PARIS
A newspaper in the American South once claimed readership and reporting that covered Dixie like the dew. In the league of cynical response, that line linked up with a put-down which lives on with real universality: yeah, a mile wide, and an inch deep.
France, since May 17, has a new leader who could well be called the omnipresident. With a breadth of reach that is extraordinary, and a burst of an energy that makes his predecessors over the last quarter century look paralytic, Nicolas Sarkozy has leapt into French life as the man who will change everything.
He has made clear that he will run every aspect of government, turning the prime minister's office into a kind of chief-of-staff position instead of the baffle it provided previous presidents from the drudgery and mess of daily, incremental politics.
He has widened the political affiliations of his cabinet members and appointees to include Socialists, women, and minorities, casting himself as the open-minded gatherer of the nation and tolerant symbol of all of France (while devastating the mainstream-left opposition in the process).
He has presented a catalogue of wall-to-wall change and ambition: leadership in Europe; new leverage for France in the world; an economy that trashes the traditional rigidities of French capitalism; an institutional makeover that would streamline government in the name of modernity — and, obviously, facilitate Sarkozy's will to put his mark on all things.
The goals stretch enormously wide. For now, according to a poll last week, 52 percent of the French say they aren't shocked by Sarkozy's omnipresence.
You could call it a running, leaping, remarkably successful start that has blanketed France in a mood of hopeful expectation it hasn't known in years.
The hitch is that on inspection the depth of Sarkozy's convictions — or in many cases their definition — has not become clear.
The mile-wide, inch-deep label would be cruel and hasty. Still, for early days, the contradictions are already there. Examples:
A university reorganization bill that won approval turned out to be a relatively business-as-usual undertaking that abandoned the student-selection and tuition provisions which reformers said were needed to lift the French higher education system from growing mediocrity to modernity.
Friends of Sarkozy privately rationalized away the bill's innocuousness with the thought that he could not risk student protests in the Paris streets this fall and winter when he's likely to confront labor unions with the job-market liberalization central to structural change in the economy.
Last week, when a whiff of renewal concerning French Middle East policy was in the air — Sarkozy quite reasonably referred to Hezbollah as "terrorist'' — the presidential bureaucracy reverted to form 24 hours later, reaffirming France's opposition to including Hezbollah on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations.
A day or two later, the president, who as the campaigning Sarkozy openly expressed his unwillingness to let Russia strengthen its strategic influence over Europe, was on the phone with Vladimir Putin. Gazprom had just picked Total, the French energy concern, to assist in the development of its vast Stokman gas reserves.
The deal limited Total's involvement to that of a hired hand, with Gazprom controlling 100 percent ownership of the gas the new field will produce. Much of France's requirement happily comes from non- Russian sources and nuclear power, yet the now presidential Sarkozy passed up on the occasion to express concern about a regime that uses gas and oil as a means of pressure on other EU members.
This was not a new France speaking out on what its new leader, two months earlier, said was on his mind.
Concerning the EU itself, Sarkozy's voice, rather than solely that of a nation embodying change and cooperation as its new European creed, alternately has been one of the old self-interested France, comfortable with slipping around its obligations as a team player..
Sarkozy has talked up both a European industrial policy, which decoded comes out as reflexive French protectionism, and greater political involvement in policy making at the European Central Bank, which basically boils down to a desire to bolster French competitiveness through a cheaper euro.
At the same time — French exceptionalism redux — Sarkozy has temporarily (read: but maybe until his term ends in 2012) turned France's back on meeting the debt and deficit requirements of the EU Stability Pact.
Again, friends of the president say this has to be understood in the domestic political context as the kind of position that would play to French reflex and soothe public opinion while the deep reforms bringing France in line with the European Union's public spending guidelines are put to work.
By stealth?
Perhaps, because in addressing the country last week, Sarkozy talked about the necessity of a ''strong state.'' This falls on French ears as a promise of a free-spending, all-protective one.
Psychologically, at least, it's in total contradiction with the need to reduce the massive number of public sector jobs, and end the civil service anachronisms, like lifetime employment and retirement at 50- something, which have become the notional standards for all employment. Not for nothing do polls continue to show a risk-averse majority of French young people want to work for the state.
So, where and when do the breadth of Sarkozy's presidential presence, his considerable double-edged language, and — based on performance so far — the legitimate questions about the variable level of his commitment to change run into political reality, and/ or trouble?
One of his friends, who spoke recently to the president, had an indirect answer. He said:
"Mitterrand and Chirac, in their way, shared the same analysis: nothing should be changed in France. 'You can't touch the country or it will break.' That was their analysis. Sarkozy believes the people are saying, 'It's got to be now. Do what's necessary.'"
Pushed to name an hour for the hard, deep stuff to begin, another ally just laughed.
October, November? he was asked.
There was a long, nonargumentative pause. ''Nicolas has been terrific,'' the man said. ''It's a very impressive start.''
