Sarkozy's risky Rentrée

Read Julian's column every month in the Riviera Times

This autumn is billed as just that, with unions promising widespread protests against a pensions reform that raises the legal retirement age by two years, scrapping the threshold of 60 introduced by the late Socialist President François Mitterrand in 1981.

Whatever happens on the streets, President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose five-year term ends in May 2012, says he will not retreat. To keep the initiative, he is promising a new ministerial team. And he has revived a favourite theme - law and order - to switch attention elsewhere. This may have already backfired, benefiting the Socialist opposition and the far-right, anti-immigration National Front.

Sarkozy, whose time as Interior Minister before his 2007 election marked him out as a law-and-order man, went on the offensive in July after rioters in Grenoble fired on police. Sarkozy said French citizens of “foreign origin” who deliberately endangered police lives could be stripped of their nationality - suggesting the existence of a second-class citizenship. At the same time, he presided over a ministerial meeting on the Roma, the travellers from eastern Europe whose caravan encampments disfigure the outskirts of towns. Opponents across the political spectrum accused Sarkozy of adopting National Front rhetoric to win voters.

Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, and Immigration, Integration and National Identity Minister, Eric Besson, rammed home the message that immigrants who commit crimes could not consider themselves French for life. Nice Mayor Christrian Estrosi suggested penalties for towns that don’t apply government instructions on security, singling out Socialist-run Grenoble.

When police evacuated Roma from a squat in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, a parliamentarian from Sarkozy’s own UMP (Union for a Popular Movement), Jean-Pierre Grand, compared the operation to raids on Jewish homes during World War II. Grand is a supporter of Sarkozy’s arch-rival in the UMP, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
Dominique Reynié, professor at the Paris Sciences-Po institute, wrote in Le Monde that Sarkozy was laying the ground for the National Front, especially when, as expected, Marine Le Pen, daughter of front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, 82, takes over later this year. With a calmer, less rabble-rousing approach than her father, Marine, 42, could recruit from the UMP’s right. Reynié said the 2012 election could see the Front emerge as the right’s dominant force for years to come. The Socialists could then count on centrist votes to gain power.

With the crucial pensions reform, led by Labour Minister Eric Woerth, handicapped by an ongoing scandal over Woerth’s ties to billionairess Liliane Bettencourt, Sarkozy spent his summer working on a streamlined cabinet to take him to the next election. The  reshuffle announcement is due in October.

Several ministers can expect to go. Estrosi, Industry Minister as well as mayor of Nice, is vulnerable since the weekly Le Canard Enchaîné accused him of using ministerial housing in Paris for his daughter. Estrosi fought back and his case slipped into insignificance against Woerth’s troubles. Estrosi is protected by his reputation as one of Sarkozy’s most faithful lieutenants.

The main question hangs over Prime Minister François Fillon. Candidates to replace him are Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie and Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo. A TNS Sofres Logica July poll gave Sarkozy a dismal 26 per cent approval rating. He needs more than a reshuffle to turn this around.