France to see Sarko-Sego face-off

I’m still in northern France. Today, our neighbors here in Lille and throughout the country went to the polls in high numbers, to participate in the first round of the presidential elections. The Gaullist Party’s Nicolas Sarkozy got around 30% and the Socialists’ Segolene Royal got 25.2%. Voters delivered a sharp rebuff to the far-right, anti-immigrant candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, giving him only 11.5%.
That means that Sarko and Sego will go to the second round run-off on May 6. Five years ago, Le Pen beat the Socialist candidate (Lionel Jospin) into second place, and thus got into the run-off ballot against Chirac a couple of weeks later.
Lille is in a traditionally leftwing part of the country; and many leftists here were shocked in 2002 that even this district had put Le Pen top of the ballot. I don’t have the detailed results to show which way Lille went this time.
There were twelve candidates on today’s ballot. Apart from those three, the other “big” one was the centrist Francois Bayrou, who got 18.3%.
In the run-off, the outcome will depend to some extent which way Bayrou’s supporters will turn. The other eight candidates are nearly all from the left. On the French TF-1 television this evening, I saw a Communist Party Senator saying clearly that their party will call for its supporters to come behind Segolene; and I imagine most other leftists will do that. Many of Le Pen’s people can be expected to support Sarkozy.
Sarkozy has made quite a break with some of the stiff nationalism the Gaullists have traditionally held to; and he’s been seen as far more pro-US than most Gaullists have been in the part. To a certain extent he’s had to run away from his pro-US sentiments during the election so far. But he is definitely seen as eager to start dismantling some key aspects of the French “social contract” and shifting the country to what is described here as “the Anglo-Saxon model.”
In the last few days of the campaign, Sarko also started talking quite openly about the importance of his Christian beliefs and the fact that France should be less militantly secularist than it has been for the past 125 years.
Is this a “George Allen” dodge? Like Allen, Sarko is someone with immigrant (and Jewish) heritage who may perhaps be waving all this Christian business around in order to assuage suspicions he might be too “Jewish” for some of the Gaullist base?
If you need some pork chitlins to start handing out on campaign stops, Sarko, I’m sure George A. would be happy to send you some. Heck, the guy is even without a job. Maybe he could bring ’em over to France for you himself?
Yesterday I was riding Lille’s fabulous metro system, which extends around 20 miles or so north to some other old industrial towns with long leftwing traditions. We went to the former municipal swimming baths in Roubaix, now turned into a really beautiful art museum. (“La Piscine.”) But they’ve kept in place many of the finely wrought art deco furnishings of the public baths: a monument to the longheld ideals of the common good…
On the way there I overheard some Afro-French women seated in front of me talking about whether they would bother to go and vote. From the way they were talking, it seemed the main issue for them was whether they would go to vote against Sarko, rather than voting for Sego or anyone else. I gather that’s been quite a common phenomenon.
Anyway, the next round will be a hard fight. Sego hasn’t really projected herself yet as having distinctive ideas. But she’s run a competent campaign. And at least the outcome so far indicates that (1) the left is not dead in France, as was feared immediately after 2002, and (2) Le Pen-ism can be countered and put back in its box.

8 thoughts on “France to see Sarko-Sego face-off”

  1. It seems that the centrist François Bayrou, or more appropriately his voters (one cannot speak of an electoral basis, yet, as most of Bayrou’s voters were motivated either by the refusal of Sarkozy’s right-wing populism or by the negative view that they have about Ms. Royal, or by both) have the key to the runoff. On moral grounds they will lean towards Segolene Royal, while their sociological background leads them to vote for Sarkozy. An interesting dilemma …
    estimates round midnight : Sarkozy 30.5 % Royal 25.2 % Bayrou 19 %. Le Pen, over 78 years old,is politically dead with less than 11% votes.

  2. And at least the outcome so far indicates that (1) the left is not dead in France, as was feared immediately after 2002, and (2) Le Pen-ism can be countered and put back in its box.
    Personnally, I’m very pessimist concerning the issue of the second round. Sarkozy will surely win, the polls coming right after the first round say Sarkozy will get about 52-54% of the voices, with 46-48% to Royal. Worse :
    Concerning 1) The left is far away from where it was in 1981 when Mitterand won : the communist party, who was a very strong ally then, has almost disappeared. Meanwhile, traditional leftists who uses to call for a vote in favor of the socialist party at the second round are very weak, not to speak of the green party who is inexistent in France. So on her left, Royal will only get about 6-8% voices more. This means she has to convince the “center” electorate, those who voted for Bayrou at the first round. He got as much as 18-19% of the votes. But traditionally the UDF is a center-right party. All its representants at the legislative are elected due to alliances with the right. So I doubt that Bayrou will try to make an alliance with Royal. Nevertheless, this will shift the political line of the socialists much more to the right; indeed, Royal made a very deceiving speach yesterday evening. At the same time the votes the Socialists will be able to catch from this center-right party won’t be enough. I think that many many of the voters who chose Bayrou at the first round will abstain at the second round.
    Concerning 2) If you look at the data, Le Pen has shifted from 17% to 10%. But if he got so many voices the last time, this was due to abstention mostly. The strong participation this time helped to his bad score. The other reason why he got so few voices this time is due to the fact that Sarkozy who has strong chances of winning at the second round has adopted the anti-immigration and pro-security discourse of Le Pen. Thus he got many voices who former went to Le Pen and he may still get their other voices at the second round.
    What strikes me in this campaign with respect to previous ones who really offered different social alternatives, is the insincerity of the candidates. Sarkozy who was in government and whose government performed really badly managed to extract himself of this and to present himself like a candidate for “reform” and change (why didn’t he achieve that as a minister?). Economically he is a pure liberal and he is a right man favoring order, security and inflexibility; his provocative stances inflammed the suburbs. On foreign affairs, he supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq and avocates more closeness with the Americans, including the Bushites, although he recently made insincere declarations to the contrary. He even dared to call in Jaurès (a famous French socialist) in his campaign speeches.
    As for Segolène Royal, I was very deceived by her speach in which she only timidly spoke of solidarity but called to patriotic values and to all the French.
    Nevertheless, her ultimate chance is to transform the second round into a plebiscite : for or against Sarkozy. But for me, she has already lost, because France, as many other EU countries has seriously shifted to the right. France, I fear, will have a “sosie” (a double) of Bush, because that’s what Sarkozy is.

  4. Must disagree about the Sarko – Bush comparison by Christiane. I immigrated to France from America almost 20 years ago, and I’ve been lucky enough to know both countries from within. Bush represents everything I detest about the decline of the American empire, and Iraq was the worst manifestation of the arrogant ignorance in the US.
    Sarko, much as he represents a more liberal economy, is a far cry from that level of ignorance. I do not believe Sarko ever came out in favor of the Iraq invasion, and has repeatedly stated in the campaign that he was against it.
    Although I am uncomfortable about some of Sarko’s flirtation with the far right (on immigration, etc) during the campaign, I do believe he offers the best chance to reform France.
    In any case, the Socialists are still defending “the French model” as if there was such a thing that would interest anybody witha reasonable understanding of economics in France or elsewhere, and so only offer empty promises for justice & benefits for all. Too bad they haven’t learned from the lessons of the UK, Germany, & the Clinton democrats in the US… The old left’s ideas are broken, and only the “new left”, fiscally responsible, pro-growth, pro-business, and featuring a real sustainable social & environmental program can beat the right. If this existed in France, I’d vote Socialist again. Until them, Sarko has my vote.

  6. “…the “new left”, fiscally responsible, pro-growth, pro-business, and featuring a real sustainable social & environmental program…”
    The problem with this formulation is that it bears no relationship to anything occuring in the real world. Where is this “new left”? Certainly not in Britain or the United States.
    It exists only in the world of “spin”, of contradictory promises and all things for all men rhetoric. In reality this politics is simply right wing measures accompanied by high sounding and misleading propaganda: public property is given away in the name of “reform”. Oil rich countries are invaded, at appalling human cost (not to mention environmental damage), in the name of “freedom.” Laws protecting the weak, regulations securing pension funds from fraud, health and safety inspections are sacrificed on the altar of “growth promotion.” Hospitals are turned into slaughterhouses as “reformers” hive off vital cleaning services to contractors… And what the public gets in return is the Roman Circus of bigger prisons, “crackdowns” on petty crime and pogroms against immigrants and minorities.
    There is a sense in which this politics is of the “left” in that it harks back to the nastiest aspects of the French Revolution, the hysterical persecutions of “enemies of the people,” the offering up of foreign loot to those prepared to sign on for the campaigns in Italy(then) and Iraq(now). In that sense Blair and his disciples hew to the “left” tradition of Jacobinism as do the Bush gang. But if “left” has anything to do with siding with the poor, protecting the vulnerable and laying the foundations of a better world then the “new” version’s only advantage over the old is that it appeals to sweat shop owners, slavers, usurers and imperialists. In those respects the “old left” was greatly lacking.

  7. Less than 21 months from now…with Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France and Cameron in the UK, the Western nation leader furthest to the left will be…
    BARACK OBAMA!

  8. Yes, I must disagree with Christiane as well. I’ve read Sarko’s platform – and it is basically a standard issue Democratic Party platform in the US. Granted, the Democrats are not a “left” party by French standards – not on the economy – but nevertheless, its a far cry from the US GOP.
    My read is that Sarko is going to disappoint the Economist type folks who think he will be a thorough going free marketista and Atlanticist. I think he is wedded to the Gaullist tradition more deeply than is supeficially observed, especially in the English language press. He just realizes that in order for France to remain a world/European leader, it needs to stay abreast of contemporary geopolitical realities – globalization, technological change, the end of the Cold War, etc. After all, his political hero is De Gaulle and his original mentor was Chirac (who himself was presented in a light not unlike Sarko in the 80s). I see him trying to shake up French society through liberalizing its economy as a means of reestablishing French prestige and its credibility on the global stage. I definetly do not see him as someone who will sublimate France to a “special” relationship with the US in a way that British leaders (most blatantly, Tony Blair) have done since WWII.
    Actually, if he reminds me of anyone, it is Vladimir Putin (I don’t mean that as a slur – and I don’t see him doing or pursuing the same kind of policies as Putin. Its just that I see his historic role in the context of the French state as similar to that played by Putin in the context of Russia).

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