The cozy "Fascist".

NEW YORK, MAY 8

SO Mr. Sarkozy plans a number of reforms in France. And his mandate is pretty impressive, 53-47. But nobody knows better than he that France is only by a tortuous use of language described as a working democracy. For decades the labor unions have exercised an effective veto over French policymaking.

In the history of industrial policy in America, we came face to face with the reality that sympathetic strikes and secondary boycotts could decisively affect tests of strength between contenders in economic disputes. The Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 to outlaw such practices. It was denounced by trade union leaders as a Slave Labor Act, a hyperbole that lost its way in the language of contention when, in 1950, the principal patron of the bill was triumphantly reelected to the Senate from Ohio, where the unions had concentrated their heaviest fire against "slave labor."

The French have not yet acted to remedy their own reality, which is the general strike in which all the labor unions--most importantly those involved in transportation--participate with all their resources. If traffic simply ceases--trains to run, airplanes to fly--civil life all but comes to a halt. It is Sarkozy's intention to introduce legislation--his own Taft-Hartley Act--which would limit the powers of unions to intercede thus decisively to protest government action. The difficulties in doing so speak for themselves--in what is known as the circular argument: The transportation unions can protest the prospective reforms by use of their ultimate weapon. What then ensues will measure the strength of French self-rule.

The French are a super-sensitive people, and they cannot bear for others to succeed where they failed. The annexation by France of Algeria happened in 1848. A hundred years later, the Algerians launched their crusade for independence. It appeared a lost cause until the insurrection persevered beyond de Gaulle's fortitude in defending France's colony. Exactly the same spirits were loosed in Indochina, where, ...