Sarkozy's European dilemma

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is in a bit of a quandary at the moment as to what to do with the employment minister, Brice Hortefeux.

The problem arises from the ruling Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party's "success" in Sunday's European parliamentary elections here in France.

Against all expectations, Hortefeux has found himself elected to serve for the next five years in Brussels and Strasbourg.

According to the "rules" set by the UMP itself, any minister successfully standing for election to the European parliament is expected to step down from government.

Such will be the case with the agriculture minister, Michel Barnier, and the justice minister, Rachida Dati, who were respectively number one and two on the party's list in the Ile de France constituency (including Paris and the surrounding region).

But for Hortefeux apparently, an exception to the rule could well be made.

Sarkozy's "dilemma" began after the results came in on Sunday for the Massif Central-Centre constituency where Hortefeux had been third on the UMP list.

The party actually won a big enough percentage of the constituency vote (28.4 per cent) to send three, rather than the expected two, candidates to the European parliament.

Whoops.

In steps the UMP leader, Xavier Bertrand, who, when questioned, said that Hortefeux was "needed" in government and implied that he shouldn't be required to quit.

But hang about a moment. You might be wondering what Hortefeux's name was doing on the list in the first place if neither he nor anyone else ever intended to him to have to honour his obligation (to leave the government and take up his seat in the European parliament), no matter how slim his chances of being elected might have been.

Ah well, Bertrand, came up with a rather convenient explanation for that on national radio on Monday morning.

"We knew that Michel Barnier and Rachida Dati would be leaving because we placed them top of the list," he said.

"In Brice Hortefeux's case, his participation in the campaign was not to get elected but to lend his political support to the list," he added.

All right then, so Hortefeux wasn't standing to be elected.

Now some might see that as a rather peculiar and contemptuous comment perhaps on how the French government really perceives the role of the European parliament in spite of Sarkozy's determination that the EU's institutions should be reformed and bolstered.

But there is of course a domestic political agenda at play in all of this.

Sarkozy and Hortefeux go back a long way.

A long-time friend and close ally of the French president, Hortefeux took over the newly created ministry of immigration in June 2007.

At the beginning of this year, when Bertrand stepped down from the government to take over the leadership of the party, Hortefeux replaced him as employment minister.

But most importantly perhaps is that he is one of those being tipped to be Sarkozy's next prime minister (when the president manages to give the current incumbent François Fillon the shove) and his credentials for the job would certainly be better served being based in Paris rather than Brussels and Strasbourg.

According to the national daily, Le Monde, Sarkozy has given himself a week or two to "reflect" on what to do before making an official statement, but already the signs are that Hortefeux will stay exactly where he is.

Isn't politics a wonderful thing.