When a French presidential candidate talks about the need for a rupture with the policies that have produced economic stagnation and repeated riots in France, it’s hard not to be reminded of Rudy Giuliani’s call during the 1993 mayoral campaign for a break with the policies that “guaranteed failure.” New York like France had been beset with repeated riots and a lagging over-regulated and over-taxed  economy that was lagging behind its competitors. In both New York and France, the civil service and the bureaucracy had inordinate power over the direction and not just execution of policy. And in both, organized interests insulated themselves from the costs they imposed on the larger society, even while talented people exited the swamp of local stagnation.
       
Sarkozy, almost unique among French politicians for being philo-American, shares a similar temperament with Giuliani. Both are hard-edged, inner-directed men who are willing to be unpopular to advance what they see as essential reforms. Giuliani and Sarkozy met in the summer of 2002 when Giuliani had been invited to France to provide advice on how to combat the rising crime rate. Subsequently Sarkozy began to talk Giuliani like about zero-tolerance and by way of COMSTAT the need to develop a meaningful metric for policing.  More recently Sarkozy has been talking of American style welfare reform that requires the able-bodied to take available jobs

The similarities go beyond policy.  Sarkozy is running not only against the Socialists, but against his own President Jacques Chirac.  Without mention Chirac by name, Sarkozy has called for reversing the economic policies associated with his presidency.  If Giuliani wins the GOP nod in 08, he will similarly have to distance himself from the Bush foreign policy legacy without directly criticizing the president.