It was Nicolas Sarkozy himself who, last summer, started turning the triple-A credit rating, a rather technical notion until then, into a major political issue. And so last week, after France was officially downgraded by the credit rating agency Standard and Poor's, the President slipped two points in the polls. Although the other two rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch, have maintained their highest marks for the country, and the financial markets have hardly reacted to the news, the political blow is obvious.
When asked by the press in Madrid whether the role of France was weakened as a result, Mr. Sarkozy declined to answer. Francois Hollande, his Socialist challenger in the forthcoming presidential elections, had been quick to describe the action as “a downgrading not of the country but ... of a President”. Although still ahead in opinion polls, Mr. Hollande often appears out of sync and is short of alternatives, nor has the S&P shock boosted his ratings. Could it be that the French are tired of one without having too much expectation about the other? Mr. Sarkozy has not yet announced officially that he intends to run this April.
Differing strategies
His whole strategy has been to play the part of the determined, courageous President protecting the French from the economic crisis and guiding Europe towards a safer course. The downgrading on Monday of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), supposed to ease the pressure on the eurozone, will not ease his dealings with Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel before the next summit.
Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Hollande will both be 57 when the election takes place. That is about all they have in common: in style and in substance, they are as different as can be. Mr. Sarkozy, a business lawyer who loves to make deals and who took a while to understand that the French do not like their President to be constantly agitated, sees politics as a battlefield where sheer will and energy can make the difference. Mr. Hollande, a high civil servant brought up in the religion of the state, cultivates the blend of provincialism, humour and deceptive placidity which have characterised generations of French politicians, the last one being Jacques Chirac, politically rooted in the same part of central France, Correze.
Mr. Chirac may have been young Mr. Sarkozy's mentor, but he is not the figure the current President refers to as the most impressive French politician of the era. Nicolas Sarkozy is obsessed with Francois Mitterrand; his cunning, his tactical sense, his ability to sense his countrymen's pulse.
He admires the genius of a man who came from a conservative political culture to become the leader of the Left, asphyxiating the Communist party, able to change course many times, and yet stay in office for 14 years in a row.
Deliberate mimicry
As for Mr. Hollande, just watch his gestures during a speech: left arm forward, both fists raised to make a point, hands joined to calm things down ... Mitterrand is back. This is not resemblance, but deliberate mimicry. Mr. Hollande's motto for the 2012 campaign is “Change is now”. Mitterrand's slogan in 1988 was “Let us change life”.
Of course, it is perfectly legitimate for the Socialist candidate to claim such an affiliation. What is striking, though, is that it has more to do with symbolism than policy: are France's, and Europe's, problems so different today from what they were in the 80s?
Is evoking nostalgia enough?
The fact is that the French Socialist party seems to bet upon a kind of nostalgia which does not match its real challenge: to gain back the working and low middle classes, which are now attracted by Marine Le Pen, an even more formidable contender than her father, who eclipsed Lionel Jospin in 2002.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sarkozy, who announced he would make a public address at the end of this month, keeps referring to the tactics Mitterrand had successfully chosen for his re-election bid: an announcement just four weeks before the first presidential round, and a relentless assault against his opponents so as to avoid any assessment of his own performance.
Sixteen years after his death, Mitterrand had seemed erased from the French political landscape.
Less than a hundred days before the next presidential election, his ghost is back.
(Christine Ockrent is a former chief operating officer of France 24 and RFI)— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2012
