Comments on: The Distrustful French?

by: Tim

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:11:12 +0000

Unfortunately I think “odd naivety on the international stage” is right. His attitude towards power, or his definition of power is perhaps not the same as many people’s. His idea that somehow each voter gave him a carte blanche on every single one of his many propositions - again the word is naivety. 53% is not really a landslide majority - he should bear in mind the 47% who did not vote for him. On his image abroad, the question is how long it will be before the French people begin to realise he is not doing them or France a service, in other words how long it takes other leaders to make it obvious they think he’s a fool. As you say, Putin did a pretty good job last week, but I’m not sure if that has made the French press

by: French Blue

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:02:34 +0000

Just so. And whilst on the one hand it can only be a good thing to address and maybe even sort out the EU/Euro/ECB anomalies for once and for all, your Oct 4 blog makes a very telling point - “this business of having to work alongside one’s economic partners has taken the French president by surprise”. Sarkozy seems to have started to reveal an odd naiveity on the international stage. His ‘excited schooboy’ performance at the G8 summit, his rather-too-full-of-himself press conference after the Putin meeting followed by Putin’s downbeat if not dismissive summary the next day…might it be that the President can’t quite cut it when it comes to ‘the realities’?

by: Tim

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:16:26 +0000

For more about the currency issue, see my blog “Frustration” on the 4th October, which is based on an excellent piece by George Friedman of Stratfor [sorry, I can’t give links on this part of the blog]. Friedman puts the case well, and from Sarkozy’s point of view, too: if things happen the way Dr. Friedman sees them, Sarkozy will sooner or later have to admit that he’s in a terrible bind about currency. Either the euro countries will have to completely shake up their rules, allow every country its own flexibility (in which case the single currency experiment will somehow have failed) or Sarkozy will have to do as Mitterrand in 1983, two years after his election, and do a total U-turn on election promises, faced with the realities of the world.

by: French Blue

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:21:53 +0000

Fascinating stuff - and thanks Tim for precis-ing what looks like daunting read. Your final point, the independent currency issue, is I think likely to hot up if Sarko sticks to his guns about ECB policies being good for Germany, bad for France. It raises all the fundamental questions about federacy etc - and the contradictions inherent in having a common currency, a central bank but disparate national economic policies…