As he stood at a military airport last Wednesday to greet four French hostages released by Al Qaida militants in Niger, Francois Hollande could have been forgiven for thinking his disastrous run of bad news in the past months might finally be coming to an end.
Having announced an assortment of taxes the previous week, Hollande suspended most of them over the weekend after widespread popular protests. He had managed to unite unlikely bedfellows, more often at loggerheads with one another, in the fiercest demonstrations seen in Brittany in a decade.
A proposed green tax on lorry fuel that would raise transport costs by 4 per cent had brought out farmers and supermarket owners as well as labourers and trade unionists, brandishing the black and white Breton flag as a symbol of their outrage against the cluelessness of Parisian technocrats, of whom Hollande is a central member.
This was the face of a future French Tea Party, a political development that seems increasingly likely. Hollande also had to “suspend” — a word that fills the French with unease, as it promises a stealthy return of the same measures whenever the fracas dies down — a 15.5 per cent retroactive tax on savings schemes that seemed tailor-made to infuriate his most natural voters. Once again, the government’s “method”, if it can be called that, seemed to be to first float the idea of a new tax for a few days, then back down if the outcry became too loud.
An insider suggests that the ministry of finance mandarins at the Treasury and budget departments, held in check by their previous bosses, have been trying out all their pet tax plans, even the most outlandish, on Pierre Moscovici, the finance minister, and Bernard Cazeneuve, the budget minister.
The French property market is under threat of a new rent control law. This is the pet project of Cecile Duflot, the housing minister and a canny Green ideologue who believes, against all concrete evidence to the contrary, that it will make rents more affordable. Paris estate agents reply that this, alongside the heap of protective regulations skewed towards renters, has already convinced many landlords just to sell and get out, even though the law has not yet been passed. The beginning of the week saw Hollande’s ratings plunge even lower than before, breaking records of unpopularity. Two separate polls have given him the worst ratings of a French president. Their breakdown shows, perhaps predictably, implacable, near-total hostility (93 per cent for one, 97 per cent for the other) on the Right; but opinions on the Left and within his own Socialist party are solidly negative too. He is perceived as “lacking courage”, “indecisive”, “incompetent”, “weak”, even “incoherent”.
To the French who elected him in May 2012, Hollande controls nothing and has no authority anywhere. Not in his own home, not in his party, not in his Cabinet, not in the country, and not — after Barack Obama eventually spurned his offer of military help in Syria — in the world.
The one bright spot in which he received across-the-board support was the French intervention in Mali, back in January. In two weeks, French troops, called by the Malian President Dioncounda Traore to help the country fight an Islamist invasion in the north, pushed back the rebels, liberated Timbuktu and stabilised a country whose fall to Al Qaida affiliates would have been a disaster for several French allies, from Algeria to Sudan.
This was perhaps the model of a foreign expedition done well: experienced troops knowing the region, limited and clear aims, regional and local support. Hollande, quite rightly, saw his popularity edge back up. And one he’s seemingly tried to replicate ever since — it’s probably the reason why he was so gung-ho on a Syrian intervention, even though French intelligence is perfectly aware of the complexity in which the Syrian rebellion is mired. It was therefore difficult not to wonder at the timeliness, in political terms, of the four hostages’ liberation. Questions about a ransom were raised immediately. Hollande denied any payment had been made.
Tactless and crass
For one moment, it seemed as if Hollande’s luck might turn: Marine Le Pen commented on television on the look of the head-covered and bearded hostages, implying they might have been “islamicised” in captivity. It was tactless and crass — a boon, you might think, to the mainstream political class, who duly grabbed the ball and ran with it in their hurry to re-demonise the Front National leader. Their moment of good, clean fun lasted only for a couple of hours. That very afternoon, Le Monde came out with an authoritative piece of reporting laying out the different stages of the negotiations that succeeded in getting the hostages back, complete with payment of ₧20 million (Dh99 million) to the kidnappers and Malian intermediaries. In French politics, you can get away with lying, or looking extremely likely to have lied, to the nation. Hollande’s job is as safe as the Fifth Republic constitution makes it, which is very safe indeed. But as for the hoped-for reprieve in the polls? That is not happening. How long can this last? Normally, until the next presidential and general elections, which are in 2017. There are no provisions for getting rid of the president, unless he resigns or calls for an early general election, which will not happen.
Nationwide municipal elections will take place in March, and European Parliament elections are scheduled for May. The municipal elections, and local deals for the second round, explain why Hollande has been pandering so much to the Greens and the Left of his party. Voting in the European elections, on the other hand, is full proportional representation, which makes them, in effect, a life-size poll. Le Pen’s party is expected to poll somewhere between 25 per cent and 30 per cent, and, as an MEP herself, she has already been busy making European alliances for the day after. Her platform, in many ways, is indistinguishable from that of the hard-Left: protectionist, anti-euro, anti-capitalist, pro-national regulations, supportive of Bashar Al Assad’s Syria. She is hoping to steal from Hollande many of the disenchanted voters on his left. Hollande may not be a very successful president, but he’s built his career on being a canny political manoeuvrer and, like a rabbit in a Citroen’s headlights, he understands this, without being able to change his essential nature. He is currently pondering a Cabinet reshuffle — from all accounts unenthusiastically, as it means a complete rebalancing of his majority such as it is, for less than game-changing results. He is therefore likely to keep trudging on, earning himself a place in the Guinness Book of Records in the chapter on unloved political leaders.
— The Telegraph Group, Ltd, London, 2013.
