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Double Trouble
Italy and France are facing turmoil today. The reason is the same but different. The only semblance is humiliation.
Italy's general election results indicate a very narrow victory for centre-left leader Romano Prodi. But the outcome for the Senate is not clear and there are still expat Italian votes to count. They're due later today.
In France, President Jacques Chirac has ordered his hand-picked Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, to beat a humiliating retreat on his youth employment legislation after three weeks of strikes and huge street protests.
Most French and international political commentators agree that Monsieur Chirac's capitulation marks the end of any serious attempt to reform France's restrictive labour laws before the next presidential election in 2007. It might even spell the end of any reform in France for a decade, as one worried business leader claimed. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Chirac's successor, whether it be Nicolas Sarkozy or Socialist favourite Ségolène Royal, opting to shorten their "honeymoon period" by introducing new reforms to a reform-phobic nation.
The soon-to-be ex-prime minister De Villepin is in worse condition if that is possible. His chances of succeeding his mentor, the president, as president, were below zero before he announced in a national TV interview that he would not be seeking the role of head of state.
In Italy, economic and political problems are destined to multiply. Business confidence has dropped dramatically. Share prices are sullen in Milan. Today the main S&P/MIB index fell 337 points, or more than one per cent, to 38,159.
If, elected, Signor Prodi would favour Brussels over Washington, withdraw troops from Iraq sooner than his predecessor and increase tax-gathering. As a former president of the European commission, he is certainly aware of the need to reform Europe's more stagnant economies - the Lisbon Agenda, which was supposed to make the EU the world's most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010 was created on his watch. When Prodi stepped down from the commission, he warned of how some nations were blocking progress for the entire continent by refusing to take on reforms. While France and Brussels will probably greet his election with relief, relations with Prodi might not be as warm as they hope - after all, it is (mostly) French obstructionism that has made the Lisbon Agenda a laughing stock.
That said, perhaps Prodi won't have the opportunity to implement the very reforms he supported in 2000: His ruling coalition will include such characters as Italy's unreformed Communists. No doubt inspired by the success of the far-left anti-reform movement across the Alps, (not to mention Italy's general reluctance to embrace change), the Communists could make Prodi's job even more difficult that de Villepin's.
European politics will be a duller place following Berlusconi's exit. Signor Berlusconi is certainly a colourful character. In a recent TV debate with his rival he said: "Chairman Mao used to boil infants and use them for fertiliser". Phew - perhaps that's an example of the Italian genius for baroque exaggeration. Another example of the Italian PM's loose cannon attitude to the media, his detractors (mostly in the media) claimed.
Perhaps so, but it is no worse than the wet and offensive platitudes emerging from London's leftist mayor, Ken Livingstone, who has pretty much done a Le Pen and effectively dismissed the Tiananmen Square massacre as "a detail of history." Or, worse, former Labour MP and media darling Saddam-admirer Tony Benn, who Oliver Kamm remembers describing mass murderer Mao Zedong as "the greatest man of the twentieth century."
Life following the premiership looks set to be much greyer - and even pretty fraught - for Berlusconi. He may shortly go on trial (again) in Milan for alleged bribery. Even though he says he will bide his time until the inevitable happens and Prodi's coalition collapses, it is likely that the 69-year old will be urged to step aside to allow a new centre-right leader - perhaps less colourful, but more competent and hopefully, with a clean pair of hands - to take over the role as opposition leader.
Berlusconi, Chirac and De Villepin are on their way to the history books.
All three have entered the twilight zone. Let's hope that their nations don't follow.
