September 4, 2006
Sarko l’Américain
The big political event in Europe over the weekend was a speech given in Marseilles by Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s interior minister and the right’s standard-bearer for the French presidency in next year’s elections. Arnaud Leparmentier of Le Monde thinks that Sarkozy’s speech marked a sharp move to the right, in the response to the emergence of a moderate, Ségol ne Royal, as the likely Socialist candidate. Leparmentier cites, in particular, Sarkozy’s attack on the generation of May 1968. Foreign observers were very struck by the American-style razmatazz of the Sarkozy rally, complete with attendant pop stars. As Martin Arnold reports in the FT, Ségol ne Royal latched onto this and said stiffly: “My stars are the people of France.” Sarkozy is clearly self-conscious about being labelled too American, and devotes a considerable amount of space in his recent book to debunking the idea of “Sarko l’Americain” - while also, it must be noted, heaping praise on the United States for its social mobility and entrepreneurial energy. Perhaps Sarkozy has noted that the French are actually more ambivalent about the United States than they sometimes pretend. The most successful McDonald’s franchise in continental Europe is in France.
