Avant Moi, Le Déluge

On 12^th April 2000, 12 years ago, I moved to Paris. In advance, I came to celebrate the Millenium, arriving a day after Cyclone Lothar had devastated parks, gardens and forests within and around the city. Parisians told me how they had seen whole chimneys flying across the sky and how they had huddled in their apartments while the hurricane roared through the streets reaching speeds of 150kph to 260kph at the Eiffel Tower. “Avant Moi, Le Déluge” I thought, paraphrasing De Gaulle’s “Après Moi, Le Déluge.” delivered in Montreal in 1967. The quote originated with Louis XV or his official mistress the Marquise de Pompadour and may have referred to the coming French Revolution. Pompadour might have meant the rush of women that would compete for her place in Louis’ bed after her death. De Gaulle meant that political chaos would overtake France when he left office, which he did on April 28^th 1969. He had already created the Fifth Republic in October 1958, but the chaos he predicted may yet happen following the Presidential elections on April 22^nd and May 6^th 2012.

The first poll establishes the two main contenders who qualify for the 2^nd round. The carve up of votes cast for the remaining candidates happens at the vote two weeks later. At the time of writing it seems likely that François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy will be the two contenders in the second poll on May 6^th, a relatively simple polarization between left and right. But the real polarization will be demonstrated in Round 1: opinion polls show double figure support for Marine Le Pen and her Front National on the extreme right, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Front de Gauche on the extreme left. As the latter is now running 3^rd in the polls he may damage Hollande’s chances in Round 1 and oblige him to negotiate before Round 2. Le Pen, running 4^th can eat into Sarkozy’s vote but is unlikely to be offered a government post in a Sarkozy administration.

The centre candidate Bayrou is now running fifth. His speeches and interview texts show intelligent solutions on French economics but make no secret of the grim reality ahead: his candour may even be frightening voters away. A socialist win can only reverse gains made for business under Sarkozy. Mélenchon would lower the retirement age to 60 and reinstate the 35 hour week, taxing salaries of over 360,000€ a year for top executives at 100%. No wonder Hollande looks frightened as he desperately tours poorer suburbs trying to convince abstainers to vote for him: he doesn’t believe he can win alone. That means a deal with the extreme Mélenchon and, Le Déluge.

Sarkozy has the smug air of one preaching to the converted. But he will also certainly be obliged to negotiate after Round 1.

With whom? The Ecologists are weak; but minor parties and ex-Front National voters can add to his margin. Bayrou is his best bet and France’s only hope for the avoidance of Le Déluge some months after a Hollande/Melechon win when their short sighted policies provoke economic catastrophe. Sarkozy could offer him a major political post (e.g.Prime Minister) in return for his support in Round 2.

The reason Bayrou is the answer to the longer-term problem is that his appeal is to the centre, to the young and upwardly mobile, the new—for France—yuppie class. He is the solution because France has been deeply divided historically since before the Revolution. 
During that Millenium weekend I borrowed the 8^th floor studio of a political science student. His books drew me away from the storm tossed views of Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower. One I could not resist was “La Societé Bloquée.” Written in the Fifties it describes with penetrating candour the impossibility of switching classes in France. Not only class but clique barriers have been insurmountable. One has only to count the number of graduates of the École Nationale d’Administration, who run top state companies to realize that the old boy network in France is as good as any that Eton ever produced. Cliques thrive because one cannot get anywhere without the right introduction. People hang out all their lives with their classmates from the lycée and fail to be admitted to other similar groups. One friend (already successful) recently said that he had been told it would be hard for him to progress in Paris since he was not himself from Paris. Another friend (now a multi-millionaire) told me he had to seek his future outside France because he did not have the right family connections. The same applies if one has ambitions be a Metro driver. Contacts are everything but networking is mainly within the clique.

To describe this further would be to write another La Societé Bloquée.  So I’ll stop here and wait for the election results. Power to the centre would be the first ray of hope that France can climb out of its highly institutionalized class war and build a country where success and prosperity are based on talent, merit, ambition and hard work, one looking to a class mobile future rather than a gridlocked past.