Sarkozy - Frenchman U.S. conservatives can love

by Matthew Hay Brown

It isn’t every day a Republican leader takes to the Senate floor to ask: Why can’t America be more like France?

But with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in town, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the United States could learn much from the European nation long derided by American conservatives.

“The French people surprised us by electing a free-market reformer, then they surprised us again by electing a center-right parliament that could get his ideas through,” the Kentucky Republican said. “Some of those ideas, like cutting the top tax rate, have gone through. The winds of change are clearly blowing through France.”

And it isn’t just France, McConnell said.

“Over the past few years, the Old Europe model of big government and bloated entitlements has shown signs of cracking. Germany elected a reformist chancellor from the Christian Democratic Party. Canadian conservatives rebounded under Stephen Harper after near extinction.

“Even the socialists are admitting their mistakes. The Socialist former prime minister of France, Lionel Jospin, shocked his fellow countrymen when he blasphemously declared that ‘The state cannot do everything.’ And in Italy, center-left Italian Premier Romano Prodi announced in July he would raise Italy’s retirement age from 57 to 61.”

Times clearly have changed since Gallic opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq led cafeterias across America to rename their French fries, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany as “Old Europe,” and supporters of President Bush dismissed John Kerry as “too French.”

The difference is Sarkozy, a deeply polarizing figure back home who has won over conservatives here with taxation, labor and law enforcement policies that could have been lifted from the Republican Party platform. Consider the vision of America he described today in his address to Congress:

“To the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who, with their own hands, their intelligence and their hearts, built the greatest nation in the world, America did not say, ‘Come and everything will be given to you,’ ” he said. “Rather, she said, ‘Come and the only limits to what you will be able to achieve will be those of your own courage, your boldness and your talent.’ …

“Here, in your country, on this soil, both the humblest and the most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That is what constitutes the moral value of America.”

It’s the sort of talk that makes Sarkozy a Frenchman even Republicans can love.

“President Sarkozy has emerged as a refreshing, conservative voice for change in France,” House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said today. “He has spoken to the confidence of the French people, rather than their fears, and the reform efforts he is leading in his home country are already having an impact that is cascading across Europe.

“President Sarkozy’s domestic goals of reforming the tax system, revamping the welfare system, and slashing the budget deficit are ones that I particularly appreciate, because I share them as well,” the Ohio Republican continued. “His nation’s innovative strategies on nuclear and other clean energy sources have become a positive example for the rest of the world. And his commitment to fighting and defeating the global terrorist threat will further embolden the critical relationship between our two nations.”

McConnell advised Democrats to take heed.

“Much of Europe, it seems, is trying to steer itself away from an economic model that has left it with double-digit unemployment and anemic growth,” he said. “After scoffing at the Reagan Revolution just two decades ago, many of them are now taking our 40th president’s economic principles to heart.

“Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the new Democratic Congress has turned away from the ideas that righted our own economic ship after the crises of the 1970s. …

“The Democratic presidential candidates are practically tripping over each other to propose newer, bigger entitlements to anybody in Iowa or New Hampshire who will listen. In short, some Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail would like to turn America into France when even the French themselves are having second thoughts.”