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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...

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<strong>Neo</strong>-<strong>Bonapartism</strong>? A <strong>parallel</strong> <strong>between</strong> <strong>Nicolas</strong> <strong>Sarkozy</strong> <strong>and</strong> Napoleon III<br />

with tremendous fanfare have had to be delayed or withdrawn; almost invariably, <strong>Sarkozy</strong> has<br />

blamed the minister in question, <strong>and</strong> then moved on to the next subject to strike his interest”<br />

(2009). The efficiency of <strong>Sarkozy</strong>’s approach is especially questioned on the public finances’<br />

debt question. In an overall morose economic climate, where almost all of its European<br />

neighbors tackled this issue with austerity plans, <strong>Sarkozy</strong>’s France "st<strong>and</strong>s out as the only<br />

country that has not spelled out how it will reduce its deficit" notes Laurence Boone, an<br />

economist at Barclays Capital in Paris, cited by The Economist (2010). After more than three<br />

decades of unbalanced budget, this cold-feet attitude toward the “rigueur” reforming could<br />

have been of no consequences if the crisis did not out broke <strong>and</strong> put France in an<br />

unprecedented fragile position. As reported by The Economist, “Moody's, a rating agency,<br />

warned that in the absence of consolidation, rising debt could threaten France's AAA rating;<br />

François Baroin, the budget minister, admitted that the objective of preserving France's rating<br />

was tight" (2009). In fewer words, the perspective of credit agencies stepping back for a top<br />

indebted country like France would plunge its economy into a grave recession if not tackled<br />

very quickly by its crisis management’s president.<br />

Back to the resemblances <strong>between</strong> Napoleon III <strong>and</strong> <strong>Sarkozy</strong>’s economic policy, their<br />

h<strong>and</strong>ling of the banking system is a startling feature common to their approaches. The<br />

emergence of an organized system of trade consequent to the development of the industry<br />

during Napoleon III’s reign ended up in a state h<strong>and</strong>ling <strong>and</strong> support of the banking sector. As<br />

explained by Spitzer in 1962 “a majority of historians grant Louis Napoleon some of the credit<br />

for the unprecedented stimulus to capital formation, credit expansion, <strong>and</strong> a spirit of enterprise<br />

foreign to the crabbed, unimaginative Orleanist economic tradition, <strong>and</strong> essentially believe with<br />

A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/<br />

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