When Nicolas Sarkozy is criticised in France for being "too American", people mean both his foreign policy attitudes, which are similar to those of the Bush administration, and his admiration for the US social and economic model. But the rightwing favourite to win Sunday's French presidential election has drawn on the ideas and political tactics of the American right in other areas too.Since the 60s the most conservative wing of the Republican party has chosen to present itself as excluded from the US system, disdained by a business world preoccupied with domestic harmony, and ostracised by cultural and media institutions. It has been determined to establish its ideological hegemony, confident that this would serve as a prerequisite for its return to power.
This sense of being a dissident may seem incongruous in the case of Sarkozy, recently interior minister and leader of the majority party for the past two years. Yet, like a US Republican, the president of the UMP (which literally translates as union for a popular movement), repeats again and again that "the debate is too often dominated by a doctrinaire approach, and by the politically correct". He insists the right never dared be truly rightwing because it was stifled by norms that are leftist.
The second aspect of Sarkozy's campaign that seems to have been inspired by the tactics of the US right is his attempt to reach working-class voters. In both countries it is of course difficult for a candidate who has the support of employers, and who demands the reduction of corporate taxes, to present himself as the spokesman of the people against the elite. Yet we know both Ronald Reagan and George W Bush managed it. An appreciable part of the disadvantaged classes voted for them, and got a decrease in real salaries and a cut in tax on higher incomes for their troubles.
In the US, this feat was accomplished mainly through a call to patriotism, resentment over tax, the invocation of traditional moral values and the fight against legal leniency, presented as the principal driver of violence and crime. Sarkozy's palette cannot be transposed directly on this as, in France, a candidate's recourse to religion must still do battle with the country's secular, republican traditions and the increasing secularisation of its people. Sarkozy did try to reactivate this religious resource - but quickly moved on to the main issue, the redefinition of the social question. Taking his lead from the Americans, he then made sure to move the demarcation lines from rich v poor or capitalists v workers, to salaried v scroungers and wage earners v cheats.
Sarkozy claims to wish to "reconcile France's winners and her strugglers". It seems he can count on the former so he is addressing himself to the latter, making the most of the fact that those on the left seem to have deserted them in government . "I want to say that suffering and the hardships of life belong not only to the France of insecure jobs. I want to speak of another, very real suffering ... that of the French whose jobs are not insecure, who get up early, work hard, bust a gut to feed their families and bring up their children, and who I emphasise are also struggling." Then, with a puritanism more familiar in the US than France, he comes to his warning: "I can't accept there are people on unemployment benefit receiving as much at the end of the month as you people [wage earners]." He accepts it all the less because "widespread handouts reek of moral surrender. Benefits damage a person's dignity."
In any case, he is aware of the solution recommended by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. "It is vital that jobseekers are not allowed to refuse more than three job offers, and that every person is made to authentically seek work." An alternative proposition is immediately discarded: "They say, let capital pay! But if capital is made to pay too much it will leave." With Sarkozy as president, one thing is sure: capital won't be paying too much.
In order to appeal to the groups punished by neoliberalism while remaining seriously rightwing and close to corporate employers, another spin technique must be used - displaying the tastes of the man in the street. Both Reagan and Bush have played this game to perfection. They claim to be of the people, if not financially then on account of their tastes. They flaunt their disdain for intellectuals and experts, henceforth associated with elitism, pretension and aristocratic arrogance.
Sarkozy is the former mayor of affluent Neuilly and the friend of multimillionaires. But he's also a fan of chatshow host Michel Drucker and Johnny Hallyday's music. It's therefore unsurprising that when centrist François Bayrou suggested doing away with the elite civil service university, Sarkozy retorted: "Speaking for myself, I didn't attend there, or graduate school, so I can't say I'm interested in demagogy." But is it possible in France, without demagogy, to be both a man of the right adored by chief executives, and the defender of the working man, persecuted by the scourge of political correctness?
Serge Halimi, a journalist on Le Monde Diplomatique and author of Le Grand Bond en Arrière. This is an edited version of a piece on Le Monde Diplomatique website, translated by Polly McLean.