Sarkozy's 'war' with French strikers

By Emma Jane Kirby
BBC News, Paris

The strikes have caused havoc for millions of commuters across France

It would be an exaggeration to describe the French capital this week as a ghost town, but if you were a Parisian restaurant owner or a Parisian shop keeper you might be forgiven for doing so.

In my quarter, the popular pizza restaurant had to close because the chef and waiters could not get to work.

The boulangerie, usually stripped of its millefeuilles (custard pastry) and tartes aux fraises (strawberry tart) long before I get home from work, is still bulging with patisserie.

The baker tells me he is down 30-40% on sales because the usual customers did not dare risk being stranded in the city, and - instead - stayed home.

Every day he's different. One day he's Sarko the Friend of the Americans, the next he's Sarkozy the Worker, then he's Sarkozy the Victim, and sometimes he's just Napoleon Jul, French satirical cartoonist

And in my local eight-till-late shop, the Moroccan shopkeeper grumbled it just was not worth stocking up on fresh produce - everyone was so tired after hours walking to and from work, they either did not bother to eat in the evenings or they just raided the freezer. It felt, he said, like there was a war on.

'Work more, earn more'

But it is a war that has long been on the horizon.

Students also rallied, protesting against education reforms

Nicolas Sarkozy's battle cries against the French public transport unions were audible way before he was elected president in May.

His entire election campaign was built around the maxim "Work more to earn more" and he made no secret of the fact that that included workers like train drivers who currently can retire on full pensions at least two-and-a-half years earlier than other public sector staff.

For their part the unions have been refusing to surrender and have been putting up an effective resistance - crippling the country with a nationwide bus, train and metro strike.

If past French history is anything to go by, it will be the unions who will win this war.

In 1995, after picking the same fight with transport workers over their pensions, President Jacques Chirac's government was forced to give in, exhausted by three weeks of industrial action.

'Fiercely protected right'

But President Sarkozy has something his predecessor never really had - the backing of the majority of the French people.

President Sarkozy has vowed to press ahead with his reforms

Earlier this week when I was out in the city watching a demonstration by transport workers, I was startled to hear vitriolic bystanders yell "Get back to work you selfish pigs!" rather than the more traditional words of solidarity "Allez mon frere, courage!"

Mr Sarkozy would be foolish to count on his troops, the French people who voted for him.

Yes, many French people are angry they could not get to work and therefore will not get paid. True, too, that many were frazzled with the daily hell of fighting their way onto a train platform, only to find out the one train that was due was now not coming at all.

But while they voted in a president with a mandate to reform their country, at the same time the French are not keen on suffering the pain of undergoing those changes for too long.

Feeling the pinch of the global rise in food and fuel prices, the ordinary French citizen is already complaining about the inadequacy of his salary.

The appetite for striking may be diminishing - in 1976 there were two-and-a-half times more days lost to industrial action than there were in 2005 - but the street protest is still a fiercely protected right, enshrined in the Constitution of the Fifth Republic.

The president is aware his "loyal" troops may not be wearing his colours for long.

'Chirac's son'

And what if Sarkozy himself proves to be a turn coat?

He has been described both wistfully and derogatorily as France's answer to Margaret Thatcher but when did the former UK prime minister who was not for turning sit down repeatedly with union bosses and offer pay increases in exchange for pension reform as Mr Sarkozy has already done?

When did Maggie nonchalantly throw a generous package of financial incentives to quell a troublesome strike as Mr Sarkozy has just done with angry fishermen in Brittany?

One of the leading French political magazines this week suggests he is not Mrs Thatcher's son at all, but Mr Chirac's.

Just before the strikes began, I interviewed Jul, a cartoonist from the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo, and asked him to draw me a Sarkozy caricature as a keepsake. His pen hesitated on the paper.

"I don't know how to portray him today," he explained. "Every day he's different. One day he's Sarko the Friend of the Americans, the next he's Sarkozy the Worker, then he's Sarkozy the Victim, and sometimes he's just Napoleon."

Perhaps, President Sarkozy is still in the process of working out who he wants to be, who his people expect him to be and how he wants history to remember him.

Public transport staff have now largely returned to work, pending further talks with the government but there are already murmurings of further strikes, with unionists pencilling dates in their diaries. This war is far from won.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 24 November, 2007 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.