What
happened? Certainly some credit should go to Hollande. A campaign that
started out unsteadily has finally found its footing, and Hollande has
worked hard to tie his policies to economic and cultural regeneration --
a sort of French
New Deal -- as a way of avoiding the stereotype of socialists being
iffy at economics.
But the disappointed DSK
supporters weren't wholly wrong: Hollande isn't all that strong
of a candidate, as his early rough ride showed. And with debt crisis
still undeniably present in the European public mind, even his platform,
which has featured "investment" in French culture, isn't the most
natural fit.
So what's the key? Simply put,
Sarkozy is doing terribly.
It's hard to tell
whether it's Sarkozy's image or the economy that's sinking his campaign,
but the two together are a disaster for him. Sarkozy started out as an
almost American-style free-marketeer (his policies have occasionally
been described as "Anglo-Saxon," appearing more laissez-faire than the
traditional French approach) and political dynamo. That image, which one
served him well, has now become more of a liability than an asset.
Maybe that's what you'd expect to happen when the economy flounders and
the president is still bouncing around with a glamorous life -- sorry,
make that wife.
Sarkozy has a special
ability for looking out of touch. He's drawn
questions recently about his 2007 election celebrations on a
billionaire's yacht, and his response -- that he was dealing with
marital problems -- didn't exactly scream "everyman." But Carla
Bruni-Sarkozy is proving to be an even handier symbol of the gap between
the president and his would-be voters. And while usually it's easy to
cry "foul" on playing politics with politicians' wives, Bruni-Sarkozy
set herself up for this one. It's just no good to have a supermodel and
heiress telling a French paper "We're modest people," as she did last
week. Marie Antoinette comparisons followed in Europe. Back in the U.S.,
it's hard not to think of Mitt Romney, whose made a regular habit of
such flubs as replying,
when asked whether he follows NASCAR, "Not as closely as some of the
most ardent fans, but I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners."
Friday,
Sarkozy got more bad publicity when a poll commissioned by French
publication 20Minutes showed that among Europe's top leaders,
Sarkozy was, as The International Herald Tribune's Harvey
Morris put it, "both the best-known leader and the least liked."
You'd
think Sarkozy would have, at that point, either called it a week or,
perhaps, rolled out a distraction. What he did was roll out a
pseudo-distraction that should have confirmed, to any logical mind, that
the poll results had been spot-on. He made a high profile announcement
of pretty dubious quality, declaring the Greek debt crisis "solved."
The
theatrics, so far, look like they're scheduled to continue at least
another week. Monday morning, Sarkozy threatened
to pull France out of the E.U.'s visa-free Schengen zone unless more
was done to address illegal immigration.
Marie-Antoinette,
Greek debt crisis, illegal immigrants. What ties these flailings
together is the economy. The easiest way to read the "problem solved"
declaration is that this is Sarkozy's desperate bid to redeem himself as
a fixer of economic problems. The easiest way to read the Shengen zone
announcement is as the mirror image of the "problem solved" declaration:
the proverbial "carrot" of a debt-crisis-free Europe is being followed
up with the "stick" of illegal immigrants draining France's safety net
funds and taking scarce jobs. It's identity politics and fear-mongering,
French edition, and an interesting followup to the E.U. ad pulled last
week for seeming to be racist.
Sarkozy is getting desperate. If these last-ditch attempts at driving
debate work, it means France is pretty desperate, too.
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