Pragmatism Comes to France

...Chirac, Raffarin and Sarkozy are riding high in the opinion polls, thanks apparently to their pragma tism...

...All the new reforms, says Sarkozy, should begin to ease the widespread "feeling of insecurity" responsible for pushing voters toward the far Right...

...The Interior Minister and other government leaders insist, however, that there is a dividing line—a democracy-stops-here boundary—beyond which the nation cannot venture...

...In December, cooperation with Romania enabled authorities to break up rings of adults who forced Romanian minors to beg on the streets of several French cities, in a 21 st-century adaptation of Oliver Twist...

...THE COMBINATION of a readiness to deal with grass-roots concerns and a recognition of the cultural changes France has undergone in the past 20 years also seems to be having a positive impact...

...On a different level, the police have been instructed to focus on the criminal networks that foment drug peddling by minors or encourage prostitution...

...On December 11 the Senate approved an amendment to the French Constitution, previously passed by the National Assembly, that describes France as a "decentralized" state and allows local experimentation with legal revisions and référendums...

...His Health Minister, Jean-François Mattet, is studying a number of proposals designed to revitalize the state hospital network...

...to prosecute beggars who commonly seek to intimidate or harass passersby, often with dogs in tow...

...December's amendment thus keeps in place the network of prefects who represent the government in each district to guarantee that basic laws are not violated...

...Chirac, Raffarin and Sarkozy have repeatedly stressed that attempts to restrict illegal immigration should be accompanied by a sensitivity to its causes, and should have no bearing on the status of foreigners who have lawfully settled in France...

...At the same time, in December he firmly prevented a group of foreign men and women from occupying a church in the center of Paris...

...Not surprisingly, therefore, illegal immigration is another point of emphasis for Sarkozy...

...Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...

...Resistance to privatization, however, is widespread...

...Whether he has the political determination and courage to tackle the question head-on remains to be seen...

...That has produced overcrowding at the universities, where roughly a third of the students fail to ever attain a degree and then have great difficulty finding employment...

...In keeping with its avowed posture, laws against all forms of racial abuse and discrimination have been reinforced...

...He has also launched an ambitious plan for transferring a wide range of powers to the regions and to the smaller départements...

...Three main areas have been targeted: devolution of power, the economy and welfare programs, plus law and order...

...An agreement reached in December with British officials allowed France to announce the closure in January 2003 of a migrant camp at Sangatte, near the entrance to the railway tunnel under the English Channel...

...Moreover, Raffarin gives the impression of listening to aggrieved parties and of appealing to his audiences' sense of compromise...

...Sarkozy has asked local authorities to examine each case individually...

...This provides the framework for future devolution...

...The notion of égalité at the core of the Constitution is viewed by many across the political spectrum as a value the state has to protect everywhere...

...Where Chirac differs most from his conservative counterparts elsewhere is in his championing environmental issues and international cooperation...

...The Prime Minister thinks an open debate on the future of pensions in France would signal a major break with the past —the victory of pragmatism over archaic rigidity...

...Raffarin has brought a new, bluff style to French politics that has earned him wide popularity, and he has a knack for addressing issues in easily comprehensible language...

...While public opinion favors counterbalancing the role of the state, they note, most people want safeguards written into the reforms that will ensure nationwide standards, particularly where health, education and welfare are concerned...

...Both have previously worked in organizations that foster understanding among France's ethnic and religious groups...

...The well-received appointment of two members of North African descent, Hamlaoui Mekachera, Secretary of State for War Veterans, and Tokia Saifi, Secretary of State for Sustainable Economic Development, is an example...

...Prior to leaving Chirac's camp, Pasqua had invited fellow neo-Gaullists to acknowledge the "values" they "shared" with many of those being drawn to the radical Right...

...The solution being studied combines state management and a number of commercial schemes...

...In fact, 70 per cent of Paris' prostitutes are illegal foreign residents, mainly from Eastern Europe...

...Consequently, where successive past Socialist regimes swept complaints about policies they considered taboo under the carpet, the new team at the helm is taking a different tack...

...He has already privatized Crédit Lyonnais, a bank that ran up heavy losses under the Socialists, owing to mismanagement and reckless expansion...

...Yet job vacancies continue to proliferate in many fields—from construction to electronics—for lack of qualified applicants...

...Pacts with immigrants' native countries are also being sought: One was signed on September 28 with Afghanistan to provide for the return of its refugees...

...Economists warn that it is bound to crash, because unemployment and a growing retired population are creating unprecedented strains...

...They expect coherent, sweeping, and above all immediate, action...

...On the face of it, the new government, led by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is simply seeking to implement the reforms that Chirac promised during his campaign...

...specific allocations of oversight and money will be worked out during the coming year...

...Raffarin favors allowing legal resident immigrants to vote in local elections, but he has yet to convince his majority's more conservative fringe to agree...

...Chirac and company may discover that sensitivity to daily worries alone will not guarantee the allegiance of the legislative majority and the people...

...Janicp...

...But Socialists like Michel Rocard and Laurent Fabius have for some years admitted the necessity of overhauling the present Social Security system, whereby today's workers finance the pensions of retirees...

...He wants to stop the drift toward a two-tier health service, with an expanding private sector for the well-to-do and a run-down public one for those who cannot afford anything better...

...The Center and Center-Right parties—Rally for the Republic and Union for French Democracy—who won an overwhelming majority in Parliament after Chirac's victory, appear to be undergoing a sea change too...

...If we fail on this, he tells his advisers, we will not be able to advance on other fronts...

...Detention centers for convicted minors are one more part of the law and order initiative...

...Ferry is simultaneously trying to promote trade schools, an avenue that has suffered from the Socialist attempt to concentrate on preparing everyone to pass the college entrance exam, the baccalauréat...

...In a television interview Sarkozy recalled that he was himself an immigrant (of Jewish-Hungarian descent) and underscored the cultural and economic wealth newly arrived communities have brought the country through the decades...

...Besides bringing decision-making closer to local needs, the government's long-term goal is to streamline the country's budget, even though regional authorities will initially receive the finances to carry out any newly assigned responsibilities...

...indeed, the trade unions have refused to discuss the prospect, at least in public...

...It will certainly test the talent for dialogue and consensus that so far seems to be his hallmark...

...After giving the statistics, Sarkozy illustrated them in more graphic terms: "Last year, for the first time in 20 years, more than 4 million complaints were lodged— which means 4 million victims, 4 million disrupted lives, lives that have been messed up and even broken...

...The Center-Right's dominance in the National Assembly, with 392 of 577 seats, also carries risks: Loyalty to the President is not enough to knit the whole into ideological unity, and strain is likely to develop among the different factions...

...Raffarin would like to see the same principle applied to postal employees and train conductors...

...Furthermore, it mandates a financial redistribution, with poor areas receiving help from rich ones...

...Many of them have international ties...

...The administration is proving flexible as well toward newcomers who have been living and working in France for several years without legal status...

...As Nicolas Sarkozy, France's tireless, ubiquitous Interior Minister, told Parliament in July: "What people expect of us is to be clear-sighted and steer clear both of all forms of naïveté and excessive reactions...

...Sarkozy's handling of the Sangatte camp was praised by former Socialist Culture Minister Jack Lang, who worked closely with him to find solutions for the plight of the refugees and paid tribute to his "humanity, efficiency and republicanism...

...In addition, Raffarin is toying with the idea of a compulsory "minimum public service" when civic workers go on strike...

...Threats by truck drivers and farmers to disrupt traffic on motorways and main roads failed to materialize this winter...

...His recent plea for a "globalization of solidarity" is bound to be popular with the French who contend that the globalization of free-market policies is detrimental to equality and to sustainable development in Third World countries...

...a government that takes the reality of daily life into account, not a government that tries to adapt reality to theory...

...Still, voters expect more than persuasive talk and good listening from their leaders, especially when the subject is one they feel strongly about—law and order, for instance...

...And when the oil tanker Prestige sank off the Spanish coast inNovember, he called the operators "thugs" and "vandals...

...He acknowledged that the leading source of public discontent, causing people to cast their ballots for Le Pen, was rampant crime and misbehavior linked to school delinquency...

...various strikes and demonstrations by public sector employees have come and gone without any real impact...

...The Left—Socialists, Communists and Greens—is struggling to find a new identity...

...This runs counter to the image of a country ruled by a technocratic elite— a patronizing "upstairs" France talking down to a "downstairs" France, to echo the Prime Minister himself...

...Education Minister Luc Ferry, for instance, is talking freely about breaking with the policy that does not allow ability-grouping (or streaming) in high schools...

...The Center-Right Fashions Its Soui Pragmatism Comes to France By Janice Valls-Russell Paris Last spring's French presidential election, with its dramatic runoff between neoGaullist Jacques Chirac and xenophobic extreme Rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen, may have initiated a reshaping of political thought here...

...A number of steps have been taken to strengthen patrols on the streets...

...On this he is supported by consumers and private businesses increasingly exasperated by repeated labor actions...

...This has been sharply criticized by a significant segment of the Left, but it is popular with much of the rest of the electorate...

...Overall, Chirac is keen to demonstrate the Center-Right has a soul...

...and to act more swiftly against vagrants who camp on private property or public ground without permission...

...He is supported here by polls conducted in the fall showing that a majority of teachers not only advocate alternatives to the present system but describe it as a "failure...

...a similar mutual "charter" already exists in many private academies...

...Gone is the ambivalence demonstrated in 1999 by former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, who broke with Chirac and set up a party sandwiched between the neoGaullists and Le Pen's National Front...

...Although 74 per cent of the country's mayors back the change, in Raffarin's own camp deputies who voted for it advocate caution...

...Teachers, meanwhile, have welcomed regulations that reinforce their control in schools and stipulate penalties for students who insult or molest instructors (from spitting to blows and threats...

...The state machine does not work," says Raffarin, "it is nonegalitarian, rigid and incomprehensible...

...Paris is clearly anxious to reassure civil rights groups and the moderate Left that it will not be caught "flirting" with far-Right ideas...

...This belief, incidentally, is not limited to the Left, though the Greens tend to voice it most fervently· Despite the favor the government appears to have found with public opinion so far, over the long haul its pragmatic approach may not compensate for the lack of a comprehensive vision...

...Prominent Socialists privately admit Paris is "doing what we should have done but never did, or did not know how to do...

...To quote Sarkozy, who has joined Raffarin in developing a knack for putting his finger on the pulse of the voters: "They want...

...He has repeatedly derided President Bush for refusing to agree to the Kyoto protocol on global warming...

...Like Spain's conservative Prime Minister José Maria Aznar and President George W. Bush in the United States, Chirac and Raffarin believe the national bureaucracy and state-controlled services are too cumbersome and expensive...

...Sarkozy has been meeting various Muslim leaders in an attempt to include them in French public life and persuade them that it is in their interest to work with one another: "I gathered them and told them, 'Can't you see that the French are afraid of Muslims, that your divisions suit those who dislike you?'" On such issues Sarkozy's outlook is shared by people close to the Socialist opposition—like Jean Daniel, editor of the Center-Left weekly Nouvel Observateur, who has lauded his "boldness...

...The United Nations High Commission for Refugees and France's Office for International Migrations were additional participants in the effort...

...In the same vein, welfare laws passed by the previous government have been retained, as have measures like subsidizing support groups for parents and granting fathers a paid, 10-day leave when their children are born...

...Other measures, such as cutting income taxes, increasing incentives for private philanthropy to take over some government programs, or restructuring Social Security, resemble those of conservative administrations elsewhere as well...

...Xavier Darcos, Secretary of State for Primary and High Schools, has announced that parents and students will henceforth sign "good behavior" contracts with the schools...

...Teams of doctors and nurses now stay on duty for emergencies and in-house care if their colleagues walk off the job...