever the case, bring on the crazy I say.