The Socialists' anointment of Segolene Royal as their presidential candidate is an important step on the road to the Fifth Republic's eighth presidential election, which is set for April 22, with a second-round runoff two weeks later. All candidates should be known by the end of January -- the deadline for printing the ballots. So, by that point, France's four main political parties, two on the left and two on the right, must prepare their party manifesto and choose candidates.
That, at least, is how the system is supposed to work in theory. In practice, while the official campaign is supposed to last only two months -- long enough in a democracy in which candidates have to endure an unrelenting media barrage -- the jockeying of potential candidates, together with the media's appetite for a horse race, helped kick off the real campaign nearly a year and a half ago.
So today's public debates have a somewhat surreal character, because the programs on which the candidates will stake their campaigns are still not developed. In their absence, personality and style, not political programs, have proven decisive. I am not sure this is good for democracy, but that's the way it is.
Two such stylish personalities have so far commandeered the public opinion polls, and appear destined to meet in the second round. On the right is Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister -- and briefly the economy minister -- whose political rise took place within the grab-bag framework of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
The UMP is the political heir of Gaullism, but its ideological inconsistency is legendary -- and reflected in party name changes every eight to 10 years.
Sarkozy is philosophically a conservative, but an ultra-liberal on economic issues, making him totally foreign to the Gaullist tradition. Preaching privatization and social repression, he has placed himself to the right of the right, hoping to take back the votes that the mainstream right has been losing to Jean-Marie Le Pen's "fascistoid" National Front for the past 20 years.
Sarkozy imposed himself on the Gaullist movement against the will of President Jacques Chirac. Indeed, he snatched the presidency of the UMP despite Chirac's active opposition. Much of the public likes his raw language and harsh criticism of the rest of the right, notably of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, but above all of Chirac. He knows nothing about international affairs, but no one seems to hold it against him.
On the left, Royal, the Socialist president of the region of Poitou-Charentes, has scant government experience, serving brief stints as environment minister, family minister and education minister.
The anger of the Socialist Party's barons at Royal's rise was amusing to observe. She has yet to deal with the major problems of the day -- financial instability, Europe's sluggish growth, the Middle East -- and she cannot avoid them during her campaign. But, full of elegance and charm, and treating social problems with good sense and energy, she has topped public opinion polls for over a year.
So Sarkozy and Royal are universally expected to be the two leading candidates heading into the "High Noon" encounter of the second round. But, judging from the past, this is not how French politics works.
Ever since former French president Charles de Gaulle, all candidates for the French presidency who started too early have lost. Poher, Chaban-Delmas, Barre, Balladur and I were picked out by the media and treated as candidates for more than two years before the election, whether declared or not, and we were all eventually beaten. My own feeling is that the bombardment by the media is of such violence that the credibility of a candidate cannot endure for more than a few weeks. Overexposure hurts.
So in this bizarre dance, where the big parties and important candidates know that it is better to start later, the real beneficiaries of today's media circus are the candidates without any real chance of winning: a fascist, another extreme rightist, a communist, two Trotskyites and a few other marginal personalities.
But those minor candidates underscore a deeper problem. To be elected president of France, one needs more than charisma, a good program and a strong political party. One also must avoid the fragmentation that doomed the left in 2002, when none of its six candidates qualified for the second round, leaving Jacques Chirac, who had received 19 percent of the vote in the first round -- a record low for a final winner -- to defeat Jean-Marie Le Pen in the runoff with 82 percent of the vote. The most openly conservative French government of the past decade was essentially elected by the left.
A repeat of this scenario seems possible. On the left, outside of the Socialist Party, there are already four announced candidates, and a fifth is likely. On the right, Chirac's antagonism toward Sarkozy makes it likely that another candidate will appear at some point -- either Michele Alliot-Marie, the defense minister, or Chirac himself.
At this point, the main point to remember is that all of France's last seven presidential elections have sprung a surprise. The final result was never discernible in the polls more than six weeks in advance.
So, for the moment, the election is too far off to know or predict anything with certainty. What we hear is idle speculation. But at least the media are doing brisk business and we are being entertained.
Michel Rocard, former prime minister of France and leader of the Socialist Party, is a member of the European Parliament.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS