New Leaders Say Pensive French Think Too Much

New York Times
Not thought to be a problem in Washington.

The Veil of French Politics

New York Times Blog: By Judith Warner

[Ségolène Royal] justified this unusual incursion into her private life on the grounds that it advanced “the cause of women.” She also posed at home with Hollande and their children to showcase the kind of “organization” that was necessary to balance high-level government work with the needs of a large family...

...[A]ll this exposure isn’t necessarily shocking from an American perspective. Royal’s penchant for making the personal political can even be seen as an admirable form of public expression for a woman who has consistently spoken out on behalf of working women and their families since escaping from the home of her domineering, authoritarian father in the 1970s. But it’s been a major style shift for France, where the separation between public and private life has traditionally been so absolute – and protected so assiduously by the judicial system, politicians and the inner court of Parisian journalists who cover (and sometimes sleep with) them – that Francois Mitterrand was for decades able to maintain, at taxpayer expense, an illegitimate daughter and a mistress without the knowledge of the broader electorate.

This secrecy, we might say, is self-serving and elitist. But it has also led to a somewhat higher level of political discourse than Monkey Business and Monicagate.

At base, the French would say (they said it to me, in fact, incessantly, when I was there covering politics at the time of the Clinton impeachment scandal), it’s emblematic of a profound philosophical difference that sets them apart from Americans: the fact that the French don’t subscribe to the idea of “transparency.” “Transparency,” in this context, is the notion that a person’s innermost soul is revealed in each and every one of his or her acts. To believe in that kind of transparency is naïve, the French believe; it’s more realistic to recognize that human behavior is murky and messy and, in the case of politicians in particular, often highly compartmentalized. So it’s pointless to make sweeping judgments about a person’s political valor by his or her private life – and it’s none of the public’s business, anyway.

That attitude, apparently, is now changing...

French President Names New Cabinet

From The New York Times:

PARIS (AP) -- President Nicolas Sarkozy named his first Cabinet on Friday, radically revamping the government, with nearly as many women as men and humanitarian crusader Bernard Kouchner as France's new foreign minister....

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the conservative-led government was left-wing Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning Doctors Without Borders medical charity. Sarkozy reached over the political divide also in selecting Herve Morin, of a rival center-right party, as defense minister.

And in a related NYT story:

Sarkozy Chooses Campaign Aide as New French Premier to Help Smooth Way for Reform Plan:

Mr. Fillon [Sarkozy's choice for Prime Minister] said he would govern “in a spirit of outreach.”

What an instructive contrast with W after his designation as President by a closely-divided Supreme Court in 2000.

Chirac: Don't let the gate hit you on the way out

By Anne Applebaum - Slate Magazine:

As I say, it's a very important legacy: One of consistent scorn for the Anglo-American world in general and the English language in particular, of suspicion of Central Europe and profound disinterest in the wave of democratic transformation that swept the world in the 1980s and 1990s, of preference for the Arab and African dictators who had been, and remained, clients of France. In his later years, Chirac constantly searched, in almost all international conflicts, for novel ways of opposing the United States. All along, he did his best to protect France from the rapidly changing global economy.

It was, in other words, the legacy of a man who was deeply conservative, almost Brezhnevite in his view of the world - so much so that the word most often used to describe his political beliefs is 'stagnation.' But as he leaves office, the loudest condemnation of his twelve years as head of state comes not from the outside world, but from the French themselves. Don't listen to me, listen to them: After all, it is they who have just elected a man who promised to 'break with the ideas, the habits and the behavior of the past.'

'The French people have chosen change,' Sarkozy declared during his acceptance speech Sunday night. 'I will implement that change.' And what they want, it seems, is a change from Chirac.

The End of Socialism in Europe?

The Blog | Jeremi Suri, The Huffington Post:

Sunday's election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the new president of France marks the end of socialism as a viable political ideology in Europe. ...
Some may dance on the graves of socialism in Europe; some may shed tears. All of us, however, should use this moment to begin thinking creatively about new political alternatives. Democratic systems function best when there is a serious and substantive debate between opposing viewpoints. Politics should be about principles, not just preaching to the converted. The death of socialism in Europe must become the birth of something new, not just a race to conformity. Americans can help if they encourage innovative thinking -- something almost nonexistent right now -- in their own political system.

A ‘First Spouse’ in France? Not Any Time Soon

From The New York Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS, April 26 — No matter who wins the presidency of France on May 6, life in the grand, presidential Élysée Palace is destined to change.

Pretty fascinating commentary on the differences in political culture in the two societies.
I've mostly tended to think America's over-fascination with the personalities and family lives of our Presidents (and Presidential candidates), relative to their ideas and political competence, reflected our barely sublimated desire for a royal family. I was one of the very, very few who thought discussion of a Reagan-Ford ticket for President and Prime Minister (was that 1976?) was sort of interesting (structurally, not in terms of those particular leaders, neither of whom commanded my respect or admiration at the time). I'm still inclined to think a very large share of abiding American affection for Reagan reflects more on his royal/grandfatherly image than on his policies.
The French example complicates that simple explanation. But maybe the French are more interested in casting a cinematic bedroom farce than a government. It still beats whatever we have done the past two elections.