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Plus ça change…

Well, predictions made earlier in the Shvitz, unfortunately -if unsurprisingly- turn out to be true. Sarkozy, cheered as a herald of change for France, is now confronted to the vast inertia of French society. A good (they’re rare enough to be noted) editorial in Le Monde claimed yesterday that ‘Even though this may seem cruel towards Prime Minister François Fillon, it is now tempting to say that we know what purpose he serves: he’s here to announce the steps back taken by the president from the promises he made as a candidate…’

And indeed education reforms have been quelled despite the great need of France to review its system; reducing the number of civil servants in the ‘public function’ has been taken off the agenda. But more importantly, it seems as though Sarkozy is already doing something his critics had predicted he’d do: using the popular Bernard Kouchner to cover for his mistakes. While Kouchner’s role in bringing in the UN troops to Darfur as well as in trying to re-establish a Lebanese ‘dialogue’ cannot be overlooked, Sarkozy’s own attempt to solve the Bulgarian nurses’ plight in Libya -seen by some as a hijacking of a long-planned EU diplomatic strategy, although by others in a slightly more positive light- gave the first mark of his desire to see himself as the central character in the international politics arena.

Although this is hardly surprising since De Gaulle himself inaugurated foreign affairs as the ‘reserved domain’ of President of the 5th Republic (a traditional attribution not written in the constitution), lack of communication between the head of state and his government do help to give the impression that he will use them as scapegoats: it is now emerging that, despite Kouchner’s denials in parliament earlier this week, Sarkozy had struck an armament deal with the Libyans as counterpart for the release of the nurses.

In the meantime, and not to be outdone by an American, albeit Michael Vick, France is still upholding its long-standing tradition of freedom of thought, not speech, by censoring an anti-corrida ad deemed to be ‘too violent’ (not that they’d censor ads that, say, are degrading women).

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