PRESIDENT NICOLAS Sarkozy’s speech in Louis XIV’s palace here yesterday provided a field day for cartoonists and satirists who portrayed him as le président soleil and Nicolas II, since the ceremony was intended to launch the second half of Sarkozy’s five-year term.
It was the first time since 1873 that a French president addressed the Congress, which is composed of the National Assembly and Senate combined. French heads of state had been banned from doing so, as a check on executive privilege.
But Sarkozy refuses to be banned from any place in the Republic.
In July 2008, he changed the French constitution, and on June 11th, he issued a decree to enable him to make yesterday’s speech. An ardent admirer of the US, Sarkozy no doubt had the State of the Union address in mind.
The French prime minister used to deliver an annual general policy speech. But no longer. François Fillon has been reduced to the role of government administrator.
Sarkozy portrayed the speech as a strengthening of parliament rather than an expansion of his own powers.
The communists, greens and a number of socialists were so enraged they boycotted what was sarcastically called “the speech from the throne”.
Earlier in the day, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the socialist group leader, denounced “the growing imbalance in favour of the presidency” which “has been brought to a paroxysm by the present president . . .The president needs no one. The president knows everything and decides everything . . . We’re just part of the décor.”
In the event, the decor inside the Congress chamber was all red velvet and gold-leaf, but a trifle moth-eaten and dusty, reflecting the fact that the body has convened only 16 times in the past 51 years, to tinker with the constitution. Government ministers sat like the aristocracy of old, in a tier of balconies on the first floor. When the first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, arrived in the royal – er, presidential – box, “The queen has arrived!” was heard in the press gallery.
Dressed in black, Ms Bruni-Sarkozy listened intently with her chin on her hand.
As the limousines with smoked glass windows glided out through the palace gates after the speech was over, striking workers from the Nortel plant protested that their bosses had been paid $43 million in bonuses.
Sarkozy had made his customary condemnation of “golden parachutes”, which he has not translated into action.
Since his Toulon speech last September, Sarkozy has repeatedly spoken of the need to transform economic crisis into opportunity, and promised to “leave no one by the wayside”.
His intellectual speechwriter, Henri Guaino, continues to elaborate a presidential theory of “good globalisation” and “bad globalisation”, “good deficits” and “bad deficits”, “equality” (good) versus “egalitarianism” (bad).
On two concrete issues that are exercising the French body politic (burkas and raising the legal retirement age), Sarkozy failed to announce concrete decisions. He condemned burkas, but did not say whether he favoured a ban, and said the new retirement age will be agreed in 2010.
There will be no policy of economic rigour, or increased taxes, Sarkozy promised. He will announce a long-expected cabinet reshuffle tomorrow. And the government will borrow money to fund its economic recovery programme.
Before the government borrowing is launched, Sarkozy said he will conduct three months of consultations with parliament and social partners to establish a list of priorities. “The amount and modalities will be decided once we have set our priorities together,” Sarkozy said. “We will raise the funds either among French people, or on financial markets.”
Some commentators interpreted the president’s speech as a new deal à la française . “I will propose . . . massive measures in favour of part-time work,” he said. “The jobless will keep their salary and receive training for one year. Instead of resigning ourselves to the crisis producing exclusion, despair and suffering, it’s better to take advantage of it to invest in men, in their skills, so that tomorrow they work better, have better chances of promotion.”
Le Monde newspaper reported that yesterday’s ceremony cost taxpayers €500,000, including lunch in the Orangerie, the chateau’s conservatory, for 920 deputies and senators. “We cannot let one euro of public money be wasted,” Sarkozy said in his speech.