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...other developed countries. In Japan, it took a decade of recession and stagnation for the nation’s leaders to accept a transition away from the “Japanese model” of corporatism and state subsidies. The mere suggestion of changes in the famously cozy French employment laws sparked massive protests by literally millions of students. And in Germany, even the election of reformist opposition leader Angela Merkel failed to change much as the parliamentary elite forced a coalition to stall transformation...
...Crucially, Syria also has lost, for now, a potential friend on the other side of the Atlantic. French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced last week that Paris was severing contacts with Damascus until Syria facilitates an election in Lebanon. Sarkozy's ultimatum effectively ended an intense bout of diplomatic mediation in December, when senior French envoys shuttled between Paris, Beirut and Damascus to attempt a compromise deal between feuding Lebanese factions. Although the U.S. is recognized as the most powerful broker in the Middle East, France's historical ties to Lebanon and Syria grant it considerable influence in those two countries...
...first Western capital visited by Assad in an official capacity, two years before he became President. Chirac also was the only Western head of state to attend the funeral of Assad's father, President Hafez al-Assad in 2000. He dispatched a close aide to Damascus to serve as French ambassador and a team of technocrats to assist Assad's reform efforts. Rafik Hariri, then Lebanese Prime Minister and close friend of Chirac, was instrumental in building France's relations with Syria, hoping in exchange that Damascus would ease its tight grip on Lebanon. That was not to be, however...
...those notes slide - has elicited mirth, skepticism and indignation from Sarkozy's political opponents and pundits. Will Higher Education Minster Valérie Pécresse, for example, have to stand in a symbolic corner if evaluators find too few campuses have embraced her hard-fought university reform? Will French voters actually applaud Immigration and National Identity Minister Brice Hortefeux if he scores high on one of his criteria: expelling enough illegal immigrants to meet the numerical quotas that detractors decry as inhumane? Can Culture Minister Christine Abanel really be held responsible for "the evolution of visits to museums during...
...actually pushed by Fillon, despite Sarkozy's wariness it would create more tension in a cabinet already prone to division. "In the end, they realized the scheme will create pressure, but it also provides a useful for measuring reform progress and competency," says Duhamel. "That's entirely new in French politics...