A Question Of Judgment

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When you're a hard-liner on crime, but crime goes up, what do you do? If you're French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, you blame the judges. Last week, Le Monde published a letter from the head of Seine-St.-Denis — ground zero of last year's riots and one of the country's most crime-ridden districts — expressing anguish over an "upsurge of crime."

This was bad timing given Sarkozy's ambitions to run for President next May. The Minister could hardly blame the police, especially after two officers in a neighboring department were severely beaten by as many as 20 young men. So he blamed the judiciary instead, noting a drop in sentencings of offenders. "Police can't get the result residents have a right to expect if afterward delinquents are set free again," he said.

As a Minister's criticisms of a state institution, his comments drew a swift rebuke from many fronts, including President Jacques Chirac, who said lawmakers need to "respect judges' independence." But acting like a candidate already on the campaign trail, Sarkozy pre-empted such reprimands. "The French know I'm right," he said earlier, and "it's the judgment of the French people that counts."