by Darrin McMahon

The first tear-gas grenade of the Sarkozy era was fired at 9:59 on Sunday evening at the Place de la République, just blocks from where I was staying in Paris, and less than two hours after the official announcement of the results of the French presidential elections. The target: some three thousand anti-Sarkozy militants, a minority of whom had progressed from the chant of "Sarko, facho, le peuple aura ta peau" ("Sarko, you fascist, the people will have your hide") to even less subtle means of protest: throwing pavement stones at the police. Similar scenes were repeated in Nantes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Lyon, where overturned cars, incinerated buses and motorcycles, and broken storefront glass added to the post-electoral merriment. On Monday, a third of my university students at Rouen, where I teach an annual two-week seminar, skipped class to attend organizational meetings to spearhead the fight against "Sarkozy, capitalism, and racism," as one of their leaflets explained. French students, of course, will be French students. The great majority of them--like the great majority of French men and women--deplore the turn to violence. But then it is not altogether surprising either, considering the way Sarkozy was demonized by the opposition during the campaign. As I entered the Metro on Saturday afternoon the day before the election, I received a last-minute pamphlet from the campaign of Socialist Ségolène Royal that warned that a Sarkozy victory would mean "a brutalized and confiscated republic, monopolized by a clan" with "power concentrated in the hands of a single man and the media prostrated before the force of money." The "law of the strongest" would prevail, along with a "savage liberalism" and the "submission to the America of Bush." No wonder people are scared! That fear--which ranges well beyond, it should be said, reasonable concern generated by Sarkozy's actual record in power--is one reason why those who herald his election as the beginning of a new era in France would be well advised to save their congratulations--at least until the crucial June parliamentary elections, when the balance of legislative force in the National Assembly will be decided. I remember being in France on election night twelve years ago when a similar wave of hope swept through certain quarters at the advent of a man (imagine!), who was deemed an economic and political reformer: Jacques Chirac. Many work stoppages, half-measures, and a good deal of backtracking later, the only change that Chirac was able to effect was a slight variation on a venerable proverb. Moins ça change, plus c'est la même chose. True, neither the unions nor the Left have as much muscle now as they did under Chirac, and Sarkozy himself seems to be made of sterner stuff than the outgoing president. He is younger, more resolute, and believes adamantly, as he commented on election night, that "the French people have decided to break with the ideas, the habits, and the comportments of the past." Still, he will have a fight on his hands in the coming months, and you can expect to see more French in the streets before it is over. Should he prevail, though, Europe can expect a re-energized partner, and Americans can look forward to the prospect of a revitalized Franco-American friendship, of benefit to those on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a stirring moment when, during Sarkozy's acceptance speech, he announced that he wished to "send out a call to our American friends to tell them that they can count on our friendship, reinforced by the tragedies of history that we have confronted together. I want to tell them that France will be always at their side when they have need of her...." The crowd of his supporters erupted in applause. But they applauded even louder when he added, "But I also want to tell them that friendship means accepting that friends can think differently. And that a great nation like the United States has the duty not to put up obstacles to the fight against global warming, but on the contrary, to lead the fight...." Louis, this could be beginning of a beautiful friendship.