The criticism is extreme. But with three years left in his second term, the 72-year-old Chirac does seem distracted by issues of succession. “There is a gap between what Chirac is trying to say and what people hear,” says Dominique Moisi, deputy director of the French Institute for International Relations. Rather than address the concerns expressed by an angry electorate, the president used the cabinet reshuffle to set the stage for a head-to-head battle for France’s political future.
The duel pits the country’s most popular politician, Nicolas Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian immigrant, against Chirac’s chosen favorite, the aristocratic Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin. France has watched Sarkozy’s fascinating rise for the better part of a year, savoring his pugnacity and audacity. By declaring his own presidential ambitions, he has provoked the enmity of Chirac, who wants to choose his own successor–and secure his legacy. Yet the president could hardly sack his one minister with truly mass appeal. “Chirac was trapped,” says Roland Cayrol, director of a political polling firm. “He couldn’t put Sarkozy in,” effectively welcoming the wolf. So he put a game in motion.
It begins with Raffarin’s reappointment, a gambit summed up by a cartoon in the satirical French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine–a drawing of Chirac wringing the P.M. out like a wet cloth. Chirac would “use” Raffarin for a few more months, according to the caption, during which time he would prepare the ground for a successor.
Enter the dashing diplomat, Dominique de Villepin, foreign minister during France’s impassioned United Nations Security Council campaign against a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Until then, Villepin was scarcely known in his homeland, let alone the world. In Paris, he had long worked as Chirac’s faithful shadow. But his performance at the United Nations won the hearts of a nation overwhelmingly against the war. “Chirac is banking on the popularity of Villepin and his charisma–especially with women,” says Moisi. “He is trying to build him up as a counterforce” to the vastly more popular “Sarko.”
To give Villepin a boost, Chirac last week appointed him to Sarkozy’s job as Interior minister–top cop in a country where being tough on crime can position you for the nation’s highest office, as it has Sarkozy. According to Chirac’s calculations, the Interior Ministry brief will also give Villepin new heft in public policy. France’s intelligence agencies will report to him; he will also oversee the country’s antiterrorism efforts–a high-profile post in the event of a French version of the recent Madrid bombings. It’s no easy gig. Police identified with the pragmatic, down-to-earth Sarkozy, a warm and outgoing “self-made man, nearly American,” as writer Eric Mandonnet at L’Express puts it. By contrast, with his artfully windblown hair and theatrical mien, Villepin looks more like the dreamy intellectual and romantic poet that he is–with several volumes of purple prose to prove it. “Imagine police unions who use about 30 words and consume plenty of whisky working with someone who recites Saint-John Perse,” a 20th-century diplomat and author, says Mandonnet. “It will be a cultural shock.”
Meanwhile Chirac has similarly ambitious plans for Sarkozy, only in reverse. He has been lured out of Interior and reassigned as minister of Finance and Industry. Given France’s stagnating economy, high unemployment and popular resistance to broad reforms–the very thing that spurred the recent electoral debacle–it’s easy to see the new job as something of a poisoned chalice. The country’s health-care system faces spiking debts; government spending is out of control, yet cuts are almost sure to trigger massive street protests, as happened last summer, says Moisi. “You put Sarkozy in the hot seat and don’t give him the means that he needs. It may destroy his aura before he can challenge Chirac too directly. You kill two birds with one stone–Sarkozy and his popularity.”
The game is subtle–and so very French. “Chirac is like a wild animal,” Sarkozy has said. “Either he eats you or he lets you live, depending on his own momentary interest.” And obviously the stakes are high. Contrary to expectations, Villepin might not thrive as Interior minister. He has made grave miscalculations in the past. Among them, encouraging Chirac in the worst political blunder of his presidential career: calling early elections in 1997 that allowed the socialists to seize Parliament. He faces multiple policy challenges, on everything from women’s rights to integrating France’s increasingly vocal Muslim minority. And while crime has dropped steadily under the watchful eye of Sarkozy, there is no guarantee that the ministry will run on automatic under someone else, particularly if Sarko’s loyalists set out to undermine his successor.
As for Sarkozy, true to his nature, he’s essentially saying, “Bring it on.” He thinks of himself as a “savior,” says Barjon at the Nouvel Observateur. “Confidence is important, and he thinks his mere presence could be a boost.” The new Finance minister also seems to be counting on a general improvement in the economy, powered partly by surging growth in America, which would in turn reflect well on him. Indeed, with growth almost nonexistent last year, it would be hard for Sarkozy to do worse than his predecessor, Francis Mer–whom Chirac pointedly did not rehire.
Oddly, given their colliding trajectories of power, Villepin and Sarkozy appear to rather like each other. “No one can doubt” Sarkozy’s abilities, Villepin said on taking office last week. As for Sarkozy, he’s long been grateful to his rival for helping him get back into Chirac’s good graces after he supported a challenger to the president. Amid these intrigues, meanwhile, ordinary people seem almost forgotten. Step out of a luxury hotel on the Place de la Concorde, and you might well see a giant hand-painted banner reading the unemployed are angry. Beneath it, hundreds of men, women and children lament cuts to benefits they have received for decades. “It is always dangerous to play with Cers,” Le Monde wrote of Chirac’s political juggling. Consumed as they soon will be by their new assignments and their rivalry, Sarkozy and Villepin would do well to remember that.
