"Casse-toi pauvre con !" - Why Sarko can't be a jet setting agitator for change and be President of all the French

Nicolas “Speedy” Sarkozy, or “Sarko” as they tend to call him here has had, to put it mildly, an interesting first nine months since being elected President of the Fifth French Republic. The President of France is an interesting job. It is meant to be, as head of state, a unifying figure for all the French; in fact Sarko made great play of this point as being central to his conception of the role in last year’s election campaign. To this end the post is stepped in grandeur, the Elysée Palace is a building of pure majesty with its golden pillars, tapestries and jade sculptured ceilings, whilst the President’s attendants are immaculately dressed in white ties and tails. Then of course there is the Republican Guard who really are the French version of the UK’s Household Cavalry, and to top it all is his official dress at state occasions, get up which make the average king hang his head in shame for fear of being underdressed.

This post has a grandeur associated with it which makes the US President, living in his little White “House”, look a little, well how should I put it, bland by comparison. But I think that this offers an interesting example of how the French and Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards exercising power and national unity differ. The President of the US is not only head of the government, but also the head of state and figure of national unity, but given the partisan nature of the first part of his job and the character of American republicanism, he takes the form of most elected politicians. The UK has (as well as the other countries that continue to retain her) the Queen to exercise all of the parts of the job concerning the representation of national unity, as well as being the ultimate constitutional backstop if any government were really to take the mickey out of our freedoms and liberties (some may argue this point has come, but that’s for another entry!) whilst the much more sober, business-like and divisive position of Prime Minister actually runs the show, which is of course, as it should be.

But France has both models rolled into one. In theory, there is a distinction between the “Chef d’Etat” and the “Chef du Gouvernement”, namely the Prime Minister. Before Charles de Gaulle created the Fith Republic in the 1960s to chime with his own personal vision of a strong Presidency, the President didn’t have that much to do with running the country, rather it was the Prime Minister who dealt with that. But the fith Republic gave rise to a President that not only kept the ceremonial duties, but also took responsibility for directing the government. However, the Prime Minister was retained to “implement” the policies decided on by the head of state. This meant that, just as de Gaulle probably wanted it, the President was now the sheriff, whilst the PM became very much the faithful deputy (to put it in terms George W. Bush would understand). Or perhaps, if one is more cynical, it took its inspiration from the French absolutist monarchical model, with a few tweaks included to make sure Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité were still paid lip service to. However, what de Gaulle was unable to envisage was what has happened on a few occasions since, and that is the curious French phenomenon of cohabitation. For example, if the party that has a majority in Parliament is not that of the President, thanks to the whims of the French electorate or quirks of the voting system, then he/she has no choice but to appoint the leader of the largest party in the Assemblée Nationale as Prime Minister as his/her own would most probably face a vote of no confidence. When this happens, all the President really looks after is foreign affairs, and perhaps defence, but the power certainly shifts from the Elysée Palace to the Hôtel Matignon.

Sarko does not, at present, have these worries, so he can, and some say does, project an image of a head of state of which the arch absolutist King Louis XIV would have been proud. But despite the flack that many of the critics have subsequently given “Sarko Premier”, he appeared at first to be rather unusual in that he was more than prepared to show his human side; no other French President would have ever thought of going for a daily jog à la his US counterpart, or for that matter spoken to the public in such a frank or clear-cut manner. In addition this all took place in the context of his radical promises of reform for a stagnant country signifying a “rupture” with the past. Things were going well, despite the socialists calling him a dictator and a demagogue (I mean how terrible is that, a politician saying that he’ll do what the uneducated, ignorant plebs want!), and his opinion poll ratings were 60% plus. But the honeymoon has ended, and quite spectacularly at that.

Honeymoon is an apt description of the period as it preceded major causes of the events that have subsequently overwhelmed the President; namely marriage, or to be more accurate, marriages. The fall out from his divorce from his first wife, Cecilia, has been spread right across the media, a relatively new practice for the once highly deferential French press, as has his whirlwind marriage to the Italian former model turned singer, Carla Bruni. Okay, one may say that everybody is entitled to a private life, but what has riled many here is how he has actively courted the media; for example wasn’t it strange that the press corps knew that he and Carla would be at Disneyland together around the time that their romance came to light? Then there are the little examples of how he uses his position to his advantage; where, quite rightly, for example, asked some of the French, were the bans for his wedding published, and why should his civil ceremony not be subject to the same laws as everybody else, and why should his son be parachuted into stand as a candidate in local elections when a candidate had already been decided upon, amongst many other issues.

The recent nadir in his popularity has come, ironically enough while he was doing what, at least during his election campaign, he did best; mixing with and talking directly to the people, this time at the Paris Agricultural Show (click on title to see video). When faced with a heckler on whom he had placed his hand, Sarko was told by the protester to “you soil me”. At this point the President may well have gone too far in his desire to be seen as one of the people, by telling his friend “Casse-toi, pauvre con!”, which roughly translates as “Sod off, you poor bastard!”. This, has prompted a torrent of TV news coverage and radio phone-ins as the French try to decide if this is the type of behaviour becoming a President. The opinions would seem pretty clear, as Sarko at the time of writing, currently has an approval rating of around 32%. To put it into context, his PM, François Fillon, enjoys an approval rating of over 50%, and is generally seen as a solid, efficient, and non-controversial figure, if maybe a little dull. But this just serves to offer an example of one of the problems with the way the Fifth Republic is set up. I can’t help but think that Sarko is right to want to be a dynamic leader that forces change, as God only knows, France needs it. It is also quite correct that as the head of state he should be the “homme de la nation”, and project an image of itself as President of all the French, but that is a tough circle to square.

I have never been convinced that both the ceremonial functions of a head of state and the almost always divisive actions of a strong head of government are too tasks that sit well with the same person. France is not the US (which traditionally has a distaste for too much grandeur linked with the state) and has need of a strong, grand image of itself, an image which should be reflected in the form of the office of President. But a grand unifying figure cannot at the same time be a protagonist for great reform and thus the cause of great schisms in public opinion that often result from such policies. Sarko is an agitator, an agent of change, and he has always divided French public opinion. France needs to change, and Sarko could well prove himself to be the man for the job in the long run, but it would be better overall in the context of a new sixth republic, where he would agitate for reform as PM, whilst a genial and dignified President François Fillon would dishe out the Legion d’Honneur and open hospitals.