How can one not savour this presidential election campaign in which, right up to the end, nothing has happened as predicted? That is, as predicted by and for the old political and media world which no longer knows which opinion poll it should believe in, and which is startled by the surge in support for the radical-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, just as it was previously by the tide of popularity for maverick centrist Emmanuel Macron.
How, through it all, can one not recognise the paradox that what is crumbling before our eyes is in fact the very object of the presidential election: the reduction of the aspirations of all into a concentration of power for one person alone.
Oh how we could rejoice if France was a parliamentary regime, as is the case of so many of our surrounding neighbours. Rallying forces would be at large, fruitful agreements would be established, pluralist political majorities would be shaped. Among the electorate of most of the candidates in these presidential elections (except the electorate of the Right and the far-right) – an electorate that represents the majority – there are converging hopes in terms of democratic reform, for political renewal, for just moral demands, for practices built on social solidarity, for ecological concerns, for respect and dignity, all of which would naturally find their place in a deliberative assembly.
But there is nothing of the sort in the French presidential system, pernicious to democracy and politically archaic, a monarchic institution which compels the office-holder to follow a personal course, an individual adventure. On the eve of the first round of voting, the election appears like a ludicrous lottery, which can result in the worst of things just as also the best, depending on the vagaries of abstentions or dispersion. The profound democratic and social aspirations which emerge from this campaign, to the point of successfully placing in the background the hates and fears which were the poisoned refrains of previous campaigns, will finally be played out with a throw of the dice; namely the choice of which two candidates among the four clear frontrunners (out of a total of 11 candidates) will go on to the second and final round, a knockout result that may be decided to within a decimal point of votes garnered.
Let’s allow that everything is possible, the happy surprise like the dreaded catastrophe. The former would be a second round duel between centrist Emmanuel Macron and the radical-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. That would be a damning indictment of both the neoconservative cynicism of the mainstream Right candidate François Fillon and the post-fascist violence of the far-right’s Marine Le Pen, and would offer a true political debate and the just choice between two orientations that flow through political life since the 2005 referendum in France on the adoption of the then-new European Constitution, when the victory of the “no” vote was ignored by the “yes” camp who were in power.
The dreaded catastrophe would be a second round choice between Fillon and Le Pen, which would open wide the door to reactionary regression, after having burst the bubble of opinion poll speculations.
It remains that amongst all the uncertainty, one cannot resist dreaming of the first-round elimination of the two candidates who in this campaign have personified that which dishonours France. One of them, Marine Le Pen, embodies the search for a scapegoat and hate of others, of all minorities, differences and dissidence, even attacking Protestants in the closing days of the campaign. She has turned her back on the rule of law, refusing to be questioned by police leading an investigation into her suspected involvement, and that of her party, in a fake jobs scam. But above all she represents a violent political culture as leader of a party, the Front National, which has never detached itself from its totalitarian heritage.
The other is François Fillon, who represents contempt for every republican ethic, contrary to his claimed Gaullist affiliation. That is true right up to the point of insisting on remaining candidate despite being placed under investigation for his suspected fraudulent use of public funds, based on facts that establish his lengthy practice of nepotism and cronyism that benefitted his family.
To return to the first scenario, that of a playoff between Macron and Mélenchon; it would at last offer the right to choose a radical alternative, one that is born of a resistance among citizens – regarding social, democratic and ecological issues – and which has undeniably been captured by Mélenchon’s movement La France insoumise (France Unbowed). That would be placed in opposition to the attempt by Macron’s movement En Marche! (On The Move) to renew the traditional European, economic and institutional “circle of reason”. Poles apart, these two currents are logically at the heart of the uncertainty of the election result. Both, have understood, albeit first by Mélenchon, that an old world is falling apart amid the ruins that fell on the impotence and inexistence of the outgoing presidency of François Hollande.
The two candidates themselves come from this old world. Mélenchon followed a traditional and professional political career in elected office for a period of more than three decades, from 1985 until his exit from the Socialist Party in 2008. Macron, 24 years younger than Mélenchon, is emblematic of the French elite of “énarques”, the name given to those who graduate from the national administration school ENA. After becoming a civil servant he joined the world of finance as an investment banker, later taking up a position as an advisor to President Hollande, and later as his economy minister, before projecting himself as Hollande’s successor at the Elysée Palace.
Both men initially believed that Hollande would stand for re-election as the Socialist Party candidate, and lose. Which is why they both made the choice of creating movements that were situated outside the framework of political parties, freed of the procedures and heritages of parties, setting up mass movements that have a direct relation with them as leaders, and opening up, like Moses dividing the Red Sea, the path to political renewal, and notably in the generational sense.
But this supposedly new phenomenon contains remnants of the old, and in the case of Emmanuel Macron this has been what might be called an annexation of part of his movement by the worst of the Hollande old guard, including Hollande’s former prime minister Manuel Valls, a symbol of the very disaster that Macron claims to have freed himself from. It is also evident, and ironic, that the campaigns of Mélenchon and Macron, albeit with their conflicting ideologies, furrow the same traditional French Bonapartist groove, that of turning to a providential figure to solve the crisis of an old world. From that point of view, one cannot underline enough that existence determines conscience, in the sense that presidential institutions are used to claiming victory over those who occupy the summit of political power, their election promises swiftly sacrificed on the altar of personal power.
These two movements outside of the traditional partisan party structures have closed around Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon like a trap, whereas his victory in the socialist primaries in January came as the first piece of good news in these elections. That was when a majority of the mobilised leftwing electorate, by choosing the candidate representing the party’s leftist rebels, compensated those who stayed true to the forces behind Hollande’s victory in 2012, respectful of that electoral contract and resisting the chapter of policy U-turns and even disengagements (such as the attempt to strip those prosecuted for terrorist crimes of their nationality) of the Hollande-Valls duo. But to complete his victory, it was necessary that Hamon break free from the partisan structure that he now represents, a Socialist Party which supports him like a rope does a man on the gallows, and whose secretary-general, who was twice found guilty on charges relating to a system of fake jobs, symbolises the essence of professional politics, out of touch and out of control,and which can be tolerated no longer.
The emergence of these new political movements has come too late, or, perhaps, too early; that would be the case if the coming elections result in the reconstitution of a partisan structure, in the image of the emergence of the Autonomous Socialist Party (PSA) in 1958, followed, in 1960, by that of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU). These were built out of the ruins of the French Section of the Workers’ International (the SFIO) led by Guy Mollet, which lost its way in the 1950s in much the same manner that Valls and Hollande have led their own camp into a dead end. Such was the hope of one of the rare socialist Members of Parliament to take the logic of his opposition to the policies of the Hollande administration to its proper conclusion, Pouria Amirshahi, who left the Socialist Party to launch a Mouvement commun. Alternatively, it might all end up later this year in a Socialist Party congress where, beyond the shadow play, emerges an almost unhoped-for clarification.
Journalism and democracy
A presidential election naturally causes a veteran opponent of the presidential system, unfooled by the campaigns, only too aware of the disillusions to come (as they do without a mobilization of society beyond the urns), to feel somewhat distraught. All the more so when this instinctive distrust of the process is joined by the professional caution of a journalist who knows how much that history is never written in advance, and who above all understands that they should not attempt to predict the outcome, which would blind them to the supposedly unexpected, the new and even the improbable. From that point of view, to stay lucid means resisting the pressure of the opinion polls and their pretentions of establishing history in advance, and in place of the electorate.
The system of the Fifth Republic dries up the intrinsic diversity behind the votes cast in the second round presidential vote, a contest between just two finalists, transforming that diversity into a presidential majority in a confiscatory and disciplinarian manner. Without a political system that encourages pluralism, the broad political offer that marks this year’s election will not necessarily produce a greater mobilisation of the electorate. It cannot be excluded that the ultimate “surprise” of this campaign in which nothing has happened as predicted will be the blank vote, and, when also including those who did not register to vote, the abstention rate. It is clear that no opinion poll has the measure of this black hole. Moreover, we know to what extent the surveys have misread voting intentions, such is the lack of quality and representivity of their biased voter sampling, under-representative of the over 65s, over-representative of the socially superior categories, placing more emphasis on the more educated, politicized and informed electorate as opposed to average citizens.
The exhaustion of democracy under the Fifth Republic is illustrated in the constant rise in the abstention rate, which is hidden behind the numbers of those who register to vote in the presidential contest (four fifths of the electorate). However, two exceptions offer food for thought, both of which led to a defeat for the Left in the presidential elections of 2002, when the abstention rate was 28%, and in 1969, when it reached 30%. Over recent years, the abstention rate has regularly risen in all national elections; it has doubled in parliamentary elections over a period of 20 years to the point where, when including those who do not register to vote, less than one citizen out of two chose the Member of Parliament representing their constituency. In elections for the European Parliament, for the regional councils and those of the départements (counties), that participation has fallen to less than one in every three of the electorate.
Political scientist Jean-Yves Dormagen has led detailed studies on this issue, far too long ignored by political professionals and commentators, with his colleague Céline Braconnier, warning of possible “electoral surprises” to come. Whereas this presidential election campaign has aroused a manifest interest because of the unpredicted events that have marked it, the only reliable information on the likely turnout paradoxically suggests there will be a poor mobilisation, contrary to the primaries of the Left and Right which drew a participation that came from well beyond the membership of the parties that organised them – the Socialist Party and Les Républicains. The French national statistics office, INSEE, recently published data that showed the numbers of voluntary registrations on the electoral roll is lower than for the two previous presidential elections.
This electoral exclusion concerns a doublefold social and generational dimension, affecting those in the most fragile situations, those who are the most isolated, and those who are the youngest. Added to those who have not registered to vote are those who are improperly registered to vote. “Not only is the proportion of the non-registered electorate higher in this presidential election than in previous ones, the numbers of people who re-registered [on the electoral roll] after moving home having also fallen means the proportion of improperly registered risks being even higher,” observed Dormagen and Braconnier in an article published on the online review The Conversation. “On top of the six million unregistered voters who this year will not be able to exercise their electoral citizenship, there should no doubt be added about seven million people who are registered to vote in a different constituency to where they live. It was recently established that these abstain three times more than those registered where they reside.”
So it is that the uncertainty of these elections is heightened by the question over rate of participation, with the possibility that the diversity of the political offer increases the disarray of a part of the electorate, caught between a feeling of confusion and the desire to punish. More reliable than the standard opinion polls is a study on voting intentions carried out by the political research centre CEVIPOF, (run by the Paris Sciences Po political science school and the French national scientific research centre, the CNRS). The survey of 11,601 registered voters in mid-April found that only 72% of those questioned said they were certain of taking part in the first round of voting on April 23rd. If that is confirmed, it means that there will be a repetition of the 28% abstention rate recorded in 2002, when the fragmented first-round vote saw the then-far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen move on to the second-round playoff against the conservative Jacques Chirac. As for the proportion of those who are currently uncertain of their choice, hesitating up until the last minute, the CEVIPOF study found that they also represented 28% – more than a quarter – of the 11,601 people questioned.
In short, the opinion polls and the media which trumpet them, which focus only on the race between the candidates, mask a profound reality; the exhaustion of the democratic process of the presidential system. One of the lessons of this campaign is the growth in the rejection of professional, career-minded politics. That was illustrated by the warm public reactions to far-left NPA party candidate Philippe Poutou after his performance during one of the live TV debates between the 11 presidential rivals; Poutou, a worker in a car factory who resembles so many of the population, and who eschews suits and ties, deftly tackled the hypocrisies of the political professionals lined up alongside him in the most straightforward, and highly effective, manner. It is a rejection of those disconnected with society, who make lifelong careers out of politics, who believe politics are the property of those who think they know better than the people, and what is best for the people. These are the politics bagged by the State, its vertical power structure and its authoritarian imperatives.
It is an old opposition to that which today finds rejuvenation. This distrust of careerist politicians, which was at the origins of labour and social movements and which was later disregarded by the Left, has returned. “Show your preference for those who won’t canvass for your vote; true merit is modest, and it is for the electorate to choose their men, and not for these to present themselves,” advised the Paris Commune in March 1871, recommending distrust of “the ambitious as much as the upstarts: the ones like the others only consider their self-interest and always end up regarding themselves as indispensable”.
That belief cannot be satisfied by the presidential election. But it is on the agenda for the legislative elections which follow immediately afterwards, in June, when the multiplicity of rallying candidatures will make this radically democratic call a major element of the campaigning. But this aspiration is above all present in the mobilisation of society itself, and which is constantly making itself heard. Outside of the electoral race, and to far too much indifference, this presidential campaign differentiates itself to previous ones by the exceptional number of citizen initiatives which have appeared and which progress in all autonomy, unconcerned by the partisan calls to vote for one or another of the candidates.
Whether they be initiatives for social solidarity, for aid for impoverished populations, concerned with ecological challenges, for the fight against corruption, the right to information, combating racial discrimination, or the crisis of civilisation, all these citizens’ assemblies trace a path of hope which we must take up with tomorrow, whatever the result of the presidential election. It is that of common causes for equality, carried by the convergence of the wills of citizens, and not delegated to elected representatives, however worthy of confidence they are.
Democracy is not only about an election. No elected representative, no institution, and no government can be the sole guarantor of democracy without the involvement of society, and the commitment of a people. A lively democracy implies an ecosystem made up of a shared culture and respected counter powers. From that point of view, the manner in which the right to information has been treated during this campaign is a subject for concern; from the refusal of candidates to be questioned about sensitive issues, demonstrating a violence that has not been only verbal, to the intolerance shown by their supporters who can only concieve the press as either a submissive one or partisan. This hate of journalism - and, above all, its independence – sounds a serious alarm.
In 1973, during the years of ferment which led from the upheaval of French society during the events of May-June 1968, several leftwing intellectuals, who were never unworthy during these most essential struggles, published a message of warning, notably co-signed by Jean-Jacques de Félice, Marc Ferro, Edgar Morin, Maxime Rodinson, Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. The conclusion of their open letter (the full text, in French, can be found here) represents for us at Mediapart guiding advice for the aftermath of the presidential elections, whoever is the winner.
“There is no individual or collective Cesar who deserves the support of all,” they wrote. “The ideal of a just society is not that of a society free of conflict – there is not an end to history – but a society where those who contest can, when they in turn arrive in power, be contested; a society where criticism is free and sovereign, and where apologetics are needless.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.