The New York Review of Books - " In Sarkoland "

By William Pfaff

The scenario for the 2007 French presidential election was written by the foreign press and embassies before it happened. France was said to be experiencing "malaise" and decline, mired in ineffectual resistance to market economics, low growth, and high youth unemployment because of its failure to integrate its African and North African immigrants. Its economy was said to be blocked by union power and an overmanned administrative apparatus hostile to initiative. Hiring was so costly as to discourage expansion; success in business was exorbitantly taxed, forcing the rich to leave for Brussels and the ambitious young for London.

France, moreover, practiced a protectionism out of touch with global realities and its businesses were uncompetitive, other than in luxury goods. It had lost its influence in Europe through a sterile foreign policy of "grandeur" and opposition to the United States.

The election would be won by Nicolas Sarkozy, the attractive, aggressively ambitious, and hyperactive young politician who favored both American market economics and affirmative action for immigrants.

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