Peter Jackson column

Apr 26 2007 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

Those who prefer some ideological red meat in their politics will be looking enviously across the Channel.

Segolene Royal, as the Socialist Party's candidate promises to defend France's social security provisions and its rigid labour laws, while Nicolas Sarkozy, for the conservative UMP, stands on a platform of tax cuts and hard work.

Here truly stands a nation at the crossroads.Or does it?

On the face of it the choices are stark and, after the first round of voting, the French must make their minds up for one alternative or the other.

And France sorely needs to make some hard choices. Its labour laws which make it practically impossible to sack someone for anything short of criminal assault have done much to contribute to a situation whereby nearly one in four young people is unemployed. It was those young people, incidentally, who were responsible for an orgy of riot and car-torching last summer.

Nor is its slide towards the status of sick man of Europe much helped by a maximum 35-hour working week, a maximum which is rigidly policed and enforced.

Segolene Royal's prescription for this under-worked, over-taxed and over-regulated society is to create a further 500,000 state jobs.

Sarkozy, on the other hand, advocates a complete rupture with the recent past. He leans more - quelle horreur! - to the dreaded Anglo-Saxon model.

But even if he wins, and even if he means it, the French will never let him get away with it.

When, last year, Chirac's current prime minister Dominique de Villepin proposed to cut youth unemployment by allowing employers to fire young people during their first two years in a job for any or no reason, all hell broke lose.

A general strike was called, up to three million people took to the streets and the Government backed down. Sarkozy, by the way, rather weaselly gave political rival de Villepin his less than whole-hearted support.

When the French don't like something, whether they be students, farmers or air traffic controllers, they make the country ungovernable. Then the people, which since the war have been desperate to avoid national division, fail to support their government which always gives way. There's no reason to think things will be different under Sarkozy.

France at a crossroads? Don't hold your breath.