Vile Pin's reputation as a decisive and effective politician (such as it was) seems to be irretrievably ruined thanks to the CPE. Even people who support its general principle such as my neighbours and the local UMP député who was interviewed on Riviera Radio this morning are utterly unimpresed with the way he has handled the introduction of the law.
No one I have talked to disagrees with the idea behind the CPE. The rigid French labour laws are indeed harming France and are particularly bad for the young and inexperienced. By way of example my neighbours said that France has over thirty different sorts of officially sanctioned employment contracts, all with different defined benefits and requirements, and that keeping track of what employees have what contract (or perhaps should have) requires hiring dedicated HR personnel - something that is not going to be possible in a small company. However the fundamental problem is that Vile Pin rushed the law through the French parliament without any debate - he used certain techniques to cut off debate and force a vote - and utterly failed to make any attempt to explain why it was a good thing before implementing it. Given that the French have a well-founded distrust of their governing elites this is not the sort of thing that helps bring the populace over to your side and seems to be particularly relevant to Vile-Pin, a man who has never won any election anywhere but was appointed by l'Escroc to one top job after another.
The contrast with Sarkozy is striking: Sarko is a communicator - his opponents might even call him a demagogue - who says in detail what he plans to do and why before he does it. Then once he has said it and had feedback he goes ahead and does it. It is, as the BBC reports, noteworthy that Sarko is the guy who has been told to negotiate with the strikers:
France has been ablaze with speculation over the prime minister's future after he was effectively sidelined on this issue by his ambitious cabinet rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, our correspondent says.
As head of the governing UMP party, Mr Sarkozy is helping to lead the negotiations with the trade unions.
The contrast between Sarko - getting on with the job - and Vile Pin - holding press conferences where he asks everyone to "move on" - does not reflect well on the latter. It is well known that Vile Pin admires Napoleon but he seems to have a far worse grasp of strategy and tactics than his hero. Napoleon may have lost at Waterloo but he certainly understood the necessity of splitting ones enemies - at Waterloo this was precisely what he attempted and he lost primarily because the Prussians got there anyway - but this sort of fundamental tactic seems to be beyond Vile Pin. Sarko on the other hand is busy achieving goals while making sure that everyone knows he did so. The UMP website - the UMP is the party of l'Escroc, Vile Pin and Sarko - is a case in point. It is, apparently, hugely successful at recruiting the more moderate National Front supporters to the UMP and thus Sarko, as party president, can fairly claim to be doing his job; but it also mentions the name Sarkozy just about everywhere - including, of course, in the announcements about the CPE. The impression one recieves is that UMP=Sarkozy and that is surely no coincidence.