The French left after the presidential election
Roman, Joël
American friends have asked me about the current political situation in France: Who is this Jacques Chirac, a politician from the right, who was just elected president after having run a more or...
...What chance does Lionel Jospin have of effecting a complete renewal first of the Socialist party and then of the entire left...
...Michel Rocard went so far as to speak of a "disaster area"— which wasn't much of an exaggeration...
...Who is Lionel Jospin, who saved the honor of the Socialist party, the collapse of which everyone had predicted...
...The party's chairman, Henri Emmanuelli, decided that saving the party warranted his seizing control (following Michel Rocard's defeat in the European elections...
...It is not easy to answer the first question...
...Otherwise, the sense of deception will swell the popularity of the National Front...
...Three questions come to mind: which direction will Jacques Chirac and his prime minister, Alain Juppe, ultimately take...
...Moreover, his refusal to dismiss the National Assembly leaves him at the mercy of a considerable majority that hardly intends any ambitious political change...
...Fourteen years of Mitterrandism had left the party anemic, without a platform, hesitating between radical ambition and liberal caution, mired in scandal and infighting, morally and politically discredited...
...It served more to deter than to support candidates...
...The various elections have provided the proof that a civic revival is possible in this country...
...The surprise of the first ballot was not that Chirac would lead Balladur, but that, upsetting all predictions, Lionel Jospin would come out on top of both of them...
...What must be done to turn back the National Front...
...Among the reasons for Delors 's withdrawal, the one that must have weighed most heavily (although he was very tactful on this subject) was the state of the Socialist party...
...This does not bode well for a bold social policy...
...As for the National Front, the question is simple: either our politicians choose unequivocally to confront it, by proposing solutions to the problems of which it is a symptom (unemployment and job insecurity, notably) or they can continue to manipulate it as they have done, borrowing its rhetoric and certain parts of its ideological emphases (as Charles Pasqua, former minister of the interior, was accustomed to doing) or, on the contrary, scapegoating it, denouncing it in purely ideological terms so as to assume the virtuous appearance of the morally outraged anti-fascist...
...Undoubtedly, the greatest failure of Mitterrandism has been the frustration of these social expectations and the exacerbation of the political contempt directed at social movements—with which the Socialists were already heavily burdened...
...The political watchdogs had their eyes trained only on the right, predicting a runoff between Chirac and Edouard Balladur, with the left eliminated after the first ballot...
...It is impossible to ignore the 15 percent vote for the National Front (the extreme right party...
...Chirac's politics are cloaked in a grandiose neo-Gaullist rhetoric (the decision to recommence nuclear testing is emblematic), which seems ill adapted to the multipolar world in which we live...
...Therefore, when Lionel Jospin announced that he would run, he was greeted by widespread skepticism: here was a dark horse just out for the post parade...
...For the left, the result marked a (brief) return of the promise of social transformation founded on genuine reformist convictions, a desire for increasing democratization, and a higher moral standard...
...The Socialist party needs to be both more ambitious and more modest: more ambitious in its programmatic agenda, more attentive to the demands of its constituency, stating clearly in the area of public welfare and economic policy what choices it intends to make and at what price...
...American friends have asked me about the current political situation in France: Who is this Jacques Chirac, a politician from the right, who was just elected president after having run a more or less leftist campaign...
...The promised rehabilitation will only be meaningful if it allows for a dialogue with militants who do not intend to surrender their positions for the sake of a hypothetical electoral victory...
...Partly for reasons of in-house politics and partly for reasons relating to Jospin's strong showing in the presidential election and the credible results of the municipal elections, the party might exempt itself from any more profound examination of its conscience...
...Translated from the French by GILLES DEVOS q 454 • DISSENT...
...This provided the first democratic upset: they chose Jospin, the outsider, instead of the acting chairman...
...The proof of the party's credibility will come next autumn when the extent of its determination to honor its campaign promises will be measurable...
...Chirac maintained that the election was not a contest between the left and right, but one that pitted those (like Delors and Balladur) who had bowed to the economic dictates of the European community and the world market against Chirac himself, advocate of a return to politics and of a new emphasis on the fight against unemployment and fracture sociale (social disintegration...
...But a pledge involving the future has been made, and here, too, any deception involving the substitution of a mere fac,ade for the total renovation promised could have grave consequences...
...more modest in recognizing that although the largest part of the left, it is not the entire left, and that the left today is not monolithic and that in addition to its strictly political constituencies (communists and environmentalists, for example, who similarly must strive to become a credible political force) there is a very strong social constituency that no longer intends to entrust its projects to any political party...
...Last winter, after Jacques Delors had declined to run in the presidential race, the left had practically disappeared from the political landscape...
...This makes it all the more important that he realize the hopes he gave rise to...
...In the latter case, inevitably, these passions will be prodigious...
...The risk here is of a too rapid recovery of the Socialist party...
...However, the overwhelming maj ority of the electorate voted for the rehabilitation of politics and actually addressed the prevailing social problems...
...Lsome ways Lionel Jospin, on the left, has the same problem...
...And why, with all this, did a party of the extreme right win a solid 15 percent of the vote and take control of three cities in the municipal elections one month later...
...In France, which is so fond of polls (they are more numerous here than anywhere in Western Europe), the voters chose to contradict the polls...
...Party members convened for a vote (not customary procedure in France or in the Socialist party...
...Our democracy (others too, perhaps) faces a historic choice: either the rehabilitation of politics as deliberation and action in tandem or its reduction to the management and manipulation of the public's passions...
...From this moment, Jospin's campaign went from strength to strength, despite a program cobbled together at the last minute...
...Nevertheless, the government was smart enough to make certain symbolic decisions, to appoint certain ministers, and to establish relations with the trade unions and the nonprofit organizations, all of which will prevent people from becoming too quickly cynical about the promises of change...
...Nevertheless, he has contributed to the rehabilitation of the politician's role, breaking, if only briefly, with the idea of economic constraints, which is to say, the idea of the powerlessness of politics...
...There is a great likelihood that we are witnessing a much more status quo politics than was promised—a politics that looks to an economic upturn to solve all the nation's problems...
...In the latter case, there is every reason to believe that the National Front has a very bright future...
...Main Juppe's government has little leeway for political action: the concern over increasing the budget deficit has constrained all its proposals...
...First of all there is the notorious versatility of FALL • 1995 • 453 Politics Abroad Jacques Chirac, who in 1988 was quite clearly committed to a supply-side Reaganomics and yet in 1995 espoused a neo-Gaullist program including large-scale government intervention...
Vol. 42 • September 1995 • No. 4
