Editor's Blog March 2007

You may have been wondering why our beloved Normandy is undergoing a festival of road repairs? Don’t worry, it’s the same all over France. And it means just one thing: the elections are coming. Presidential elections kick off on April 22 with a second round expected in May. A few weeks later, in June, come parliamentary elections to elect the 13th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic.

Whilst we may have chosen France for its quality of life, good manners and excellent food, the French are not feeling nearly so comfortable about themselves right now. What used to be characterised as French “arrogance” stemmed from France’s supreme self confidence: French was the international language of culture and diplomacy, French cuisine was indisputably the best in the world, and then, post war, France sat herself at the very heart of Europe by founding the European Union with her new ally Germany.

France, the French were quite sure, was the best country in the world and cared not a fig for the opinions of others.

Today, the mood is different, as Maura Stewart discusses on page 7. The French language is under attack from an anglophone business and internet dominated world: even France’s top international companies conduct their business in English to President Chirac’s famous distaste. The EU, chaired by Germany, is waiting to see how France will vote but is nevertheless forging ahead without it’s founder. Temporarily at least, France has lost her place on the world stage.

Internally, unemployment is high, immigration issues prompted shocking riots on the streets of Paris last year, the excellent health system is too expensive to run and enterprise and job creation are being stifled by anti-entrepeneurial employment laws and prohibitive social charges. In London last month Presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy dubbed the British capital “France’s fifth most important city” because of the numbers of bright young French who who have fled there to enjoy its economic mobility.

Deep down most French know that a radical shake-up is both necessary and inevitable, but having watched the Thatcher years unfold from across the channel they dread the disruption even while they may envy the economic result.

Meanwhile the soft soled elite padding down the Parisian corridors of power are about as popular as the stony faced apparatchiks who swept in and out of the Kremlin in the final days of soviet communism.

Both main presidential contenders are promising a break from the nepotistic past (even though they are very much a part of it).

On the right, the UMP’s Nicolas Sarkozy is a pro-English, pro-American Thatcherite in favour of free enterprise and economic mobility. Centre-left, the Socialist Party’s Ségolène Royal is a Blair-style conservative-socialist who wants to reform the existing socialist model.
The radical left has already lost it’s chance to have it’s say by splintering and failing to select a credible candidate. The ghost at the feast is Jean Marie Le Pen on the very far right who is hoping to cash in on the pervading gloom and France’s wounded confidence.