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So Sarko’s In, Now What?

By François Blumenfeld-Kouchner / May 9, 2007
Jewcy loves trees! Please don't print!

So, quite predictably, Nicolas Sarkozy got elected President of the French Republic last Sunday. What is different about Sarkozy? Well, a pretty rare fact in the history of the 5th Republic, Sarkozy is not a former student of the infamous National Administration School, or ENA. Nor is his probable prime minister, François Fillon. Fillon will most likely be nominated right after the official power transfer to Sarkozy from Chirac, which is to occur on May 16th. Sarkozy will then have some time for free play with a remaining right-wing majority in Parliament, until June, when legislative elections will happen to renew the National Assembly. Most commentators agree so far that it is likely that the French will send in a right-wing majority to support the change they are expecting from Sarkozy. While the centrist Bayrou’s soon-to-be-founded new party could make a dent in this majority, it is unlikely that the major player in the opposition, the Socialist party, will have any significant minority in the Assembly, especially as its leaders are already fighting over whom (of those who had already thought to be the Socialist nominee for the presidential election) should lead the party in those elections.

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  • François Blumenfeld-Kouchner
    By François Blumenfeld-Kouchner 5/10/07 at 10:41 a.m. UTC

    This is indeed Jewcy. My contention would be, following my point regarding Sarkozy's supposed pro-Americanism, which I argue cannot balance the vast anti-Americanism of the population, that whatever Sarkozy could do "in favour of the Jews" could not have a sufficient influence to overturn the legacy of the anti-Semitic history of France. (Recall that it was the French whom suggested to the Nazis that they should take the women and children too.) While Sarkozy might enact harsher measures against hate crimes in general, I do not think this will impact something as tangled up in French interests as, say, France's historically pro-Arab policy. Which incidentally means that the Jews remaining in France will have to further their efforts to "integrate" or "assimilate", including politically: through denonciations of Israel and the US, notably. There is some Marxism left in the general French view of "acculturation" that tolerates the Jews as long as they essentially "convert" themselves to citizens of the French Republic. This failed model of integration, interestingly enough, does not simply reject Jewish identity but also causes many of the discriminations against non-Jewish populations, particularly Muslims/Arabs and Blacks, which in turn fuels inter-religious/ethnic hatred. It is telling that the French Jewish intellectuals are generally silent or on the far-left, but in any case never repudiating the concept of acculturation or that of the 5th Republic. The biggest mistake of the French Jews, then, is to believe that the "taming" of cultural characteristics demanded by the French model (as though the "laïc" French model wasn't in itself heavily culturally determined, and amongst other things vastly Catholic -albeit French Catholic, let's not forget they had to have their own pope) will impose the quieting down of Muslim anti-Semitism, thereby taking out what may be perceived as the greater danger to the Jews (let's not forget that's also why many French Jewish intellectuals opposed the latest war in Iraq: it was going to upset Muslims and thus draw attention to us). [Claire Berlinski's _Menace in Europe_ does a great job of showing some aspects of this problem.] But what in fact will happen is that the French (and to some extent I'm tempted to say, the Europeans) will end up with an angry Muslim population, which feels that demands of acculturation are an attack against its identity, which it is, by the way, and which Sarkozy will only reinforce with the creation of his "Ministry of National Identity" and a Jewish population whose Jewish characteristics will have been diluted to the extreme, because they tend to comply with those policies. Hang on —just kidding, this is already the case. So, no, I don't see any difference in the evolution of the French society's attitude towards the Jews (and the French Jews' attitude towards themselves) with Sarkozy. 

  • By Anonymous 5/10/07 at 9:31 a.m. UTC

    C’mon, this is jewcy.com. All we want to know is will he be good for the Jews.

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