"France Needs To Open Up"

Your poll numbers are down. How do you respond to critics who say your government lacks coherence? As in other European countries, the economic situation is difficult. We've just experienced a quarter of negative growth. In France, there's always been an automatic correlation between the popularity of the Prime Minister and the economic situation. We've undertaken a number of reforms that have resulted in a decline in public approval. To me, this seems normal when you're undertaking an important reform program. [The low poll numbers] will continue to the end of the year, but should rise again at the beginning of 2004 with a return of growth and employment.

Given your commanding majority, some say you've been too timid in pursuing reforms. You mustn't block French society. People take to the streets easily in France, so you have to measure the capacity of the French for accepting reform. We will have achieved four big reforms by our first two-and-a-half years in office: pensions, health insurance, decentralization and education. All that plus the little reforms, such as the fact that for the first time we didn't pay public service workers for days they were on strike. That's a real novelty in France. That's the kind of change that alters the way people behave. We made the law on the 35-hour week more flexible by exempting from it all businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

But your party has always denounced the 35-hour law as sheer stupidity. Why not just repeal it altogether? We've done so for 95% of French companies — those with fewer than 20 employees. The big companies have generally come to terms with the law and aren't asking for a change. The big problem is in the public sector, where changing it has provoked opposition that we have to take into account. The debate on the merit of the 35-hour week is still open, but we've made changes that are indispensable for France's smaller companies, which are the backbone of the French economy.

But it's precisely those smaller companies that rail about protected civil servants who only work 35 hours a week. We've already extended the number of years public service workers have to work to get a full pension, from 37.5 to 42. We can't tell them they now have to spend 42 years at work and then add that they have to work 40 hours a week too. In regard to the public service sector, we have a progressive approach toward reform. Brutality is not the French solution. We want to improve how it works.

Don't you think you could have pressed harder for reform? What we've done is enormous! Enormous! We've battled the crime problem, improved the justice system, streamlined the police and modernized the army. We've just passed a law on job training, reformed the pension system, and amended the constitution to allow for decentralization. We have to be attentive to the nervous nature of French society. Don't forget that last year's presidential elections showed that political legitimacy is very fragile in France. Neither of the two big parties got more than 20% in the first round. Between 30% and 40% of the population are close to the extreme left or right.

Our parisian Elite hasn't noticed yet that I'm decentralizing this country. Don't tell them. By the time they realize it, it will be too late

So if the economy doesn't pick up, the far-right could do well in regional elections next spring? I don't think so. We'll have a pick-up in the economy hopefully by early 2004. We've got young, dynamic candidates. Plus, we've addressed the extreme right's potential by doing things in areas like security, family policy, law and order, and giving France a strong role in the world.

The big theme in the papers now is whether France is in decline. Is it? This is an old chestnut in the French press. We have an élite in France that comes from the same place. Nicolas Baverez [author of France Is Falling, the book that sparked the debate] and many others in that élite are enarques, [graduates of the prestigious Ecole Nationale D'Administration that traditionally supplies France's political leadership]. These are people trained by the power structure but who do not hold office, who have for years been writing things that have all proved to be wrong. These thinkers from on high basically know nothing beyond hyperambition or hyperdefeatism. If you're a French intellectual, you talk either about the arrogance of France or the decline of France. It's never about a content and thriving France, one that is confident in its allies and its future and its abilities. Baverez makes the case, and it's true, that French society has some major insufficiencies. But what has our traditional élite done about it? They are looking for a new ideology after the errors of the last century. French intellectuals are not international enough, not open-minded enough about the world. France needs to open up a bit. It's too hierarchical, too pyramidal. All the Baverezes of the earth are at the top of the pyramid, and they gaze down and evaluate French society. They're like the cork in a champagne bottle judging the champagne. That cork has to pop so we can taste the champagne.

How will you pop the cork? Through decentralization and a new organization that gives more power to civil society. The state no longer has a monopoly over the general interest. France was raised on the idea that the state is the solution for everything. No. The physician has a role in the general interest too. So has the businessman. It's not the state alone that defends the national interest. Our Parisian élite hasn't noticed yet that I'm decentralizing this country. Don't tell them. By the time they realize it, it will be too late for them.

So what will change? We've changed the constitution so the state can't make decisions that are financially bad for the regions. We're giving the regions considerable power. Now if they want to build a road, they will build a road. We're going to transfer €15 billion from the national budget to the regions. The national élites don't know this yet. They don't know what decentralization means. In our country, 99% of the élite are Parisian. This is the élite that writes books about decline. But the future belongs to those who govern hands on. People who represent a city, a region, a territory are the ones who will matter most in the future.