On learning that Sarkozy has recently hired a young computer geek to track what's being said about him on the World Wide Web, I decided to post this old opinion piece that I wrote in his honour.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy first came to national attention in 1993 when a suicidal psychotic strapped with explosives, calling himself HB, the Human Bomb, walked into a busy nursery school in the suburbs of Paris and demanded 100 million French francs or he would blow up the school. The then mayor of Neuilly, a 39-year-old Sarkozy, placed himself in the position of eminent peril by walking into the room to negotiate with the bomber face to face. After a 46-hour ordeal, in which all the hostages were freed and the bomber was finally shot dead by police, Sarkozy emerged a national hero. Police who witnessed the negotiations talked of his incredible audacity in the face of danger. As the recently released movie of the incident shows, he was quite literally shouting at the Human Bomb demanding to know how he was going to carry all that money, challenging the finer points of HB's plan. Something many of us would consider perhaps a little ill-advised given the circumstances.
Anyway, 14 years later, the hero became president. It could hardly have been scripted better. But, aside from his courage and presence of mind, what can we learn about Sarkozy from his first potentially deadly steps into the media limelight? Without wanting to rain on his parade, couldn't it have so easily have gone wrong? Might it not have been the story of the Human Bomb, the exploded school and the foolish mayor that should have waited for the police experts to arrive?
One can only speculate about what effect the incident had on Sarkozy's personal development. Suffice to say, the president could be forgiven for thinking that his rise to power was a matter of providence–a dangerous illusion likely to accentuate the riskier side of his nature.
‘Surrender monkeys’
In this, the fourth month of Sarkozy's presidency, many of us outside of France are still bemused as to why this apparently pro-EU, Atlanticist could possibly be so popular with the French electorate. What happened to those "no-show cheese-eating surrender monkeys" that many of us know and love? The kind that three years ago gave a firm"non" to the invasion of Iraq, and had a UN veto and knew how to use it? Their penchant for the "non" was evident again in the 2005 referendum when they voted resolutely against the EU constitution. So how is it now, that the French are so eager to embrace change and leave behind "Old Europe"? For a revolutionary change in their domestic and foreign policy is what they voted for when they ticked the Sarkozy box on the voting ballot.
I, for one, was rather fond of the idea of the stubborn, "Old European" France that squatted arrogantly in the middle of Europe, raising an impertinent middle finger to those imperial powers across the pond. I like their humane working conditions: the maximum 35 hour week, the statutory five weeks' holiday a year, the early retirement and highly favourable pensions for state workers. I can even admit to a certain shadenfreude when the French unions manage to bring Paris to a halt, as they did in the great strike of 1995. I know we are all supposed to live in fear of another Winter of Discontent, but it warms my heart to see such workers' solidarity, all the songs and marching along the Champs-Élysées–scenes sadly lacking in British life since Margaret Thatcher's 1984 battle with the miners.
The Shröder example
In fact, rather like Thatcher in her endeavours to change Britain,Sarkozy is hell bent on "modernising" France, dragging it kicking and screaming into the new globalised century.But is France really "kicking and screaming" you may ask: "Sarkozy did get 53% of the votes. The French clearly want change." Admittedly, he won with a mandate for change, but it would be foolish to think the French unions will go down without a fight. Ultimately, Thatcher was victorious in defeating the British union movement, and joined Reagan, as one of the great Western reformers of the last century.But perhaps more pertinent to the Sarkozy case is the example of Germany's Gerhart Shröder, who decimated his popularity and, subsequently, lost a general election, by trying to implement similar social reforms to those Sarkozy has planned for France.
Now Sarkozy is preparing to take on 1.1 million retirees covered by "special retirement regimes,"created for workers in dangerous jobs (police officers,miners and train drivers) with the aim of reducing their pensions.This will be his "Miners'Strike." But unlike Thatcher, who planned her assault years in advance, Sarkozy,one fears,is underestimating his opposition, and taking the kind of risks that might easily blow up in his face.
