Security man Sarkozy has failed

President Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement that he intends to take a "hard line" against the Roma in France is a rhetorical manoeuvre designed to distract attention from his own failures, the left-liberal Tages-Anzeiger believes. "Many French people are unlikely to be impressed any more by this martial rhetoric, for most of them are all too aware that since 2002 this president has been almost continuously responsible for internal security in France - first as interior minister and now as head of state. The media always liked to described his style of tackling things head on as 'musclé' - flexing his muscles. He enjoys the loud impact it makes when the police go in and the TV coverage. So when Sarkozy now denounces the deplorable state of affairs and declares an emergency on this front, in the banlieues and among travellers, then he is admitting that his policy has failed. And if the crime statistics really paint such a bad picture as he claims, then his record is bad too. Dreadful in fact. All he can do now is talk, divide and stigmatise. His strategy is easy to see through but carries no guarantee of success."

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