News from the New Party

Sarkozy's unlikely supporters

We have referred before to the perhaps surprising phenomenon of centre-left support in France for Nicolas Sarkozy.  Now, in a remarkable article in the Observer, Labour MP and former Europe minister Denis MacShane explains why a win for Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election would be good for Britain, Europe and the world.  In the process he savages the "conservative leftism" of the socialist candidate Segolene Royal.

Royal has made mistake after mistake on foreign policy. Her language is like that of Labour in the 1980s - hostile to America, to Europe, and to open world economics. The best French politics watcher in London is Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, who is close to the French socialist leadership. Even he has had to confess his dismay at Royal's deeply conservative French leftism.

Royal has driven France's Jewish voters into Sarkozy's camp by appearing to endorse a venomous anti-Semitic attack on Israel by Islamist fundamentalists during a visit to the Middle East. On a trip to Beijing she praised the speed of the Chinese justice system. She spoilt Merkel's plans on Europe by insisting on impossible demands to rewrite the defunct constitution to placate protectionists in the isolationist left in France. Most bizarrely of all she insists that Iran has no right even to develop civilian-use nuclear power - a position that groups her with neo-cons in Washington and ultra-Likud hawks in Israel.

In contrast, Sarkozy is a doer (as his record as Minister of the Interior has shown) - and a man with whom Britain can do business.

Royal was invited to London to meet Blair and Brown but refused to come. In contrast, Sarkozy has built a wide network of friends and contacts across Europe in his three-year bid to become President. A frequent visitor to London, he and his wife have met the Browns and Blairs. He has spoken at the CDU summer school in Germany alongside Merkel and is close to the liberalising centre-right EU Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso. Sarkozy has refused to meet David Cameron as the Conservative policy of quitting the association of centre-right parties in Europe - driven by the Eurosceptic William Hague - has provoked anger in the new ruling parties of the European right.

He has made no secret of his wish to normalise relations with America after the chilly Chirac years. He will support Merkel's push to harmonise European and American norms on products and services to help increase the $3 trillion worth of transatlantic trade. In his book Temoignage, Sarkozy argues that to get France on the golden road of growth and jobs and catch up with Britain's economic performance since 1997, French foreign economic policy will have to become more Blairite.

Sarkozy's language on the European constitution also dovetails more with Labour's thinking than his socialist rival's. He wants small amendments to existing treaties to allow some commonly agreed changes to make EU institutions work better. He argues for the centrality of parliaments as the locus for European decision-making. He will put off until later discussions on the European budget and other contested aspects of the European constitution where serious differences remain between London and Paris.

A number of interesting points emerge from this.  Firstly, Sarkozy is a pragmatist: where the European Union is concerned his aim is to make Europe work rather than to build a monolithic socialist superstate for the sake of a misguided dream of European integration, which the French people have in any case already rejected at the polls.  In particular he defends the principle of the primacy of national parliaments.

Secondly, MacShane identifies Sarkozy clearly with Blair, especially in foreign policy terms.  A reversal of French anti-Americanism would certainly be welcome, and it is reasonably clear that this is what we would see in a Sarkozy presidency.  In economic policy, we would regard the Labour government's leanings towards liberalism as being at best aspirational (to put it charitably) rather than manifested in actual policy.  Equally, although it is evident that Sarkozy understands the problems the French economy has in terms of its chronic welfarism, French attitudes in this area are entrenched, and it will be a testament to the strength and determination of the man if he manages to carry through the economic reforms which France desperately needs.

Thirdly, Sarkozy's refusal to deal with David Cameron's Conservatives demonstrates the French candidate's contempt for the pointless posturing of the new model Tory Party. While he may be a pragmatist, he is clearly also a man who believes in saying what he means and doing what he says: the antithesis of the style-before-substance Cameron approach.

Overall, MacShane reinforces the fact that traditional labels of left and right mean very little these days.  French socialists such as Andre Glucksmann and British Labour MPs such as Denis MacShane can line up behind Nicolas Sarkozy, while the extreme left and right (and even perhaps the centre, as the defeated centrist candidate Francois Bayrou may be leaning towards supporting Royal) in France both heap vitriol on him, then these must be signs of a growing liberal realignment in European politics.