Sarkozy's tough talk misses mark

By Hugh Schofield
Paris

Nicolas Sarkozy - the straight-talking right-winger who is France's interior minister - normally thrives on the kind of acute law-and-order crisis that the country is currently going through.

Dominique de Villepin seems to have stepped into Sarkozy's place

This is the man who never misses a chance to appear before the cameras at the latest trouble spot, and who can also - quite legitimately - claim in the past to have made a serious dent in the national crime figures.

So why now - in the midst of a week of rioting in the capital's high-immigration suburbs - does he seem not quite his normal, supremely confident, self?

This week he has been forced over and again onto the back foot over the charge that he is provoking the violence in the suburbs through his uncompromising use of language.

On Tuesday it seemed that he was being manoeuvred out of the government front line, as Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin took questions on the crisis in the National Assembly - with Mr Sarkozy sitting beside him.

And at the weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday, it was President Jacques Chirac who delivered the veiled rebuke - saying that "the absence of dialogue could lead to a dangerous situation".

'Mutual respect'

In fact the flare-up of suburban violence has become the latest battleground in the ongoing contest for the leadership of the French right.

For Mr Chirac and his protege Mr de Villepin, the crisis has brought out their deepest instincts for conciliation and compromise.

Mr Sarkozy has called for zero tolerance towards gang-leaders

While insisting on the need for a return to "Republican" order, they pepper their comments with calls for "mutual respect" between communities - and the prime minister has even promised yet another "action plan" to tackle the underlying social problems.

But for Mr Sarkozy, who is Mr de Villepin's probable rival in France's 2007 presidential race, this is the same old "langue de bois" - or cant - that got France into the mess in the first place.

Ever proud of his willingness to "call a cat a cat", he refuses to disown his now famous comments that crime-ridden neighbourhoods should be "cleaned with a powerhose" and that the rioters are "racaille" - rabble.

Instead he calls for zero tolerance towards the gang-leaders and drug-lords who he blames for taking over the worst-hit areas and a boosted presence for riot police.

This would be counterbalanced in the longer-term by a policy of positive discrimination to help young French Arabs out of their depressing ghettoes.

Out of kilter

Mr Sarkozy's problem is that the country is only hearing the first part of his prescription - the repressive part.

Even if a majority believe hardline measures to be necessary to quell the disturbances, most French also have hard-wired into them a deep sense of social justice.

They expect a certain tone from their leaders - one that recognises there may be an "issue" at stake, and "underlying causes" to be tackled. They actually quite like the "langue de bois".

So for once, Mr Sarkozy finds that his tough-talking is out of kilter with the national mood, which urgently wants a return to quiet and knows that the best way of getting it is if the government makes the right kind of gestures.

For a politician, it is the price to pay for speaking one's mind.