Following is a letter sent to the Editor of the Financial Times:
Sir,
Does anyone really believe that the new President of France will make the difficult decisions that we would expect from Margaret Thatcher (“France braced for stiff dose of Thatcherism” Financial Times, May 7, 2007)?
We must not forget that the French right has not shown itself capable of making the difficult economic decisions. Their decisiveness is usually exercised when a French national champion needs to be protected or when government intervention is required.
That is not what you would expect from Thatcherite policies.
Onésimo Alvarez-Moro
See article:
The election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the next president of France was greeted with a light smattering of riots across the country. Mr Sarkozy knows that could be just the aperitif. There is a real risk of social unrest, as France’s new president tries to deliver on his promise of “rupture” with the past.
Mr Sarkozy knows that three prime ministers of the Chirac era – Alain Juppé, Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Dominique de Villepin – were forced to abandon economic reforms in the face of popular demonstrations. But he is determined that things will be different this time. One member of the Sarkozy inner circle argues that previous rounds of reform failed because President Jacques Chirac lost his nerve. With “Nicolas” in the Élysée palace, things will be different.
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