With 85% of voters proud to have performed their civic duty, 75% of whom had already voted for the main government parties in the first round, compared with only one in three five years ago when every second voter stayed at home, the Republic has made a comeback. This is very good news indeed!
‘The rehabilitation of politics’. That was Nicolas Sarkozy’s motto for years. Too many promises not kept, too many major and minor scandals and, above all, too many failures of economic policy and too much cowardice about the necessary reforms had undermined people’s trust in the successive majorities. No outgoing parliamentary majority has been re-elected since 1981. The scepticism, disgust and despair of many of our compatriots found their supreme expression on 21 April 2002. On that day, 70% of workers and employees either abstained or opted for extremist parties. And then 29 May 2005 saw a majority of French citizens choosing to say ‘no’ to Europe as a gesture of defiance towards those who represented them there.
That page has been turned. A new chapter is opening. A new political generation is speaking the language of its time. The French are rediscovering the pride and potency of exercising citizenship. It is they who have sovereign power, who can bend candidates to their will. There was a time for protest. Now the time for responsibility has returned. Never have extremist candidates, or candidates with too specialised a message, been abandoned in such numbers.
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85% des électeurs fiers d’accomplir leur devoir civique. 75% d’entre eux votant dès le premier tour pour les représentants des grands partis de gouvernement, alors qu’il y a cinq ans ils n’étaient qu’un sur trois à le faire, et qu’un électeur sur deux était resté à la maison. La République est de retour. C’est une formidable bonne nouvelle !
« Réhabiliter la politique ». C’était, depuis des années, le leitmotiv de Nicolas Sarkozy. Trop de promesses non tenues, trop de petits ou gros scandales, et surtout, trop d’échecs dans la politique économique et trop de pusillanimité dans les réformes nécessaires avaient miné la confiance dans les majorités successives : depuis 1981, aucune majorité parlementaire sortante n’a été réélue. Scepticisme, dégoût, désespoir de beaucoup de nos compatriotes ont trouvé leur expression suprême le 21 avril 2002 : ce jour-là, 70% des ouvriers et des employés se sont abstenus, ou ont choisi des partis extrêmes ; et le 29 mai 2005, qui a vu une majorité de Français préférer dire « non » à l’Europe par défiance envers ceux qui les y représentaient.
Cette page est tournée. Un nouveau chapitre s’ouvre. Une nouvelle génération politique parle le langage de son temps. Les Français redécouvrent la fierté et la toute puissance de l’exercice de la citoyenneté : ce sont eux les souverains, capables d’assujettir les candidats à leur bon plaisir. Il y a eu un temps pour la protestation. Voici revenu le temps de la responsabilité: jamais les candidats extrémistes, ou porteurs d’un message trop spécialisé, n’ont été autant délaissés.
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nLors de cette session plénière, Parlement européen a adopté à une large
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Belgium has ceased to exist. The independent states of Flanders and Wallonia have been haggling fruitlessly for 20 years about how to carve up the Brussels region, which has become a no-man’s land.
Spain and Portugal are on a switchback ride towards modernisation and democracy – Latin American style – as strong-arm regimes alternate with weak elected governments made unpopular by the IMF’s periodic demands for budgetary belt-tightening. A number of serious military incidents between Greece and Turkey would have degenerated into outright war but for vigorous US intervention.
The Soviet Union fell apart only in 1999. Germany, as a quid pro quo for its reunification, has left NATO.
The Eastern European countries, although officially free of the Russian yoke, are not yet democratic. Everywhere, former Communists have managed to utilise the formal processes of democracy in order to hang on to power. Under cover of privatisation, the ruling cliques are divvying up capital assets and controlling shares in major companies. In Estonia and Latvia, trouble fomented by the Russian-speaking minorities was the justification for military intervention by Moscow, with the UN’s blessing.
The civil war in Yugoslavia has been going on for more than 15 years. Successive UN and OSCE efforts at mediation have resulted in several dozen ceasefires, all of which have broken down. For practical purposes the country is split proportionately among its ethnic communities. It took joint intervention by Washington and Moscow to stop Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Albania carving up the Republic of Macedonia.
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