Sarkozy ready to battle the unions - The president faces a tough fight: France is famously protective of its long vacations and generous benefits.
PARIS — The man the French call the "hyper-president" has just gone into warp speed in his drive to change the country.
Since he was elected in May, Nicolas Sarkozy has been barreling ahead on his plan to reinvent practically every aspect of French society, ascending so many podiums, appearing so relentlessly with new ideas at public forums from Bordeaux to Brussels, that a French magazine recently demanded the media have a "Sarkozy-Free Day."
Pas de chance.
After spending the previous two days courting union leaders, he took time last Monday to muse about a French architectural renaissance. Then, on Tuesday, he picked his first fight, with the unionized workers of the public sector. On Wednesday, he was out to slash civil service jobs, and by Thursday there was more talk of social reform and three television appearances to pitch it.
No program is too small, no detail too insignificant for the new man running the Elysee Palace. In fact, a popular comedy segment on French TV has a recurring joke with a panicked husband calling the show every night to report that his wife just fell down the stairs, or got a paper cut.
"Can we call the president?" the husband asks.
"Sure, he's already on his way," is the response.
Today, the president, also called the "presidator," will appear on the world stage -- at the United Nations General Assembly, where he's likely to continue to realign France with the United States and the rest of Western Europe over key policies such as how to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
But it's the domestic challenge that Sarkozy confronted last week that will be the defining moment of his presidency, experts agree. France has been famously protective of its style of work: long vacations, short workweeks and generous benefits that allow people to retire as young as 50.
Sarkozy came into office saying reform was necessary for France to compete effectively in the global economy. Last week he took on a sacred cow: a pension plan so generous and coveted that more than one French leader has tried to change it and failed. Although it's only one piece of the larger problem of the high cost and hidebound nature of French labor, it's a crucial test.
"Sarkozy promised a lot, and now he has to start to deliver," said Philippe Maniere, director of the Montaigne Institute, a bipartisan think tank in Paris. "He's been dynamic, with a strategy of being everywhere and anywhere and not being afraid of shocking people. But will he do enough in a short enough time with enough results? Now we'll find out."
