Lucy Wadham: Sarkozy risks breaking the spirit of 1968
[Lucy Wadham is a British novelist who lives in France.]
I'm not sure that Pierre Haski is right in suggesting that President Nicolas Sarkozy is unruffled by the scale of the current crisis unfolding on the streets of France. Although there is nothing new about this kind of mass protest, it does not mean that Sarkozy is not terrified. He will not have forgotten that it was May 1968 that brought down the colossus, Charles de Gaulle, or that in his lifetime not a single government has managed to face down the full power of the street when it brings about chaos to resist change.
Sarkozy might even be telling himself that it would be no big disgrace if he did give in. He would be in illustrious company: De Gaulle, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac all backed down in the face of mass demonstrations against their most cherished reforms. Indeed Chirac, in the latter years of his rule, came to extol the virtue of immobilism and even build his policies around it.
I suspect, though, that however terrified Sarkozy may be by the formidable power of "la rue", he will not submit to it. His particular nature and biography, combined with the sheer pressure of history, are preventing him from doing so. Indeed he has defined himself, politically, as a model of inflexibility, endlessly repeating both before and after his election, "I will not give in" and "I will see this through to the end". By staying firm in the face of the crisis, Sarkozy can become the reassuring paterfamilias he never had, and bend the will of the nation without breaking its spirit...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
I'm not sure that Pierre Haski is right in suggesting that President Nicolas Sarkozy is unruffled by the scale of the current crisis unfolding on the streets of France. Although there is nothing new about this kind of mass protest, it does not mean that Sarkozy is not terrified. He will not have forgotten that it was May 1968 that brought down the colossus, Charles de Gaulle, or that in his lifetime not a single government has managed to face down the full power of the street when it brings about chaos to resist change.
Sarkozy might even be telling himself that it would be no big disgrace if he did give in. He would be in illustrious company: De Gaulle, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac all backed down in the face of mass demonstrations against their most cherished reforms. Indeed Chirac, in the latter years of his rule, came to extol the virtue of immobilism and even build his policies around it.
I suspect, though, that however terrified Sarkozy may be by the formidable power of "la rue", he will not submit to it. His particular nature and biography, combined with the sheer pressure of history, are preventing him from doing so. Indeed he has defined himself, politically, as a model of inflexibility, endlessly repeating both before and after his election, "I will not give in" and "I will see this through to the end". By staying firm in the face of the crisis, Sarkozy can become the reassuring paterfamilias he never had, and bend the will of the nation without breaking its spirit...