FRANCE:
New Routes to the Presidency

By Patrick Chamorel

The presidential contest presents an opportunity for something very rare in France: a genuine change. By Patrick Chamorel.

But what kind of change do they want? Are the changes proposed by the main candidates likely to answer France’s most entrenched and urgent problems?

Royal and Sarkozy embody the ascension of a new generation of leaders and a new political style. This is especially true of Royal, who would be France’s first female president. Her candidacy has received abundant international press coverage, and many Americans seem infatuated with the idea of a French Hillary Clinton who could actually become president. But is another Socialist, albeit a woman, what France really needs at a time of economic stagnation and ethnic riots? Should not the priority be the “rupture” with the so-called French social model that Sarkozy has advocated? Although Sarkozy has articulated a more convincing vision to address France’s twin demons of anemic economic growth and a fractured national community and identity, the French may yet decide that having a woman as president is more exciting and less threatening than the radically new policy needed to reverse their country’s decline.

Royal and Sarkozy both are maverick politicians who conquered their respective parties as outsiders from the right.

It is the first time since President Georges Pompidou’s death in office in 1974 that no incumbent president or prime minister is running. After 12 years of what is widely considered a failed presidency, Chirac has wisely decided to retire. His handpicked successors, former and current prime ministers Alain Juppé and Dominique de Villepin, have fallen victim to massive street mobilizations against reform. In fact, not since 1969 have the two mainstream candidates been novices at running for president (the last candidate to have been elected on his first attempt was Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 1974). Combined with the two candidates’ relative youth—53 for Royal, 52 for Sarkozy, in contrast with Chirac’s 74—such circumstances bode well for the potential renewal of political life that people crave and candidates are striving for. They also work against the likelihood that Le Pen will qualify for the runoff election the way he did in 2002.

But an open seat and youthful candidates aren’t enough to provide true change at the top. Just as important are Royal and Sarkozy’s personal backgrounds and political itineraries. Royal grew up in a conservative family. Her father was a colonel in the former French colonies before settling in a small town in eastern France. His authoritarianism and traditional view of women nurtured Royal’s feminism and professional ambitions. Her brand of feminism, however, has always been tempered by strict provincial family values that set her apart from the left-wing Parisian intelligentsia. Not until she became a student at the elite Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) did Royal commit to socialist politics, encouraged by François Hollande, her future partner and the father of their four children. Both climbed the political ladder under the tutelage of President François Mitterrand.

Sarkozy’s own résumé is even more unusual. He is the son of an immigrant father from Hungary and a French mother of Greek and Jewish background. But what makes Sarkozy most atypical in the French political landscape is that he did not study at ENA. He was not even a civil servant, like 60 percent of his fellow members of the National Assembly, but rather a corporate lawyer who admired CEOs and economic success. Sarkozy’s foreign lineage and non-ENA background are the equivalent of Royal’s gender: Both candidates had to face prejudice and prove themselves beyond what is requested of male politicians who went to ENA.

This is the first time since President Georges Pompidou’s death in office in 1974 that no incumbent president or prime minister is running.

Royal and Sarkozy have something else in common: They are maverick politicians who conquered their respective parties as outsiders from the right. Until 18 months ago, Royal was the barely remembered former junior minister of family affairs, education, and the environment. Unlike her partner, Hollande, she never was a power broker in the party. Only after she defeated the center-right prime minister in a 2004 election to succeed him as president of her region in western France did her new visibility and favorable polls encourage her to run for president. With her modern and elegant looks, this career politician of 25 years became the darling of the media and the symbol of a potentially new political era. She deftly captured the mood of the country, and her party’s grass roots, for political renewal to trounce her two more experienced rivals in the Socialist primary. It did not hurt that polls showed that she was the only Socialist candidate who could beat Sarkozy in the runoff.

Sarkozy was spared no obstacle as he fought his way up through the ranks of the Gaullist party. He won his first local election against a party heavyweight. By supporting Chirac’s party rival in the 1995 presidential election, he not only alienated his political mentor but also was sent into political exile. Yet, in 2004, Sarkozy managed to seize control of the Gaullist party from Chirac’s own hands.

Royal’s ideological convictions and positioning have always been difficult to pin down. She is independent-minded and pragmatic, in contrast with the traditionally intellectual and doctrinaire heritage of the Socialist Party. During her nomination campaign, she challenged key tenets of the Socialist doctrine such as the 35-hour week and advocated military quarters for young delinquents and more school choice for parents. She also praised Tony Blair, who serves as her remote model at a time when his Third Way has largely been discredited elsewhere. But her nomination reflected more a desire for change and victory than an ideological shift in the party. Likewise, Laurent Fabius, who represented the left of the party in the primaries, did not owe his severe defeat to an ideological shift but to the fact that he is not liked in the party and has lost credibility after switching from the right to the left on the issue of the European constitution.

The ideological transformation of the Socialist Party has barely begun, and it is far from certain that Royal will be willing or able to pursue it.

Sarkozy did more than position himself to the right of his party: He shifted it to the right, something Royal has yet to do. In the late 1990s, Sarkozy became convinced that future victories of his Gaullist party required a clearer differentiation from the left and a more sharply defined core doctrine. After Le Pen finished second in the 2002 presidential election, Sarkozy set himself the goal of recapturing part of the far rightist’s electorate. He challenged the conventional wisdom that talking about crime and immigration could benefit only Le Pen and successfully addressed people’s concrete problems. Sarkozy’s push to the right also represented a direct challenge to Chirac’s more centrist politics and halfhearted reforms. Whereas Chirac has convinced himself that the French are culturally resis-tant to reforms, Sarkozy believes they yearn for them. He has famously called for a “rupture” with France’s failed social model and has advocated a more pro-U.S. foreign policy.

Like Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton, and Blair before him, Sarkozy has single-handedly renovated his own party and largely renewed the terms of public debate before acceding to power. By contrast, Royal’s contribution to the debate of ideas has always been an afterthought.

Both Royal and Sarkozy have broken with the top-down style of Fifth Republic French politics by focusing on the grass roots and using simple language. Both are pragmatic politicians who understand the necessity of bridging the widening gap between citizens and their elites. They have made working-class constituencies, who have been increasingly tempted by the extremist parties of the left and right, their main target. These votes will be crucially important to win the runoff election.

Like Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton, and Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy has single-handedly renovated his own party and renewed the terms of public debate before acceding to power. By contrast, Ségolène Royal’s contributions to the debate of ideas have always been afterthoughts.

Sarkozy did not expect the Socialists to nominate a candidate able to challenge him on the all-important theme of change. After the referendum to ratify the European constitution failed in 2005, the party had shifted to the left, as illustrated by its electoral platform. But Sarkozy has been thrown off balance by the nomination of a woman who comes across as a fresh new face and has perfected a new grass-roots style of politics. The presence of a female candidate has accentuated the authoritarian and unpredictable aspects of his style and personality. Sarkozy has built his career on the authority and competence of the leader; Royal, on empathy for ordinary people.

Sarkozy’s record on crime and immigration remains controversial, as his high polling “negatives” attest. This will be a liability with the centrist voters who will decide the runoff. Royal has cast herself as more traditional on values and more aggressive against crime than most Socialists, to neutralize Sarkozy’s advantage on that turf. Royal’s lack of a clear agenda and the fact that she is a woman make it difficult to attack her.

Sarkozy invented the rupture theme to distinguish himself from Chirac and to avoid appearing like an incumbent, despite being a leading cabinet minister under Chirac. He thought that a left opposed to reforms made it electorally safe for him to preach his maximalist version of change. But with an appealing Socialist candidate moving toward the center, his franchise risked being reduced to the hard-core right. This is why Sarkozy has taken the battle to the center and toned down his rupture and free-market rhetoric. In the process, he has alienated the free-market wing of his party.

Sarkozy must now point to Royal’s lack of experience in the crucial areas of economics and foreign policy. He should also focus on the gulf between Royal’s image of modernity and the archaism of her own proposals and those of the party’s program, which she had to endorse. The left cannot credibly advocate change because of ideology, its key constituencies in the public sector, and the need to attract the votes of the far left in the runoff election. It is oblivious to globalization, except to condemn it.

The word “competitiveness” is nowhere to be found in the program of the Socialist Party. Instead, it recommends a substantial raising of the minimum wage, despite evidence that this will result in a further loss of competitiveness and more workers priced out of the job market. Work still is not understood as the source of jobs and wealth creation. The Socialists have pledged to renationalize the energy sector and cancel an already insufficient pension reform. They are also planning to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Sarkozy’s vision is at odds with that of the Socialists. He combines free-market economics, nationalist industrial policy, and restoring the authority of the state in its fundamental missions: defense, law and order, the regulation of immigration, and encouragement for integration. Royal’s vision is that of a pervasive state protecting against the ills of capitalism but without authority in its traditional missions. France’s problems won’t be solved by more Scandinavian-style egalitarianism coupled with the failed British and Dutch communitarian and multiculturalist models. Unlike Royal, Sarkozy is an admirer of the American economic model and favors a more pro-U.S. foreign policy.

If Sarkozy wins, he will have a mandate. This is why he keeps repeating, “I say what I’ll do and I’ll do what I said.” Royal, on the other hand, would be constrained by an unreformed left and threats of a split down the middle of the Socialist Party if she is suspected of Third Way Blairism. She cannot successfully be the French Blair because there was no French Reagan or Thatcher. Sarkozy might not be Reagan, but he is what comes closest in French politics.

Available from the Hoover Press is Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem, by
Russell A. Berman. To order, call 800.935.2882 or visit www.hooverpress.org.

Patrick Chamorel was a National Fellow for 2005-2006 at the Hoover Institution.