FRANCE:Alone in Europe, France has zero economic growth. Can either of the two leading 2007 presidential hopefuls lead the necessary changes? Lara Marlowereports from Paris
France went through 2006 in a strange state of limbo, held back by unresolved crises while at the same time looking forward to change.
The country started 2006 under a state of emergency, lifted by the president Jacques Chirac on January 4th. The decree had been enacted during three weeks of race riots in November 2005. Though a feared repeat did not occur this autumn, the immigrant suburbs continue to smoulder, with an average of 60 cars torched every night across the country. France lurches from crisis to crisis so often that social and political instability have become a numbing form of stasis.
The country has undergone four major crises in 18 months: the No vote in the European constitutional treaty referendum on May 29th, 2005; the November 2005 riots; two months of protests against the First Job Contract (CPE) from February to April of this year, and a good old-fashioned smear scandal known as the Clearstream Affair.
The CPE, which would have enabled employers to fire youths under 26 without justification, provoked five general strikes during which millions of protesters took to the streets, joined by youths from the banlieues. Hundreds were injured in their battles with riot police.
Prime minister de Villepin was almost forced to resign twice, during the CPE protests and at the height of the Clearstream scandal. When announcing withdrawal of the CPE on April 10th, de Villepin noted: "The challenge is to preserve our social model while adapting it."
In the Clearstream scandal, de Villepin was accused of abusing his previous position as foreign minister to frame his right-wing rival Nicolas Sarkozy on phoney charges of holding a secret bank account in Luxembourg. Like most French scandals, this one never reached a conclusion, but it drove de Villepin's approval rating down to 23 per cent in June, and finished him off as a possible threat to Sarkozy.
De Villepin was right about the challenge of adapting France's "social model". Either Sarkozy or the socialist Ségolène Royal, leading contenders to become president of France, will try to reconcile France's desire for change with its resistance to change when one of them most likely becomes France's new president in May.
With "Sarko" and "Ségo" running 50/50 in opinion polls, a flip of the coin at this stage provides the most reliable forecast. Polls give an indication of the country's mood. In October, the CEVIPOF think tank reported that 60 per cent of the French believe their politicians are corrupt. Royal tapped into that distrust, proposing "popular juries" to keep politicians in line.
Other polls, in December, showed the deep insecurity and creeping pauperisation that haunt the French electorate. Up to 48 per cent of those polled said they felt it possible they might one day become homeless; 53 per cent said they found it difficult to make ends meet.
Sarkozy is widely perceived to protect the interests of the upper classes, while 55 per cent said Royal defends the underprivileged. If Sarkozy wins, he has promised to do away with inheritance tax and liberalise the economy. Royal says she wants a "just order" and a "republic of respect". She has crusaded against outsourcing and wants to "terrify the capitalists" by penalising companies that move French jobs abroad.
Both candidates say they want change; both talk of giving the country something it seems to lack: a future. Royal, dubbed "la petite mère du peuple" (the little mother of the people) by Libération newspaper, scares the French less than the excitable Sarkozy, so she could afford to make "for strong change" her campaign slogan.
A poll published by the right-wing Le Figaro in June showed 55 per cent of the French are worried by Sarkozy. He attempted to reassure the public by changing his motto from "la rupture" to "la rupture tranquille", in other words, under his rule, France would undergo change, but quiet change. The government was so debilitated by the CPE and Clearstream crises, and the country so transfixed by the presidential campaign, that virtually nothing was accomplished this year. France had zero economic growth in the third quarter.
All eyes are focused on April 22nd and May 6th, the two rounds of the presidential poll, to be followed by legislative elections on June 10th and 17th.
Chirac says he will announce early in the new year whether he will be a candidate. After sinking with his protégé de Villepin, Chirac made a partial comeback during the Lebanon war last summer. His opposition to the Iraq war in 2003 was his moment of glory. A major international crisis might give the ageing president a crack at a third term. As Chirac observed himself last Bastille Day, referring to the Middle East, "We are permanently on the edge of the abyss."