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The announcement of plans for a new national loan is another example of Nicolas Sarkozy’s tactical skill. Helped – sadly ¬– by the economic illiteracy of our fellow countrymen, he is turning the mortal sin of excessive national debt into a miracle cure to fund new forms of future investments. Instead of endlessly and fruitlessly demonstrating every month about the impact of the crisis, the social partners are being asked to come up with new spending ideas for which miraculously painless, virtuous and virtually unlimited funding appears to have been found. The taxpayer, who had every reason to fear that the mountain of debt would lead to an increase in his taxes, ends up being turned into a virtuous investor who will be financially rewarded for his valiant patriotic contribution to national recovery. In so doing, the President is gaining time to keep the general public quiet until the recovery plan that was agreed a few months ago really starts producing positive results.

The risk with this ‘political’ loan, in the strongest sense of the word, is that it might give our fellow countrymen, who are always only too ready to wriggle out of whatever efforts are needed, the idea that we once again have a pot of money big enough to solve all our problems painlessly. This brings to mind the surreal debate that took place under the Jospin Government, when there was an unexpected reduction in the huge budget deficit at the time: the ruling and opposition parties competed with each other to come up with proposals for new expenditure, in the mistaken belief, as they rubbed their hands with glee, that a smaller deficit meant more money to spend! Lire la suite…

In one of those reversals of moral judgment so familiar to our media-fuelled political system, the ‘stay-at-home party’ has been declared the biggest winner in the latest European elections. This is not the first time: it has become commonplace to regard candidates and/or political parties as both responsible for and victims of the disaffection of sovereign voters. These voters, in exercising their sovereign right, feel that they have every right to choose whether to turn out and vote in order to ‘reward’ the policies they like or, instead, whether to go about their normal business on polling day in order to ‘punish’ all the policies that are not worth a trip to the polling station. Meanwhile, on election night, the television studios are full of people shedding crocodile tears who, between sobs, try to outdo each other in lamenting the lack of effective policies and the decline of democracy.

In the case of the latest European elections, the record levels of collective hypocrisy are not unrelated to the record number of abstentions. Ever since January, either out of laziness, ignorance or, occasionally, out of jealousy, the editorial staff of the major broadcast media have repeatedly hammered out that no one cared about Europe, that Europe was too far removed from everyday concerns and that the French had decided not to turn out and vote. For different reasons, most political parties felt that it was tactically wise to maintain that feeling, even while claiming the opposite: with the notable exception of the Greens, candidates focused their efforts simply on ensuring that their hard-core supporters turned out to vote. The public television service surpassed itself in deliberately ignoring the spirit of its role: it was the party leaders and not the candidates who were invited to attend the only national debate to be aired on public TV (which did not even broadcast a proper election night special)! Some of the regional press went along with this near-boycott, which was not really compensated for by the efforts of other newspapers, though these were, fortunately, supplemented by a large number of new websites, blogs and internet media. Lire la suite…

C’est une première. Depuis trente ans, les électeurs avaient pris l’habitude de considérer que l’élection du Parlement de Strasbourg n’avait pas d’enjeu de pouvoir très clair : dans ces conditions, ceux qui allaient aux urnes préféraient en profiter pour exprimer leur mécontentement envers le gouvernement en place. En 2004 encore, l’impopularité de Jacques Chirac et du gouvernement de Jean-Pierre Raffarin avait valu au PS de conquérir deux fois plus de voix et de sièges que l’UMP. C’est cette tradition qui a conduit, par facilité autant que par paresse, le parti socialiste et, de manière plus surprenante, François Bayrou à refaire campagne cette année au nom du « vote sanction ».

Le boomerang leur est revenu en pleine figure. Les socialistes ont perdu près de la moitié de leurs sièges européens, tandis que le Modem connaissait une véritable déroute.

Car, entre-temps, les citoyens ont compris la leçon de la formidable accélération de l’histoire, bien mieux que beaucoup de leaders politiques. La manière dont Nicolas Sarkozy, au nom de la présidence française de l’Union européenne, a su faire face aux crises majeures de notre temps – la guerre russo-géorgienne, la crise financière, la récession économique, les changements climatiques – a démontré que les grands enjeux du siècle se décidaient désormais au niveau de l’Europe. Les faits ont décidé d’eux-mêmes : le souverainisme est devenu sans objet. Plus personne ne peut prétendre sérieusement que le traitement de ces grands sujets passe par « moins d’Europe ». Le Danemark, la Suède, la Pologne, la Hongrie, les pays baltes, et même de plus en plus de Britanniques, regrettent amèrement d’avoir tardé à rejoindre l’euro avant la tempête financière. Le flamboyant Philippe de Villiers se retrouve seul élu des 532 candidats de la nouvelle famille eurosceptique « Libertas », qui n’ambitionnait pas moins de 100 élus dans toute l’Europe ! Son allié irlandais, Declan Ganley, le « héros » du « non » irlandais au traité de Lisbonne, n’a même pas franchi le seuil minimum pour assurer sa propre élection chez lui. Quant à Jean-Marie Le Pen, il pourra se consacrer à arbitrer la querelle de sa propre succession politique entre sa fille Marine et son ancien dauphin Bruno Gollnisch : tous trois sont les seuls rescapés du Front National au Parlement de Strasbourg… Lire la suite…

It’s a first! For the past thirty years, voters have not really felt very clear about the purpose of the European Parliament elections, and so those who did go out to vote tended to use them as an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the government of the day. Even in 2004, the unpopularity of Jacques Chirac and the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin won the PS (French Socialist Party) twice as many votes and seats as the UMP (Union for a Popular Movement). It was this tradition which – because it was the easy thing to do, and also out of sheer laziness – led the socialist party and, more surprisingly, François Bayrou, to campaign in this year’s election on an ‘anti-government’ ticket.

This strategy has backfired on them spectacularly. The socialists have lost nearly half their seats in the European Parliament, while MoDem has experienced a crushing defeat.

The fact is that the public has by now realised, more so than many political leaders, just how quickly history has moved on. The way in which Nicolas Sarkozy, during the French Presidency of the European Union, managed to tackle the biggest crises of our time – the war between Russia and Georgia, the financial crisis, the recession, climate change – showed that the major issues of the age were now to be decided at European level. The facts speak for themselves: sovereigntism has now become pointless. Nobody can seriously argue that tackling these major issues should involve ‘less Europe’. Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic countries, and even increasingly the British, bitterly regret having put off joining the euro before the financial crisis broke. The colourful Philippe de Villiers was the only candidate elected out of 532 from the new Eurosceptic family ‘Libertas’, which had set its sights on winning no less than 100 seats across Europe! His Irish ally, Declan Ganley, the ‘hero’ of the Irish ‘no’ vote on the Lisbon Treaty, did not even get the minimum number of votes to be elected in his own country. As for Jean-Marie Le Pen, he can now concentrate on sorting out the dispute over his own political succession between his daughter Marine and his former heir apparent, Bruno Gollnisch: these three are now the Front National’s only remaining survivors in the Strasbourg Parliament. Lire la suite…

« L’Europe existe, à nous tous d’y prendre le pouvoir », article paru dans « La Tribune », le 2 juin 2009