To accompany Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker profile of Sarkozy, I am putting up this contribution from ange.scalpel as a self-contained blog. If anyone else wishes to submit a piece I shall be delighted to read and, if it seems intelligently to add to the debate, publish.

ange.scalpel writes:
Since my comments seem to attract a lot of animadversion, let me try to explain. Mind is revealed by actions and by language. Some people find Mr Sarkozy vulgar because he jogs at any occasion, or because his first action when elected was to go for souper fin at Fouquet’s on the Champs Elysées with people, instead of saluting his electors , or because he went on a yacht hired by a billionaire as soon as elected ( I am thinking here of Alain Finkielkraut ’s article in Le Monde in May , “L’état de disgrâce”) . Others find his language vulgar. That is not so new in politics. Back 30 years ago, when people in the US heard Nixon’s language in the Watergate tapes, they were surprised, but we are not surprised today by off the record speech of political men. I do not find Mr Sarkozy vulgar because of all these things, even though they display an evident and unbuttoned nouveau riche style (and Mr Sarkozy would be ill advised to regret that the paparazzi follow him, since he does everything to attract them), nor because I disagree with his political views or actions. I just find vulgar a person who is president of the Republic and who explicitly behaves as if the only important thing were his ego. The book by Mrs Reza, which I confess to know only through the excerpts in the press, seems to me to confirm this. If Mr Sarkozy’s permanent self assertion were simply a “Com” operation and a means of government ( as it obviously is ) I would not find him vulgar. But he actually seems to like to self promote himself and he can’t help it. Some, like Mrs Reza, find it touching and cute, because that reveals a childish, and in her view very moving, desire to be loved.  I am unimpressed, because there is as much calculation as sincerity in all this. I do not find saying this insulting or arrogant, unless of course one judges that any disapproval of his political behaviour is an insult or a manifestation of arrogance.

I went to Charles Bremner ’s blog and to articles in the Times about Sarkozy, and I read the French press about his performances. People seem to me quite harsh about him. About the person revealed by Reza’s book, Bremner says : “Ego-mad, ruthless and rather cruel to those around him, Sarkozy in private is everything that we suspected.” So it seems that those who find my comment insulting are quite tender minded.

Tim King adds:
I particularly like the connection between the last words of ange.scalpel’s first paragraph (“some, like Mrs Reza, find it touching and cute, because that reveals a childish, and in her view very moving, desire to be loved”) and the section in Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker profile where he writes about the TV debate just before the second-round election: “Royal harangued Sarkozy for two and a half hours about his weaknesses and flaws as a man and as a politician. This allowed Sarkozy to look wistfully harried and play the one part that he had never had the chance to play before—a sympathetic, erring middle-class French husband being blasted by a furious wife.” Gopnik believes that Sarkozy’s somewhat sheepish look as the “sympathetic, erring middle-class French husband” is what tipped the balance: French voters found it irresistible. Ms Reza seems to say much the same thing. In other words, as soon as things start going wrong at the top, that is the performance we can look forward to.

An interesting profile of M. Sarkozy in the New Yorker, by Adam Gopnik, who lived in Paris as their correspondent between 1995 and 2000, publishing a collection of essays about life in the city “Paris to the Moon”. Well-worth reading, this profile provides a balanced, intelligent view aimed at the American market avid to learn about the man. Gopnik picks up on an aspect already aired on this blog by ange-scalpel: Sarkozy’s bonapartism – less to do with the Bonaparte featured on the Economist cover back in May, more to do with that man’s nephew. “His rule was by turns statist and entrepreneurial…… with features that set it apart from monarchism or Republicanism or the monarchical-republican hybrid of Gaullism: where those are essentially conservative in rhetoric and rural by ritual, appealing to la France profonde and insisting on continuity even as change takes place, Bonapartism is deliberately disruptive, urban, friendly to large capital, desperate for reform. Nostalgia for an organic, agrarian past has become a left-wing conceit now.” That seems to me to be a useful addition to the debate.

Adam Gopnik also usefully dispels various myths about the new president: that he is 100% Blairite (which apparently many Parisians assume), or “staunchly pro-American, pro-market and sympathetic to the Republican agenda” (apparently a far-right American fantasy). He also reminds us that Sarkozy’s election was not the landslide victory some are starting to imagine (implying his grip may be less secure than some would like). On the other hand, it’s a shame he makes the unnecessary generalisation about “short, ambitious men adoring beautiful women who are taller than they are”, even though in Sarkozy’s case it may be true. I gather Yasmina Reza also bangs on about his smallness of size.

But Adam Gopnik does make a neat writer’s connection between the 1993 Human Bomb episode (see my profile of Sarkozy in the July 2004 Prospect) and Sarkozy’s growing skill at “de-fusing” potential human bombs like DSK and George W. Bush. A shame Gopnik doesn’t dig a little deeper into that (purely journalistic) metaphor: when, in 1993, Sarkozy was alone with the Human Bomb, negotiating in desperation for the lives of the 11 children held hostage, he presumably made him all sorts of promises of safe-conduct, reparation etc. None of which were kept – as soon as the 11 children were safe, the gendarmes finished off their wretched captor in circumstances still not explained. Presumably the young, untried Sarkozy knew, even as he made them, that the promises would not be honoured. Thankfully in that circumstance they were effective, but hot air nevertheless. He has always been supremely convincing.

Gopnik’s remarks about Kouchner and DSK, on the other hand, are off-beam: they were not “the two most potent politicians in the Socialist Party”, and I doubt very much that DSK “could likely have won the election for the left”. When it comes to the Iraq war, Adam Gopnik has been over-taken by events - one of the perennial problems of writing about a man as speedy and unpredictable as Sarkozy for a major magazine. I have to get my copy for Prospect filed two weeks before publication, which often leaves traces of egg on my face.

Digging through my old notes I find that for years every article in the French press about Sarkozy’s character had an obligatory paragraph on the treacherous nature of the man. In those distant days it seemed de rigeur to emphasise his treachery towards his two powerful mentors Pasqua and Chirac. “Treachery,” Nicolas Domenach, editor of Marianne, told me, “is part of the custom and usage of our democratic monarchy.” Since Sarkozy’s election, however, that aspect of his character is no longer mentioned in any of the growing number of profiles written about him. I wonder why.

I also found this Sarkozy quote: “I admire the seamless organisation of Disneyland. No vulgarity, just marvels every second….” Could this be his model for running the country?

Today sees the publication of a book hailed as the literary event of the year – Yasmina Reza’s “L’Aube, le soir et la nuit”. Ms Reza is best known for her 1994 play “Art”, which has been produced in many countries: in London Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney were in the original cast. She has written several plays, screen-plays and short récits, and is an actress herself.

At the start of the presidential campaign she got herself invited on to the Sarkozy bandwagon, following him so closely that she became part of the furniture – a fly on the wall. The result is this book, surrounded in pre-publication hype – no one was allowed to read it early, there was confusion as to whether it was actually a novel or a documentary campaign-trail journal. Review copies were despatched only the day before yesterday, with an embargo until today. I am still waiting for the postman to bring mine – the chap at Flammarion told me to come and pick it up, like so many Parisians he cannot believe that anyone actually lives in France profonde.

Meanwhile Le Monde broke the embargo by publishing extracts and a commentary yesterday evening – a rushed, chaotic piece that made me feel the book could be a lot of fuss about extremely little. There are better pieces this morning in Libération and rue 89, but the book appears to contain little those interested in Sarkozy did not know already, wrapped in authorial self-analysis (“she seems to be in love with the image she gives of herself,” says the Libération critic) and sprinkled with the sort of phrases some find titillatingly deep, others crushingly banal: “writers and tyrants have in common a desire to bend the world to their will”. Whatever its literary or political merits, it will generate a lot of comment and sales. I shall read it when the postman brings it and possibly write about it here.

Partly as a counter-response to Ange Scalpel’s comment on the previous blog about President Sarkozy’s mediocre reforms, it’s worth having a look at the recent IFOP poll published a week ago. A week is a long time in politics, and opinion polls are, by definition, subjective, but they do show general trends of thought. The aim of this particular poll was to find out what the French public thinks of Sarkozy’s first 100 days.

In general it showed that, in mid-August, the French were strongly in favour of what Sarkozy has done. In order of popularity:
1) 87% were in favour of having a tax credit for part of their mortgage interest payments. However, popularity for that reform may diminish now the Constitutional Court has ruled the law cannot be retroactive, as Sarkozy had wished and promised, but can only apply to mortgages taken out after the 1st September 2007. The Prime Minister has said they will draft a new law correcting that.
2) 84% are in favour of the law on minimum sentences for recidivists which, in some circumstances, also allows 16 year olds to be sentenced as if they were adults.
3) 80% are in favour of the President’s action over the Bulgarian nurses in Libya
4) 72% are in favour of the law making a minimum service in public transport an obligation during strikes
5) 66% are in favour of making overtime payments tax and charge-free.
6) 64% are in favour of lowering the upper tax limit from 60% of income to 50%
7) 61% are in favour of Sarkozy’s mini-treaty on Europe
8) 58% are in favour of the university reforms

The only unpopular new measure is the announcement that more than 22,000 civil servants (out of I think around 80,000) will not be replaced when they retire this year. 61% of those asked were not satisfied by it.

Thus it seems clear that, in mid-August, Sarkozy is sweeping his compatriots along with him on the road to reform. 64% also say they approve the way he is handling the presidency – making it both less formal and more active in daily life, with a daily running commentary from the president himself. There is, as I have said elsewhere, a euphoria following in Sarkozy’s wake which is encouraging and pleasant to witness: in their holiday mood the French seem less reluctant than some commentators supposed a year ago to shake off the inertia affecting the country for the past few years. That is all to the good and very much to Sarkozy’s credit.

It is also interesting (although of course not at all surprising) that in this poll women are leading opinion: in every case more women are in favour of the reforms than men (and many more women are against the non-replacement of fonctionnaires). The age-groups show a pattern as well: two age groups dominate Sarkozy’s popularity – the 24-to-35 years and the over 65’s. Those most often only luke-warm about the reforms are the 35-to-49 year olds. I was surprised that the 24-to-35 year olds are most in favour of minimum (implying tougher) sentences for recidivists.

As far as Sarkozy’s informal and hyper-communicative style is concerned, women again are largely in favour (68% of women against 60% of men), and it is the over-65’s who, by a long way, are most in favour of this relaxation of style.

One question posed by the poll which has received less publicity is whether the Franco-American relationship should be closer, stay as it is or be more distant. The largest number, but not a majority, 40%, believe it should stay as it is, but tantalisingly the question does not specify whether that means as it has been under Chirac or since Sarkozy’s election. Sarkozy’s decision to send Bernard Kouchner to Irak is interesting in that light. Kouchner says he has gone for personal reasons, but that his visit comes so soon after the 11/08 barbecue (08/11 for American readers) has caused eyebrows to raise.

Another caveat about the poll is that it asks opinions about laws which are vague: of course many people back a minimum service in public transport as long as “minimum service” is not defined. Purists or pedants might say minimum means one train a day. “Minimum” should be replaced by “adequate” or “necessary”, measured perhaps as full service for four hours a day, two in the morning, two in the evening. But that law would never have been passed so quickly, and speed is what M. Sarkozy is after. In the meantime, in the wonderful phrasing of Le Monde: “The Constitutional Court has therefore sent to collective negotiation the care of defining, in the framework fixed by the law, the rules of organisation of the procedure.” Long live parliamentary democracy!
My own opinion on Sarkozy’s 100 days will have to wait for the next issue of Prospect magazine, which is why I have confined myself to writing about his holidays.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s holiday, which ends tomorrow, has been a fascinating, possibly depressing experience for those interested in France. For what emerges is a picture of a sad, incomplete person. The photographs at the start of the holiday of him playing in the water with his family quickly gave way to shots of him alone, running, or going back to France for a few hours, alone, or going to have lunch with the Bushes, alone while every time and elsewhere, his wife was in town with her friends shopping. When it rained they went into town to the local video-hire shop. There is a pall of boredom over the whole holiday as though they are there against their will.

When he goes out running, Sarkozy knows he will find the press, and that seems to be a relief for him - given how many times a day he does it. His attitude to the press in his own country is well-known: he talks to them in the familiar “tu”, as if they were mates, yet whips them into line when they write things he doesn’t like – going as far as having the editor of Paris-Match sacked for publishing photographs of his wife with her lover. Where most politicians merely enjoy the limelight, Sarkozy clearly cannot live without it. It has become an obsession. While on holiday he has made on average two press communications a day. From here it looks as though he has a better relationship (one-sided, certainly) with the press than with his wife. At least they seem interested in what he says – for the moment at least.

The French press call the town of Wolfeboro where the Sarkozy family spent their holiday, “huppé”, meaning trendy, well-heeled. A reporter in the Boston Globe (Boston being only two hours’ drive from Wolfeboro) says: “It’s where we go when we don’t have enough money to go some place better.” Americans, bemused, are quoted in that paper as asking “Why does he come here when he’s got the Cote d’Azur and St Tropez so much nearer?” Maybe, they say, we’ve got it all wrong about how great France is.

There is a gulf as wide as the Atlantic between what some of the French press (and the many on-line commentators to their articles) write about all things American and what appears to be the reality. When Sarkozy had his incident with the two photographers in the middle of lake Winnipesaukee a week ago, there was much huffing and puffing over here about paparazzi, intrusion of private life, when are these ghastly aberrations of humanity going to be brought to heel. It sounded like a bunch of retired colonels in Surrey. Behind it all is a generalized confusion lumping anyone with a lens with the photographers hounding Princess Diana. That’s the image the French press, which prides itself of being free of the stench of the gutter, unlike its British counterpart, wants to give. Reports in other papers suggest the reality is rather different: it turns out that one of the photographers is a local guy who does photos of weddings, the other is reported as working for AP, but nothing in the real world suggests that he chases le pipole on the back of a Vespa.

Public personalities in the States understand that they are where they are in part thanks to the press, and mostly work with it: their European counterparts fondly imagine they can exist without it. As an American journalist remarked, had it been Kennedy (Sarkozy is sometimes compared with JFK) he would have invited the photographers on to his boat, handed them each a glass of wine and offered to sign the photos. These particular two photographers were not hounding a desperately fleeing Sarkozy, they were out in the lake waiting. Certainly they were there to take photographs of this media-hungry man but it was Sarkozy who told his man-on-the-wheel to go over to them. The photographs of the incident don’t show the other pipole on Sarkozy’s boat jumping up and down, pointing and screaming in rage about intrusion, covering their faces: the women are lying back soaking up the sun probably wondering what petit Nicolas is getting worked up about now. Outbursts of towering rage are nothing new chez les Sarkozy. Rachida Dati, Minister of Justice back in France, was the only English-speaker in the French party and had to explain to the photographers what her boss was shouting about: possibly she even understood that legally he was at fault for boarding their boat uninvited and taking one of the cameras.

In case readers feel I am too critical of the French press, I should point out that much of the best information about this incident, and about Sarkozy’s holiday generally, comes from an excellent on-line newspaper, rue 89, composed mainly of journalists who left Libération last year. It is an excellent source of alternative but well-informed news and opinion.

Meanwhile it is left up to one of France’s best bloggers, Versac, to wonder at the French press’ somewhat hypocritical attitude towards the pipole, titillating readers’ interest while at the same time hiding behind the law insisting on the right to privacy. Le Monde, for example, published a list of Sarkozy’s fellow house guests (Sarkozy and his family are there as guests of the person renting the house, apparently Roberto Agostinelli). They include “Rachida Dati, Minister of Justice, Henri Proglio, CEO of Veolia, [a French multinational, formerly called Vivendi, whose principal businesses are water, the environment, energy and transport] and several friends of Cecilia Sarkozy, including Mathilde Agostinelli, head of communication for Prada [the company whose frocks so often adorn the back of Mme Sarkozy] and Agnès Cromback, head of Tiffany, France.” Versac wonders why the paper gives that information but does not, for example, say that Mme Dati is “having a liaison with Henri” [Proglio of Veolia], something apparently “all Paris knows”. Living in France Profonde, I wouldn’t know, but if it is the case I agree with Versac that if you are going to say something, say it. This mealy-mouthed half-speak, which allows the journalist to feel superior to his readers, is counter-productive, particularly now, with the omnipresence of the internet. I also believe it is important that, if it is true, everyone know the inexperienced Minister of Justice is having a “liaison” with the CEO of a firm which, under its former name of Vivendi, had its fair share of run-ins with national and international justice. And perhaps that this potential conflict of interest is happening under the nose and with the blessing of the president. It says much about “transparency”.

One of the good things about rue 89 is that they make a regular feature of including the audio or video recordings, so you get the complete interview and not an edited version. The audio account of one of the photographers, for example, in which he calmly describes Sarkozy’s bewildering attitude: it is neither outraged nor self-justifying, simply expressing his own surprise at the unexpectedness of it all.

Having read a recent piece in the FT on the state of French universities, a friend has asked me to explain the French system of higher education on this blog.

Like any equivalent system, there are a host of exceptions, sub-clauses and subtleties, but I shall be brief. Basically, French universities are open to anyone who has passed their baccalauréat. That means roughly 82% of those who sit the exam have immediate access to higher education. The pass mark is an average, over all the papers, of 10 out of 20 (all French exams are marked out of 20). Having passed the baccalauréat, a student can enrol for any subject at university, entrance cannot be refused. That is considered a republican value.

The weeding-out process happens at the end of the first year: in some subjects, medicine for example, the first year exams are tough with a 90% failure rate. If you fail your first year exams you can try any other subject. I think you are allowed three goes before you have to pay your own way. Thus, in summary, going to university is seen as nothing greater than the natural extension of the lycée. A university degree carries scant kudos and for the majority of subjects does not guarantee you a job (far from it), it is merely another step on the long road.

Indeed universities themselves carry scant kudos. They are run (and poorly financed) by the state; the teaching staff are unsackable civil servants. Nevertheless there is a pecking order, and every year a list of the best universities is published in the French press. But since students fees are only paid if they go to their local university, it serves little practical purpose. And the list is only relative: as everyone knows, according to Shanghai’s Jiao Tong world rankings the best French university (Paris 11) rates only 64, with the next (Strasbourg) at number 96.

The new minister of higher education has just passed a series of reforms which will allow university directors more autonomy. In particular they will be able to look for money from elsewhere to establish research centres and they will have some say over the choice of staff. However, the biggest reform, making universities selective as they are in Britain, was rejected as unrepublican by the students’ union.

Anyway, back to the baccalauréat. Those with a simple pass can go straight to university, those with an average of 12 or more out of 20 will be tempted instead to go to a grande école. Grandes écoles are not the rarified things of public imagination: there are well over 100, most with several branches. As well as the well-known ones like Sciences Politiques and the Ecole polytechnique, there are equally important though lower-profile ones like the Ecoles des Mines or the Ecoles des Ponts et chaussées. The reason why French engineering is arguably the best in the world (anything from viaducts and nuclear reactors to TGV’s, Airbuses and Concordes) is because of the justifiable prestige of their engineering grandes écoles.

However, only 7% of those passing the baccalauréat will try to into a grande école. Apart from the better level of education, the distinguishing aspect of a grande école is that to get in you need to sit a competitive exam (it’s not the mark that’s important but where you finish). The level of the competitive exam is so different from anything they have learnt at school that most students need a one or two year’s preparation course. In the past this cost money and is why, in the past, the grandes écoles were places for the middle class. Now there’s a serious attempt to get people from less privileged backgrounds involved. It’s too early to say whether it’s working, but kids from the middle classes still have a huge advantage because an important component of many exams is general or cultural studies, which the middle classes tend to learn at their mother’s knee.

Once accepted by a grande ecole, many believe they are set up for life, and this is probably true. To get a good teaching post you need to have been through a grande école. But, to answer my friend’s supplementary question, those who graduate from grandes ecoles are not enarques.

Oh no. ENA, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, calls itself the grande école des grandes écoles. It is a post-graduate school, and there is little point in applying unless you have either two (even three) university degrees or a degree from a grande école. Only a small percentage of ENA pupils come direct from a grande école, though: many apply after a few years’ work experience (though of course they are probably still grande école graduates). Again, to get in you have to sit a competitive exam. Even grande école graduates will usually spend a year doing the ENA preparation course. In simple terms, six out of seven will fail the written exam, and half of the remainder will fail the orals. There are three orals, the last of which, the Grand Orale, is particularly tough. 90 pupils are accepted each year. That is why enarques are an elite. How many thousand graduate from Oxbridge each year? Or from America’s Ivy League colleges? In France it’s just 90. (There are now courses for international students, and short courses for students from but I’m not going to go into those).

As the director of ENA, Antoine Durrleman, told me earlier this year, there are two supremely difficult moments for the ENA student: getting in and getting out. The graduation exam is equally difficult and has the particularity of classifying the graduates in order. Their final position will determine which job they go to (they have little choice in the matter): no.1 gets the best job, in the prime minister’s office, no.2 goes to the ministry of the interior and so on. But while any enarque is seen by the rest of us as somehow superior (a feeling shared and encouraged by many enarques themselves) it’s actually only the top ten or so who really matter: they go into one of the Grands Corps, usually the Cour des Comptes, the Conseil d’Etat or the Inspection générale des Finances. I’m not going to write more about the ENA here, a subject of endless fascination, but one of the many paradoxes in deeply indebted France is that the absolute crème de la crème are the Inspecteurs de Finance.