France likes to surprise. Three months ago it seemed so obvious a re-election for Sarkozy that David Cameron and Angela Merkel couldn’t wait to endorse him.
Three weeks ago it was Hollande who was gliding faultlessly if unexcitingly to power. Three days ago all the excitement was over Jean-Luc Melenchon whose windy appeals were thought to be bringing the hard left back to life.
Et maintenant? The voters have had their say and decided to leave the race wide open. Why shouldn’t they? What’s the point of a two-round election if it’s all over in the first round?
So what can we conclude? First that France seeks authenticity and Frenchness in her president. Sarkozy represents globalised, rich, offshore, flashy, Parisian France. Hollande, Melenchon and Le Pen represent French France.
Sarkozy rushed too fast in his early days as president to holiday with George W Bush, to rejoin Nato, to marry a glamorous representative of the global Vanity Fair or Tatler set.
The era of liberal internationalism is over. So is the era of liberal interventionism. Sarkozy boasted about his global power plays in Georgia and Libya and was always travelling as if a world player. He isn’t, and Hollande’s pledge to pull France out of Afghanistan this year found an echo.
Sarkozy ranted against Europe – the Commission, the European Central Bank or even free travel in the Schengen area. But on anti-Europeanism he could always be outflanked by le Pen or Melenchon.
His failed promises to put back France back to work returned to haunt him. Rather like David Cameron and George Osborne he was seen to be too keen on and close to the rich. After the 1830 mini-revolution in France the order of the restored monarchy was ‘Enrichessez-vous’ – go and get rich. After all this had been the watchword of the three-decade long era of globalisation that began with Thatcher and Reagan and maintained with a social democratic dusting by Clinton and Blair.
Sarkozy tried to keep the Get Rich message heard long after the world was turning away. In that sense even if he beats Hollande on May 6 the slow change of the terms of trade of politics is évident.
Can he be Monsieur Comeback? If Sarkozy gets all le Pen’s votes plus a few more the answer is yes.
The strong showing for Marine Le Pen reflects the growth of nationalist identity politics in Europe. For good or ill the era of dominance by 20th century centre-left and centre-right parties is over. Parties that say No to the outside world and want to protect citizens from foreign workers, foreign products, foreign modernity, or any outside authority like the EU, IMF or ECHR are spreading across Europe. Geert Wilders has just brought down the Dutch government because the Dutch conservatives refused to accept his pre-modern demands. Whether a French president wants to be elected by pandering to such views is a question Sarkozy will now answer.
It is not just a simple matter of adding together votes. Among many centre-right French bourgeois supporters there are three groups – Republicans, Enlightenment Rationalists and Religious catholics who loathe the racism and antisemitism that the Front National has always incarnated despite Mme Le Pen’s efforts to detoxify her party.
Sarkozy may be tempted to play the anti-immigrant, rejection-of-modernity card to win le Pen votes but if he does so he may drive his own centrist supporters to opt for a president who will safeguard the Republic and uphold Reason.
Much depends on the TV debates and I think Hollande will just get there. His advantage is that like a Clement Attlee in 1945 or Harold Wilson in 1974 he is seen as Monsieur Ordinaire – a safe pair of hands after Flash Sarko. For 30 years Hollande has been at the heart of French politics even if little known to the outside world. He has seen from inside and close-up all the mistakes Mitterrand and Jospin made after 1981 and 1997. He is cautious and will get austerity in early but challenge Anglo-German neoclassical economic orthodoxy. (No one points out how Merkel and Cameron are on the same anti-Keynes wavelength. Europe needs an alternative). And this is not a two-round but a four-round election. The French can balance their choice of president with a different vote for the National Assembly majority.
For many the strong showing for Pen is important. But this is a reversion to type. From 1945 to 1980 the Stalinist protectionist, often racist, always anti-modern, French Communist party regularly won as much as 25 per cent of votes. C’est la vie politique made-in-France.
Hollande’s challenge is to offer some hope to that disaffected group without indulging in the negation of xenophobia, border-closing protectionism and assuming the state always know better than the citizen. It remains Hollande’s presidency to lose and Sarkozy’s to win.
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Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and a former Europe minister. Follow him on www.denismacshane.com and @denismacshane
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Sadly no mention of the ‘MoDem’ centre here – we know Hollande has to hold his nerve and hope that the far right but also the voters who back Bayrou do not transfer lock, stock and barrel – if they do, he loses. The hope is that the blue collar voters who back Le Pen, do not assume that Sarko will automatically assume her views – something he is obviously playing for.