Further to the second phase of France’s local elections yesterday, a significant number of cities will change administration and will be back in the hands of the right wing Union for Popular Movement (UMP) party. Or for the first time in history, these cities will be managed by the far-right National Front.
It is of course a shock to all those who have thought for years that teaming-up with communists — who betrayed their country in 1939 and supported all the crimes from Stalin’s times — was quite acceptable, whereas whoever supported a populist party was nothing less than a ‘fascist’. One may not support one or the other, but still consider, democracy starts not withthrowing out of the window nearly a quarter of the French voting population. That being said, the destiny of France is not going to change because the administration in place lost the mid-term local elections. It is a rather common situation for whoever is in office, even though the much anticipated socialist debacle has reached serious proportions — for reasons everyone knows: insane and dogmatic policies based on devising wrong solutions for ill-analysed situations, and the whole toppled by true amateurism.
But in the end, few foreigners care about the political colour of large French cities’ mayors. Evil is deeply entrenched. What’s happening to Hollande is indicative of other serious frustrations, which make this period a possible turning point in the next 2017 presidential race. To start with, French President Francois Hollande is in a political corner. His troops did not vote for him (forget Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayraud, who is just his political tool), because they are not only disappointed by the lack of results expected from untenable promises, but also because they (rightly) think that things will worsen. If Hollande shows courage and goes on restricting spending, saving for instance another €50 billion (Dh252 billion) public expenses as he promised, his socialist fellows may definitely abandon him (40 per cent of the socialist leadership have asked for a change in policy). And if he does not and walks backwards as he has so often done, then the EU Commission and notation agencies among a few others will be on his back. Whether Hollande maintains his prime minister or not is not of much importance. The question is which policy will he implement in order to reverse the unemployment curve. People have been asking for job creation and security and he has offered them societal debates.
Economic and social affairs leave obviously little room for other concerns, for instance, an incredibly absent foreign policy in the Russian crisis, seemingly discovering Russian leader Vladimir Putin is someone better to talk to regularly; the advancing dark clouds over Central Africa; dereliction of duty in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an obtuse and thick-headed policy over Syria.
But there is worse to come. When fundamental principles in a country like France are trampled; when straightforward lying becomes the mark of the fabric of a government, then of course, people start wondering whom to believe. Justice Minister Christine Taubira brazenly lied to millions of people, with the kind of arrogance which she believes makes a politico a stateswoman, on the so-called ‘Sarkozy wiretapping affair’ — which incidentally confirms that Hollande listens to everybody but the French people. One may find indeed too many affairs surrounding the former president, but when a junior minister says that “there is nothing wrong in wiretapping someone who has nothing to reproach”, then it’s cause for alarm. When the interior minister puts in jail hundreds of young well-behaved demonstrators who continue to believe that a man and a woman are different by nature, and arrest only 10 hooligans out of a 1,000 for having wrecked the inner city of Nantes, then people don’t start wondering anymore about double standards. They simply vote for the National Front.
Last recourse
Of course, wishful thinkers go on believing that the UMP will sort it all out when it is back in office. They probably missed seeing UMP President Jean-Francois Cope on TV after the first round — the same person who is accused of wrongdoing in the party’s expenses and inflated billing, and whose only incantation was: “National Front voters, come back to us!” Former prime minister Alain Juppe, royally reelected as a mayor of Bordeaux, goes on displaying the high-flying sphinx attitude that he is a last recourse — even though it is historically proven in France that nothing good ever happens to one who just waits. As for former prime minister Fillon, Sarkozy is there to make him understand that he would never make it. All this sounds great to National Front leader, Marine Le Pen.
A last chance for Hollande to avoid being shown the door is to understand that the French want concrete positive changes in their daily lives. Next month’s European elections, which the National Front is tipped to win over UMP — and of course the socialist party, will be the last warning shot. The die will then be cast and two years alone will not be enough to show whether Hollande has finally reached the stature of a statesman with vision and courage. Actually, not too many months are necessary for the answer to be known.
Luc Debieuvre is a French essayist and a lecturer at IRIS (Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques) and the FACO Law University of Paris.
