After All Fools’ Day
Let us be brave enough to recognise that not one pollster, not one political analyst, not a single political leader – in short, no one at all – had imagined that the outgoing Prime Minister would be left trailing by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential election. Nothing will ever be the same again in French politics.
Disappointed to the point of exasperation by the mediocrity of this strange presidential campaign at a time when they really needed clear landmarks and definite choices, the French expressed themselves with a cry of despair. No, 20% of the French population are not Fascist sympathisers, nor are 15% of them Stalinists and Trotskyites; but a good third of our compatriots are crying for help.
Most of them are victims of unemployment, people living in all sorts of precarious circumstances, victims of intolerable living conditions in what we call sensitive housing estates or of the unbridled urbanisation of rural areas. The others are their geographical neighbours, who, though unaffected by these misfortunes, are afraid that they might spill over. Twenty years of crisis, of slow growth, of unemployment that has been rather ineptly treated with early retirements, training schemes leading nowhere and casual jobs, have created huge pockets of social deprivation and hopelessness, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the ‘fracture sociale’, as Jacques Chirac called it in 1995. In this type of soil, insecurity has flourished, boosted by the powerful fertiliser of virtually guaranteed impunity.
Beyond the suburbs, a diminishing sense of community has manifested itself in many ways throughout the country. In five years, every occupational group, from firefighters to farmers, from lorry drivers to Air France pilots, from farmers to health professionals, the entire civil service and the internal security forces – police, gendarmes and now customs officials – has taken to the streets to press its demands. It used to be said that French workers strike before they negotiate, but now the strikes are accompanied or even preceded by demonstrations too.
An even more serious malady afflicting our society is its loss of reference values, the loss of a clear divide between what is permitted and what is prohibited, between what are now called ‘anti-social behaviour’ and ‘good citizenship’. The symptoms are as numerous as they are varied. For ‘courteous driving day’, the Minister of Transport invites drivers to obey the Highway Code ‘at least for that day’, as if to acknowledge mitigating circumstances for the other 364 days of the year. Then there is the worrying behaviour, to put it mildly, of those voters who re-elect politicians convicted of corruption or misappropriation of public funds and even earn praise for doing so. There is the judge who has built his professional reputation, then his literary fortune, on his independence of mind and who, after retiring, suddenly reveals his actual political affiliations, which were hostile to those of the defendants in his most important trials. Conversely, there was the incredible psychological effect, and no doubt electoral impact, of a simple slap on the cheek that François Bayrou dared to administer to a little suburban tearaway. What is right, and what is wrong?
Having failed to recognise the signs of this profound public disorientation, the Left found itself disqualified en bloc from any further participation in the presidential election. Suddenly and unexpectedly handed victory on a plate, however, our side is scarcely any better placed. Predestined to be elected on 5 May by as many left-wing as right-wing votes, in a sort of bizarre apotheosis of cohabitation, Jacques Chirac will find it difficult to muster the momentum required for the pursuit of bold policies. That momentum will depend entirely on the outcome of the next parliamentary elections.
Preparations for those are already being made in the context of the campaign for the second round of the presidential election. In one sense, the outgoing President could hardly have hoped for such an opportunity to address the anxious, disenchanted and disorientated victims of that incredible All Fools’ Day on 21 April. Force of circumstances make him the champion of all democrats against Jean-Marie Le Pen, giving him a unique opportunity to address those who occasionally vote for Le Pen and to other protest voters without leaving himself open to suspicion of kowtowing to the leader of the National Front. To the orphaned Left, he can show that it is possible to look beyond the systematic alliance with the doctrinaire Far Left – yesterday’s orthodox Communists and today’s Trotskyites – for a prospect of curing the ills of French society at long last. To all those who had been indifferent throughout the campaign until they were suddenly awakened by the thunderbolt of 21 April, the moment has come to explain clearly what is at stake in a national election, namely the people’s choice of society.
This is the message of openness, of listening, of tolerance, of a different form of governance, of bringing together all people of goodwill, that François Bayrou spread during his campaign. It deserves more than ever to be renewed today.
Alain Lamassoure, 23 April 2002