The 'Omnipresident's' Crucible
France's Nicolas Sarkozy, stiffening his spine against street protests

Friday, November 23, 2007

AUTUMN STRIKES are a sort of national pastime in France, although the proportion of unionized workers there is much lower than in the United States or Britain and unions are largely confined to the public sector. While the strikes are undertaken by a relatively tiny percentage of the national labor force, they are costly, paralyzing and inconvenient to nearly everyone; in one job action last month, utility workers managed to switch off the lights in President Nicolas Sarkozy's private residence.

Mr. Sarkozy, in office just six months, has faced his most severe test in the past 10 days as thousands of transit workers have walked off the job, shutting down much rail and subway transport. On Tuesday, they were joined by an array of others with a grab bag of grievances -- teachers, students, bureaucrats, postal workers, firefighters, tax inspectors, customs officers, hospital workers, telecommunications engineers, newspaper distributors and air traffic controllers. Next week, even lawyers and judges are set to stage walkouts.

The French president, having promised a "rupture" from France's years of stagnation, faces the specter of street demonstrations of the sort that brought down French governments twice in the past 12 years. Rather than buckling, he is stiffening his spine. Declaring the other day that "we will not retreat" in the face of the protests, he looks ready to fight for his sensible program of downsizing the national bureaucracy, trimming unaffordable sweetheart pension benefits for some public-sector workers, scrapping taxes on overtime and weaning the French from a mind-set that disdains and devalues work.

Since taking power, Mr. Sarkozy, dubbed "the Omnipresident," has launched a whirlwind of policy initiatives amid a dizzying schedule of travel, speeches and diplomacy. Overseas, he has staked out a bold agenda, the main elements of which are warmer ties with Washington, a possible reinsertion of France into NATO's military command, a fresh emphasis on human rights and environmental concerns, and a tough stance against the specter of Iranian nuclear weapons. By defining French national interests not simply, and simplistically, in opposition to America's, he is making Paris a more relevant player in international diplomacy.

Mr. Sarkozy's break with ossified French thinking is not wholly complete or coherent. In railing against the supposed evils of Wall Street, hedge funds, economic competition and globalization generally, he has signaled that the paternalistic state and its deep-rooted protectionist impulses are not quite dead in France. Nonetheless, what he offers is largely new thinking and a new direction for a country that remains, for all its problems, one of the engines of Europe's economy. For that he deserves encouragement and support from his allies on the continent and in Washington.