British Chancellor Gordon Brown, center left, shares a word with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, center right, during a group photo at an EU summit in Brussels, Wednesday Oct. 15, 2008. Efforts to calm the impact of the global financial crisis will top the agenda at a two-day EU leaders summit along with talks on how the 27-nation bloc can keep on track ambitious promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Standing rear is Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, and front left is Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias.
By Lionel Laurent
LONDON – It may seem strange, but some European leaders are actually enjoying a bounce in popularity as a result of the economic crisis.
Despite the collapse into government hands of lenders like Royal Bank of Scotland (nyse: RBS – news – people ), Dexia (other-otc: DXBGF – news – people ) and Bradford & Bingley over the past few weeks, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain are not feeling the heat from voters. On the contrary: according to one poll in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro, Sarkozy’s handling of the crisis has a 60.0% approval rating, while one polling source in London told Forbes.com that the British public was showing greater confidence in Brown.
Polling firms in Britain are testing the waters this weekend following the so-called Brown Plan, which has seen the prime minister get the credit for a recapitalization program designed to calm interbank lending markets and restore investor confidence. (See “The Not-So-Brown Bailout Plan.”) Although the national polls are not yet completed, early unconfirmed indicators show that are placing greater trust in the prime minister as the economy deteriorates.
So why is there now a show of extra support for leaders in France and Britain at a time like this? Partly because they are no longer seen as responsible for the meltdown. It may have been possible at one time to attack Finance Minister Alistair Darling of Britain for the slipshod nationalization of Northern Rock back in February, or to criticize Sarkozy’s government for pushing back budget-deficit targets, but since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the crisis has become truly nasty and truly global.
While the state was once seen as weak and ineffectual in the face of private-sector woes, now leaders are scrambling to take the podium and offer their vision for a world free of financial excess.
“In a real crisis, people tend to move back to supporting the government,” said Ben Page, managing director of polling firm Ipsos MORI’s public affairs unit. “We saw it with 9/11, we saw it with [the 2005 London terrorist attacks]. As somebody said to me in Downing Street: ‘We’re back in the game’.”
But there is no reason to expect the short-term bounce to continue. Recession is a serious likelihood for Britain and France before the year is out, and that means the kind of atmosphere that is usually fatal for elected politicians: unemployment, shrinking wages and a potentially more painful tax bill.
“When the relief at probably having staved off a total financial collapse has passed, people will focus on the poor economic prospects for the immediate future,” said Jonathan Hopkin, of the London School of Economics. He believed it would “take a miracle” for Brown to get enough of a surge to actually win the next election.
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