French Politics

For the non-French speakers that are nevertheless interested in French history/politics, I recommend you start a lobbying campaign to get this comic book translated.

Cher Pays de notre Enfance (a take on the lyrics of a very famous song by Charles Trénet, Douce France, whose opening lines are Douce France/Cher Pays de mon enfance (Sweet France/Beloved country of my childhood), here it translates as "Beloved country of our childhood", being a collaborative work) is a rather original thing: a documentary in comic book form. An investigation journalist (Benoît Collombat) and a comic book artist (Etienne Davodeau) worked together to explore the secrets surrounding the Fifth Republic - the one that started in 1958 when De Gaulle was elected - including the links between politicians and organized crime or famous unresolved assassinations.

They started with investigating the SAC (Civic Action Service), an association that started as a way for De Gaulle's supporters to fight the pro-French-Algeria OAS, and grew up to become some kind of paramilitary organization linked to some high-profile robberies and crimes, and explored the connections between the SAC and some nebulous affairs between the Seventies and the Nineties including the assassination of Judge François Renaud and the ""accidental death"" of minister Robert Boullin. You can follow both of them (Benoît and Etienne) interrogating people that lived the affairs, and it is riveting. It is invaluable if you wish to understand the dynamics of power in France between 1960 and 2000, since all the big names of the right-wing (the heirs of De Gaulle) are named at one point or another, like Chirac, Pasqua, Giscard d'Estaing...

Basically, it is France's grey history. From time to time a big case emerged, but a lot was going on undetected despite largely contributing to the current shape of the country, and the authors try to know more about it.

"Secrets of the Fifth Republic" would be a good title.

Nah, too History Channel-esque.

Which means it will sell.

Breaking News: Sounds like there's been an attack on Police Station in Paris. The gunman has been shot dead.

Latest news tend to say that "gunman" is a stretch: the guy had a knife. Also, apparently, a fake explosive belt.

I reeeeeeaaaaally hope he had "just a knife", so that Donald Trump can comment on that.

edited 7th Jan '16 4:28:58 AM by Julep

This attack is looking more and more like a Darwin Award, or an attention-seeking suicide. The guy entered a police station with something that looked like an explosive belt (but was later reported to be fake) shouting "Allahou Akbar". Probably a lost soul trying to go down in a blaze of news coverage one year after the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

Suicide by Cop, you mean?

Sounds like it, between the fake vest and bringing a knife to a 1-on-several gunfight.

Since the thread is about French politics, we might as well speak about a French, erm, "cultural exception", as in holding more than one mandate at any given time. For a looooong time it was extremely common, with a minister simultaneously being mayor of a large city and a deputy in siege not really sounding weird at all (you'd think that being a minister in a country where 65 million people are living is a full-time job, but apparently not). Hollande decided to end it, and a law will pass in 2017 (I think) that will make it forbidden by law - which might be one of the few promises he will actually hold.

HOWEVER, the future here is important, because right now the new president of the Brittany region - Westernmost in France, land of the French celts, and one of the few regions with a real united history, that was added to the kingdom in the late fifteenth century when Duchess Ann married King Charles VIII (and then his cousin and successor Louis XII) but never conquered /trivia - is Jean-Yves Le Drian, who happens to also be a minister. Oh, nothing crucial, he is just Minister of Defense. During state of emergency, after a series of terror attacks. While France became engaged against ISIS. Something that, you would think, is a full-time job. Just like being president of a region where more than 4 million people live.

So, because obviously there is some double standard here, Le Petit Journal decided for the last few weeks (minus the Christmas break) to closely follow the schedule of Le Drian, alternating between martial tunes and traditional briton songs while saying what he is doing. And last weekend, they went to Brittany and watched the seance of the regional council, and kept asking everyone the obvious question: "How can you find it okay for him to go against one of Hollande's promises?" And then you see all these politicians either voiceless, finding a flimsy excuse, or telling the journalists that they should talk about something important instead.

Then the next day when Le Drian was in a briton village for the 2016 vows, he said to LPJ's journalist off-camera that he thought they crossed the line when they filmed his house (they didn't - because as you might expect, you just don't film the house of the minister of Defense under state of emergency - and only got pictures of the area he was living in, after showing their journalist card to the guards) and that he would seize their images and sue them.

I might add that he is left-side, so the one I usually agree with, but here it is just pathetic. The real reason was that Le Drian is such a prominent figure in Brittany no one else on his side felt comfortable enough to run without him, and the socialists were afraid they would lost the region to the right-wing. So yeah, it all boils down to small politician calculations.

For those who are interested, I was thinking about making a quick summary of the big things that happened in French politics every two weeks or so, while trying to order the news by relative importance, from most important to less (although of course it will be subjective).

• Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira resigned from her position, after months of disagreement with Prime Minister Valls that culminated with her opposition to the possibility to strip the French nationality of people that hold at least another passport. She was both the favorite of the left-wing voters, due in no small part to her impressive eloquence during the debates surrounding gay marriage, and the favorite target of right-wing journalists and politicians who accused her of not being severe enough with criminals. Her successor is named Jean-Jacques Urvoas, and he is pretty much Valls-lite when it comes to positions, so those who were still hoping for some more left-wing politics by the government will probably be disappointed.

• There were demonstrations against the state of emergency in France this last weekend. Polls however seem to indicate that most of the population is okay with this state.

• François Hollande extended a pardon to Jacqueline Sauvage, a woman who shot her husband to death after he physically abused her for 47 years (!), and also abused their children. Personal note here: it's the first time in a while that I think Hollande made the absolute right thing.

• Jean-François Copé, former UMP (previous name of right-wing party Les Républicains) president, who went through what is called in France politics a "desert crossing" (a reference to the Exodus, when a politician disappears from the scene for a while, like De Gaulle did between 46 and 58) after the botched elections for party presidency (where everyone cheated) and being linked to some shady affairs over the finances of the party, is back. He has been repeating that he isn't the same camera-seeking man that he once was in at least 10 different interviews over the last two weeks. Many observers think that he plans to run for the primary elections in the right-wing, alongside Sarkozy, Juppé, Lemaire and Fillon.

• On the other side, there have been more and more calls for left-wing primary elections, even though as the current president Hollande might be considered the "natural candidate". The issue being, obviously, that for many he isn't even left-wing to begin with. The PS (Socialists) is obviously embarrassed with that, since now its own left-wing seems to consider that it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.

• Aside from that, Hollande travelled to India in order to help the selling of Rafale planes. Iranian president Rohani was then a guest in the Elysee the following week, since the Daesh crisis turned Iran into the good guys you may trade with again.

edited 31st Jan '16 11:28:51 AM by Julep

On the matter of the primaries, I'd like to point out that back in 2012 Nicolas Sarkozy was the "natural candidate" for the right wing (being the president at the time) while François Hollande was designated as the PS candidate after primaries in the party.

So two observations can be made : 1) considering that Les Républicains are on their way for having primaries, we might get a completely opposite situation from 2012 if Sarkozy wins said primaries and Hollande is automatically designated "natural candidate" 2) the PS, and by extension Hollande, was perfectly okay with primaries, up until they actually got into power. Uh.

The PS has a left wing?

As for natural candidates, have them forgotten about Couille-MolleÉdouard Balladur?

In trying to refuse a primary, Hollande is probably banking on anyone who is not LR/FN supporting him anyway because the alternative would be another 2002, and he'd really rather not have to beg his voters to put clothespins on their nose again.

It does ("Les Frondeurs"), it is just that no (current) ministers belong to it. Benoît Hamon or Arnaud Montebourg were vocal supporters of this left-wing and resigned together to protest against Valls' politics. Taubira meanwhile isn't a PS member to begin with.

Balladur was not the natural candidate of the right-wing, mind you. The story goes as follow:

• De Gaulle dies, Pompidou becomes president, and the right-wing is looking for a new leader, in particular its "main party". Jacques Chirac fights for it, but it's the Mayor of Bordeaux, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who ends up leading. Chirac is displeased.
• Pompidou dies while in mandate. On the left-wing, Mitterrand is the only candidate. On the right, Chirac actively sabotages Chaban-Delmas in favor of Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing, who wins, and makes Chirac his prime minister.
• Two years later, it becomes obvious that they don't get along, and Chirac resigns, creating the RPR (future UMP, future LR).
• 1981 arrives, and Giscard d'Estaing is the "natural candidate" of the right-wing...but Chirac is a candidate too, and their infighting allows Mitterrand's win against VGE in the second turn (Chirac doesn't even says that his voters should go for VGE). IT is said that VGE still holds a grudge against Chirac for that one as of today.
• 1986: Legislative elections (back then, a president was elected for 7 years but deputies for 5, it has been fixed by Chirac during his first mandate). The right-wing wins, meaning that Mitterrand has to pick a right-wing PM ("cohabitation"). He picks Chirac.
• 1988: Mitterrand easily wins the elections against Chirac, because it is much harder to convince the population that you are the right man for the job when you already were there the last two years like Chirac was as PM (he was the de facto political leader in France). This victory is what usually cements Mitterrand as the top Magnificent Bastard of the Fifth Republic. Also, Chirac got his ass whipped during a debate (he wanted Mitterrand to stop calling him "Mr Prime Minister").
  • Chirac: "Here, you are not President, and I am not Prime Minister. We are two equal candidates. You will allow that I call you Mr Mitterrand".
  • Mitterrand: "You are absolutely right, Mr Prime Minister".

• Same thing than 1986 happens in 1993, but this time, Chirac does not want to become PM, because he knows that it will make him exposed to cricitism. So his "thirty-years long friend" Balladur takes the role...and actually becomes very popular. He didn't have presidential ambitions before, but it changes, and some Chirac supports "betray" him and join Balladur, along them Charles Pasqua and a young man named Nicolas Sarkozy (if you wanted to know why Chirac hated Sarkozy - that's why). Both Balladur and Chirac run in 1995. Eventually, Chirac wins.

There is no such thing as a "natural candidate" in France because primary elections are relatively new. Before 2007, it was the leader of the opposition party who was the "natural candidate". 2007 was the first time there were primaries - in the left-wing, because the "natural candidate" for the right was Sarkozy. 2017 will be the first primaries for the right-wing.

The left had two natural candidates in the past. Mitterrand in 1988 - he was the supreme leader of the PS for 30 years, so there was no opposition. And Jospin in 2002...which led to the "Le Pen in 2nd round" fiasco because there were MANY left-wing candidates: Jospin for PS, Chevènement for the MC (Mouvement des Citoyens), Mamère for the ecologists, Hue for the Communist Party, Taubira for the Left-wing radicals (yes, this Taubira), and three candidates from the far left who amounted to 10% in total. Now, note that Jospin ended up with 16%, Chevènement and Mamère 5% each, Hue for 3% and Taubira 2%, and you will see why the left-wing exploded after Le Pen got in the 2nd round. Had there been one candidate only, Jospin would have gotten to the second round with nearly 30% - and that is while accounting for the 10% of the far left.

So I think the PS should definitely go for a primary, because I believe it is better for him to have someone else than Hollande supported by a large number of parties, than Hollande getting a humiliating defeat and losing in the first turn. He could beat Sarkozy if the stars are aligned, but if Juppé becomes the right-wing candidate, he will get slaughtered. Hell, I wonder if I wouldn't vote Juppé over Hollande, and I never even picked a right-wing bulletin in my life.

edited 1st Feb '16 4:39:43 AM by Julep

Alain Juppé didn't do Sup Normal and the NSA for [insert him being forced to do something humiliating].

Juppé does give off a strong image of competence and seriousness, but how far do the facts support that?

Also, wow, is Chirac a tenacious Long Runner.

Juppé was Prime Minister in 1995 (he was Chirac's first one, in fact)... And tried a reform of the retirement system that caused the greatest strikes France had seen since May 1968. He eventually backed down in front of the popular uproar it caused (Of course, with the aggravation of the economic crisis, even less favorable measures had been taken since and even worse are starting to rear their ugly heads, but it was exceptional at the time). Aside from that, he didn't last long enough to really leave an impression.

However, people living in Bordeaux, which he administrated as mayor for decades, are pretty satisfied of his work from what I could read here and there. So there's that.

He's also known for having been condemned for shady operations, and even left France for a few years for Quebec because of this. But in this case, it's almost sure that he took the blame instead of Chirac who was most certainly behind all this stuff and acted as a short fuse for protecting the then-president. And honestly, if we had to eliminate permanently every single politician who did something shady, there would be nobody left, both at the head of state and in the lower spheres.

edited 1st Feb '16 2:04:46 PM by purplefishman

I'm not sure I agree with the word "fixed". This pretty much removed the possibility of cohabitation, but putting the legislative elections after the presidentials strengthened the president's power.

He is an excellent Mayor of Bordeaux by all accounts - kind of like Jean-Marc Ayrault was in Nantes before becoming Hollande's first PM. And he resisted the populist turn in the right-wing since Sarkozy became prominent in 2002 unlike most of its party, which makes him stand out as a wiser figure. He also was, as far as I know, a good Minister of Foreign Affairs under Sarkozy.

This is one of the main issues in French politics. Current (and probably soon-to-be former - he is rumored to be the next head of the Constitutional Council) Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius was a Prime Minister between '1983 and 1986 (under Mitterrand). Mitterrand himself lost three presidential elections before winning in 1981. Ségolène Royal was a minister in 1992, François Fillon and Nicolas Sarkozy in 1993, so all of them are here for more than 20 years.

Which obviously makes it hard for newcomers to get important positions. It is slowly changing - Valls or Macron are young men, as are the "forty-something" in LR such as Kosciuszko-Morizet or Lemaire - but it remains an issue, and our senate is full of very, very old (white) men who would be better retired home than taking decisions for our country.

It did strengthen the president power, but electing a president for 7 years without being even sure that he will be able to govern for that long is a bit ridiculous. I think the USA have the same issue whenever congress and president aren't on the same side: everything gets blocked due to petty infighting. If the president becomes powerless, he might as well stop being president altogether, since we are one of the few presidential democracies.

edited 2nd Feb '16 12:48:22 AM by Julep

There is a reason for separating the powers. Having the president be the head of the magistrature is already a huge mistake. Giving him control over the legislative branch as well is concentrating all 3 powers into the same hands.

In most countries, as soon as the parliament switches sides, the head of politics follows. It's just that in France you have two separate elections, but Hollande has no more power in France than Merkel does in Germany or Cameron in the UK.

Forcing a president who did hold some power (after De Gaulle and until Sarkozy, it wasn't an issue: the PM was influent, and the president was mostly taking care of foreign representation of France), to suddenly become irrelevant for two years, was nonsensical. He might as well have resigned, if not for the fact that doing so would discredit him in future elections.

edited 2nd Feb '16 4:36:43 AM by Julep

Oh, hey, completely forgot Juppé's stint at Foreign Affairs.

Then again, 2007-2012 are 5 years I'm trying to forget as much as possible

Update !

First, the elephant(s) in the room: the government has changed, a "remaniement" as we call it (which means reorganization, or reshuffle). Fabius leaves the Foreign Affairs to lead the Constitutional Council, and is replaced by Valls' predecessor, Jean-Marc Ayrault. Fleur Pellerin is replaced at the Ministry of Culture by a newcomer, Audrey Azoulay. Also, three former or current ecologists (Jean-Vincent Placé, Barbara Pompili and Emmanuelle Cosse) enter the government, which is a shrewd move by Hollande since it will create chaos among possible opponents in the first turn of the next presidential elections. Sigh. One year and a half to go and "strategy" is already more important than "actually succeeding". I guess nothing important will happen in these last eighteen months, because "important" means "potentially unpopular".

Revocation of nationality passed the National Assembly to be written in the Constitution. Much consternation happened when the debates started with three quarters of the Assembly being empty because the deputies had "something else to do". You know, more important than actually modifying the constitution. Some of them were at that very time invited on TV to talk about revocation of nationality.

Half of the "Calais Jungle" will be razed by the authorities.

A poll says that Juppé is 12 points ahead of Sarkozy for the primary elections in LR.

Weren't there also a news about someone pushing for Internet censorship?

I haven't heard about anything regarding the Internet recently, although some less than friendly elements might have passed in the state of emergency measures. Do you have any link?

On an unrelated note, a new TV series called Baron Noir is airing on Mondays since this week. Think of it as a French equivalent of Borgen or House of Cards. It features Kad Merad and the amazing Niels Arestrup - three time Cesar winner for Best Supporting Actor between 2006 and 2014 - and the critics are loving it.

If you manage to find a way to watch it, give it a try. It is written by a former "quill" of current politicians Mélenchon or Dray, which means that it will be realistic (although it remains a fiction).

edited 13th Feb '16 12:28:25 PM by Julep