

It's doubled!

Last March I listed the top five blunders that cost Nicolas Sarkozy France's Regional Elections.

They were:

1. Allowing his son to become a candidate to head EPAD, which runs La Défense France's richest business area.

Prince Jean has not even graduated law school yet. The effort to drop him into a key post as head of France's most important business district made Sarkozy look arrogant and France like a banana republic. Also, it mortally offended many of Sarkozy's best supporters.

2. Launching a pointless debate on "National Identity"

Why? The French LIKE Sarkozy's promise to get tough with crime and expect him to deliver on it (which he has not yet managed to do.) Why this offensive and distracting sideshow? It hurt feelings and awakened the beast of the Far Right--to absolutely no purpose whatsoever!

3. Appointing Frédéric Mitterand Culture Minister

Poaching the left for talent worked wonders with DSK, Bernard Kouchner and others. Claiming the Mitterand name was apparently so irresistable that Sarkozy ignored warnings about Mitterand's book La Mauvaise Vie in which he recounts sex tourism with Thai "garçons" (translate that however you like). No problem until Minister of Culture Mitterand attacked the US (still an ally) for demanding extradition from Switzerland (not France) of genius film-maker Roman Polanski on charges of raping a minor, which he had fled years ago making him a fugitive. In retaliation, Marine Le Pen read Mitterand's sex tourism with "garçons" passage out loud on TV causing normal French people to question Sarkozy's judgement in having appointed the man in the first place.

4. Encouraging Valérie Pécresse, Minister of Higher Education, to sling mud in a negative campaign that disgusted Ile de France voters.

(This was for the Regional elections. We've all forgotten it now.)

5. Betraying the spirit and the promise of Grenelle.

After a brilliant start in making the environment a centerpiece of this political strategy, Sarkozy abandoned agreed on goals, one after another --clean water, reduction of pesticides, carbon tax. Under pressure from farmers he is reported to have said that he's had enough of ecology! A major error, one which allows the left to pick up the mantel of saving the environment in a Green-Socialist alliance that Sarko had a good chance of breaking...

Now, in the light of Tunisia, the Mexican fiasco, the Libyan fiasco, the MAM and Ollier fiasco, the Eric Woerth fiasco and the rape and murder of yet another young woman by a repeat offender (which Sarkozy had vowed to stop) followed by the judges strike fiasco, I've had to enlarge the list.

6. Tunisia.

Not only was France blindsided by revolution in a Francophile country with long and close relations, but we learned that Sarkozy's foreign minister MAM was doing lucrative personal business with intimates of the regime WHILE THE REVOLT WAS HAPPENING.

7. Year of Mexico

In a stunning show of arrogance, diplomatic incompetence and total indifference to the thousands of people who had prepared hundreds of events, Sarkozy offended a friendly nation, failed to achieve his goal concerning the transfer of Florence Cassez, wrecked the Année de Mexique, and set us all to wondering what, if anything, remains of French foreign policy. It's hard to fail simultaneous on more levels.

8. Libya. MAM and Ollier.

The ill-advised invitation to Gaddafi to stake his tent in Paris in the desperate pursuit of cash deals with the dictator have come back to haunt the President. Sell your soul, fine. But not for nothing. Revelations that his foreign minister's "companion" founded the Franco-Libyan friendship society do not help his case. Sarkozy is not the first French president to roll in the mud with dictators, but this was so unnecessary...And the whiff of money, very dirty money, is unmistakable.

9. Eric Woerth

Yet another element suggesting Sarkozy's blindness to apparent conflicts of interest. Quiet, reliable Eric Woerth wore too many hats: UMP treasurer AND minister of the budget, his "bouclier fiscal" saved France's richest lady 30,000 euros, which would have been less of a problem had Bettencourt not then hired Woerth's wife for a cushy, well-paid job. Alone, it might have been ok. Wedged between his Prince Jean's attempt to rule EPAD, and MAM's oney grubbing in the Arab world, it looks too much like a pattern of tolerance to sleaze to be ignored.

10. France's failure to protect victims from violent repeat sex offenders.

Sarkozy promised. He vowed to stand on the victim's side. To change laws so that dangerous criminals remained in jail. And, to his credit, he tried. But without building prisons to lock up criminals and unable to change the astonishingly irresponsible habits of the judicial system, he's failed. Miserably. Yet another murder. And on top of that a judge's strike. Result: criminals still on the loose and more votes for the far right.



