What's up with the French?

French protest 8
Originally uploaded by La Rock

You have to take your hat off to Mr Sarkozy. He must have heard the knives sharpening across the channel, as Gordon Brown fights for his political career like the tired fly buzzing sporadically, and hopelessly in the spider's web.

Sarko, the king of Sarkozia (the country formerly known as France) is not about to suffer the same fate. Au contraire. He is, in fact, riding high on much improved poll ratings which come at a time when you would most expect the French to be ready to shout 'off with his head'. It's almost enough to make Maximilien Robespierre turn in his grave.

Somehow, and with a dash of extreme cunning worthy of at least a tail or two, he has managed to buck the politician-hating trend that always accompanies a recession.

This sudden surge of popularity occurs at a time when 59% of French people are saying that, having thought about it, they'd rather not work more to earn more (Sarko's famous 2007 election rout), property prices are on an inevitable decline, unemployment is once again on the up, the economy is flirting with recession while the price of everything is driving the pouvoir d'achat even lower.

Sensing the inevitable discontent, King S. takes a break from his summer holiday (the first Frenchman to do this in history) to sort out a war in the old Soviet block - no mean feat, undoubtedly. But in doing so, he cleverly side-steps responsibility for domestic affairs by pretending to be a normal French president (ie. mostly looking after international affairs). And anyway, the 'global' market always gives him a swift exit from any blame, as everyone's in the same boat.

But with even greater spin, he manages to avoid the unavoidable question that should follow any attempt to pass off France's problems as being 'world' problems. And that question is 'Should the careless greed of the already rich be allowed to endanger the quality of life of their own fellow citizens?'

And the answer? Well, so long as the already rich are sitting around King Sarko's round table, they've got nothing to fear.......

Has the spirit of '68 gone forever?