An Election That Has Shaken Europe

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PE] Guardian
 

The first round of the French presidential election held April 23 told us what we already knew: the French political system is in total disarray and the country is in deep trouble.

Eleven candidates were on the ballot. Of the top four contenders, only one, François Fillon, a former prime minister, represented a traditional French party, the moderately conservative Gaullist Republicans. 

He served as a prime minister from 2007 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Marine Le Pen led the far-right Front National (National Front), which has always stood outside the established party system, while the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon were really one-man shows.

Both men founded their own groups just last year. Mélenchon called his movement “La France Insoumise” (“France Unbowed”), while Macron, the preferred choice of the “Davos” European Union globalists, ran under the banner of his own vehicle, “En Marche!” (“Onward”).

As for the Socialist Party’s candidate, Benoit Hamon, he didn’t even make it into the top four, thanks to the unpopular outgoing Socialist President François Hollande.

Going into the second round, scheduled for May 7, were Le Pen and Macron, the top two finishers, with almost 23.9 and 21.4 per cent, respectively. Fillon and Mélenchon each received just below 20 per cent.

Now there will be a battle over the future, not just of France, but over globalization and the fate of the EU.

The political establishment in France has rallied behind Macron, who had been Hollande’s minister of the economy before splitting with the president. This will enable Le Pen to portray him as a continuation of the status quo.

“The great debate will finally take place,” she said. “French citizens need to seize this historic opportunity.” Le Pen called Macron “Hollande’s extension,” adding that in Macron’s world, “the rich man reigns.”

Since the 2007 financial crisis, economic growth has been stagnant. Unemployment stands at almost 10 per cent, youth unemployment is 25 per cent, and in some de-industrialized parts of the country permanent loss of work is the fate of many.

This sense of alienation is summed up in three books published by the French social geographer Christophe Guilluy. 

They constitute a critique of what he calls the “total cultural fracture” between a few cities – Paris in particular – blessed by prosperity, and the increasing “field of ruins” beyond. 

La France Périphérique: Comment on a Sacrifié les Classes Populaires  (The France of the Periphery: How the Lower Classes Were Sacrificed) describes the way globalization has virtually destroyed much of the old working class in France, especially those living outside those urban areas. 

In those fortunate cities, it has created two strata-- an affluent bourgeoisie and a large, poorly paid, largely immigrant, mass of people who are effectively their servants.

These metropoles are home to all the country’s educational and financial institutions, as well as almost all its corporations and the well-paying jobs that go with them. 

Cheap labour, tariff-free consumer goods, and new markets have made globalization a windfall for such prosperous places, Guilluy asserts. 

But what of those workers unable to prosper in this economy?  A poll conducted in 2014 by Ipsos found that 74 per cent of French workers saw globalization as a threat -- while 68 percent of managers saw it as an opportunity.

Since those who control the production of culture (the media, academia, and the arts) are the beneficiaries of globalization, complainers are marginalized, their grievances dismissed as unworthy of attention.

The real divide now is not between left and right – neither candidate of the two major parties is on the May 7 ballot -- but economic stratification within and between the metropoles and the peripheries, and this will not end the malaise engulfing France. 

Macron will win, but it will be closer than the polls predict, as he will not gain the support of most of Mélenchon’s voters. 

Mélenchon, who received almost 20 per cent on April 23, ran a campaign denouncing banks, globalization and the European Union, just like Le Pen, and has refused to endorse Macron.