Le Vainqueur
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Foreign Affairs | France | Nicolas Sarkozy | Strikes — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Nicolas Sarkozy wins:
President Sarkozy of France is on the verge of a breakthrough in his ambitious plan to wean his country off the restrictive working practices he believes stand in the way of national prosperity.
Yesterday, the strike of rail and subway workers that has crippled France for nine days was clearly crumbling, as workers began returning to work in large numbers and union branches conceded that support for the dispute is collapsing.
"We think a dynamic of return to work has begun," Julie Vion, a spokeswoman for France's state-owned railroad network, SNCF, said.
Union leaders began to concede defeat yesterday. "We have to face reality. Since yesterday's negotiations, things have changed. The strike is no longer the solution. The strike strategy is no longer winning," a leader of the Sud union representing Paris underground railway workers, Philippe Touzet, said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
The collapse of support for the strike by individual rail workers marks the first success in what Mr. Sarkozy considers the key goal of his presidency, the abandonment of expensive entitlements and special conditions for public sector workers, including generous early retirement and pension benefits for half a million rail workers, which he believes make France uncompetitive.
Hopefully, this positive trend will continue, but it should not be forgotten that despite his reformist tendencies, Nicolas Sarkozy remains something of a statist who supports an industrial policy and is less than enthusiastic about globalization. To be sure, if his political successes continue, Sarkozy will be able to move France from the excessively statist position it has found itself stuck in for generations, but Milton Friedman or Margaret Thatcher he ain't.
The good news may be that Sarkozy will help set the stage for a future President who actually will pursue Thatcherite reforms. At which point, France will take the giant step towards economic and social dynamism all those who love it want it to take.