Mia Doornaert asks why the crisis has made some leaders more popular

Mia Doornaert asks in the daily De Standaard why the popularity of some of Europe's political leaders has risen as quickly as the stock markets have fallen: "The neo-Gaullist [and French president] Nicolas Sarkozy, the Labour leader [and British prime minister] Gordon Brown and the Christian Democrat [German chancellor] Angela Merkel have defended the political and social correctives to the free market. The British prime minister has worked to free his party from an archaic Marxism and a blind belief in nationalisation. But that doesn't make him an ultra-liberal. Ultra-liberalism does not belong in the Christian Democratic tradition, which emphasises social correctives to the market economy. And as for Nicolas Sarkozy - in this crisis he fits the role of French president and chairman of the European Union perfectly. The French have been brought up to believe in the guiding hand of the state and in the primacy of politics over economics. ... What all these European leaders have in common with Barack Obama is that they do not want to undermine the free market but rather are calling for rules to make this market function better. Neo-Marxism on the other hand is not finding any takers."

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