France and Your Faithful Correspondent Go Insane

 

I don’t know how other journalists are even reading the news fast enough to make their deadlines right now. It’s easy enough to criticize the media; I do it all the time; I even do it more than anyone, I reckon. But this week all I can say is that I admire any colleague who managed to do the one thing a journalist has got to do to survive in this business: submit his report before the story’s no longer news.

I’ve been writing two pieces this week, one about last Sunday’s referendum in Turkey, the other about the upcoming election in France. I’ve worked to the point of near-tearful exhaustion on both, but neither are done. Nor, I fear, will either be finished before they’re no longer of use to any editor. So much has happened, so fast, and there is so much to explain, that I just can’t do it quickly enough. Those who can do it will be published; and even if their articles are riddled with errors of fact and interpretation or horrors of English prose, it is only right that theirs will be published and mine will not, because editors do need to fill their pages with something, after all. They can’t wait for writers like me to figure out how to compress my frantic thoughts about the history, the drama, the complexity, the personalities, the sheer weirdness of these epic events into “Five Facts You Need to Know Today” — and I can’t even blame them for it. The chief attribute you need to succeed in journalism is the ability to get 800 readable words on an editor’s desk before the day’s end, every single day, and I don’t have it. When yesterday Theresa May yesterday announced her plan to call a snap call a snap general election, my first thought was that another election was going to do me in — and I didn’t just mean the stress of living through it, I meant the prospect of explaining it.

So all I can say is thank God — and thank you — that I have a book to write, because it means that what I’ve written won’t be wasted. To everyone who’s made this book a possibility, I am truly grateful: The thought that none of what I wrote will be wasted is all that’s keeping me from staggering off the ledge into madness along with everyone else I’m writing about.

And to anyone in a generous mood, please consider contributing, or contributing again: I can say with absolute confidence that the book is being written even as I blow through deadline after deadline; because this book is what I’m really writing, and this book, for sure, will answer all your questions about Turkey’s referendum, the real meaning of France’s election cliffhanger, Britain’s future, and the way these stories unite to form a portrait of the ill-starred continent to which we’re bound, like it or not, its tragic and tangled history, and its uncertain future.

For those of you who can’t wait for the book, however, let me recommend a few articles about what happened in France this week by writers who managed to make their deadlines. All three are surprisingly good, despite not being written by me and despite being finished on time.

In Slate (of all places) Yascha Mounk has written a fine piece called A Primer on the French Elections: Four Candidates, three nightmare scenarios:

For many years, Mélenchon has been about as marginal a political figure as his endorsement of Fiscal Combat might suggest. After breaking with the center-left Parti Socialiste of President François Hollande, he has called for a 100 percent tax on incomes over 400,000 euros (about $426,000) and endorsed dictators such as Hugo Chavez. And yet, the latest polls see Mélenchon in a dead heat with centrist Emmanuel Macron, conservative François Fillon, and far-right populist Marine Le Pen. Any two out of those four might come out on top in the first rounds of the upcoming presidential elections.In other words, less than a week before the first round of the election, and less than three weeks before a runoff between the two leading candidates that will determine the next inhabitant of the Élysée Palace, the country’s political future is completely up in the air. France might soon be ruled by a self-described communist, by an untested centrist whose political movement was founded less than a year ago, by a traditional conservative under investigation for blatantly corrupt practices, or by the far-right leader of a party with deep fascist roots.

(And please, I beg you: Before averring the irrelevance of Marine Le Pen’s fascist roots, please, at least, wait for my book, or for the article that, God willing, I’ll finish in time to explain this, and to explain why they should frighten us. I spent most of the week writing about her and her lunatic family and about how criminally reckless it would be to dismiss the words “fascist roots,” words so overused that they have even perhaps come to sound anodyne to American ears. But at the very least, watch this. That is what is meant by “fascist roots,” and those are the roots from which her rotten branch grows — as last week she clearly reminded us.)

In The Daily Beast, Christopher Dickey gets right to the point with a piece called The Insane French Elections That Could [Redacted] Us All. It isn’t just vulgar sensationalism, I’m afraid.

Less than three weeks from now, in the final round of the presidential elections, the only choice left to the voters of France could well be between Le Pen, a crypto-fascist, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a charismatic communist, both of whom are strongly anti-EU and anti-NATO.

Victory for either one would mean an end to the political, diplomatic, and economic order that has protected the United States as well as Europe for the last 70 years, preventing the kinds of cataclysms—World Wars I and II—that cost millions of lives in the first half of the 20th century while containing first Soviet and now Russian adventurism.

There are other possibilities, but as the French prepare to go to the polls (or flee them) this Sunday, April 23, the possible outcomes are a total crapshoot. The four top candidates in a field of 11 are in a virtual dead heat; the differences between their scores is within the acknowledged margins of error by the pollsters. The top two finishers will vie against each other in a run-off on May 7. And the reason something like panic has set in among many French, from the heights of the political establishment to conversation over espressos at the counters in working-class cafés, is that the candidate with the most solid base is Le Pen, while the one with the most momentum is the far-left Mélenchon.

As for Mélenchon’s astonishing sudden rise, my friend Arun has done an outstanding job of explaining this terrible turn of events, to the extent they can be explained:

… When I saw these numbers, my jaw dropped. This is, objectively speaking, insane. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not exactly a newcomer on the French political scene. He’s been around for a while and anyone with a merely passing interest in politics knows him and his trash-talking gauchiste persona. So WTF is going on here? This cannot be just his performance in the March 20th and April 4th multi-candidate debates. Ça ne peut pas suffire. The fact of the matter is, JLM has tapped into something profound in the id of a sizable part of the French electorate—both left and right—which I personally do not relate to but that is there. On this, I received an email a week ago from a faithful AWAV reader in Marseille—who is French, secular Jewish, a retired advertising executive, on the moderate left but no gauchiste—after JLM’s rally in the city. What he wrote is interesting and instructive, as his sentiments are no doubt shared by many:

Il y a la politique et puis il y a la politique.

I gave up on joining the crowd sur le Vieux Port, because it was already past 2 pm and I wanted to hear Meluche [Mélenchon’s nickname-ed.] in good conditions, so I stayed home and watched him on TV… The magic worked, I had to admire the man and the talent.

He brought tears in my eyes. I didn’t agree on all of what he said, but I agreed on his choice of words, the value and the weight of the words, the tone, the gravity, the music, the emotional content.

It is part of my French heritage. It speaks to my roots. This is what France is all about. Something lyrical, fierce, generous and noble as is the Marseillaise.

Read the whole thing.

France, in short, has gone insane, and anything could happen.

Now I’ll go back to work in the hope of finishing both of my own articles before events overtake them. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll share a few of my thoughts about what just happened in Turkey. These are not trivial developments, and it is hard for me to feel that I’m not trivializing them by compressing my responses to them. But in the end, saying nothing at all would be worse. So I’ll do my best.

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  1. Gumby Mark Coolidge
    Gumby Mark
    @GumbyMark

    I came across this article by Christopher Caldwell in City Journal about the work of Christophe Guilloy in explaining why France seems to be coming apart.  It’s also interesting to read in the context of trends here in America.

    https://www.city-journal.org/html/french-coming-apart-15125.html

    • #61
  2. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Claire,

    Paris attack: 1 police officer killed, 2 seriously injured in shooting on Champs-Élysées‬‬; ISIS claims responsibility

    Give us a shout. What’s happening?

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #62
  3. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    James Gawron (View Comment):
    Claire,

    Paris attack: 1 police officer killed, 2 seriously injured in shooting on Champs-Élysées‬‬; ISIS claims responsibility

    Give us a shout. What’s happening?

    Regards,

    Jim

    More “refugees” I am sure. Clearly, not a reason to vote for any candidate who is against importing more Muslims.

    • #63
  4. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    More “refugees” I am sure. Clearly, not a reason to vote for any candidate who is against importing more Muslims.

    Reportedly it was a “Belgian.”

    • #64
  5. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Gumby Mark (View Comment):
    I came across this article by Christopher Caldwell in City Journal about the work of Christophe Guilloy in explaining why France seems to be coming apart. It’s also interesting to read in the context of trends here in America.

    https://www.city-journal.org/html/french-coming-apart-15125.html

    The short summary after reading the linked article: Le Pen wins.

    • #65
  6. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Rodin (View Comment):

    Gumby Mark (View Comment):
    I came across this article by Christopher Caldwell in City Journal about the work of Christophe Guilloy in explaining why France seems to be coming apart. It’s also interesting to read in the context of trends here in America.

    https://www.city-journal.org/html/french-coming-apart-15125.html

    The short summary after reading the linked article: Le Pen wins.

    She’s apparently polling increasingly well among soldiers, cops and prison guards. Probably even better after today.

    Hollande is now calling today’s attack “terror related.” The dead terrorist was jailed for 20 years in 2003 for, in 2001, attacking and seriously wounding two police officers. He was released early on appeal and is reported to have been “known to the security services.”

    A second terrorist is being sought.

    • #66
  7. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Marine Le Pen is that much closer to being France’s next president.

    • #67
  8. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Vichy II

    • #68
  9. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Vichy II

    Electric Boogaloo.

    • #69
  10. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

     

     

     

    From Haaretz, on Fillon using the rise of Melenchon to campaign as least bad alternative:

    Le Pen at first tried to ignore the trend, and did not respond even when she lost her first-place lead in the polls Monday to Macron. But the more Fillon’s message percolates down to right-wing voters, the more extreme her statements are becoming. Yesterday she managed to say that by her very election she would prevent terror attacks; to pledge to completely halt immigration, even of legal immigrants, by freezing their visas; to attack Protestants, whom she said are too arrogant toward Catholics; and finally to warn right-wing voters that this is not a presidential election, but rather a referendum in which the question is: “Do you love France, or not?” A vote for Fillon, for example, is an answer in the negative.

    • #70
  11. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    James Gawron (View Comment):
    https://www.city-journal.org/html/french-coming-apart-15125.html

    Nothing we didn’t expect. There may be more this weekend. ISIS has claimed responsibility (unusually quickly, for them). Another plot was thwarted a few days ago in Marseille. ISIS has a strong preference for Le Pen; they’ve made no secret of it. The strategy is the old Leninist one of “accelerating the contradictions.” A Le Pen victory will, they hope, replenish their decimated ranks by radicalizing their target population — they hope Le Pen will make life so unbearable for ordinary Muslims here that they’ll come to understand they have no future in France, that ISIS was right all along, and up sticks to join them. They’ve got a historic model in the Algerian War. 

    I hope this won’t yield the results they expect, and have some grounds for that hope. For everyone who decides to vote for Le Pen as a response (and there will be many), there may be an equal number who see this for exactly what it is and refuse, just out of stubbornness and rage, to allow their votes to be dictated by ISIS. Paris is quite different from la France Profonde in this regard, but most Parisians, at least, are very well aware of ISIS’ strategy — which, again, they’re very open about — and not at all willing to cooperate with it.

    It may shift votes away from Mélanchon (good) and toward Fillon. We’ll see.

    I’ll be glad when this election’s over.

    • #71
  12. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Claire Berlinski, Ed. (View Comment):
    I’ll be glad when this election’s over.

    Speaking of elections, what about the Turkish referendum? I remember your saying that Erdogan was, if not better than Gülen, less bad due to his being a power hungry opportunist using religion as a political tool rather than a true believer like Gülen who was eager to bring the end times.

    Is that still true, or is Erdogan-the-new-Sultan now looking to you to be just as bad for Turkey as Gülen-who-would-bring-the-Mahdi would have been had the coup succeeded?

    • #72
  13. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Claire Berlinski, Ed. (View Comment):
    ISIS has a strong preference for Le Pen; they’ve made no secret of it. The strategy is the old Leninist one of “accelerating the contradictions.” A Le Pen victory will, they hope, replenish their decimated ranks by radicalizing their target population — they hope Le Pen will make life so unbearable for ordinary Muslims here that they’ll come to understand they have no future in France, that ISIS was right all along, and up sticks to join them. They’ve got a historic model in the Algerian War. 

    I hope this won’t yield the results they expect, and have some grounds for that hope. For everyone who decides to vote for Le Pen as a response (and there will be many), there may be an equal number who see this for exactly what it is and refuse, just out of stubbornness and rage, to allow their votes to be dictated by ISIS. Paris is quite different from la France Profonde in this regard, but most Parisians, at least, are very well aware of ISIS’ strategy — which, again, they’re very open about — and not at all willing to cooperate with it.

    This is the “let the baby cry” argument. Ignore them and don’t give them what they want. But what if baby is waiving a gun around?

    • #73
  14. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Rodin (View Comment):
    This is the “let the baby cry” argument. Ignore them and don’t give them what they want. But what if baby is waiving a gun around?

    The view is, I think, that ISIS et cie does not pose an existential threat to France but can be managed by current institutions and policies.

    Le Pen’s appeal is to those who disagree, which apparently includes the military, police, and prison guards.

    Apropos of nothing, in California the prison guards are a major political force and tend to support policies that are likely to lead to the growth of the prison population.

    • #74
  15. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):
    Apropos of nothing, in California the prison guards are a major political force and tend to support policies that are likely to lead to the growth of the prison population.

    Let me use a favorite ploy of Tucker Carlson: And how many people should be in jail in California? More or less than the current number?

    • #75
  16. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Rodin (View Comment):
    Let me use a favorite ploy of Tucker Carlson: And how many people should be in jail in California? More or less than the current number?

    To begin with, jails and prisons should not be the primary place where the socially dysfunctional mentally ill receive treatment. American prisons should not be housing illegal immigrants; they should be deported and kept from returning by secure borders.

    Longer prison sentences are not always the best answer, though they are always the CCPOA’s goal.

    The union, for example, spent over $100,000 to implement the original Three Strikes Law. More recently, it spent $1 million to defeat Proposition 5, which would have reduced sentences for nonviolent crimes, shifting the focus to rehabilitation for nonviolent drug offenders.

    While the case of private prisons gives public officials a contained and clean narrative to sell the general public about mass incarceration, it isn’t the whole story. Ricardo Lara, who introduced SB1289 to combat private prisons, pocketed contributions from CCPOA.

    I’m not saying they’re always wrong. I’m saying that the best interests of their members and the best interests of the public don’t always coincide… which may or may not be true in France.

    Speaking of the French elections, on general principles I apply the <30 rule to elections: Whichever candidate is most supported by voters under 30 is bad for the polity holding the election until proven otherwise.

    • #76
  17. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):
    To begin with, jails and prisons should not be the primary place where the socially dysfunctional mentally ill receive treatment.

    Agreed.

    American prisons should not be housing illegal immigrants; they should be deported and kept from returning by secure borders.

    Agreed.

    • #77
  18. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Here’s City Journal with a review of a book on France from a different vantage point: real estate as a social barometer. The book is Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut (roughly: “The Twilight of the French Elite”), the reviewer Christopher Caldwell.

    Guilluy doubts that anyplace exists in France’s new economy for working people as we’ve traditionally understood them. Paris offers the most striking case. As it has prospered, the City of Light has stratified, resembling, in this regard, London or American cities such as New York and San Francisco. It’s a place for millionaires, immigrants, tourists, and the young, with no room for the median Frenchman. Paris now drives out the people once thought of as synonymous with the city.

    … Journalists and politicians assume that the stratification of France’s flourishing metropoles results from a glitch in the workings of globalization… Fixing the problem, at least for certain politicians and policy experts, involves coming up with a clever shortcut: perhaps, say, if Romorantin had free wireless, its citizens would soon find themselves wealthy, too. Guilluy disagrees. For him, there’s no reason to expect that… France’s dynamic spots… will generate a new middle class or… that broad-based prosperity will develop elsewhere in the country (which happens to be where the majority of the population live). If he is right, we can understand why every major Western country has seen the rise of political movements taking aim at the present system.

    • #78
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