Sarkozy Gives Strike the Silent Treatment French President Keeps a Low Profile As Walkouts Drag On

By Elaine Sciolino

Ariane Bernard contributed reporting.

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President Nicolas Sarkozy has been called France’s Energizer Bunny, a hyperactive head of state criticized for doing the jobs of his ministers, hogging the airwaves and refusing to rest or reflect.

But as major nationwide transit strikes dragged on for the sixth day Monday and as public-sector workers were poised to walk out Tuesday, Sarkozy is hunkered down somewhere in the Elysee Palace, gambling that a stealth, low-key approach to his first domestic crisis six months into his presidency will succeed.

There has been no nationwide address, no carefully calibrated television interview by a friendly questioner. Instead, Sarkozy’s prime minister and labor minister have been sent out onto the front lines to fend off the slings and arrows of workers, unions, students and the political opposition.

Asked on France Inter radio Monday why Sarkozy has been strangely silent, Raymond Soubie, his adviser on social affairs, defended the approach.

“The president has followed this issue personally, continually, assiduously, and actively in the last few days,” Soubie said, adding, “With social issues, it is sometimes better to be silent than to be on stage, if you want to be efficient, if you want the strands of dialogue to be there and to be knit together.”

This is the season for strikes – and a difficult moment for the French economy. Despite Sarkozy’s campaign promises to spark growth and employment through reform, French consumers feel poorer than ever before with prices soaring ahead of the Christmas holidays.

France is ranked as only the 18th most competitive nation in the world; the country’s public debt has grown faster than anywhere else in Europe. Unemployment sits at 8.4 percent, but is 22 percent among people under age 25 and up to 50 percent in some troubled suburbs.

The country faces chaos and paralysis Tuesday when many teachers, hospital workers, tax agents, bank tellers, postmen, telecommunications, airport and other public-sector workers, even weathermen, are set to stage a one-day strike in a separate protest over salaries and job cuts.

French lawyers and judges are scheduled to strike next week to protest structural changes that could eliminate 200 courts. Tobacco shop owners are planning to protest over the country’s new anti- smoking law.

But the strikes paint a mixed picture, perhaps reflecting the country’s shifting mood that economic reform is necessary.

Transit workers have been striking since Tuesday to protest the conservative government’s plan to eliminate special retirement privileges that the private sector does not enjoy. Although many workers have since returned to work, the job action is costing the economy from euro 300 million to euro 400 million, or $440 million to $585 million, a day, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

Although seven out of eight French rail unions decided over the weekend to continue their strike into a second week, six of them agreed to participate Wednesday in negotiations with the government and the rail companies.

In an unrelated move, university students also are staging strikes, protesting – paradoxically – against a new law that gives underfunded state universities more autonomy and access to some private funding. Courses are blocked at more than two dozen of 80 universities in France. By contrast, a strike by gas and electricity workers has collapsed.

Sarkozy’s plan to end a system that allows some workers to retire with full benefits at age 50 and to leave some public sector jobs unfilled is quite modest.

But it strikes at the core of worker privileges and he knew that he would face the wrath of a huge swath of workers on the streets.

Some of the more radical workers and students see their cause as nothing less than a crusade to defeat Sarkozy’s entire economic reform project.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of the class issue, where identity means identifying with one’s occupation,” said Jacques Capdevielle, a research director at the Center for the Study of French Political Life at the elite Paris Institute for Political Studies.

“Sarkozy’s calculation is to say, ‘I want an American-type of society where you can make money and it’s not a sin.’ But I’m not sure you can change a hundred years of habits just like that. Sarko is playing poker here. It’s a dangerous game.”

Sarkozy has drawn the battle lines as an ideological struggle between the government and militant union leaders, one that pits a new France that wants to work more to earn more against an old France that is more concerned with preserving expensive but often impractical social benefits.

One day after the strike started, Sarkozy vowed in brief remarks to European deputies in Strasbourg to “pursue these reforms to the end.” He added, “Nothing will blow me off course.”

He reminded his audience that he was only doing what he had been elected to do.

“The French people approved these reforms,” he said. “I told them all about it before the elections so I would be able to do what was necessary.”

Since then, he has said nothing, although he may come under pressure to speak out on the issue Tuesday in a scheduled address to French mayors.

On Monday, Sarkozy played host to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and her husband, Prince Consort Henrik, for lunch and held separate meetings with President Francois Bozize of the Central African Republic and the far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen at the Elysee Palace.

He leaves for his first trip to China as president this weekend.

It is not in Sarkozy’s nature to remain static or silent. But he may be calculating that if he takes a high-profile public posture, he could find himself the lightning rod for more protests and strikes.

His low-key strategy may reflect a belief that public opinion is not overwhelmingly on the side of the strikers, and he may be counting on France’s silent majority to back him. His approval ratings have slipped several points in the last month, but he still enjoys a majority of support.

“The government strategy is more intelligent than hitting into people by telling them, ‘You’re all lazy,’ ” said Christian Chevandier, a professor of modern history at the Sorbonne.

He added, “It’s really skillful of Sarkozy to play it discreetly right now, even if we’re a bit surprised by it.”

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.