Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite! ...... Sarkozy channels Charles de Gaulle

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:



Sarkozy Summons De Gaulle's Statist, Anti-U.S. Spirit (Update1)

By James G. Neuger

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Since the era of Charles de Gaulle, France has rebelled against the American-style capitalism that put a ``Made in U.S.A.'' stamp on the world economy.

Now, as convulsions on Wall Street shake the global financial system, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is seizing the opportunity to remake the free-enterprise model along more state-managed Gaullist lines.

Emboldened by the U.S. pursuit of a European-style bailout, Sarkozy has packed his wish list for an upcoming international summit with calls for everything from stiffer bank supervision and limits on executive pay to state aid for hand-picked industries. While the moment is in his favor, history is working against him: throughout the postwar era, French attempts to subdue globalization and come up with an exportable economic model have misfired.

``There will be so much opposition against this grand idea of putting in more state control,'' says Paul de Grauwe, a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Sarkozy is chasing ``a kind of French favorite dream that others do not perceive to be really necessary.''

As the financial crisis spiraled in early October, Sarkozy made a pilgrimage to De Gaulle's onetime country hideaway in eastern France, dedicating a memorial in the shadow of a double- barred Cross of Lorraine honoring the Free French in World War II. A prickly ally during the war, De Gaulle made a postwar reputation for defying the U.S. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aEUjmkEmRU8o&refer=home