Marine Le Pen received nearly 18% of the first round vote in the French presidential election. Photo: AFP
As an American, it’s difficult to understand the French political system or care about their elections. Sciences Po is abuzz with and integrated into the political fabric of France, so I had plenty of exposure to the political climate and 2012 speculation during my semester there. I recall memorable lectures discussing the election in several of my classes including Populism, Voting Behavior, and French language class. The DSK bombshell reverberated through the streets of Paris, and particularly at Sciences Po where Strauss-Khan used to teach. The very dull Francois Hollande hadn’t emerged as the Socialist Party candidate to replace DSK and potentially unseat Nicolas Sarkozy before I left France, so incumbent President Bling Bling and populist upstart Marine Le Pen were considered contenders.
The French presidency is a powerful office fashioned by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 when he installed himself as the head of the Fifth Republic. Yes, France has had four republics (and two declared empires) crumble before and their current constitution and incarnation of the presidency has existed for only 53 years. Presidential elections are held every five years (previously 7) and consist of two rounds: the first round featuring a ballot with all eligible candidates (10 of them in 2012), and a second-round run-off between the two top vote getters from round one. If in round one any candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, that person is elected president with no run-off.
The multi-party system ostensibly provides more choice and diversity of candidates and platforms, but comes with the built-in issues of coalition chaos and general party instability. Sure you get a party espousing centrism in addition to the two main polarized parties, but it comes bundled with a bunch of useless junk like Europe Ecologie -The Greens, New Anticapitalists, Workers’ Struggle (who’s nominee ran with the specious slogan “the only communist candidate”), and La Rouche Party. It’s a colorful cast of rascals and I would need to dedicate a separate blog post If we were to properly make fun of them all. Americans are familiar with the drawbacks of a two-party system, chiefly the perception that they collude to form elite monopoly jointly distracting and oppressing the people forever. A smathering of alternative parties arguing over who the true communists are isn’t going to fix that.
I’m talking to you, hippie.
The far left cirques collected from 0.25-11% of the first round vote per party this year, the bottom six candidates, in aggregate, totaling votes sub-Marine. That is, falling short of the 18% garnered by National Front candidate Marine Le Pen. The National Front (FN), a populist party referred to as “far right” or “extreme right” by English-language media outlets, is characterized by its anti-immigration policies, Euro-skepticism, and “French First” motto. And there’s a lot of baggage in its history. Under Jean-Marie Le Pen, who made it to the run-off election in 2002, the FN was known as a fringe group of radicals, openly racist and anti-Semitic as Jean-Marie’s several court convictions for defamatory speech would show. Under daughter Marine’s leadership, the FN has rebranded itself as the party of French culture and national identity. Everything I read about her indicates a break with her father’s FN. Marine has expelled FN members for controversial and anti-Semitic comments and has reached out to French Jews, even meeting with the Israeli envoy at the UN last year. While Marine has distanced herself from her father’s extremism, she is routinely called a racist, anti-Semite, and worse by opponents.
With high unemployment, the Euro crisis, and widespread immigration concerns, many French are frustrated with government, Sarkozy and his failed economic liberalization schemes in particular. Sarkozy heads the conservative UMP Party and his popularity has steadily declined since his election in 2007, receiving 27.8% of the vote and coming in second to Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande’s first-round topping 28.63%. While Sarkozy has made it to the run-off election, he is in real danger of becoming the Fifth Republic’s first president to not win a second term, polling at 10 points behind Hollande. He only has a shot to retain the presidency if he can attract a high percentage from the “far right.” The anti-establishment, anti-elite, anti-globalization vote — in other words, anti-things Sarkozy does.
So Hollande, as boring as he looks, is likely to become president. To be bossed around by Merkel and with Marine breathing down his neck for five years. Bon chance, monsieur.
A word about the Left-Right continuum as it pertains to French politics. It doesn’t correspond very closely to American notions of the left and right. France favors a strong state across the board, there being no real notion of “small government” — French government is supposed to be big. Healthcare, transportation, auto-making, banking, and utilities are industries with strong if not full nationalization. The French center-left crowd isn’t so different than what an American might refer to as “European socialism,” while the right, instead of advocating smaller government, focuses on foreign policy, immigration, and smarter intervention in a highly nationalized economy. Sarkozy’s mass strike- and-protest-inducing pension reform law, raising the retirement age to 62 from 60 in the France of the 35-hour work week was atypical for a French conservative. His close relationship with the US is bemoaned by many French, including Marine Le Pen, universally pinned as to the right of Sarkozy.
Having completed an American political science degree before departing for France, and feeling that “socialism” is a toxic insult in American politics sure to bring harsh backlash to anyone who accuses the president of embracing this ideology, I was surprised that the French Socialist Party proudly proclaims itself socialist and is as mainstream in France as the Democrat party is in America. “Socialist” is invariably an insult on the American political scene and “European-style socialism,” of which France is a model, is decried with disdain and doomsaying. But “socialist” is merely a common party affiliation in France, not a pejorative, and several minor parties avow their communism. “Socialism” means roughly the same thing there as here (cradle-to-grave entitlements, high taxes, universal government healthcare), it’s just a different climate with different notions of left and right and different attitudes about socialism and communism.
On the other hand, if I was French, I’d want my name to be Le Pen. That’s just an awesome name.
As Socialist Hollande and conservative Sarkozy face-off for the presidency, they have to recruit as many blocs of the people who didn’t vote for them in the first round as they can. All the left wing parties have congealed behind Hollande, greatly increasing his chances of winning. Because the FN is a right-wing party and Sarkozy is the conservative candidate, you might think virtually all of Le Pen’s 18% would go to Sarkozy as opposed to the Socialists in the final round. You might think. While Marine has hinted she would back Sarkozy in exchange for parliamentary concessions, she’s also given the impression that she will make no explicit endorsement for the decisive run-off. Many of her supporters despise Sarkozy and would rather stay home in protest than vote for him, allowing Hollande to trot to victory. They often “play coy” with pollsters making their projections unreliable. It would take about 80% of Marine’s supporters to carry Sarkozy to victory, but he doesn’t seem capable of attracting more than 60% of the FN vote without Le Pen’s express endorsement. And that’s not going to happen.
With only the clumsy terms “conservative” and “far right” available to us to describe Sarkozy and Le Pen, it’s difficult to imagine FN supporters willingly allowing the Socialiste to claim victory and five years of the presidency at a critical time for France and the world. Part of this can be explained by further exploration into the policies of Sarkozy’s conservative UMP and Marine’s decidedly right of center and, more accurately, populist positions. Sarkozy is a strong supporter of the European Union and has dedicated himself and France to the beleaguered Euro currency. Marine, a member of European Parliament, is a Euro-skeptic who would secede from the EU and return France to its erstwhile currency, the franc. Her programme prescribes withdrawing from the euro and using a devalued franc to boost the economy. Think China in terms of an exclusive and devalued currency as a factor of economic stimulus. Marine is also critical of Sarkozy’s close relationship with the United States and advocates a more independent France, determined to put up protectionist barriers and withdraw from NATO and if she came to power.
Who’s going to help you now Islamo-fascists freedom fighters?
EU, currency, and international relations spell great divides between Sarkozy and Le Pen, these issues holding great importance to a lot of her followers. On globalization and monetary policy, FN supporters see little Socialist candidate Hollande can do worse than Sarkozy. Marine’s supporters feel disenfranchised and forgotten by the elite political class, abandoning its own people to chum around in the gated global community. They aren’t necessarily xenophobic, they just don’t like paying taxes to support the healthcare and entitlements of illegal immigrants anymore than, you know, anyone. They want a state that includes them and they want real change. It’s easy to not vote for the so-called conservative because his establishment-friendly policies are not necessarily more similar to the FN in these areas and the populism of Marine has a more distant relationship to Sarkozy than “conservative” and “far right” labels might suggest. The one key FN policy Sarkozy might be willing to adopt is immigration.
Marine advocates cracking down on illegal immigration and severely cutting yearly allowances for legal immigration. She is painted as anti-Islam, known for denouncing public mosque funding and public prayer gatherings as encroaching into France’s laïcité or strict standards of a secular society. Criticized for what opponents considered comparisons between Muslims flooding the streets to pray and Nazi occupation, Marine is often called xenophobic and branded with the sins of her father, staunchly stating that France cannot afford entitlements for illegal immigrants, Sharia law is incompatible with France, and waves of unassimilating immigrants are eroding national identity. Sarkozy has shown willingness to shift right on immigration, joining Britain’s David Cameron and Germany’s Angela Merkel in declaring multiculturalism a failure. Accommodating populists on immigration and preserving French culture might attract some FN votes, but he has ruled out cabinet positions or assistance with legislative elections for FN candidates.
While there is certainly significant ideological distance between the FN and UMP, there is no denying Sarkozy needs Marine’s support if he is to have a hope at re-election. However, Le Pen may see Sarkozy’s demise as her long-term gain. A defeat by the long-tortured Socialists would throw the UMP into disarray, leaving the door for Marine and her charisma to become the new face of the French right wing. While Sarkozy warns that electing a Socialist will relegate France to the fate of Greece and Spain, Marine does not join him, perhaps calculating quietly. Addressing the debt and economic stewardship are not areas where anyone is proclaiming Hollande to be a leader, but if he becomes president and has to deal with these glaring issues, well, he’s not expected to succeed. By anyone. Including Marine. Who would, in five years, declare the failure of Hollande and position herself as a mainstream conservative to take the presidency. Of course this is speculation, but isn’t French politics fun?
Well, maybe not for you right now.
Marine isn’t perfect and the origins of the National Front are surely unpalatable, its critics understandably skeptical of its recent makeover. Taking France off the euro and withdrawing from NATO are not by any means moderate moves, but Marine fully intends to do just this if she ever becomes president. Yet she has a charisma, an energy, an optimism that nearly one fifth of French voters noticed and voted for — voting for a strong France, not against Islam. She is called a racist, xenophobe, and fascist for addressing very real economic, security, and globalization threats. My French teacher at Sciences Po — a woman I admire for her shining intelligence, compassion, and enthusiasm for teaching — invoked Nazi comparisons and human flesh lampshades to disqualify my fascination with Marine. That’s effective. And it’s really a long shot that she would ever become president, assuredly. That might not be a bad thing. Yet she wields much power in determining the outcome of this year’s run-off, a kingmaker of sorts with Sarkozy’s fate in her hands.
Marine’s carved a sizable niche for herself and neutralized much of the stigma attached to her father’s National Front by abandoning his xenophobic rhetoric and focusing on France. The French presidential election has come down to Sarkozy vs. Hollande, but Le Pen has made sure she is a major player in French politics, shedding her dad’s idiotic ideas and legitimizing her party. She deserves credit for that. While a Hollande Socialist presidency is highly likely, Marine has shown poise and popularity and will be a political force in France for years to come. Challenging the establishment and treasuring her country. And at least for this election, capable of deciding whether the Fifth Republic denies the presidential incumbent a second term. She gets a bad rap and keeps fighting. Je vous admirez, Marine.
