Sarkozy’s trouble with women 3

The students are revolting! And how she must wish they weren’t.

At just 40 Valérie Pécresse is the youngest member of the cabinet and as minister for higher education and research has probably had the toughest introduction to frontline politics of any of the newcomers to the government.

Once again the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has appointed someone with limited political experience although she has been a member of parliament since 2002.

Her academic pedigree is impeccable – she’s a graduate of the prestigious Ecole nationale d’administration, the university from which much of the country’s political and business elite is drawn.

Articulate, ambitious and dynamic, she quickly threw herself into the job of carrying out one of Sarkozy’s election pledges – to overhaul the country’s creaking higher education system.

After a swift consultation period with student and university representatives she was the first minister to push through legislation in parliament – strategically timed to sail through while most of the country was on holiday.

The law allows universities more autonomy to manage their assets and budgets, recruit staff and design courses, create partnerships with business and look for additional funding from private financial corporations. It also gives special power to university heads.

Unfortunately for Pécresse, students are not buying in to the government’s spin on the reforms. Instead many of them claim the so-called “privatisation” of higher education will allow big business to fund courses only designed to fit their needs, to the detriment of liberal arts and social sciences faculties.


So with the spirit of ’68 clearly ringing in the ears, students have all but closed down a majority of France’s universities and thrown their weight behind strikes organised by transport workers and civil servants.

Pécresse hasn’t exactly helped deflate the situation. She held negotiations with union leaders in early November but refused to back down. And with an arrogance that perhaps comes from knowing she has Sarkozy’s full backing, Pécresse has been less than tactful in suggesting that the extreme left wing has infiltrated the movement to spearhead the students’ protests.

But with the Socialist party opposition hardly throwing its support behind the students, reform looks to be a done deal. Pécresse is likely to come out of the fray battered but triumphant with a political standing which can do no harm to her reputation as the rising young star of the centre right.