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Power and love

Nicolas Sarkozy is not the first head of government to be in a love triangle with Mick Jagger, now is he?

There was also Pierre Trudeau. The prime minister of Canada in the 1960s and 70s was married to the wild Margaret. And after their separation she was the subject of much gossip linking her with Jagger.

Can you think of any other unions between top pop stars and top politicians?

Lembit Öpik and the Cheeky Girl (Gabriela Irimia) are disqualified on both counts.

Any other ideas?

(bonus question. Name two Prime Ministers with the same first name as Paul McCartney)

Sarkozy storms off...

Another one to add to our list of great walk-outs:

Why we don't have high speed Sarkozys and TGVs

I forgot to post on Simon Heffer's Wednesday article. But I really can't just let it pass.

It was a variant on the standard September column. You know the one - "I've been having a lovely holiday in France and come back to realise that Britain is horrible. Why can't we have high speed trains and better bistros".

The Heffer version is "I have been having a lovely holiday in France and come back to realise that British Conservatives are horrible. Why can't we have high speed Sarkozys and nice bistros."

So why can't British Conservatives be just like M. Sarkozy? I think you will find, Simon, that the answer is:

a. that we are not living in France, and issues that resonate there, given its recent history, may not work in the same way over here,

and

b. that the French Socialists have not moved to the centre as new Labour has, so cannot be fought from the Right in the same way.

If Monsieur Heffer is not persuaded by either of these then he might like to explain a couple of interesting omissions from his approved list of Sarkozy's right wing policies. Why did he leave out the Frenchman's support for industrial intervention and more powers for Brussels?

Surely if he thinks the Tories should copy Sarkozy, he thinks they should copy these things too?

Refreshing appearance

It's amazing the effect that Diet Coke can have

Welcome the warrior of peace

The decision by President Sarkozy to appoint Bernard Kouchner to the French Foreign Minister is one of the most interesting developments in world politics this year.

Who is Kouchner? This is what Andre Glucksmann had to say when adding Kouchner to Time's list of 100 icons and heroes:

Bernard Kouchner was first celebrated for fishing out the boat people who fled Communist Vietnam and for bearing sacks of rice on his ministerial shoulder in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. Nelson Mandela once whispered to him, "Thanks for intervening in matters that don't concern you."

Kouchner invented "the duty of international meddling." He favours intervention — peaceful if possible, military if necessary — to stop massacres and those who commit them. In the name of human rights, he approved the U.S. intervention in Iraq: "The No. 1 weapon of mass destruction is Saddam Hussein," he said. He lost loved ones in the attack against U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. He deplores the blunders of the Americans, but rejects the I-told-you-sos of the so-called peace camp.

No pacifist consensus. Forget pleasant sentiments. This humanitarian breaks taboos and reveals matters that render us sleepless. Faced with the globalised inhumanity that is burning the 21st century, Kouchner is introducing a new humanism without geographical or political borders. He does it not to open the gates of paradise, but to bolt the gates of hell

The man who established Doctors Without Borders supported Royal in the French election, urging a coalition between her and Bayrou against Sarkozy. So his appointment and agreement to serve is a surprise.

It is also important for two reasons.

First, it shows that Sarkozy is serious about breaking with traditional French foreign policy. Kouchner's philosophy is at variance with, say, that of Chirac. This New York Times book review puts Kouchner in context. Naturally, the book itself (by Paul Berman) is even more worthwhile, and a relatively quick read.

Second, the alliance between right and left is fascinating. There is an obvious community of interest between liberal interventionists and neo-con atlanticists. This the first formal test of political alliance.

A political moment for celebration.

Why France is failing

Michel Gurfinkel has written a superb, long commentary for The Wall Street Journal about the condition of France. The key to that country's slow decline, he reckons, is the "constitution behind the constitution": the state bureaucracy.

It has been estimated that since the 1970s, 70% of all members of Parliament have been civil servants of some sort, including university professors - almost all universities are state-run - and high-school teachers. When it comes to cabinet members, almost 90% are enarchs. Out of 17 prime ministers since 1958, six have been enarchs and another nine have been civil servants or former civil servants, former military men, or former employees of state-run companies. Among presidents, only one, Mitterrand, was a private person; the other four were essentially state servants, and two of them, Messrs. Giscard d'Estaing and Chirac, were enarchs.

He goes on to say:

The more absolute their power, the more the enarchs have tended to run France in their own interest, while assuaging the citizenry with bribes of all sorts. One such bribe, rhetorical but no less effective for that, has taken the form of nationalistic posturing, usually directed against the United States; a favourite slogan of the enarchs is that France's mission is to uphold and protect a superior continental civilization based on the welfare state against the Anglo-Saxon model of "predatory" free-market capitalism. Structural problems - an aging population, swelling immigration, the public debt - have been ignored.

So shouldn't we be more disturbed at the massive growth of public-sector jobs over the last decade in the UK? Aren't those 5.9 million public sector employees a lobby-group for French-style stasis?

Robbie Millen

Blunkett's wrong. Sarkozy is on the Right

David Blunkett had this to say this morning:

Those who see Nicolas Sarkozy as some kind of miniature Margaret Thatcher or a hardline right-winger, would be very wide of the mark.

His instincts are those of international capital but his understanding is, crucially, that globalisation means that France, like Britain, has to face the world as it really is. In other words he is a modernist, a pragmatist and, yes, a committed progressive.

No.

In his recent book, Testimony, Mr Sarkozy is very clear that he is on the Right and wishes to describe himself as on the Right. He goes so far as to take issue with his colleagues on the Right who shun the label.

Mr Sarkozy is a progressive if you think right-wing ideas are progressive. I do. It seems from his comments that Mr Blunkett does too. Mr Blunkett's statements about the French election are more eloquent about his own politics than about those of the new French President.

Sarkozy on course to win

Meanwhile, over in France, Sarkozy is sitting pretty. The TV debate was really Ségolène Royal's last chance to stop him. The result? If anything the gap has widened. This morning TNS-Sofres in Le Figaro has Sarko on 54.5 per cent and Ségo on 45.5 per cent, while Ipsos has 54 per cent playing 46 per cent.

What does Brown think about Sarkozy?

The opinion polls are unambiguous. Every one since the first round points to a Sarko victory this weekend. Yes, they are close. But if you take them together as a single sample a statistician would tell you that the chances that Ségo is in fact ahead at the moment is, to all intents and purposes, zero.

There has been a great deal of comment about Mr Blair's attitude to M. Sarkozy. But that isn't what matters, of course. What matters is Gordon Brown's attitude to him. And as with most things, we don't really know what that is.

Martin Kettle wrote rather well last week about Brown's ambivalence:

He knows Sarkozy from their days as fellow finance ministers. The Browns and Sarkozys have dined à quatre. Most importantly of all, Brown is comfortable with Sarkozy's deregulatory economic instincts and with his openness to America. And yet Brown hesitates. When Sarkozy launched his election campaign in London, Blair met him while Brown made his excuses. Brown has put out feelers towards the Royal camp too, which Blair has not.

The columnist ascribes this to indecision about the direction of his foreign policy. I found that quite convincing. But whatever the reason, Brown is right to be cautious about Sarkozy.

Sarko's desire to have a strong single European policy on immigration, for instance, and a European treaty with no referendum could cause Brown problems on the left and the right simultaneously.

But I was impressed at the news about the dinner à quatre. Getting Mr Sarkozy to have dinner with Mrs Sarkozy is quite an accomplishment.

Sarkozy's economic thinking is decades old

Nicolas Sarkozy is supposed to be the Thatcher figure who will drag France out of the economic doldrums. Then what is this comment about? Taking to an English journalist, he said:

You, the English, I love England a lot, you are world champions! As soon as your growth falls, what do you do? Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and the Governor of the Bank of England meet and decide to lower rates, to lower the pound

What? It’s ten years since Gordon Brown gave the Bank of England independence to set interest rates. Sarkozy has been the Finance Minister of France since then. Not impressive.

More gaffes like that and his lead in the opinion polls might just shrink. Although, if the French really cared about economic competence they probably won’t be voting for Ségolène. So much for choice.

Murad Ahmed