by Stephen Jessel
PARIS — A chapter in the long history of France will close in the next few weeks when the nation’s voters choose the man who will succeed François Mitterrand as president.
For 14 years, Mitterrand has been the head of state of a country of some 57 million, described by a 19th century writer as “the most brilliant and dangerous nation in Europe” and it seems almost certain that he will be followed by a candidate from the right.
The forerunners are Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, but whoever takes over the Elysée Palace for the next seven years will serve at a critical point in the affairs of the nation, in the dying moments of a century which has seen the power, influence and confidence of France sapped and weakened by war, defeat and international changes.
France’s future, almost everyone agrees, lies within a unified Europe; but the questions concern the nature of that Europe and the relationship with Germany, the powerful neighbor to the east, now once again a single state and poised strategically at the heart of a continent where the old political certainties have vanished.
The pessimism should not be overdone. The French economy is still the fourth largest in the world, behind those of the United States, Japan and Germany, having long since overtaken that of Britain. France is one of the two European nuclear powers and is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It has been the largest single contributor of forces to the UN operation in ex-Yugoslavia.
It used to be said that the sun never set on the British Empire; it is certainly the case that it never sets on the State of France since quite apart from the sizable chunk of Europe occupied by the French, their overseas departments (countries) and territories stretch from an archipelago off the east coast of Canada to the West Indies to South America to the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific.
France remains a by-word for the excellence of its gastronomy, its world-beating wines, its fabulous cheeses. Paris, modernized and transformed as a result of the readiness by the authorities to spend money on it, is the most glittering capital of Europe. It is still the center of haute couture, a place of pilgrimage for tourists.
But France is no museum, no Venice living off its glorious past. French technology has given the country a leading role in the field of nuclear power, telecommunications, automobile manufacturing, advanced rail technology, and aerospace. The Airbus consortium, which includes Britain, Germany and Spain, based in Toulouse, has emerged as a real competitor to the mighty Boeing.
The economy is in reasonable shape with the exception of two blackspots. Inflation is running at less than two percent a year. The labor strife of recent years has largely disappeared, at least in the private sector. The trade balance is positive. A rigorous education system turns out an educated and flexible workforce. The problems concern the country’s comprehensive but costly welfare state and above all unemployment, stuck at around three million or 12 percent of the workforce.
These two themes seem certain to dominate the economic aspect of the presidential election campaign. Although a number of measures to cut unemployment have been tried with some limited success, no real impact has yet been made. Because the young are particularly affected, the need for a solution is urgent to avoid the creation of a demoralized and disaffected legion of the young jobless.
There is considerable agreement that the cost of labor is too high, especially in so far as it relates to the low-paid. The elaborate system of funds for unemployment benefits, health insurance, retirement pensions and so on, hits both the employer and the worker hard. Employers may have to add to their wage bills anything up to 45 percent or even more on top of what they actually pay an employee in the form of contributions to various funds. Nor is the worker spared; a substantial chunk of the wage packet vanishes in his or her contribution to the same funds.
But if employers’ contributions were to be cut, the money would have to be found elsewhere or the fundamental philosophy of the French welfare state reviewed — and the French show little inclination to accept such a review.
Political debate on the harsh choices that may be taken is not made easier by the contempt with which many French voters regard politicians. When Mitterrand was elected president in 1981, bringing to an end quarter of a century of right-wing government, many had high hopes that he and the Socialist government that was elected soon afterwards would offer a more honest and open style than that of the outgoing right wing administration.
But in the general elections of 1993 after the Socialists had been in power for more than a decade, such was the revulsion at their arrogance and corruption that they were swept from office. Unfortunately the newly resurgent right has proved no more honest, and within 18 months, three ministers have been forced to resign under a cloud and it is unlikely that the full truth has yet emerged.
This disillusion with the political class helps the many demagogues active in French political life, the most persistent of whom is the leader of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Le Pen has been a feature of the French political landscape for many years, preaching a message of open chauvinism and intolerance, arguing that France’s troubles are the consequence of the excessive numbers of immigrants on French soil (particularly from north Africa) and can only be cured by a program of compulsory repatriation.
Le Pen, who is also hostile to many aspects of European integration, can count on a steady 10 percent of the vote and has been echoed on many of his themes by a new grouping on the right which shares his antipathy to the European Union.
The left, too, has its peddlers of easy answers, notably Bernard Tapie, a flamboyant businessman currently in deep trouble with the law on a number of issues, who stunned political observers by capturing 12 percent of the vote in European elections in 1994. He has a particular appeal to the young and in the south of the country but his legal problems may prevent him standing for office. His solution to the issue of youth unemployment is to make it illegal.
The Socialists are in total disarray after the decision by Jacques Delors, formerly the head of the European Union’s executive body, the Commission, and the only remotely credible left-wing candidate, not to carry their colors. The environmentalists, who during the 1980’s seemed to threaten to emerge as a real political force, have collapsed into sectarian feuding. The Communist party lives on, supported by perhaps one voter in 15, apparently unaware of the death of communism.
The new President will, therefore, come from the political right, if only by default. At one stage it appeared that the strongest candidate would be Jacques Chirac, twice already a candidate, head of the Gaullist RPR party, former Prime Minister, Mayor of Paris.
But Chirac decided not to seek the job of Prime Minister after the victory of the right in the 1993 general elections, scarred by his experience on the job during the cohabitation between 1986 and 1988. Instead, he preferred to allow his former finance minister Balladur to be appointed.
The theory was that Chirac could prepare his presidential bid without the burdens of office while Balladur, a chilly, aloof technocrat much-derided for his pompous style and lack of common touch, would get the economy into good shape for the inevitable victory of the right under Chirac this year.
But the French, having observed their premier in action, decided they liked what they saw. They found in Balladur a cool, statesmanlike, reflective figure very different from the hyperactive, openly ambitious and impulsive Chirac. It came as no surprise when in January Balladur forgot his previously-stated view that a prime minister should not be a presidential candidate, and entered the race.
Besides the economy, the major issues in the election may include crime and immigration, which for better or worse, are linked in the public mind. No really accurate figures for the number of immigrants exist, but there are thought to be at least three million people living in France born in North Africa (chiefly Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco) or born in France of parents who came to France from North Africa.
There are also very large numbers of Europeans, mostly from the EC countries, and sizable communities from sub-Saharan Africa and the Far East, but it is the North African first and second-generation immigrants on whom most public attention is focused. The civil war in Algeria and its possible implications for France, both in terms of an exodus of Algerians and a spilling of violence over the Mediterranean, worry public opinion.
Unquestionably, North African youths are disproportionately concentrated in the soulless new towns and housing estates that ring the big cities, disproportionately out of work, disproportionately unqualified. Add to that the resentment still felt by some French people about the savage war of Algerian independence in the 1950’s and 1960’s and the fear of militant Islam and the preconditions for an uneasy relationship are met.
Primary immigration has stopped though some family members are still arriving and there is a widespread belief, given some official support, that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are living in France.
France looks at the new century and the new millennium aware that, with about one percent of the planet’s population, its influence can be global only if it operates as part of a wider grouping. The community of French-speaking nations, most of them African, is not a suitable organization; which leaves Europe.
When the European Economic Community was set up in the 1950’s it suited French needs admirably. There were only six members, of which only three were large states and the other two were Germany and Italy, both defeated in the Second World War.
The combination of French agriculture and diplomacy and reborn German industrial might was the engine that successfully drove Europe for many years, the Germans content to be led politically by the French. But the EEC grew to nine members, then 10, then 12 and now 15. Closer economic ties have created closer political integration to the point where in all the European Union States (as it has now become) questions are being asked about the loss of sovereignty.
A common currency for at least some EC States is a real possibility by the end of the decade; powers are seen to have flowed away to the European Commission in Brussels and the European Court in Luxembourg. And with the collapse of communism, the liberation of such states as Hungary, the Czech republic and Poland and the unification of Germany, the future of Europe looks very different from what appeared probable 10 years ago.
Germany, with whom France fought three wars between 1870 and 1945, is now 30 percent larger in population terms than any other EU state. Traditionally it exercised considerable influence over the states of Mitteleuropa and with the balance of Europe tilting to the east, the German role in Europe seems certain to increase as more states join the EU.
The French are a quarrelsome, brilliant, moody, touchy, proud people whose impact on the development of human society has been enormous. They are not about to retreat into the role of inhabitants of a European province. But the way ahead is unclear and is likely to be rocky and they will need to draw on their considerable strengths in the years ahead.
Stephen Jessel is a freelance journalist and former European correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
