(Not) Understanding French politics - the Macron reform

Quite an ambitious headline, but don't worry, this isn't about to become a pedagogical piece on the finer details of the French political system.

Neither is it going to be a dumbed-down version pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Rather it's a simple but hopefully informative observation as to how difficult it is, even for those who enthusiastically (try to) follow French politics let alone others who only dip into it from time to time, to get to grips completely with the machinations of the system.

Certainly France isn't alone in having its own political peculiarities, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to understand them when they are on full display.

Friday's edition of the excellent lunchtime news magazine "La Nouvelle Édition" on Canal + contains a short segement, presented by journalist Gaël Legras, called "Vu de l'extérieur".

Legras takes a whistlestop tour of other countries' news outlets to discover how they're covering particular stories about France; in other words "what they're saying about us".

Last Friday's chosen subjects were the trial in Lille featuring Dominique Strauss-Kahn who (don't groan) had denied charges of pimping. Paris Saint-Germain's match against Chelsea in the Champions League, anti-semiticism in France following the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in the town of Sarre-Union in the east of the country and the racial slur made by a former foreign minister, Roland Dumas during an interview on BFM TV  and the so-called article 49-3 of the French constitution.

Vu de l'extérieur du 20/02 - Vu de l'extérieur du 20/02

Now, that last subject might not seem particularly interesting, but its application last week illustrated perfectly just how idiosyncratic the French political system can be.

It's a tool which can be used by a government to force a bill through the national assembly without a vote being taken.

It's rarely used because, apart from being perceived as out of step with the democratic process, it is invariably followed by the opposition tabling a motion of no confidence in the government.

But that's exactly what happened last week to economic minister Emmanuel Macron's bill "designed to remove obstacles to French economic progress".

Emmanuel Macron (screenshot from interview with Jean-Jacques Bourdin, BFM TV November 2014)

The bill includes a raft of reforms such as extending Sunday shopping, opening up heavily-regulated professions to greater competition, privatising certain regional airports, ending the monopoly of intercity bus routes...and, and, and.

You can read more about Macron and the reform package in this piece by Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in The Financial Times.

In short though, the reforms came under fire from a number of Socialist party parliamentarians, rebels known as Les Frondeurs, who said they would not vote through the package.

At the same time, two opposition parties, the centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP) and the centrist Union des démocrates et indépendants, (Union of Democrats and Independents, UDI) declared they wouldn't be voting in favour either...even though Macron's bill was largely inspired by ideas previously advocated by both parties.

It makes complete sense - doesn't it? Well, at least politically.

Understanding that this was all going to end up very messily for a reform which was supposed to be one of the most important of the second half of his term in office, the French president, François Hollande, gave his prime minister, Manuel Valls, the green light to invoke that (in)famous 49-3 article.

The outcome - UMP and UDI tabled a motion of no confidence forcing Les Frondeurs to rally behind the government because apparently "voting against a bill (introduced by their own party) was one thing, but backing a vote of no confidence submitted by the opposition was not the same."

Not easy for the world's media to understand what the heck was really happening - and just as impossible for those in France as it seemed the political world had turned upside down.

In essence though it was a defeat all round.

The bill still has to make its way through the Senate and then back (in a revised form) to the national assembly.

The opposition has shown itself unable to stick to any sort of political principles (an oxymoron?), and the Socialist party is as divided as ever.

And...oh yes...there are local elections (départemental this time around) in March when guess whose party is predicted to lead after the first round of voting.

Yep, Marine Le Pen's far-right Front National no doubt benefitting from the disillusion many in France have with the traditional political parties.

And last week's parliamentary palaver will only have helped her cause.

But that's quite another story.

Don't worry if you've understood nothing or very little of all of the above.

You're far from being alone.

It's all...well, very French politics - n'est-ce pas?

French finance minister says government policies "bearing fruit" as Fitch lowers France's rating to AA - say what?

You don't need to be an expert in economics to know there's something not quite right about two pieces of news that broke towards the end of last week.

First up ratings agency Fitch reduced France's credit grade from AA+ to AA saying that the country's "efforts to trim its fiscal deficit have fallen short to avoid a downgrade."

Or in ratings speak, "The weak outlook for the French economy impairs the prospects for fiscal consolidation and stabilising the public debt ratio."

Not exactly a resounding endorsement of France's efforts to its tackle its public debt or the measures put in place to boost the economy.

But hey ho. This is France, the country in which successive governments seem to believe faithfully in the power of La méthode Coué or autosuggestion and positive thinking.

In other words, if you say something often enough, you'll come to believe it - even if all the evidence points to the contrary.

So up popped the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, to share his response in a statement which...well almost defies belief.

Michel Sapin screenshot from RTL radio interview, October 2014

"Government policies are beginning to bear fruit as companies benefit from cuts in levies and that'll continue in the coming years," he said.

"In Europe's difficult economic environment in Europe , we're going to maintain the course we've already set with the implementation of planned economies , and the continuation of reforms needed to boost growth and make companies more competitive."

In other words, an ostrich head in sand style, "We're not taking any notice of what any ratings agency says as we know best how to (mis)handle our own economy".

Oh...by the way M Sapin, Father Christmas isn't real.

Is France a "time-bomb at the heart of Europe"?

The weekly international affairs and news magazine The Economist certainly thinks the country has the potential to be.

(screenshot of The Economist front cover from the official site)

It devotes a 14 page special report on France in this week's issue and runs with a front cover that is far from being the truth - at least as far as the French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, is concerned.

"It's just a magazine going over the top in an effort to sell more copies," he said, reacting to the report.

"I'm not impressed."

A synopsis of the report can be found online here.

It's worth a read - and not just for all Francophiles.

Rachida Dati's "pornographic" economic analysis

It happens to the best of us confusing a word or a simple slip of the tongue.

But when you're a politician such as Rachida Dati and still in the public eye (in spite of her claims that she has never sought the limelight - hide the guffaws please) a simple mistake can give everyone a jolly good belly laugh.

Rachida Dati, screenshot from Dimanche + clip

Such has been the case since Sunday afternoon when the former justice minister and now Member of the European Parliament was a guest on the afternoon current affairs programme Dimanche + on Canal +.

Sharp-eared viewers probably couldn't quite believe their ears as Dati turned an otherwise potentially rather dry subject "foreign investment funds" to one with sexual overtones as she inadvertently threw oral sex into her analysis.

"De plus en plus, ces fonds d'investissements étrangers n'ont pour seul objectif que la rentabilité financière à des taux excessifs," she said.

"Quand je vois certains qui réclament une rentabilité à 20-25%, avec une fellation quasi nulle..."

For those of you who might have missed it, or whose French is a bit ropey, the clue lies in the last five words, "avec un fellation quasi nulle..." and the French for inflation "inflation" and fellatio "fellation".

So what Dati actually said gave her response quite a different meaning from the one intended namely, "Increasingly, these foreign investment funds have only one objective, the financial return to excessive levels.

"When I see some of them looking for returns of 20 or 25 percent, at a time when fellatio is almost non-existent..."

Dati's oral blunder quickly made it on to the Net (you can see it here at 12-13 seconds) and raised more than just a smile in many quarters.


Lapsus: Dati confond "inflation" et... "fellation"
envoyé par LePostfr. - L'actualité du moment en vidéo.

But at least she has had the sense of humour to shrug off the incident with aplomb insisting that of course she hadn't confused the two words.

"I was just speaking a little too fast," she said on national radio on Monday morning.

"You can see that (when you look at the clip)", she added.

"But hey, if it makes everyone laugh..."

The French government's million-billion loan muddle

It's an easy enough mistake perhaps getting a few zeros confused especially when the amounts involved are to most of us pretty mind boggling.

But it's not really the sort of error you would expect from a government purportedly more adept at matters financial and charged with balancing the nation's books.

That however, is exactly what the French government has been up to recently, proudly outlining on its official site how the planned €35 billion loan, announced by the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, earlier in the month "to boost the country's competitiveness and fund the best universities in the world" would be spent.

On Christmas Eve it went online with a breakdown of how the money would be apportioned to each of the main sectors such as universities, small businesses, sustainable development and the digital economy that would spearhead Sarkozy's plan to ensure that France could "fully benefit from the recovery, so that it would be stronger, more competitive, and create more jobs."

Except someone clearly got in rather a muddle as to the number of zeros involved, or simply repeatedly hit the wrong letter on the keyboard (after all it can easily happen to those unfamiliar with the French AZERTY layout) because the 35 billion suddenly became a rather more modest 35 million.

And there the blunder remained for all to see until the afternoon of December 29 when the figures were corrected.




For those who might have missed what was - as the government's press service assured - "a mistake" - the national daily Le Figaro helpfully published a screen shot of the "million-billion" mix-up.

Perhaps it was the timing of the release that left the rather embarrassing miscalculation in the public domain for four days.

After all who in their right mind would take a break from the Christmas festivities to take a glance at what was on the government's website?

But of course it's not the first time the French government has had problems with the flow of information making it on to its own site.

Back in August it published the names of Frédéric Lefebvre, Axel Poniatowski and Paul Giaccobi as three new junior minister appointed to the government, before quickly taking them down again the same afternoon in what initially described as a "technical problem" and was later explained as "human error".

Economic crisis? What crisis?

It's good to see politicians setting a good example to the rest of us, especially at a time when most countries are grappling with the economic downturn and in France, as elsewhere, the short term forecast at least is far from rosy.

As you might have read there was a government reshuffle here a couple of weeks ago, a chance for the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to get rid of some ministers who hadn't been performing up to his standards, bring in some new faces and above all reward those close to him.

Among them of course was Brice Hortefeux, Sarkozy's long-time buddy and political ally who, back in June 2007 had been given the newly-created immigration portfolio, switched to employment five months ago and finally got his hands on the office (apart perhaps from that of prime minister) which he had been widely believed to have coveted when he replaced Michèle Alliot-Marie as minister of the interior.

With the change of ministry of course came a change of staff, offices, and cars.

Yes ministers need cars (plural) and chauffeurs to speed them from one appointment to another, departments need pool cars and they (the vehicles) have to be up to the job.

Fair enough, not just a simple perk of the job, but undoubtedly a necessity.

Except in its latest edition, the weekly car magazine Auto Plus, has a few harsh words for the reported decision of the newly-appointed interior minister, to order two new cars unnecessarily.

According to the magazine, Hortefeux, ordered two brand spanking new, top-of-the-range, luxury (enough superlatives?) Citroën C6 cars. Yes "luxury" exists within the French car industry too.

The cost - a cool €100,000.

As is often the case in stories such as these, the version from the ministry tells a different tale with a spokesman, Gérard Gachet, issuing a formal denial saying that Hortefeux hadn't ordered any new vehicle.

Hortefeux hasn't ordered new cars, "He's using the one that was already at the disposal of Michèle Alliot-Marie," he told the Le Parisien.

"The other car is a Citroën C6, ordered before he took over office and part of the regular renewal of vehicles," he continued.

"It'll be delivered at the end of this year and will replace a car that has been in service since 2007."

So a pretty open-and shut case with the denial suggesting that Auto Plus had got its story wrong.

No so, insists the author of the report, the deputy editor-in-chief, Pierre-Olivier Savreux

He's sticking by wrote saying that he has a source from the car manufacturer itself that the order for two (rather than one) cars was placed after Hortefeux took over at the interior ministry.

And Savreux even challenges the ministry to prove otherwise.

"If the ministry actually wants to send us a copy of the order (showing its version as to when it was placed) then I'll be prepared to make a correction in the next issue," he told the website Rue89.

So Auto Plus stands by its story while Hortefeux's ministry maintains its position.

Perhaps when the court of financial auditors makes public the accounts of the various departments for the year ending 2009, just as it did last week for the Elysée palace during 2008, we'll know which version is true.

But by then of course it'll be too late.

Sarkozy "reassures" the French in the face of a "worldwide crisis"

"It's the crisis of the century and it's without precedence," said the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, early on in a special interview broadcast live here on national television and radio on Thursday.

"In addition I have to protect as much as possible those who were in some way excluded when the world was benefitting from economic growth."

During the course of 90 minutes Sarkozy defended his government's policies and sought to "reassure" the French that the correct measures had been taken over the past couple of months to address the "understandable concerns" many have in this country for their future livelihoods.

More than 15 million viewers tuned in last night to hear what Sarkozy had to say about his government's handling of the economic crisis.

And although his office had said beforehand that there was no connection between his decision to appear "before the nation" and last week's national strike, it was clear from the outset that the day of action had been the catalyst for what was only Sarkozy's third televised interview since coming to power in May 2007.

But his interpretation of that strike could perhaps be regarded not so much as doublespeak as making the facts fit the argument.

"I have to make sure that France exits the economic crisis as soon as possible, " he said.

"My job is to listen to those who took to the streets, but also to listen to those who didn't - those who were working on that day and are also suffering."

What was perhaps disappointing, although hardly surprising, was that none of the four journalists present challenged him on his "explanation" by pointing out that polls also showed that 70 per cent of the French supported the strike - whether they took part in it or not.

Sarkozy will meet union leaders and representatives of the employer's associations on Feb. 18 to discuss the possibility of increasing unemployment benefits.

So what to make overall of what he had to say? After all 90 minutes is one heck of a long time to condense into just 700 words or so.

Well here is the very broadest of outlines.


(For those of you who understand French, there are links at the bottom of the piece to some of the sites of the major daily and weekly newspapers and magazines. As you can probably imagine it has been the major news story within the French media today.

Read collectively they should give a balanced overview of how the interview was received and interpreted.)


On the issue of his €26 billion stimulus package announced in December, Sarkozy was unrepentant, repeating once again that it had been the right move to resist the global economic slowdown and would protect jobs by shoring up the country's motor and construction industries.

He insisted that emergency loans to banks hadn't cost the French taxpayer one single centime (yes the French still call the smallest unit of the Euro currency by its old name).

In fact he went further to suggest that the state would actually earn over €1 billion from the interest on the loans it had made this year.

Sarkozy also announced that from next year, local taxes on business would be scrapped but companies have to pledge to keep operating in France and not close down plants to relocate to another country.

As far as the general direction and pace of reform was concerned, Sarkozy said there would be no change. When running for office he had campaigned on a promise to reduce taxes and trim down the country's large public sector and that was a promise he would be sticking to.

And one final note perhaps just to round off this post - on the "problems" Sarkozy has been having with a few of his ministers recently.

On Rachida Dati, the justice minister, who'll be stepping down if as expected she's elected to the European parliament in June, he said she "has done a remarkable job. Rachida will go to Europe and she will find her place once again in the government."

On Rama Yade, the junior minister for human rights, who refused to stand for those same elections he said, "When you're 32 years old and you're proposed a seat in the European (parliament), I find it a shame not to take advantage of that.

"I think she has understood that she was wrong, but I believe I can count on her talent."

And on the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who has been the target of a recently released book which "questions" his work as a consultant to some of Africa's dictatorial regimes Sarkozy offered his full support.

"Monsieur Kouchner has problems with the police? The justice system?" he questioned.

"Someone writes a book in which he says that M. Kouchner has done nothing illegal," he added.

"I've known M Kouchner for a long time and he abandoned those (consultancy) activities when he entered the government.

"I'm not the sort of person to drop someone just because there's a book based on rumours.

"He's a man in whom one can have complete confidence".

So there you have it. In a nutshell - and with plenty left out of course - 90 minutes worth of television.

Someone's hand aches from all the note-taking that went on while watching - and there were no advertising breaks.




Those promised links

Le Point
Libération
Nouvel Observateur
Le Monde
Le Figaro


And for those you you brave enough to watch the whole interview in French - handily broken down into four manageable parts.

Face à la crise part 1
Face à la crise part 2
Face à la crise part 3
Face à la crise part 4

Sarkozy addresses the nation

Anyone sat in front of the small screen during prime time viewing here in France this evening will be hard-pushed for choice as the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will be appearing live simultaneously on three national channels in a "special" (maximum) 90-minute programme.

He'll be facing questions from four selected journalists from the two major national channels, TF1 and France 2, along with one from M6 and another from the radio station, RTL.

It's being billed as Sarkozy's response to the economic crisis France (and much of the rest of the world) is going through, the credit crunch, the recession, call it what you will.

"Face à la crise" (surely no translation is necessary) is also likely to be a direct reaction to last week's general nationwide strike, although his office insists that there is no immediate connection between the two.

Instead it's being touted as a chance for Sarkozy to "explain" and put into perspective the government's handling of the economy during the credit crunch in France over the past couple of months and to "reassure" the French that the correct measures have been taken.

That "reassurance" is perhaps something many of those who took to the streets last week will be seeking, especially in light of the €360 billion fund (or stimulus package) the government has given to guarantee banks at a time when many small and medium sized businesses are still having problems securing loans.

Then of course there's the problem of purchasing power - or rather how to increase it, which was after all a campaign pledge when Sarkozy was running for office and an oft-repeated goal since he came to power.

Job losses, cuts in the education budget, pension and judicial reforms are also likely to be on the agenda in the first live television interview Sarkozy will have given since June last year, just before he started his six-month stint at the head of the rotating presidency of the European Union.

When he came to office in May 2007, Sarkozy said that there would be no formal or regular structured "message to the nation" as there had been under previous presidents and that he would pop up on our screens if and when he saw fit.

Tonight's format will be similar to the televised interview Sarkozy gave last April.

Back then he answered questions on a range of issues and admitted that "errors in communication" had been made in the way policy reforms had been introduced, namely that they hadn't been explained sufficiently well - and he promised more transparency.

The difference this time around though is that there's unlikely to be an admission of error, but instead an attempt to set people's minds at rest that the policies and measures the government has been pursuing over the past couple of months have been the right ones and in the interests of the country as a whole.

The country awaits with baited (sic) breath n'est-ce pas?

Love thy neighbour - but maybe not in rural France

Prejudice of any kind is certainly not uncommon in countries around the world. But a case that has recently hit the headlines here in France has shocked many and illustrates how, even in a multi-cultural society, some people still have problems dealing with those they perceive as "outsiders".

It involves a young farmer, Jean-Hugues Bourgeois, and the campaign of violence and intimidation launched against him by someone, or some people, in his local community since the beginning of this year.

And it has taken the involvement and interest of the national media to force the local authorities into opening an official inquiry.

It all started out innocently enough. Fresh out of agricultural college, and full of ideas Bourgeois looked around for some land to start farming and settled on a small plot of eight hectares, which nobody else really wanted in the hamlet of La Boge, which forms part of the village of Teilhet (population 300) in the Auvergne region of France.

His idea was to produce organic goat's cheese, and although he admittedly perhaps didn't really look the part, with his pierced ears and tattoos on each finger spelling out the word "Libertad" (liberty in Spanish), the locals pretty much left him alone to get on with what he was doing.

He was an outsider but he managed to strike up a friendship with one of the farmers, Georges Message, who was himself approaching retirement.

The two men got on so well in fact that Message even offered the "newcomer" the possibility of renting 50 hectares of prime land to expand his business - just the sort other farmers would have been interested in an area better known for cattle and cereal crops. And after the deal had been agreed by the mayor of the locality in which the land lay - as is required by law here in France - Bourgeois "took possession" of the first 24 hectares in January this year.

And that's when his problems started.

Towards the end of March, he found 10 of his goats dead - they had been shot, apparently with a type of gun only used by farmers - and the following morning he awoke to discover that his house had been daubed with the less-than-welcoming graffiti " La Boge for the locals - leave."

Over the next couple of months the intimidation and the attacks continued and escalated, in spite of his complaints to the police and local authorities.

A barn in which he kept feed for his goats was burnt at the beginning of August and his car was vandalised.

Then at the end of last month he had yet another chilling warning to leave after receiving a threat against his eight-year-old daughter. "We'll throw your daughter in a ditch, after having made a woman out of her," read an anonymous letter.

Receiving little satisfaction from either the local mayor, the police or the regional authorities,
Bourgeois took his plight to the media, and pretty quickly the national newspapers, radio and television had picked up on the story.

When cameras turned up in Teilhet last weekend, villagers had little to say apart from claiming that they had no idea who was behind the attacks.

But growing media interest led the region's public prosecutor, Dominique Bouclans, to open an inquiry and to repeat what many around the country must have been thinking when they heard about the story.

"In seeing this escalation of violence, we're witnessing a hate which is unacceptable and can only happen thanks to a conspiracy of silence from the local community towards someone whose only 'crime' is that he's an outsider," he said in a statement.

But any official inquiry will have to overcome the apparent refusal of the villagers to admit responsibility in the affair.

Comments from Bernard Duverger , the mayor of Teilhet and therefore its elected "leader" and someone who is supposed to represent law and order, probably won't have encouraged a quick solution to the problem either.

He rejects the theory that other farmers could be behind the attacks, defending them by calling for the presumption of innocence before proven guilty.

"I condemn these actions taken against Mr Bourgeois, and he has been a victim, but there's nothing to prove that the culprit is one of the other farmers," he is quoted as saying.

"If the media lynching continues, I'm afraid the violence will only escalate."

The 29-Year-old Bourgeois has said he intends to stay put, and at least he will have the backing of one local - Message, the neighbour, who agreed to rent out land to him

"I never thought it would go this far," Message told a national newspaper. "It's proof that we never really know our neighbours."

French aren't buying Sarkozy's purchasing power promise

When the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy's, came to power in May last year, one of his major campaign promises was that he would increase the purchasing power of the average man and woman on the street here in France.

And in all of his reforming policies over the past 15 months it has been one of the most often-repeated pledges.

With no sign of that actually happening, the French are beginning to question his government's ability to deliver on that promise. And the latest opinion poll published in one of the country's leading regional newspapers over the weekend, Dimanche-Ouest France, makes pretty grim reading for ministers as they get back to work after their summer break.

According to a survey carried out by the Institut français d'opinion publique (Ifop), 82 per cent of those questioned said they didn't have confidence in the government's ability to increase purchasing power.

And there's a general pessimism about things getting better any time in the near future, with only 37 per cent saying they remained "optimistic" as opposed to 53 per cent at the end of last year.

The general feeling also seems to be backed up by other figures. Those for example which reflect a change in the way the French holiday. This is a country which traditionally has a reputation for closing down for two months over the summer.

Although summer isn't quite over yet (in spite of what the weather would have us believe) there's plenty of recent evidence around that the French have spent it busily counting their hard-earned centimes. Another Ifop poll at the end of July showed that 42 per cent of them had decided not to go on holiday this year. And according to Protourisme - an organisation representing France's hoteliers - the usually buoyant domestic French tourist industry has also been hit with overnight stays during July and August expected to witness a drop of two per cent over the same period last year.

Of course opinion polls don't tell the whole story. There's always a margin of error, but in these days where spin is an important part of political life this latest "purchasing power" survey won't make the government's job any easier in convincing the public that its policies are working, even as it prepares to push through a raft of reforms for parliamentary approval in the autumn.

In June it launched a media blitz campaign spending €4 million of taxpayers’ money on a television and press campaign to explain how it was going to win the battle to increase purchasing power. But apparently people still remain unconvinced.

While some would argue that it's up to individuals to create their own wealth and not the role of the state, the French government has passed a series of measures that are supposed to create those very conditions for economic growth.

They've included a relaxation of the country's 35-hour working week, which many economists agreed had put something of a stranglehold on the French labour market ever since it was introduced 10 years ago, and a reform to employment laws making overtime possible and giving people the chance to (in the words of Sarkozy's often repeated mantra) "work more to earn more."

If the public remains unconvinced, the economic figures don't exactly help either. According to a report in the weekly news magazine L'Express, the gross domestic product is now expected to see a projected growth of one per cent in 2008 - less than had been hoped. And although the magazine says evidence from the European Commission points to the contrary, the prime minister, François Fillon, maintains France is on target to reduce the public deficit from 2.7 to 2.5 per cent of GDP by the end of the year.

Still to continue process of reform and find the money to invest in social policies and transportation for example, the government needs money. Money that by its own admission it simply doesn't have and hasn't had since introducing a fiscal package costing a cool €13 billion in August last year, shortly after coming to power, which critics claim benefitted primarily the already better off by reducing inheritance tax.

Increases in the price of fuel and the consequent rise in the cost of a range of household products are of course not confined to France.

When it comes to public opinion people in this country (as in any other) don't really want to hear about global explanations to the problem. They want the government to address the everyday issues that effect them.

Little wonder then that with no money available to boost the economy and certainly none around for general tax breaks, the French are "feeling the pinch." And it's no surprise that they are also pretty gloomy about the future for a country in which half the population earns less than €1,500 per month when the best they're likely to be offered, at least in the short term, is more belt tightening.

A taxing day as Sarkozy goes walkabout among the fruit and veg

What a start to the day for the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. He was up and about before dawned cracked rubbing shoulders and pressing flesh with the hoi polloi at Rungis, France’s largest wholesale food and flower market just south of Paris.

And as soon as he was done with mixing with the masses it was off to the airwaves of a national radio station for his first broadcast away from the comfort of the presidential palace since taking office.

Along for the ride at Rungis, so to speak, was the inevitable pack of hacks recording his every move as he pounded from aisle to aisle meeting and greeting in a way only Sarkozy can manage. Ah yes they had been forewarned and must have been delighted by the early-morning press call.

Indeed it was pretty much a case of déjà vu, a harking back to the good old bad old days of just 18 months ago when Sarkozy was in full flow as he stumped up and down the country during his presidential campaign.

Mind you the major difference this time around perhaps was the presence of none other than the first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, looking disgustingly radiant so early in the morning as she seemed to glide ethereally alongside her husband.

Quite what she made of being surrounded by heaps of kidneys and tripe at five o’clock as the couple set off on their 90-minute mystery tour leaves the mind boggling. Blow the cynics, it really must be love.

One thing’s for sure, the media hounds looked a lot more bleary-eyed than she did as they shuffled along camera-toting and snap happy for lunchtime television news broadcasts and tomorrow’s front pages. Ah the blessings of stage management.

From the heaps of offal on to slabs of meat, then past crate-loads of fruit and veg before pausing in front of hunks of cheese. Bruni-Sarkozy allowing herself to spend the longest time wickedly nibbling the smallest piece, hardly gorging herself to Fatdom and pronouncing it “delicious.” Once a model always a model.

And so the ambulant presidential cavalcade proceeded to the sweeter scents of the flower section, Not quite 6.30am and Sarkozy still smiling and exchanging banter – far removed from the ill-humoured scenes and insults back at the agricultural fair in February when he famously told a visitor who refused to shake his hand to “get lost” in no uncertain terms.

This really was Sarkozy at his best, driving home the impression once again that he was leading by example and paying tribute to the agricultural backbone of France – those who stirred themselves into action at such an inhumane hour every day of the week, 52 weeks a year.

And in case anybody had forgotten that these were exactly the same tactics that had endeared him to voters just over a year ago, he reminded them - in a pre-arranged impromptu press conference there on the floors of Rungis.

His message yet again was basically those who work hard would get their just rewards. A sort of “early bird catches the worm” variation on his “work more to earn more” mantra that he seems to delight in repeating.

So much for the early public relations exercise, this was always going to be a marathon of a day, with policy issues taking centre stage.

Sarkozy had an all-important radio interview scheduled, during which he would outline part two of his economic strategy to “save” the country, boost purchasing power (yes that again) and counter possible industrial action. So enough of enjoying himself at Rungis, time for more serious stuff as he headed back towards the capital.

With French fishermen still blocking ports in protest against rising fuel prices the government is desperate to avoid action spreading, especially to the nation’s 35,000 truck drivers who could bring France to a standstill as they have before.

Sarkozy needed to pull a rabbit from somewhere – not an easy trick to do when the state’s coffers are empty and the government can’t afford to decrease the price of fuel because it relies too much on the tax it levies – currently accounting for around 65 per cent of the price of each litre.

Somehow though the president announced that he has managed to magic up a special fund of between €150-170 million for every trimester. It’ll be used to compensate those who are most exposed to the recent world hike in oil prices - haulage companies, fishermen, taxi drivers - and will be financed by siphoning off some of the money from VAT on fuel.

So really it amounts to a numbers game that involves shuffling around taxes without addressing core issues of alternative energy supplies, which anyway would take far too long to be implemented and fail to address the immediate need for action. Ad hoc economics some would say.

Because the rise in fuel prices is not confined to France, Sarkozy can of course always blame global market pressure should his stopgap measure not work. Still top marks for finding some sort of bunny.

And still on the issue of taxes, and because he has proclaimed himself as the “president who wants to cut taxes not increase them”, Sarkozy also announced that there’s going to be no rise in the television licence.

That came as rather a surprise – he’s good a that – as it still leaves many wondering how the heck he is going to finance the state-owned television channel, France 2, when the planned ban on advertising kicks in.

Did someone say privatisation?