Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

French teachers strike again

We're enduring another day of the old French civil war today. About 45 percent of the country's 800,000 state school teachers have gone on strike, along with a smaller proportion of the five million civil service. Tens of thousands of high-school pupils are out marching with them [picture is from Nantes this afternoon].

This means that millions of parents have once again been forced to find someone to take care of their kids so they can go to work. Town councils allied to the government are offering basic supervision at schools but the majority with leftwing mayors -- including Paris -- are refusing to do so. Providing this minimum service amounts to strike-breaking, they say.

The cause of the "mobilisation", as the strikers and media call the stoppage, is the noble one of defending public service. President Sarkozy is accused of dismantling France's cherished services with cuts to teaching staff and civil service posts. Schools are to lose 11,000 teaching posts in the autumn. One in three civil servants is not being replaced on retirement from this year.

The classic battle lines have been drawn up. From the moral high ground, the left applauds resistance to the destruction of the national heritage and depicts its opponents as stooges of a brutal rightwing Government. Those on the other side, branded "rightwing" by the left, lament the obstructive, conservative reflexes of the state functionaries.

France elected Super Sarko to perform a radical cure a year ago, but on days like this you get the impression that nothing has changed.

Chatting up the revolution, French style

 

We saw the other day that the French Socialists, the main opposition party, are giving up their hope for revolution. But don't throw away the red flag yet. The past couple of days have seen the consecration of a new hero who has won millions of fans with his struggle to overthrow capitalism.

The star of the moment is Olivier Besancenot, the baby-faced Trotskyite who scored over four percent of the vote in last year's presidential election. Besancenot, 34, who works as a postman in the rich suburb of Neuilly, has made news with an appearance on French television's most consensual talk show, Vivement Dimanche. This is a Sunday ritual in which Michel Drucker, the dean of celebrity interviewers, sketches the life of his guest with soft questions and the help of musicians and friends of the subject. The media fuss was prompted by the supposed incongruity of the cosy talk host inviting a fire-breathing Trotskyite onto his red sofa for the ritual three-hour chat [video below]. 

In reality, there was nothing surprising. As we have noted here before, Besancenot is quite a standard French product: the loveable revolutionary. He was not even the first popular Trotskyite to be invited by Drucker. Arlette Laguiller, his grandmotherly rival, made it onto the show a decade ago. 

France enjoys the lazy, hazy days of May.

It feels like an August weekend in Paris today. The sun is blazing, as it has for the past week. The streets are largely empty except for tourists. Much of France is enjoying a fifth successive day off work.

President Sarkozy may preach the doctrine of "working more to earn more", but his country has seized the chance to enjoy what the headline in le Parisien newspaper called "Five days of happiness".  The long spring break has been made possible by the lucky timing of two public holidays for the nation that already enjoys more vacation days than any other. Last Thursday, May 8, was the holiday marking victory in World War Two and today is Pentecost (Whitsun in Britain). Friday was supposed to be a working day but schools in the Paris area and many other regions stayed shut  -- so people took the day off, enjoying what is known as le pont, or bridge.

Many even managed nearly 10 days because there was another unofficial pont on Friday May 2, after the May Day holiday fell on a Thursday. Half of France either took that Friday or last Friday or both, according to a poll.

Hope for Sarkozy in Year Two

A year ago tomorrow France elected Nicolas Sarkozy as the sixth president of its modern republic. No-one is in the mood for celebration given that Super Sarko the would-be saviour is now wallowing in lower public esteem than any of his five predecessors.

We know what went wrong and we've seen Sarko's attempt to make amends on TV 10 days ago but it's worth noting that things are not as bleak as they seem.

It's easy to make the prosecution case over the crash of the reformer who promised une rupture with France's stagnant society. The left-leaning media are full of it today, led by Libération with the front page above. All hubris and narcissism, Sarko betrayed the trust of France from the day of his election, writes Laurent Joffrin, Libé's Editor and bête-noire of the president. "As promised la rupture took place: it was une rupture with the French people."

Le Monde has devoted a whole supplement this afternoon to France's "disenchantment" with its "impossible president". "After arriving in the Elysée palace with more trump cards than most of his predecessors, the head of state wasted them with as much energy as he had spent winning them," it says.

Sarkozy certainly committed glaring errors -- mainly with his gaudy, self-indulgent style and the soap opera of his private life.

Modesty, mistakes... the new Sarkozy

Humble is not a word that we usually apply to Nicolas Sarkozy. Yet the adjective is doing the rounds today after the President delivered a long and fairly successful defence of his bumpy first year.

The occasion was one of those modern French rituals founded by the late Charles de Gaulle in the late 1950s. The monarch summons cameras to the palace and hogs the main television and radio networks at a time when his subjects are usually enjoying lighter fare. 

France wanted to know, via five TV interviewers in the Elysée ballroom, whether Super Sarko had got the message about the severe discontent over his rule and what he planned to do about it. In almost contrite tones, Sarkozy said yes, he understood the disappointment and he took the blame up to a point. He had failed to explain some policies well enough but the world slump was also responsible, he said. He had "doubtless made mistakes" but he remained determined to push through reforms on all fronts.

France stagnated for 25 years, failing to adapt to globalisation "which has turned the world into a village", he said. "There is only one possible strategy: to enact change....In France, there is always a good reason to do nothing, always someone who is unhappy."

Sarkozy announced nothing in particular. The main news was that a new modest Subdued Sarko has replaced the aggressive, cocky Super Sarko, at least for the time being. Even Laurent Joffrin, Editor of  Libération, his chief media scourge, game him a little credit.

"New clothes. The tone has changed. He has partly abandoned the style of the loud-mouthed and peremptory lawyer ... which caused him so much damage over the past 10 months," wrote Joffrin. "The suddenly more humble pleading of the President has changed the scenery a little. But the play remains rigorously the same."

Naturally, Sarko's foes in the opposition found nothing good to say about his 100-minute audience, watched by 12 million people. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate against him last year, said he had spouted approximation, improvisation, aberration and falsehood. "He is paying the price for the mass of lies which he uttered during the election campaign," said the woman whom he defeated. Royal confirmed today that she wants to run against Sarko again the next time, in 2012.

Sarkozy's appearance, the first since his last, disastrous, one on January 8, will not have satisfied the millions who blame him for failing to deliver on his rash election promise to put more money in French pockets. Olivier Duhamel, a politics professor and heavyweight commentator said: "The crux of the problem was purchasing power. That is what the polls showed was by far the French people's main expectation. And on that point, I'm sorry but I think that globally he failed."

But the TV Sarkothon will have helped soften the belief that the country is being run in a haphazard way by an insensitive show-off. Le Figaro, the President's cheer leader among daily newspapers, put the pro-Sarko case: "It will probably take Nicolas Sarkozy time to win back the heart of the French people. Sometimes you have to accept unpopularity to get reforms to be accepted."

Adieu to the revolution, says French left.

They took their time. Two decades since the collapse of Soviet communism, the French Socialist party has finally decided that it no longer wants a revolution. 

The main opposition party has put aside its feuding to agree on a new charter that for the first time commits it firmly to the market economy. It abandons the "hopes of revolution" that the Socialists proclaimed in their  last version -- drafted in 1990 after the Berlin wall had already disappeared.

Of course there are conditions, but they are shared by the centre-left across continental Europe. "Socialists support a market economy that is socially and environmentally responsible, a market economy that is regulated by public authority and through labour and management groups," it says.

Unusually, almost all the Socialists agree with the charter, which is the fifth since 1905, when the fledgling party committed itself to class struggle and the overthrow of capitalism. It should be passed with no trouble at a June convention, ahead of blood-letting over a new leader next autumn.

The new mission statement is important because the party has clung, at least emotionally, to its old Marxist dogma.

Unpopular Sarkozy seeks relaunch one year on

We have almost had 12 months of President Sarkozy. A year ago today, the Sarko magic was in full swing as France gave him the lead in the first round of the election.

Now, the former Super Sarko is wallowing in unpopularity. Some surveys suggest that that he has begun to recover after the winter crash when he came off the rails with his divorce and giddy courtship of Carla Bruni. He has stopped being showmaster-in-chief and adopted a more sober, presidential, style, letting the government get on with running the country.

But an IFOP poll today shows that he has lost another point in the past month, putting him at only 36 percent approval. This makes him more unpopular than any president one year into office since the revamped republic opened in 1958. His 64 percent negative towers above the 47 percent registered after one year by Jacques Chirac, the other flame-out president.

The hardest for Sarko may be the finding that 79 percent believe that his presidency has done nothing to "improve the situation of France and the French".  Sarkozy bears much of the blame for failing to live up to expectations, yet it's not all his fault. Here's why:

Sarkozy's dubious glory in American Airbus deal

Nicolas Sarkozy has been taking credit for the extraordinary decision by the US Defense Department to buy a fleet of Air Force refuelling tankers worth at least 35 billion dollars from EADS, parent of the the European Airbus company, rather than from Boeing.

The French president said that the deal, which has sparked a political storm in the USA, would have been unimaginable if he had not repaired the damage to relations with Washington that had been inflicted by President Chirac's opposition to the Iraq invasion.

"Could one think for a minute that the contract which EADS has magnificently won... would have been signed in the climate of tension that existed between the Americans and French?" Sarko asked in le Figaro.

Sarkozy is right that his warmth towards the US has eased the chill that prevailed under Chirac. This undoubtedly helped the deal with the European Aeronautic, Defense and Space company. But he could be a little more modest. EADS' American contract was the fruit of years of effort, most of it before he won office last May. On top of that, the US order conflicts with his own doctrine of "economic patriotism".   

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Banned in France: The 20 oddest laws

France loves laws. There are 9,500 in force and parliament passes 70 new ones every year while the state issues some 120,000 decrees. Just about every aspect of French life is governed by a regulation, which means that many are ignored. The 1995 ban on taking photographs without permission is an example.

Prohibition also comes in varying degrees, between just plain interdit and the stronger formellement interdit and rigoureusement interdit. On the Paris Métro, the signs say that all pets are "interdit" then add that small ones are "tolerated".

Here is my list of odd things that you are not allowed to do in France. Some bans, such as winter evictions and price discounts, are supposed to protect the vulnerable (indigent tenants and small shops). Others protect privileges, like pharmacists and the state betting monopoly. Some are just strange. Please add any that I have omitted.

French law provides fines or imprisonment if you

-- Evict a tenant in cold weather, defined as between November 1 and March 15 

-- Arrest or search anyone at their homes between 10pm and 6am

-- Cut any chlidren out of your will. All property/real estate must be divided equally among all offspring.

-- Broadcast music on the radio that is less than 60 percent French. Half of that must come from "new talent or new productions and be broadcast during hours of significant audience".

-- Call Nicolas Sarkozy a "bloody Hungarian" (A demonstrator was jailed for one month for shouting at Sarko, when he was Interior Minister: Go back to China, espèce de Hongrois". The offence was "insulting a person who holds authority for public order".)

-- Sell any book at less than 95 percent of its official retail price

-- Broadcast television commercials for books, movie films or political parties

Sarkozy loses cool and wants UN defence for French cooking

Here's another glimpse of why Nicolas Sarkozy is unlike his predecessors. In the clip Sarko gives a taste of his rough side at the annual Paris Agricultural Show. When Sarko approaches while shaking hands with the crowd, the man on the left says (in ungrammatical French): "Don't touch me". Sarko replies: "Then get lost". The man: "You dirty me when you touch me". Sarko: "Then get lost, pauvre con." This translates roughly as "stupid a-hole", stupid sod, or the equivalent.

Sarko's more regal predecessors no doubt used such language, but never in public. His readiness to mix it in an unpresidential way with hecklers is part of the reason that his popularity has slumped. The latest poll in today's Journal du Dimanche, shows him down nine points in a month at 38 percent approval. In contrast, François Fillon, his prime pinister, is at 57 percent.

The pollsters say this reflects the way that Sarkozy has reversed the traditional roles. The prime minister is reserved and dignified, staying in the background like a president, while Sarkozy is out in front taking on all-comers. The presidential visit to the annual Salon de l'Agriculture is an important ritual because of the mystical bond which France entertains with the countryside and its produce. Jacques Chirac, pretended to be a countryman and put on a great show at the salon, wandering around stalls slapping cattle, knocking back wine and tasting sausage.

Not Sarko, a life-long urbanite. He made a quick drop-by and, before exchanging the insults in the video, he delivered a speech that was mainly about protecting France and its food producers from foreign competition.

The most quaint point was his announcement that France will apply to Unesco to have French cuisine listed as part of the world's heritage.

Jérôme Kerviel, world hero

The lawyers for Jérôme Kerviel, France's super-trader, say that he is stunned by his unwanted celebrity. If he takes a look at the internet he may be relieved to find that, mockery aside, he has become a world hero.

Over the past few days fan clubs and tribute sites have sprouted across the net: They include Facebook, dedicated sites such as Jeromekerviel.com,   and Wikipedia, Youtube and Dailymotion.

After half a million Google searches yesterday, JK's admirers are singing his praises as "The Che Guevara of Finance", the "James Bond of the Soc Gen". The real JK may have lost his Facebook friends on the day of his arrest, but 11 new Jérôme Kerviels are on Facebook at the moment, with 30 groups in French and English. On one he has over 900 fans, many of whom proclaim their love for  the clean-cut Breton whose pals called him Tom Cruise.

The T-shirt above, for sale at 17.99 dollars, features on the "Jérôme Kerviel Should Win the Nobel Prize for Economics" entry.

JK's new stardom comes in two flavours. There is mockery, much of it anti-French, apparently from professionals in the Anglo-American financial world. Within hours of the scandal breaking last Thursday, this lot was circulating the spoof news story about Kerviel being stressed out with his 30-hour working week.

Then there are the real admirers, who are voicing the widespread glee in France at the idea of a young provincial making fools of the capitalist establishment.

Trader Jérôme was doing his best for the bank

It's five days since Société Générale announced that its humble trader had nearly broken the bank and the reputation of French finance. Yet Daniel Bouton, the executive chairman, was back on the radio this morning insisting that he was not personally responsible for anything and had no plans to leave the job.

Bouton, 57, [below] even played the line, which I mentioned last time: "responsable mais pas coupable". Jean-Pierre Elkabach of Europe 1 asked him if he felt guilty for letting Jérôme Kerviel [picture above at recent party] expose the bank by 50 billion euros without anyone knowing. "I feel responsible...not personally responsible," said Bouton, who called the final five bilion euro loss a "terrible accident".

It was just like a company that suffers the misfortune of a factory fire, he said. "The director is not blamed for that." The sound from Bouton and his bank colleagues is an aural version of the Gallic shrug. They are saying that it is regrettable but these things happen.

Kerviel has lost his job and is in custody. He is to face charges of fraud and breach of trust, we have just heard from Jean-Claude Marin, the Paris prosecutor. He could be sentenced to up to seven years but Marin said that it seemed that he was not seeking personal gain, merely the credit that he would win with his employers and the ensuing bonuses.  As I write, a couple of hundred police are surrounding the offices of the investigating judges near our bureau. Kerviel is about to be brought in for his first round with the magistrates and they are treating him like some big-time criminal.

It is unlikely that Bouton will keep his job for long. President Sarkozy is spitting blood over the affair and what he sees as the botched handling by Bouton and Christian Noyer, Governor of the Banque de France.  Sarko, the ultimate micro-manager when things go wrong, is aghast that he was not informed until three days into a crisis that would shake the state.