El Economist estima que “Nicolas Sarkozy no puede rendirse a los huelguistas”, subrayando el alcance nacional y europeo del conflicto en curso. Nada me cuesta compartir su diagnóstico: este Infierno ha contando y analizado la misma crisis desde una óptica muy semejante.

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The Economist. Nov 15th 2007

Sarkozy’s Thatcher moment

Why Nicolas Sarkozy cannot afford to yield to French strikers

THE effervescent French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been on the road a lot recently—in Morocco, Chad, America, Russia and Germany, among other places. There has been much approving commentary about how French foreign policy has been freed of the reflexive anti-Americanism it so often bore under Mr Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac. Yet for the future of his country, and of his presidency, Mr Sarkozy’s foreign policy is not what counts most.

A far bigger test confronted Mr Sarkozy at home this week, as his much-vaunted economic reforms provoked a string of big strikes, already started by the rail unions and power workers, to be followed in short order by civil servants, teachers and even magistrates. This is being talked of as Mr Sarkozy’s Thatcher moment. Parallels with the iron lady as she faced down Britain’s coalminers in 1984-85 are inexact. Yet Mr Sarkozy is being watched closely in other continental European countries whose readiness to reform seems to have faded (German rail unions have also been on strike this week). More than the future of France is at stake.

The fearsome power of the French street has become the stuff of legend. Unionisation of the workforce remains surprisingly low—below British, German and even American levels. Yet at least since 1968 (some would go back further, to 1789), strikers and demonstrators have had an almost mystical status in France. In a political system that emasculates parliament and gives the president quite extraordinary power, public protests are one of the few avenues for genuine opposition. Yet the latest strikes are cruder in purpose than this observation implies. Far from representing a broad-based opposition, they stand for the narrow bloody-mindedness of vested interests determined to protect their excessive privileges.

Against this group Mr Sarkozy can marshal some strong arguments. His presidential campaign this year was unusually specific. He pledged to get France back to work, to scrap exorbitant public-sector privileges, to cut taxes and to set free a strangled labour market. He promised to end the “special regimes” that pay generous pensions to certain parts of the public sector, including the rail, electricity and gas industries. He said he would introduce a new law, due to take effect next year, to guarantee minimum levels of public service during strikes. Mr Sarkozy was admirably clear about his intentions, and he won an equally clear electoral mandate in May.

His proposals for reform were much more detailed than the vague ones Margaret Thatcher set out in her first election manifesto in 1979. They also represented a clear break with Mr Chirac, who did not run as a reformer in either 1995 or 2002. The truth is that Mr Chirac never really believed that radical change was necessary to improve the French economy and to cut unemployment. Mr Sarkozy does. Moreover, in contrast to the French people’s tepid attitude in 1995, when Mr Chirac’s first government tried to reform the special regimes for pensions, only to back down in the face of protests, the public now offers Mr Sarkozy firm support (see article). Often in the past the voters have, perversely, blamed the government, not the unions, for strikes and disruption—but not, so far, this time.

Mr Sarkozy has also chosen his battlefield with some skill. He wants to attack many privileged groups, but is starting with the most egregious. The special regimes are inordinately generous, allowing many workers to retire on full pensions at the age of 55, and some as early as 50. And, in yet another echo of Lady Thatcher, he has learnt from previous experience. In 1984 she knew that Edward Heath had, in the 1970s, twice taken on the miners and lost, leaving his government discredited, so she prepared the ground carefully for her own clash. Mr Sarkozy knows what happened to Mr Chirac in the mid-1990s and seems determined not to repeat his practice of offering unwise concessions, at least for now.

Don’t give in

It is those qualifying phrases—so far, for now—that are worrying. Voters can be fickle. Already Mr Sarkozy’s popularity rating has fallen. The insiders who resist reform tend always to be more vocal and articulate than the outsiders who would benefit from it. And, although Mr Sarkozy has embraced the case for change, his instincts are not at all those of a free-market Thatcherite. He displays too many of the traditional French predilections: a belief in a big role for the state, a partiality for (often state-owned) national champions, a mistrust of the benefits of unfettered competition.

Above all, Mr Sarkozy is by nature a deal-maker, a man disposed always to look for compromise. Sometimes that is an advantage. But in the confrontation that he now faces, it is not. In the summer he watered down plans for university reform; he has just offered special tax breaks to striking fishermen. He cannot afford to back away similarly from his promised reforms to the public sector and the labour market, even in the face of prolonged strikes. It would be an exaggeration to say that this is France’s last chance to change. But as the appetite for economic reform wanes across Europe, it is the last that is likely to come for a long time.

● Francia comienza unas jornadas decisivas
● ¿Puede salir Francia de la espiral demagógica que la ha empobrecido..?