Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
7 4 December - January 2017
INTERNATIONAL
J
EAN-VINCENT PLACÉ is a French junior
minister and a former Green senator.
In June, he declared in the weekly
newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche
that he was absolutely convinced that
François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, the two
rivals way back in the second round of the 2012
presidential election, would face off again in
2017. Six months later, we saw Sarkozy fail to
win the new-fangled primary election for Les
Républicains (LRs), the right-wing party, and
Hollande give up on a second term.
For this Frenchman, France is dangerously
uncertain, challenged and threatened. Under a
surface of pomp and democratic decency lies a
vicious malaise. The EU, at least, may see that
this is a once cuddly dog that may bite.
For the right, people were expecting Alain
Juppé, a former Prime Minister (1995-
1997), once jailed, to win the
primary election and be the lib-
eral candidate. The very
cynical media review Acrimed
even did a collection of press
covers from the past two
years: "Juppémania", "why
not him?", "the best of us",
etc. Needless to say, then, that
François Fillon’s victory was a
big surprise for everyone, includ-
ing himself. He blasted his opponent,
gathering more than 66% of voters. Fillon is pop-
ular, despite his Droopy-face, his large grey
eyebrows and his many mocking nicknames,
such as Mr Pee due to his frequent unexplained
absences from Parliament during important
votes.
Supported by Christian fundamentalists,
including traditional pro-life and pro-family
movements like La Manif pour Tous (who dem-
onstrated against same-sex marriage in 2013),
Fillon definitely has conservative social and lib
-
eral economic ideas, teed up for uncertain
France in 2017.
His Policy is to strip back the State: a €100bn
savings programme on public spending, and the
elimination of 500,000 public-servant jobs.
Corporate taxes would fall, and the richest
would certainly be pleased that Fillon wants to
cut the main tax on personal wealth (ISF). He
revels in attacking the main social advances
engineered by the left: the 35-hour week, and
the retirement age of 65 years – important lega-
cies of socialists, François Miterrand and
Martine Aubry.
Fillon has ideas about social issues too: he
wants immigration quotas (as did Juppé), to cut
social welfare (including healthcare) for refu-
gees, and to fight terrorism by stripping jihadists
of their citizenship, which is actually impossible
for those born in France. Despite his strong sup-
port for pro-life groups (and his personal
opposition to abortion), he does not propose to
abolish the law on same-sex marriage or to do
anything to stop free abortion. However, he
will put more obstacles in the way of
homosexual couples adopting a
child. While they would be able
to adopt they could not pass
on their citizenship or rights
of inheritance.
By choosing Fillon, the
Republican electorate clearly
signalled its yearning for a
more liberal and conservative
axis, closer to the far-right
Marine Le Pen and the Front
National (FN) than centre-right demo-
crats. Lefties, have a look at Fillon’s advisors
and you might shiver: people come from Occi-
dent, a former Euro-supremacist organisation,
or the GUD, a far-right racist and antisemitic stu-
dent syndicate. Fillon made references during
his campaign that he was born in the country-
side from a "peasant’s family" (although he’s a
deputy of… Paris), and a Catholic. The night of
his victory, his spokeswoman was seen on TV…
wearing a cross.
Jesus Christ, what have they done with
laicism?
For Marine Le Pen, whom everybody is
resigned to see in the second round of the elec-
tion, it’s difficult to know if Fillon’s run is a good
or a bad thing. Overtaking by the right wing is
forbidden in France… but that’s exactly what the
"Right with no complex" (according to former
corrupt leader Jean-François Copé) is trying to
do. Stealing the electorate of people who share
Le Pen’s idea but are bothered by the smell of it.
On the contrary, the Front national of Marine Le
Pen has engaged in a process of "de-devilisa-
tion" of her party, based on the fact that they are
against the establishment (cheers Donald
Trump!). That’s probably why the party is not that
worried that Fillon, a former Prime minister
(under Sarkozy, 2007-2012) born and raised in
it, might sink it.
On the left wing, things do not move as fast.
The PS, like the Labour Party in Britain, sees
itself as much a force for ethical progressivism
as a political party hungry for power. Early
December saw two big events: ‘Flamby’ (‘Pud-
ding’) Hollande, the only politician in the world
who could make jumping on a scooter to see your
nubile mistress, unsexy, became the first Presi-
dent in sixty years to declare he would not seek
re-election, and his Prime minister Manuel Valls
announced his participation in the primary élec
-
tion for the Left, in January. Valls is nicknamed
the 'lefty Sarko' and unloved by the socialist
electorate. When Hollande was elected, he
became Minister of the Interior (just like Sarkozy
had been) and directed a repressive policy on the
Roma people, migrants and demonstrators.
After he became Prime Minister in 2014, he
had to suffer several motions of no confidence
from Parliament, and had to use the most anti-
democratic articles of the French constitution to
pass authoritarian and deregulatory laws. From
the still-active state of emergency to the frac-
tious clampdown on the Islamic burkini, and the
El Khomri law on precarious work and employ
-
ment, which generated street protests last
March, ‘popularity’ is not Manuel Valls’ primary
driver, at least for the moment.
Valls will be the candidate of power, facing
other socialist candidates who represent the
deceived and the angry. And if he actually wins,
it is not clear the extent to which he will be sup
-
ported by all those who spat on him for months.
No bookmaker can really imagine the fractured
France cultivates
a vicious politics
The 2017 presidential election is a boring
soap opera where the only excitement is
the danger of the result
by Paul Verdeau
The EU, at least,
may see that this is
a once cuddly dog
that may bite
December - January 2017 7 5
and dysfunctional PS in the second round of the
election, having eliminated either the LR or the
FN.
As to the proto-fascist Marine Le Pen, France’s
Trump – though if not more tolerant she is at
least much more careful with language, she is
facing internal, indeed familial, dissent on topics
like abortion from the radical wing of her party,
and especially her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le
Pen. As a populist and nationalist of course many
elements of her Platform are actually quite left-
wing. She is anti-globalism, secular and sees a
primary role for the government in health care,
education, transportation, banking and energy.
The far-right electorate will probably be torn
between Le Pen and Fillon, but we will have to
wait for the beginning of their actual campaign
to see how it will end.
In fact, French people are sick of politics. Or,
to be more precise, sick of their politicians. Con
-
sidering that, there are two possibilities: either
people will vote for a moderate solution,
between corrupt establishment and extremist
bigots, or they will choose a more radical one.
Moderation could come from Emmanuel
Macron,the very-nice-golden-boy-with-perfect-
teeth, who stayed two years as Minister of
Economy in a left government, despite "not being
socialist". A former banker at Rothschild’s, he is
charismatic: after giving photos of his love story
with his former teacher to tabloids, he resigned
from the government in a very “Love Boat”-ish
set up. In the end he left office in a yacht.
Macron could really make the difference,
despite having been a member of the govern-
ment of the despised Holland to whom he is
related. He’s open-minded, liberal, with a strong
vision. He spent two days in the beginning of
December in New York, visiting bilingual excel-
lence schools and start-up hubs. His political
movement is called ‘En marche! (On the march!),
and he claims not to be right or left. Which is, to
many people from the Left, a sign that you are
from the Right. Underneath his image as ”sym
-
pathetic and close to the people”, he has often
stumbled and revealed that he really is a man of
the bourgeoisie and that he looks down on the
proletariat. Calling working women “illiterate”,
arguing that entrepreneurs have a harder life
than employees and scornfully replying to strik-
ers that “the best way to afford a smoking is to
work”. Not a good way to seduce the voters from
the middle and poor classes but dating back to
Mitterand (not to mention Strauss-Kahn with his
pumping and indiscriminate loins), France has
form in socialist hauteur.
However, he recently took a “humanist” turn,
arguing that he wishes not to add more hours to
the working week but to allow companies to
decide the wage for extra hours. In the same
spirit, he defended public servants, and claimed
that he will bring back the neighbourhood polic-
ing that was abolished by Sarkozy in 2005 and
that he will lower charges for the poor and the
unemployed.
Let’s face it: France is not about to undergo a
fourth Revolution, no matter what the young
leaders of Nuit Debout, a movement established
in March 2016 with the aim of "overthrowing the
El Khomri bill and the world it represents", may
think. But today’s France grumbles against the
establishment is definitely willing to change it,
whatever the street protesters imagine. One
mature path would be to change the way politi-
cal France works: the Constitution. And that’s
what Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the Parti
de Gauche (literally, the Left Party) promises if
elected, since he began to run for president in
2012. He ensures that he will not stay as presi-
dent for more than a day, summoning a popular
Assembly to determine a new Constitution made
by the people for the people. Of course, it’s radi-
cal and risky. The current Constitution has been
working since 1958 when it was introduced by
Charles De Gaulle. But for Mélenchon and many
left voters, this Constitution is anti-democratic,
making France one of the only Western countries
where people directly elect the head of govern-
ment, one who also has more power than the
Parliament. A recipe for stablility indeed majesty
but not for engagement or accessibility.
Mélenchon’s strategy to be close to the people
– including his own funky Youtube Channel is
bearing fruit: he’s one of the most popular poli-
ticians (or at least, the least hated). His ideas are
all filtered by his supporters, La France Insoumise
(Insubordinate France), and would provide for an
energetic transition, the re-negotiation of EU
treaties, and the guarantee of the right to abor-
tion. But critics on the far left hold against him
the fact that he didn’t wait for their approval to
announce his campaign, behaviour that doesn’t,
they claim, fit the ideas he supports. In the same
way, he attracted the wrath of feminist activists
for endorsing an infamous racist and misogynist
forum that claimed to support him.
Perhaps the best we can do is not to make sup-
positions or assumptions, to avoid being in the
situation of the ridiculous Jean-Vincent Placé, or
indeed the Hillary and anti-Brexit prognostica
-
tors. At least, we can watch it like a good old
soap opera. Even if peace and prosperity may be
in the mix.
Moderation could come
from Emmanuel Macron,
the golden-boy-with-
perfect-teeth, a charismatic
former Rothschild’s banker
who eschews socialism
1848 Revolution: 2017 will not be so simple, or inspirational
