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France Exhales, Temporarily
Yesterday was the second round of the French regional elections, and the National Front was defeated in all three contested districts. (I explained how these work last week.) Nidra Poller wrote a good essay about the FN last year for those who want to know more about the LePen family psychodrama:
While the notoriously provocative father has remained honorary president of the FN, the daughter claims to have banished unsavory ideas and elements that – unfairly in her view – justified its “demonization.” Cleansed of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, racism and other reprehensible traits associated with the “Far Right Populist” strain of postwar European politics, the National Front is claimed to be the West’s only line of defense against Islamization, EU tyranny, globalization, cheap Chinese merchandise, rampant capitalism, the banks, the international oligarchy that exploits the hardworking little man … and what other evils?
According to an investigation published in January 2014 by Frédéric Haziza, Vol au-dessus d’un nid de fachos (Flight over a nest of fascists), the National Front gravitates in a “Populist Far Right” constellation that includes the skinhead Serge Ayoub, the intellectual Alain Soral, the ex-comic Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, the PR wizard Frédéric Chatillon, and assorted like-minded personalities. Members and leaders of these groups fall in and out with each other, conveniently allowing them to disavow specific reprehensible acts or associations, but their core principles are largely compatible: Third Reich nostalgia, Holocaust denial, obsessive hatred of Jews/Zionists, rejection of capitalism and parliamentary democracy.
Gabriel Oppetit notes, correctly, “While the FN is frequently warned about — and for good reason — its economic proposals are rarely decried for what they are: a manifesto for a state-run, nationalistic economy.” This — as he also correctly points out — has been tried in country after country, and has consistently produced economic, social, and political misery.
The party was on top in six of 13 regions in the first-round last week. It didn’t win a single one of the regions in the second round. Sarkozy’s party (Les Républicains) took seven of 13 regions, giving them the largest share. But they couldn’t have done it without the tactical support of the ruling PS. In the three regions where the FN came in first last week, the PS pulled out their candidates, and had they not, it’s impossible to say what the voters would have done. In one region, the PS candidate refused to pull out: Les Républicains took it.
Voter turnout was much higher than in the first round, suggesting the familiar pattern of FN-as-protest-vote followed by a “Now let’s be serious” response. But they came way too close for comfort. That they were kept out by tactical retreat and tactical voting will now give them the argument that they’re the object of a conspiracy.
The relief in France is considerable. But as La Croix put it, it’s a “cowardly relief” — as Leon Blum famously put it in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement. No one thinks they’re gone.
Published in Elections, General
That’s why I didn’t think they were relevant. It’s the ones specifically about Jews that are revealing.
Well, what more do you want from Sarkozy?
My translation: Nicholas Sarkozy said on Thursday that “There is no contented French identity in a society that has become multicultural … Here we have French culture, not a multicultural culture. There’s no contented French identity unless we share moral values, a way of life, a sense of belonging to one nation, having one history, one language — which is French — a common vision, politesse, and courtesy.”
France has never adopted multiculturalism. The national philosophy is Republicanism: If you adopt French culture, you will be an equal citizen of France.
I misread–thanks for the correction.
Possibly, you misread–more practical political classes.
I am aware of two major political projects in France after 1945. One is the Latin Empire of Kojeve, who wrote the famous memo to de Gaulle, but worked for the realization of the EU, & the other is de Gaulle’s. Both seem failures, but the latter seems dead beyond resurrection, even though it was a politician rather than a philosopher’s idea. That’s not as rare an event as it is funny.
The only French politician whose intentions could be said to have guide post-war France is de Gaulle. He certainly opposed all political unification, starting with his Fouchet plan. The political classes of France betrayed that intention. This is what I had in mind.
French politicians constantly oppose the EU? Presumably, this potentially infinite number of distinctions between French & European politics would take forever to go through–but where would you say the difference is greatest, clearest?
If you believe French & European politics are different in a serious sense, then you have considered the political condition for France leaving the EU. I’m sure this would be one of your most imaginative writings.
Add in an absorb-able rate of immigration, sounds perfect. The trick will be convincing people they mean it this time.
I should say more precisely: The complete breakdown in international order, the epicenter of which is Syria, and the refugee crisis. It’s place a huge strain on the French military and security services, and leading to the humanitarian disaster of places like Calais.
Exactly where you’d expect it to be: over budgets.
That recalls the old joke, you know the man’s remark: Well, we’ve established what kind of woman–now we’re haggling over the price…
But for all that, this is not what de Gaulle thought was serious & I do not believe he would have ordered men to kill & die, or take the risks himself, over budgets. That word, serieux, used to mean something in France, I am advised.
You seem to show great conviction in the reality of the matters of least concern.
You think?
It seems to me that the western world is coming to the end of the nation-state as an ordering principle without any broad agreement on what should replace it. There is pressure on nation-states from both directions: internally from immigration without assimilation, and externally from the growing importance of international agreements (e.g. COP21, TPP) that ordinary people don’t feel like they have much influence on. We’re probably in for the same kind of upheaval that accompanied the transition from monarchy by Divine right to modern nation-states. Reactionary forces like the FN are part of that, I think.
So what’s the upshot? It’s about a month since that was written? Anything new? Is this turning into something political or what?