From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Plus C'est la Même Chose
France's new prime minister offers more of the same. Is there hope in 2007?
JARNAC, France--Here in the birthplace of Francois Mitterrand, the late Socialist president who most assiduously pushed the idea of a political superstate under the umbrella of the European Union, a voter revolt has finally forced open a debate over the direction of that union and the role France's leaders have played in pushing it. More than 60% of voters in Mitterand's home region rejected the EU Constitution last month, a margin even greater than the 55% by which the rest of the country said non. Ivan Rioufol, a commentator in Le Figaro, is thrilled that "the people's revolt and their demand for 'true talk' are sweeping away the old political scene and its political correctness."
The French public may be demanding straight talk, but they shouldn't expect to get it from their leaders until the 2007 presidential election. President Jacques Chirac reacted to the rejection of his beloved European Constitution by appointing an old ally, career diplomat Dominique de Villepin, as his new prime minister.
Americans first heard of Mr. de Villepin in 2002 when he was Mr. Chirac's foreign minister and traveled to developing nations that served on the U.N. Security Council stirring up opposition to the U.S. position on the Iraq war. The New York Post famously depicted Mr. de Villepin and his German counterpart with the heads of weasels and a headline borrowed from blogger Scott Ott: "Axis of Weasels."
Now the haughty published poet and author of a laudatory biography of Napoleon has been charged by Mr. Chirac with reinvigorating confidence in France's economy and foreign policy in the aftermath of last month's sweeping repudiation of the European Constitution--and implicitly the country's aloof leadership--in a public referendum. Given France's key role in Europe, the success of his efforts will help determine how well Europe recovers from an economic slump and if relations with the U.S. will improve.
His opening speech to France's parliament was not auspicious. He said the country's renowned "Gallic genius" would rescue it from its present funk. He assured his audience that his government would not adopt free-market policies of the sort that have made America a robust economy, rescued Britain from two generations of decline, and brought unparalleled prosperity to countries as culturally different as South Korea and New Zealand. Mr. de Villepin comes from an antimarket tradition in France that has long worshipped the centrality of the state. His patron, Mr. Chirac, has even declared that "neoliberalism is the new communism" because it forces societies into a rigid straitjacket of economic policies that include lower taxes and less regulation.
Mr. de Villepin did acknowledge that France, which has suffered from double-digit unemployment for a decade, has to "look reality in the face." But then he declared he was "deeply attached to the French social model" and announced policies that are almost guaranteed to ensure that economic reality will slap France back--and hard. While he announced modest reductions in paperwork and other barriers to small businesses hiring more workers, the new prime minister decided to cancel planned income tax cuts that had been proposed to jumpstart the economy. The $6 billion or so in suspended tax cuts will instead be channeled into public-works jobs that will do nothing to help the long-term investment climate.
It is difficult for Americans to appreciate just how removed from the French people the nation's bureaucratic elite is. Its arrogance is mind-boggling. One of Mr. Chirac's ministers privately compared the public's repudiation of the EU Constitution to a self-indulgent temper tantrum. Listen to former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the prime architect of the now-rejected 448-article European Constitution, when he was asked to respond to complaints that voters would have trouble understanding the dense document: "The text is easily read and quite well phrased, which I can say all the more easily since I wrote it myself."
Jean Michel Fourgous, a parliamentary member of Mr. Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement, bemoans his party's refusal to adopt more transparent and consultative government. He told Time magazine that the country has "been hijacked by an intellectually brilliant elite that's dangerously ignorant about the economy." He notes that while the current government is made up largely of people who call themselves conservative, 80% of ministers have never worked at all in the private sector. The few who have "are tolerated, but shoved into subaltern posts."
Small wonder then that those who realize France must change are pinning their hopes on Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of Mr. Chirac's party and the new interior minister, who has announced he will leave office by the end of next year to explore a likely run for president. While he is no Ronald Reagan or even Tony Blair, Mr. Sarkozy cautions against an overly romantic attachment to France's current economic model. "The best social model is one that gives work to everyone," he told an audience recently. "That is no longer ours."
At least the glimmerings of a debate on the role of the state in France's economy and, yes, even some discussion of whether France should be in perpetual conflict with the United States, is beginning. Should Angela Merkel, the pro-U.S. leader of Germany's conservative opposition, win planned elections this fall, and should Mr. Sarkozy succeed Mr. Chirac in 2007, there is at least a chance that Europe will begin to address its problems straight on and even seek a better relationship with the U.S. All the evidence suggests the alternative is continued economic stagnation, which in and of itself breeds resentment and antipathy towards the U.S.
