“I will not fiddle quietly with locks in Versailles while France is getting increasingly angry.” So said Nicolas Sarkozy on Bastille Day. By making a direct comparison between the dithering Louis XVI and the present French president, Jacques Chirac, was the ambitious interior minister implying that France was on the eve of a new revolutionary situation?

Could we be in 1789 again or at least in 1788 – and would the rapid coming to power after early presidential elections of a young, modern, popular leader in tune with the needs and frustrations of society be the only way to prevent “the people” from taking to the streets again in aclassical French revolutionary tradition? This is of course a “wishful nightmare” on the part of a politician in a hurry.