Let Them Eat Cake

Senauer thinks food inflation could soon be a major issue in American politics. But in France it already is. A poll last week showed Sarkozy's overall approval rating drop from 55 to 51 percent in a month, while half the respondents don't think his policies will help their purchasing power, and a quarter think it will get worse. (Sarkozy's ratings haven't been helped by his acceptance of a 140 percent raise for himself voted by his party in Parliament.)

No wonder recent reform efforts have been halfhearted. Last month Sarkozy gave his recipe for increasing the income of French employees: let them work longer hours with lower taxes on extra time. But the deal has to be agreed to by more than 50 percent of each company's employees—not an easy sell.

Last month's insistence that striking transport unions give up their special pension arrangements was undermined economically, if not politically, by compromises on wage increases. Meanwhile, Sarkozy is reluctant to increase competition in the retail sector, since small shop owners are core supporters, and French law gives them what amounts to regulatory veto power over new businesses in their neighborhood.

All these problems would be easier to resolve if there were expectations of strong economic growth over the next year. But there aren't. So every day is a show in which Sarkozy tries to create a spectacle of progress, whether flying to China or Algeria or receiving Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi in Paris last week to seal deals for atomic reactors, airplanes and other big-ticket projects. The economic payoff from those deals will take a long time to materialize. When it comes to buying power, as the French say, there's no baguette magique, or magic wand, for Sarkozy to wave. And the price of the baguette is still going up.

© 2007