FrancePolitic

Please excuse the appearance of this blog over the next few days - I am reorganising the structure gradually.  It’s a slow process and there may be some odd results and jumbled text for the next 72 hours whilst the work is under way.  After that, a new revamped blog will be at your disposal.  Veuillez nous excuser pour la gêne occasionnée!

The dust has settled and life has got back to normal after the public transport strikes that brought strife to France’s commuters for two weeks.  Lucky Christmas shoppers have gone about their business and the threatened wildcat strikes never really materialised.  Minor ripples have continued within the civil service, with a poorly followed strike that attempted to take advantage of the publicity generated by RATP and SNCF workers on picket lines, and even lawyers and court staff used the moment too, but slowly, everyone has got back to work.  So was it worth it and who won (if anyone?). Read more »

“Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife is a complicated woman.  Complicated and challenging because she has made little or no effort to explain herself to the media.  Suspicious of this apparent lack of interest in creating and maintaining a public image, the media has reacted in a typically spiteful way by slating her fashion choices, criticising her timetable (shopping instead of state funerals and the like) and eager for the taste of blood in front of a future parliamentary enquiry.

We shall not concern ourselves with fashion tips here (Lord knows I am not the person to give them).  What of the wider constitutional question - what exactly is Cécilia Sarkozy for?  And what risks does she pose for the President politically?”

These words have been sitting in my inbox in draft for a couple of week now.  But they have been superseded by events, because, as the world now knows, Nicolas and Cecilia Sarkozy have divorced.  What now for the future of the French institution of the First Couple? Read more »

France was brought to a standstill this week as all eight transport unions agreed to a 24 hour stoppage that started at 8pm on Wednesday night. It had workers scurrying home early on Wednesday night and walking to work on Thursday (transport hell was largely avoided because there were simply no trains. Some unions continued the strike until Friday, and even the following week the transport network in some towns was disrupted.

The national unions had somewhat relished this opportunity to demonstrate their mite. Last time France had a new President in 1995, who incidentally had proposed a new range of daring social measures, it was Jacques Chirac. The unions squared off with his government, led by left-wing hate figure Alain Juppe and brought the country to a standstill for almost the whole summer of 1996. Juppe’s government collapsed and the bitterness only ended with the election of a left wing majority in the National Assembly and the start of five years in power for Lionel Jospin and the Socialists.

This time around things are a little different, for both the President and the public have changed substantially. Read more »

Fadela Amara is angry.  The long-time Socialist supporter (if never an actual party cadre herself) has reacted somewhat violently against statements made by her boss and his friends.

Lets retrace our steps to discover how the super-smooth government of President Sarkozy managed to create a political controversy from nowhere in the midst of their most important piece of legislation. Read more »

Lionel Jospin, the longest serving Prime Minister in French post-war history (1997-2002) was for almost a decade the undisputed leader of the French left and twice a Presidential candidate on behalf of the Socialist Party.  Now he is a man in search of a future, and last week he published his epilogue. Read more »

Struggling to get media face time in the era of President Sarkozy, who demonstrated his hyperactive nature by combining visits to foreign leaders and state funerals with his recent vacation this summer, and who has maintained his omnipresence since the beginning of the week when, despite the rest of the country still slumbering away on holiday, the government was instructed to get back to Paris and back to work.

Since returning from his vacation just over three weeks ago, the President has solved an international conflict involving a wayward foreign ship, called various meetings to find a way around a Constitutional Council censure of an element of his tax plan and decided to build a secure hospital for paedophiles in the city of Lyons whilst evaluating the treatment of child sex offenders. Rarely has the evening news been able to mention an article without referring to the President and what he has done.

Aside from the despair that may be likely to set in amongst certain Ministers, the opposition, official and otherwise, seems lost beyond hope. Read more »