Within Or Without The World?

For a nation trying to readjust itself to the realities of the contemporary world, France’s journey has been endless. Take the greatest incongruity of all: the French representative to the United Nations sitting in the Security Council section reserved for the veto-wielding permanent members.
You’d think the discrepancy would not be lost on the French government, perhaps even encouraging Paris to exercise greater prudence in international diplomacy. But, no, France doesn’t think the diminution of its global influence has in any way eroded its capacity to act as the world’s chief moralist.
During the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin became the public face of the barrier to the Anglo-American steamroller.
No doubt, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, had said nastier things about the Bush administration. The two Frenchmen were the sole targets of Washington strategists and policy makers, not to speak of late-night TV comedians.
Soon another incongruity set in. While Chirac was counseling patience on Iraq, he reinforced France’s military role in some of its former colonies of West Africa. Principle couldn’t have come in such sharp conflict with politics.
It turned out, of course, that Paris’ opposition to the Iraq war was rooted less in pacifism and more in promises of lucrative oil contracts Saddam Hussein had promised should he survive in power. National interest trumps everything else. In a world growing less amenable to French actions and reactions, why blame Chirac for doing what was right for his country?
But is he? France rejected the draft European Union constitution last year before riots erupted in the banlieues. Last month, Chirac walked out of a European Union meeting when a French trade expert chose to speak in English. No one said preserving the French way in a globalized world was going to be easy. Chirac and Co. seem adept in making things more difficult for France.
They are now caught in the youth employment law that has triggered protests across France for the past month. Their plight has deepened after the Constitutional Council held that the law is constitutional.
Admittedly, France is in urgent need of labor reform. Although the aim is to encourage job creation in a country with 9.6 percent unemployment, the law is almost universally despised.
A rejection by the Constitutional Council would have been the best outcome for the two men. Villepin, who had been signaling he would not budge an inch, is now hinting he might soften that position. Retreating from a law he pushed so energetically without ending his political career would require an act of God.
The matter is now before Chirac, whose own popularity is at a record low. He can formally sack his prime minister and veto the law. That won’t get him another term as president.
No wonder Nicolas Sarkozy, Villepin’s interior minister and potential rival candidate in next year's presidential election, is biding his time.