Sarkozy -- Is he turning just a wee bit left?

[JDPriestly]

At 4 a.m. on Sept. 30, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was shaking up investors on six continents, President Nicolas Sarkozy convened an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris to broker the bailout of French-Belgian bank Dexia SA. For an hour, he grilled Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer on the terms of the 6.4 billion euro rescue plan, says François Perol, Sarkozy’s economic adviser.

One of his top requirements: Dexia Chief Executive Officer Axel Miller must leave and forfeit his 3.7 million euro severance paycheck.

With that gesture, Sarkozy, who took office pledging to instill a work-hard, get-rich ethos in a country known for its disdain for money, turned into something more familiar to the French: a politician who intervenes in private companies, subsidizes jobs and bashes the bosses.

“By conveying the message that the state can do better than free markets, Nicolas Sarkozy is appealing to the French’s old instinct for protection,” says Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management in Paris. “He seems to be turning his back on his reformist agenda meant to give the French economy more inner resilience.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a1h...

It seems Sarkozy is intervening to save jobs. Interesting development.

[Freddie Stubbs]

1. The political center in France is considerably farther to the left than what it is in this country

[LeftishBrit]

3. True

IMO, one of the few advantages of the existence of the evil LePen party is that it 'creams off' (if that's the word!!!) the extreme right from the mainstream conservative party, leaving the liberal wing of the conservative party more dominant than in some other countries. In any case, conservatives in many Europaean countries are very moderate compared with current American Republicans.

In France, some of the social and economic advances that one would normally think of as 'left-wing' were originally instituted under the Giscard government.

However, Sarkozy isn't just nominally Conservative; he was assumed to be on the right of the party: well to the right of Giscard or Chirac. It seems likely that the economic crisis is pushing French voters to the left, and that Sarkozy is jumping along with them, in the hope that they won't push him off the cliff!

[Warpy]

2. Depends on whether or not he likes being in office

I don't see him as a GOP style ideologue, although fattening the rich has made him comfortable and powerful. I do see him as somebody who will inch to the left to save his job over the howls of his benefactors.

I hope we've got one who will do the same.

[Javaman]

4. I see him as just another weather-vain politician. nt