It’s been clear since day one of his presidency that Nicolas Sarkozy would soon have a showdown with the powerful French unions. After all, even Sarkozy’s reactionary predecessor Jacques Chirac recognized the need to reform the staggering retirement packages that key unions have secured for their members. Chirac, though, was unwilling to fight for reform after 1995, when strikes paralyzed the country. Thus, the problem was left for Sarkozy, and throughout his presidential campaign he signaled his clear intention to take it on.
The question was: would Sarkozy succeed where Chirac had failed? I was less than confident that he would until I heard Sarkozy speak at the French embassy earlier this month. In talking to embassy personnel after Sarkozy’s speech (which itself inspired confidence), I was told that nearly all of Sarkozy
-
-
Most Read on Power Line
Donate to PL
-
Our Favorites
- American Greatness
- American Mind
- American Story
- American Thinker
- Aspen beat
- Babylon Bee
- Belmont Club
- Churchill Project
- Claremont Institute
- Daily Torch
- Federalist
- Gatestone Institute
- Hollywood in Toto
- Hoover Institution
- Hot Air
- Hugh Hewitt
- InstaPundit
- Jewish World Review
- Law & Liberty
- Legal Insurrection
- Liberty Daily
- Lileks
- Lucianne
- Michael Ramirez Cartoons
- Michelle Malkin
- Pipeline
- RealClearPolitics
- Ricochet
- Steyn Online
- Tim Blair
Media
Subscribe to Power Line by Email
Temporarily disabled
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.