In France, they say it's the first six months of a presidency that count. After that, the die is cast. So, six months and ten days after Nicolas Sarkozy's election as president of France, what's the verdict?
Strikes and industrial action. The first showdown between Sarkozy's government and the unions has started. We are now on day three of open-ended industrial action over the reform of special pension privileges. The result is travel misery throughout the country as the public transport system more or less grinds to a halt. The strike also extends to employees of the two state-owned energy companies, resulting in targeted power cuts, and also to staff at the Comedie Francaise and the Paris Opera, leading to the cancellation of performances. All of the above share in common the prospective loss of early retirement privileges. Around 1.6 million people in France fall under the "regime speciaux", a pension scheme which costs the government around 5 billion euros a year and which dates back to a time when professions such as railway workers and stage-hands faced manual work so laborious in nature that it was necessary for them to retire early. But modernity has taken the sting out of much of this work and made it not that different in its physical toll to working on a production line or selling life insurance. So it is only fair - or so the government argues - that these workers start to pull their weight and work 40 years before retirement just like everyone else.
It is a highly symbolic showdown. This is not the first time a government has attempted to reform special pension privileges. Dear Jacques Chirac tried back in 1995 and was brought down by three weeks of strikes. But Sarkozy is not Chirac and he plans to hold firm. So far, the signs look promising. Xavier Bertrand - the labor minister - has paved the way for tripartite negotiations between unions, employers and the government. Union leaders are ready to sit at the negotiating table; the harder part is to convince militants at the grass-roots level to vote to go back to work.
Reforming the special pensions regime is the easiest challenge in Sarkozy's ambitious reform program. Most of the public is behind him. The reform was a pledge from his election manifesto and one, which most people agree, is necessary. It's relatively easy medicine compared to what must come next: Reforming labor laws to make it easier to hire and fire, trimming down France's inflated civil service and reducing the nation's huge public debt.
He certainly has gall. Sarkozy has awarded himself a 172 percent pay rise - whilst telling the country that it has to brace itself for hard times ahead! But it fits with his slogan of working harder to earn more, Super-Sarko is one energetic hyperpresident. He has drastically changed the way the country is run. Whereas in previous administrations, the president sat regally in the Elysee Palace and let his prime minister get on with the job of running the country, Sarkozy is hands on, so much so that many are asking what is the point of having a prime minister at all?
From where I sit, the biggest change since Sarkozy took power is not in how the country is run, nor in the predictable showdown with the unions, but in the repositioning of France on the international scene.
President Sarkozy was in Washington at the six months into the presidency milestone, greeted by President Bush like an old friend and treated to a rapturous welcome by the US Congress. Operation Seduction - as the French media dubbed it - could not have gone better. Sarkozy's message was simple: The days of acrimony between France and the US are over, France and the US are friends and allies. France would keep its troops in Afghanistan as long as necessary. France would stand firm against Iran. This was the "new France", one that aped the American dream. He pointed to his team, proud to have with him so many firsts: The first woman minister of finance, the first woman minister of justice, the first conservative government to include five socialists, the first melting-pot government in a country which has historically been run by a homogenous group from the elite who bore little resemblance to the diversity of the population at large - and he is right to be proud of the diversity of his Cabinet.
Perhaps one of his smartest moves was his decimation of the opposition. Not only did he poach five politicians from the socialists, he also sent Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arguably the only contender who could give him a run for his money in 2012, to Washington as the new head of the IMF. To say the opposition is in disarray is an understatement.
On the European front too, Sarkozy has ably maneuvered France's position. The EU has been re-booted with a minitreaty replacing the constitution that France so spectacularly shot down when it voted No in the referendum.
So six months on Sarkozy may well feel proud of himself, he is firing on all cylinders and enjoys the support of the majority of the population. He was elected on a strong mandate and means to turn his words into action. But it is what happens in the next few weeks that will be critical to his success. Strikes in France take on a momentum of their own. They can build up into an unstoppable force whose sole aim is to bring down a reformist government. Many of those on strike are doing it not because they want to fight for special pensions but because they want to stop Sarko. Sarkozy's challenge has only just begun.
