FN ou l'Optimisme, France's Stalemate

​There was much talk by all candidates about "our" identity, but exactly the outcome of this election is so French that it does not go more French. There is serious trouble in the Socialist paradise. France’s Socialists had suffered a serious setback during the First round  of the Regional Elections. The Socialists simply became a victim of the exasperation of the electorate facing the policy of the President of the Republic and his government.

President Hollande and his Socialist/Green camp showed their political skills: the great idea was pulling back their candidates from being elected after it appeared they would not have a change to win in their constituency. French Socialists recommended to vote instead for the conservative centre-right, the“"Republicans”. This, they said, was to avoid that the FN, “Front National” will win even more constituencies then in the first round last Sunday. 

Ironically, this "recommendation" of the Socialist/Green coalition, was perceived by the majority of voters as a "declaration of bankruptcy" towards FN, not only among FN voters but also centre-right and socialists… Maybe Germany’s so-called "Grand Coalition" served as a inspiration… I do not know about anything more undemocratic then such "Grand Coalitions", as they undermine the very principles of democratic versatility!  More specifically: it is of course disconcerting when the strongest parties of a country have the need for arrangements to prevent an economically and social-politically inexperienced party to rule a region.

And what made the leader of the centre-right, Ex-President Sakorzy, out of it? Well, he did not even recognised publicly on Sunday night that the success of his camp were due to a substantial part of many leftist voters. The polling stations were full of middle- to old-aged people worried about their future as you can see in the photos here.

The young generation has other, more serious problems like unemployment and therefore often simply votes for FN. So, the results do not change the fact that the FN remains still the leading party nationwide with over 27 per cent, the same amount of votes the party received in the first round. When now EU’s Mr Schulz says that democracy has won the elections in France is this more a result of a "grand coalition" of the two largest parties than it mirrors the reality of democratic versatility.

While the center-right camp, the alliance Republicans-IDU,  won seven of the twelve regions in mainland France, while the ruling Socialist Party and its allies just won in five regions, - after they had  five years ago all twelve regions except the region Alsace. Traditional in Corsica the party of autonomists has won.

It must not be forgotten that the only reason why Sarkozy's candidates won in Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur won against the Front National leader Marine Le Pen and her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is simply because the Socialists there had voluntarily withdrawn after they had landed in third place during the first round.

The success of the FN will not help Marine Le Pen for the presidential election 2017. These elections usually have a much higher voter participation. Despite the difficulties to understand the political work of the current French Socialist government, primarily because of its top-heavy administration and lame economic development, the chances for change are looking also bleak for the alliance of Republicans-IDU. Maybe, if Nicolas Sarkozy would take note that many French people are not necessarily eager to see him again at the head of state or/and even less they wish a Allan Juppe as president. Imagine such desperation and despite peoples dissatisfaction with the incumbent president François Hollande… 

It is rather a political stalemate and this stalemate is marked by a very deep identity crisis in the French society, - not so much because of visible failures of the French politicians. Failures would go through as human errors, its just that the political “elite” makes too much fuss about the appearance as the "Grande Nation" and how to assign France’s role in a global world which is dominated by multi-national cooperations and hegemonial interests, by undemocratically decisions in Brussels etc.

In his clever satire, “Candide, ou l'Optimisme”, Voltaire makes fun of religious intolerance, the destructiveness of war, and the foibles of mankind in the mid-18th century in France. He concludes with a plea that we should all “cultivate our own gardens”.  And about the sudden death of Charles VI, Voltaire also wrote 20 years later in this same satire “Ce plat de champignons a changé la destinée de l'Europe” ("This dish of mushrooms changed the destiny of Europe.”). For most French people, Europe has grown out of it proportions, out of control and they find the administration in Brussels as interference in “their” internal affairs, which naturally contributes even more to the current identity crisis.

The simple fact is that the FN is no longer indispensable if a quarter of French voters a giving their vote for this party. In the first round the Far Right FN party had confirmed its leadership by finishing as first party of France, - neck on neck with the alliance Republicans-IDUs. That’s no difference to Hungry and Denmark. 

French media claim FN voters as less educated, more “simple” people. The intellectuals in publicistic may find it intellectually brilliant when a President Sakorzy is first doing business with Gaddafi and then just two years later bombs Libya in a “humanitarian” war? Or Allain Juppe, mingling with Sultan Erdogan in an attempt to balkanise Syria and leaving all the fall-out to newly elected Hollande who went straight to war in Mali and who is now sleepwalking into the Near-East-Quagmire which will be the financial ruin of France anyway.