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DE RUEHFR #1817/01 1291350
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 091350Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6995
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHMRE/AMCONSUL MARSEILLE 1692
RUEHSR/AMCONSUL STRASBOURG 0412
RUEHC/DEPARTMENT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUCPDOC/DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 001817 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/WE, DRL/IL, INR/EUC, EUR/ERA, EUR/PPD, 
AND EB 
DEPT OF COMMERCE FOR ITA 
DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ELAB EU FR PINR SOCI ECON
SUBJECT: THE FRENCH ELECT SARKOZY -- WHAT THEIR CHOICE MEANS 
 
REF: A. (A) PARIS 1791 AND PREVIOUS 
     ¶B. (B) EMBASSY PARIS DAILY SIPRNET REPORT FOR MAY 4 
     ¶C. 2007 AND PREVIOUS 
 
PARIS 00001817  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (U) SUMMARY:  In electing Nicolas Sarkozy as France's 
sixth President under the Fifth Republic (ref), French voters: 
 
-- entrusted their country's highest office to an intensely 
ambitious and passionately action-oriented politician; 
 
-- endorsed the wide-ranging program of reforms -- including 
market-oriented social and economic reforms -- that Sarkozy 
ran on; 
 
-- implicitly gave him the green light to try and implement 
these reforms quickly (to be confirmed in the upcoming June 7 
parliamentary elections); 
 
-- endorsed a way forward for overcoming France's 2005 
rejection of the EU constitutional treaty; and 
 
-- signaled, by embracing a figure long tagged as 
"pro-American," their desire to renew trust in the 
U.S.-France relationship. 
 
Septel will report on the foreign policy implications of 
Sarkozy's election.  END SUMMARY. 
 
A LIFELONG AMBITION 
------------------- 
¶2.  (U) Sarkozy has never hidden his ambition to be president 
of France.  Biographers speculate that his decision to 
dedicate himself completely to politics -- and to occupying 
France's highest political office -- dates from his student 
days.  As a law student, Sarkozy took his first steps as a 
political activist, and wrote a graduate thesis on Georges 
Mandel, a key political figure in France during the first 
half of the 20th century.  (Note: Mandel began his career as 
an aide to the WWI-era Prime Minster Georges Clemenceau and 
ended it assassinated by French, pro-Nazi militia during 
WWII.  End Note.) 
 
"A PASSION FOR ACTION" 
---------------------- 
¶3. (U) Sarkozy himself has said, "You will never understand 
me, without also understanding Georges Mandel." In his 
biography of Mandel, "The Monk of Politics", published in 
1994, Sarkozy draws, in effect, a portrait of himself at his 
best as he sketches that of his subject: "...life entirely 
dedicated to France and to politics," consumed by a will to 
act, "act to live, act without measure."  This "passion for 
action," as Sarkozy has also referred to it, is one of the 
traits that 53 percent of French voters, fed up with the 
immobilism of France's politics-as-usual have positively 
endorsed in voting him into office. 
 
A SELF-MADE PRESIDENT 
--------------------- 
¶4.  (U) Sarkozy often evokes how "he climbed the ladder 
starting at the bottom," and had to "fight every step of the 
way."  Sarkozy's educational background is not that of 
France's political elite; in particular, he is not a graduate 
of the National School of Administration (ENA).  Even though 
Sarkozy has been the protg of powerful political figures 
throughout his career -- former Interior Minister Charles 
Pasqua, former prime minister Edouard Balladur, and President 
Chirac -- he has still always felt himself an "outsider," 
battling, and eventually dominating, more privileged 
"insiders." 
 
WHO STANDS FOR INDIVIDUALISM AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
¶5.  (U) This self-made-man dimension of Sarkozy comes across 
clearly in his sympathy for France's entrepreneurs and 
private-sector employees -- those "who get up early and go to 
work," and have to make their own way in the vicissitudes of 
competitive markets without any protecting, privileged 
status.  Much of Sarkozy's "liberal" -- that is, 
market-oriented -- economic reform agenda stems from his 
desire to both level and widen the playing field for France's 
entrepreneurs and private-sector achievers. 
 
 
PARIS 00001817  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
A COMPLEX REFORM PROGRAM 
------------------------ 
¶6.  (U) During the year that preceded his nomination as the 
candidate of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement 
(UMP) party, Sarkozy led a wide-ranging examination of the 
problems facing France, in preparation for forging his 
presidential platform.  This effort -- which included 
consultations with subject-matter experts, review by 
political allies, and testing of proposals with focus groups 
-- was run by former education minister Francois Fillon, now 
tipped as the leading candidate for prime minister.  The 
resulting reform program -- which was adjusted, sharpened and 
condensed throughout the presidential campaign -- is quite 
far-reaching and complex.  It is much more than an economic 
liberalization program. 
 
¶7.  (U) For example, one facet, which proposes reforms to 
political institutions and the administration of justice, 
includes proposals for reforming education and immigration, 
and for social programs to help immigrant youth in France's 
troubled neighborhoods.  The two other main facets of the 
reform platform deal with European and international affairs 
and with social and economic matters.  The latter includes 
controversial proposals partly to deregulate France's labor 
markets, reform retirement systems and cut taxes.  A 
compendium of Sarkozy's propositions made during the campaign 
on all reform subjects, which gives a sense of the range and 
specificity of his reform proposals, can be found at 
http://www.u-m-p.org/propositions/proposition s.php. 
 
MOVING FIRST ON THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FRONT 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶8.  (U) Throughout the campaign Sarkozy has hammered at the 
theme that he is a different sort of politician because he 
"says what's he's going to do, and then does it."  Forming a 
new government and winning a majority in the upcoming 
legislative elections June 10 and 17 will come first, but 
thereafter, Sarkozy has made clear that he intends to 
deliver, and quickly, across a range of reform proposals, in 
particular those aspects of his economic and social agenda 
that immediately affect the lives -- and pocketbooks -- of 
everyday voters. 
 
A BUSY PRESIDENT 
---------------- 
¶9.  (U) Specifically, Sarkozy has promised to call an 
extraordinary session of parliament to enact his proposals to 
exempt overtime hours from social security and other taxes, 
make mortgage payments on primary residences tax deductible, 
and abolish inheritance taxes for all but the top five 
percent of households.  In addition, Sarkozy has said that he 
will, over the summer, conduct a dialog with labor union 
federations and other organizations that represent "social 
partners," with a view to agreeing to labor market reforms, 
social security and pension reforms, reform of higher 
education, and the establishment of minimum service 
requirements for mass transport in the event of strikes by 
rail and bus workers. 
 
AND A BUSY OPPOSITION? 
---------------------- 
¶10.  (U) Sarkozy's clear-cut victory, with 53 percent of the 
vote, gives him a mandate for change.  In the recent past, 
France's labor unions, its public sector workers and 
university students have, largely successfully, resisted 
change of the sort Sarkozy believes he has been elected to 
bring about.  Sarkozy is convinced that if he moves quickly, 
his mandate will nonetheless carry the day, producing the 
kind of positive results that will modernize France and allow 
him to win a second term.  The possibility that a "social 
movement" intent on blocking Sarkozy's liberal" reforms might 
slowly gather strength and seriously complicate his bid to 
reform France is a very real one, however. 
 
RETURNING TO THE EUROPEAN FOLD 
------------------------------ 
¶11.  (U) Sarkozy's victory also offers the possibility that 
"France is back" in Europe following its 2005 rejection of 
the EU constitutional treaty (septel will report on the 
foreign policy implications of Sarkozy's victory).  In 
electing Sarkozy, voters endorsed his practical plan for a 
simplified treaty that can be ratified through parliamentary 
 
PARIS 00001817  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
means, thereby avoiding another divisive referendum. 
Sarkozy's announced plans to travel to Berlin and Brussels 
first make it clear that he intends for France to regain its 
status as one of the EU's key players. 
 
U.S.-FRANCE -- REAL FRIENDS WHO CAN REALLY DISAGREE 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
¶12.  (U) U.S.-France relations have improved markedly during 
the past two years following their low-point at the time of 
the U.S-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Though President 
Chirac has contributed to this improvement in relations, he 
nonetheless remains closely identified with knee-jerk 
opposition to the U.S. by France.  "Sarkozy the American" is 
a well-known epithet long applied to France's new president, 
which the Socialist opposition attempted to exploit in 
labeling Sarkozy as "Bush's poodle."  Like much else in the 
Socialist campaign, denigrating Sarkozy for being 
pro-American also didn't "take" with French voters.  The U.S. 
was the only other country Sarkozy mentioned by name in his 
victory statement May 9, and Sarkozy made clear, as he has 
throughout the campaign, that he would like to renew trust 
between the U.S. and France -- while underlining that true 
friends can be expected to truly disagree. 
 
ADAPTING THE AMERICAN DREAM 
--------------------------- 
¶13.  (U) During the campaign Sarkozy often ended his stump 
speeches -- evoking Martin Luther King -- by calling for a 
"French dream" of social equality, social mobility, and equal 
opportunity.  In voting Sarkozy into office, French voters 
seem to have endorsed this vision.  In Sarkozy's case, it 
should never be forgotten that, more than a dream, his vision 
is also a concrete plan of action.  He has said what he plans 
to do.  He will be judged on whether he does it. 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
 
STAPLETON