NY Times Lectures Sarkozy

Don't forget to be multicultural mister!

The French (like many Americans) have grown increasingly tired of their cranky and ineffective president, Jacques Chirac. With Nicolas Sarkozy they’ve certainly gotten a very different sort of leader. A graduate of a non-elite university, and the son of a Hungarian immigrant, he won this week’s election promising sweeping change to voters impatient with their country’s long economic and diplomatic decline. But to succeed, Mr. Sarkozy will need to keep his own impatience, and his destructive penchant for divisive rhetoric, under firm control.

Mr. Sarkozy hopes to strengthen ties with Washington while pursuing a more active role in Europe. A France that is neither reflexively anti-American nor in automatic lock step with Washington would be good for both sides of the Atlantic. To start, more active Franco-American military cooperation in Afghanistan and diplomatic coordination on Sudan could make a big difference.

Then there is the vexed issue of agricultural protection, and the vexing clout of French farmers. Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Bush are both avowed free-traders. A joint push to lower agricultural barriers could revive international trade talks and give African countries, including those with close ties to Paris, a fairer chance at development.

For most voters, the compelling issues were domestic, especially the challenge of invigorating an economy weighed down by decades of slow growth, high unemployment and suburban decay. Mr. Sarkozy’s call for tax cuts, smaller government, longer working hours and tougher labor policies won out over his Socialist rival’s contention that she could administer the needed economic jolts while preserving the security and comfort of the social status quo.

Mr. Sarkozy’s ability to carry out those changes will depend on how well his right-wing allies fare in next month’s parliamentary election and his ability to rally a wider political coalition for what will be painful and dislocating changes. Mr. Sarkozy will especially have to overcome the distrust of young urban immigrants, whom he has demeaned with insulting stereotypes and frightened with simplistic law-and-order prescriptions.

If Mr. Sarkozy means what he now says about being “president of all the French,” he needs to recognize that there are many equally legitimate ways of being French. And that the problems of poverty and unemployment require much broader solutions than simple law and order.

Of course, it is New York Times style multiculturalism, that "gorgeous mozaic" crap of Mario Cuomo that has given France this.