Author: Ivan Debono (Page 9 of 9)

Soft leaders, hard times

By Ivan Debono

If I’d had a French vote on 6^th May I’d have given it to Nicolas Sarkozy without hesitation. In fact I gave my vote to his political party, the UMP, in 2008’s municipal elections in Paris, and in 2009’s European elections and never regretted it. In 2012, Sarkozy was still the best option.

There has been a flood of post-mortems in the wake of Sarkozy’s defeat. Press opinion, as we know, is not electoral opinion. Most press opinion outside France consistently failed to get a correct reading of the French situation. What’s more, the US and UK media could hardly be expected to look favourably upon a Europhile French president, so they were biased right from the start.

Inside France, most of the press, true to its traditions, is fervently left-wing. The French intellectual left sees itself as the holder of the moral high ground. It could never stomach Sarkozy’s emotional sincerity, or his popularity with blue-collar workers, whom it had snobbed.

Which leaves us with the electorate. Why didn’t the French elect Sarkozy? Most pundits have blamed his opportunism, his nastiness or his showy opulence.

Opportunism? Hardly. Sarkozy’s first measure in 2007 was to reach out to the opposition and include socialists and centrists in his government: Bernard Kouchner, Martin Hirsch, Fadela Amara, among others. Most of them unashamedly supported Hollande in 2012. Nastiness? Sarkozy endured five years of jibes by the press over anything: his short stature, his marital life, his accent. Anything but his policies.

As for opulence, socialist politicians are hardly representative of the average French income. Just this week, François Hollande published his declaration of assets: a very comfortable 1.17 million euros. Just enough to avoid the wealth tax, which starts at 1.3 million. His much-vaunted fiscal reform will still spare him.

Between 2007 and 2012, Sarkozy lost around 4% of the total vote, in both election rounds. These 4% are mostly the Orléanist, liberal right. They elected Sarkozy because he was the first French politician to offer a strategy for France in a globalised world. They were disappointed when he backtracked so soon.  His budget reforms still left public expenditure at a record 56% of GDP. Universities were granted autonomy, but not the freedom to select students. The retirement age was raised to 62. In most European countries it is 65.

Beyond that, there is the general feeling of unrealised expectations among the ordinary, silent French, the petits gens so cherished by the centrist François Bayrou, the ones who never feature in the foreign press. The one astonishing fact of this election is that the figures do not add up: there were more right-wing than left-wing votes. Yet the socialist Hollande won.

These voters wanted an uncompromising, reformist president, a Gaullist even – a 2007 vintage Sarkozy who would not pander to left-wing critics. There was a glimmer of hope last February, when Sarkozy was rumoured to have decided on a vast reform of the welfare state. But it came to nothing, and in the end the candidate Sarkozy went to the polls with a timid, unambitious list of electoral proposals, a mere shadow of his 2007 programme.

Sarkozy did not lose because he was too much to the right, but because he was too soft. He sought compromise when he should have taken the hard line. Hollande built his whole programme, and his political career, on compromise. And the French know it. They have nicknamed him Monsieur Flanby, after a well-known brand of caramel custard. All over France, supermarket assistants, with exquisite Gallic wit, have been stacking “Président” cheese next to “Flanby” cartons on the cold counter. The message is clear: even his supporters acknowledge his major weakness.

Having been brought to power by a disparate coalition of socialists, communists, Trotskyites and radical greens whose only uniting feature was an antipathy for Sarkozy and nostalgia for the Golden Years of Mitterrand, he will find that compromise won’t get him very far.

Sarkozy promised not to be another Louis XVI. He emulated him in planning a multitude of reforms which were never completed. As Tocqueville, writing on pre-Revolutionary France, said: “The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it starts to reform.” Indeed. Hollande is now president, France is crying out for reform, and the critical moment is upon us.

This article was published in The Times of Malta on 16 May, 2012.

Written on 21 September 2010

On 12th September 2010, The Times published an opinion piece by Joseph Muscat, in which he discusses the manufacture of fireworks in Malta in relation to the recent spate of accidents.

He says he was inspired to write the article by his father, who was involved in the pyrotechnics business for 36 years, and who was injured in a dramatic incident involving a petard.

 I was inspired to write mine by the cold light of reason.

 Muscat makes a number of assertions which fly in the face of five centuries of progress in the science of pyrotechnics. Among them is the following: “Reactions, especially latent ones given our particular and changing climate, of some materials and formulas are largely unknown. The local reclusiveness barely helps.”

 I will gloss over the mystifying term “latent chemical reactions”, and assume that he uses “latent” in the layman’s sense of “hidden”, that is, not producing any obvious change in physical characteristics. In any case, he is wrong. These reactions, which include the spontaneous decomposition of chemicals, are known. Whole treatises have been written on the subject. I would refer him to Safety of Reactive Chemicals and Pyrotechnics (Yoshida et al., 1995) for a comprehensive overview.

 Whether Maltese pyrotechnic technicians know these reactions is another matter altogether, and indeed it sums up the whole problem. Given that fireworks factories run a commercial operation which goes beyond a mere hobby, it is not too much to ask that our “amateur” fireworks enthusiasts should be able understand basic concepts in chemistry. As for “local reclusiveness”, does he imply that firework factories refuse to share information with the investigation board? I am also puzzled by his reference to our “changing climate”, which is consistently Mediterranean (hot and humid throughout much of the year).

 Muscat’s statement about the “thin line” between “innovation and peril” is dangerous. As is his reference to “unknown” reactions. He reinforces the idea that accidents are an act of god, entirely beyond human control, and that pyrotechnics is some arcane art which consists of nothing more than mixing different-coloured powders and trusting to the heavens.

 Muscat states that the raw materials are the “first link” in the manufacturing chain, and should therefore be tested by the authorities. This is the wrong approach. The question of the purity of the materials is neither here nor there. Professional firework technicians will always test their supply chemicals before using them. The fact that such tests are not carried out in Maltese firework factories says much about the level of professionalism of the personnel.

 The manufacture of fireworks in Malta is no longer a cottage industry. What tradition may have existed has completely evaporated to give way to an activity on a commercial scale. As with any firm selling its products on the market, firework factories are expected to employ the highest standards, and their technicians should be professionals.

 Muscat goes on to propose a series of measures, including setting up surveillance cameras in each factory. What he proposes is essentially the status quo, plus a record of the activities at the various firework factories up to the moment when the explosion occurs, when the cameras would most likely be obliterated. He says these cameras would “discourage unlicensed people entering the premises as well as illegal practices”. Is this a tacit admission that the factories cannot be trusted to follow regulations? If this is so, why not close down the factories altogether?

 Finally, the idea that the fireworks industry, in that hackneyed phrase, “will go underground” is absurd. To start with, the whole point of fireworks is that they must be let off somewhere. The manufacturing phase can be more or less covert, but the cover would be blown as soon as the first petard goes off. More shockingly, it suggests that a criminal streak runs through our firework enthusiasts, who, Muscat says, would be ready to break the law if further regulations were introduced.

 “It is time for concrete action”, says Muscat, and I agree. Politicians should be drivers of change, and they should should base their policies on good science, especially on technical issues like the manufacture of fireworks. The essential step in any action plan is to dispel the notion that accidents at firework factories are beyond human control, and that one can safely make fireworks on an industrial scale with only a cursory knowledge of chemistry. If this were so, why have Professor Alfred Vella and other scientists on the investigation board?

 The safe manufacture of pyrotechnic articles requires advanced scientific knowledge and skills. Unless our scientists speak up, our politicians will more likely than not follow the path of least resistance, that of public opinion. On the issue of fireworks, this consists of a dangerous mixture of vested interests, offhand disregard of public safety, superstition and scientific nonsense, which bodes badly for a country that aspires to reach the highest European standards .