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April 22, 2002
CounterPunch
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EPA
Ombudsman Resigns
in Protest
Dave Marsh
DeskScan: What's Playing
at My House This Week
Ron Jacobs
A20
in DC: Taking the
Message to the Beast's Belly
Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
Games and Body Bags
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
Bar-Tal
Is
There a Way Out?
Occupation, Terror
and Understanding
David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
April 20, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Drowning in a Sea of Apathy
Kristen
Schurr
Leaving
Nablus
Bernard Weiner
Israel and the Intifada
for Dummies
Jean-Guy
Allard
A
Coup Signed by Otto Reich
Chris Floyd
The "Grandeur" That Was Rome:
A Letter from the Front
April 19, 2002
Eric Flint
Free
the Books!
David Krieger
A Peace Proposal:
Bring in the Children
Jeff Paterson
Advice
to Recruits from
a Gulf War Vet
Jeffrey St. Clair
From Sen. "Lunkhead" to
Bush Energy Czar: A Year in the Life of Spencer Abraham
April 18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Latin
America's Dilemma:
The Propaganda of Otto Reich
Sam Bahour
Bush is Playing Russian
Roulette with Palestinians
M. Shahid
Alam
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April 22, 2002
French Presidential
Elections 2002
The Luck Of The Draw
By Norman Madarasz
The Constitution of the Fifth French Republic,
drafted by General Charles de Gaulle, was adopted by referendum
in 1958. It institutionalized a separation of powers required
by de Gaulle to give legitimacy to the way he came to power,
namely through a soft, non-violent coup. With rioting in the
streets of Algiers by the French Algerian population in May 1958,
the War for decolonization began to tear at France's stability.
The military turned to de Gaulle, then in retirement, in the
hopes of a swift retaliation against Algeria's Front de Liberation
Nationale. Retaliation it got, though it was insufficient to
keep Algeria within the folds of the greater French republican
empire.
Through alliance with de Gaulle the military
were able to orchestrate a fundamental change in the French State
by means of a political process accepted by the Assemblé
nationale. In case of opposition from progressive French political
forces, the military would back up de Gaulle through a plan to
secure the country's Republican institutions, which involved
parachuting the Army into Paris to take control of the major
entry points to the city. In the end, there was no need for such
muscled invention. De Gaulle went on to have a glorious presidency,
finally taking leave of office in 1969 upon suffering defeat
in a referendum on proposals regarding regionalization and reform
of the Senate.
According to the 1958 Constitution, the
President is elected to a seven-year term, with legislative elections
occurring at five-year intervals at the longest. It foremost
established strong presidential control over government. The
President names the head of the executive administration, the
Prime Minister, who then presents the selected cabinet to him
for approval, usually a process in protocol.
In the event of a national crisis, as
had been taking place since 1954 with the Algerian war, or during
the general public sector strikes of 1995, the president has
the choice of either changing the government or calling for early
legislative elections--all in the guise of an abstract, non-partisan
voice. Which is why it's erroneous to claim, as do many Anglo-American
observers, that the President's position is akin to that of the
King's, all in new designer clothing. In fact, the position of
President represents the embodiment of the political 'Idea' in
its philosophical sense. Recall that in the 18th century, the
'res publica', or 'public thing', made concrete the principle
by which Rousseau's social contract gained legitimacy as a political
process.
De Gaulle's republicanism can ultimately
be deemed fundamentalist. After all, he reached back to the philosophical
bases of the republic to connect them to the trinitarian Idea
by which it was fostered: liberte, egalite, fraternite. This
is what also compels every president to take a distance from
the party through which he came to power.
While the coup-scented origins of the
Fifth Republic are just one of the many historical omissions
haunting the French sensibility, its evolution, right through
the rockiest moments of May-June 1968, brought France out of
the political instability that has continued to haunt a country
like Italy until recently. The Constitution sprouted new leaves
as President Francois Mitterand, one of de Gaulle--and the Fifth
Republic's--most outspoken critics in 1958, was forced to share
power with the center-right for much of his 14 years in power.
Now, with the results in of the 2002 presidential vote stretching
the Constitution to the expansible limits, France has been graced
with an incredible surprise.
To be sure, most troubled among the French
are the media and press. No one among the latter, perhaps not
even Front National supporters, would have bet on this unusual
outcome. Through shock at their critical inefficiency, the French
print and television media are emitting waves of panic through
a population that can only be said to be riled by the ripples.
Late into Sunday evening, and throughout Monday, spontaneous
peaceful demonstrations, thousands strong, sprouted up throughout
France. Most prominent among demonstrators are the youth. They're
protesting the results of the most mundane election campaign
in French history, one which has allowed the Front National candidate,
Jean-Marie Le Pen, to eliminate out-going Socialist Prime Minister,
Lionel Jospin.
According to French polling rules, the
presidential elections, a direct vote for the candidate, takes
place in a two-step election process. The top two finalists meet
a second time in run-off elections, which is how Le Pen has managed
to face off with current President Jacques Chirac for the top
job. The process allows for alliances to take shape in the two-week
period between polling, just as it guarantees a majority vote.
With victory of the National Front unlikely, France is still
facing the first prospectof being ruled by the extreme-right
since the 1940s.
This year's elections saw a record number
of candidates running, with 16 in all. The first three among
them came within 2 percentage points from each other: current
president Jacques Chirac scored 19.67%, with Jean-Marie Le Pen
finishing second at 17.02%, barely a breath ahead of Lionel Jospin's
17.01%. Few in France would have expected the vocally far-right
candidate Le Pen to keep increasing his standing as he has since
first being elected to the Assemblee nationale in 1956 and forming
the Front national party in 1972. The fact that he has, however,
must be placed in the perspective of the leading presidential
candidate: Abstentionism.
Tallied at 28.4%, with an additional
3.37% blank or disqualified ballots, this is a remarkable, though
not entirely surprising, event for the cradle of modern politics.
French youth and progressive intellectuals have tired of France's
lack luster political scene. The successive 'co-habitations'
may have moved the Socialist Party closer to the center-right
Rassemblement Pour la Republique (RPR). It has also sent the
voices of those dubious of the media's proclaimed disappearance
of the Left-Right cleavage into apoliticism. Nonetheless, many
French youth share an identical belief, which is their disdain
of Le Pen's Front National. But the fact that this party has
finished in second place is a direct result of the youth's decision
to boycott these first-round elections--at least as they were
meant to take place with Chirac against Jospin in the run-off.
Still, France's political process could
have absorbed such abstentionist attitudes were it not for the
split that has also occurred within the voting Left. With the
discontents of globalization contesting the good mood of the
Jospin team throughout his term, the Prime Minister has taken
the results as a rejection of his personal political contribution.
The irony is that he has been sanctioned for reasons perhaps
not owing to what is incumbent to his mandate under the Constitution.
The rewards, by contrast, have been harvested by a professional
politician whose presidential immunity has thus far sheltered
him from a major corruption scandal. Moreover, the obstacles
blocking the investigation have led to the recent resignations
of two leading judges in the French criminal court system. Ultimately,
there's some sense to the saying that only the Socialists have
known how to make Jacques Chirac look his best. At this point,
the gent from Correze can only be counting his lucky stars.
Mr Jospin's campaign was run at a time
when taking political sides increases the stakes of the political
game. France has suffered a spate of anti-Israeli violence which,
for all intents and purposes, cannot be distinguished from anti-Semitic
acts. This led the media and spin-doctors to lend a touch of
'l'exception francaise' to the predominant theme driving world
politics today: terror. Yet France is too historically rich a
nation to merely co-op that lowly American veil for incompetent
governance, now tainting the Bush administration. It was, after
all, Robespierre's commitment to virtue that accelerated the
guillotine's macabre glide and first conferred to progeny the
label of 'Reign of Terror'--as a positive trait no less. The
French would improvise upon the day's theme in a convergence
of concerns, decrying 'l'insecurite' instead. Despite the fact
that homicides, according to official French statistics, have
actually decreased during Jospin's term, the high-rise unemployment
and poverty in the suburbs of France's largest cities have seemed
to cast the screen for a different type of film.
What about Monsieur Le Pen? A former
legionnaire, who fought in the French colonial wars of Indochina
and Algeria, he bears the parachuter physique of those supporting
de Gaulle in 1958. Found guilty of assault against a female Socialist
candidate in 1997, which finally barred him from office for a
year, he actually hates the center-right coalition represented
by Chirac more. They are the ones who have kept him from gaining
political legitimacy, while opportunistically co-opting his campaign
themes whenever needing to rally farther right voters.
No matter how much his pretty PR and
press people--BB Brigitte Bardot is among them--are working to
press his racism into the new 'nationalism', and how much FN
dialecticians perfect his spotted historical interpretations,
his political past projects every bit of the role the man's mystique
harbors. I saw him give a speech at the Jeanne d'Arc statue on
Worker's Day 1991, which he recuperated as did his Italian and
German masters of another time. The whole scene, with Medieval
banners shinning in the spring sun, was really quite reminiscent
of Monty Python's Holy Grain. The look on the skinhead bodyguards'
faces quickly reminded me that these gentleman distinctly lacked
a sense of humor.
By North American standards, there should
be little to be intimated about. He's certainly no farther right
than is George W. Bush's glimmer of a political vision, or his
Canadian equivalent Stockwell Day's (now being replaced by same).
He represents 'la France profonde' (Deep France) every bit as
much as the latter two preach for the Bible Belt and Conservative
Canada. And, compared to Ariel Sharon, he's a Ken-doll figure.
The main difference probably has to do with his nostalgia for
the shiny boots of the SS, instead of the high-tech velocity
of American might. Although Le Pen is no friend of France's Jewish
population, let alone of Israel, his main scourge is France's
large North-African Maghrebin population. Le Pen's views are,
in fact, more faithful to the real sense of 'anti-Semitism':
he hates all foreigners from the South, Middle and East, no matter
whether they're Jews or Arabs, point a la ligne.
Le Pen's second place finish is nothing
more than a matter of luck, related to the direct vote scheme.
Five years ago, his party nearly imploded through a power struggle
with No. 2 Bruno Megret, voicing the 'intellectual' wing. It's
only through a kiss and make-up gesture that they can expect
to combine votes to reap 20%. However scandalous that tally may
appear, it's the frightening, newly-opened Pandora's Box that
has created the most anxiety for the French--and they know it.
As political parties have scurried to rally behind candidate
Chirac, and the media stutters in trying to explain how they
misjudged voting trends, the population is bemused by a not altogether
disconcerting spectacle. Mainstream politicians are imploring
the people to keep their 'good sense' and bring a president back
into power who has barely gathered 20% of the popular vote and
lacks any political vision apart from the kind of opportunism
we all attribute to the world's second oldest profession.
More importantly, the entire population
of France is aware that Mr Chirac has a corruption charge pending
against him for the years of absolutist rule over Paris city
hall. He might very well have to face those charges, like the
average Frenchman would, when and if he leaves office. Those
disgruntled and disgusted with how corrupt French politics are
have already rejected Chirac and his crony bureaucracy. It's
the anger of those who might go on to do so--like Arlette Laguiller,
head of the Union-friendly 'Lutte Ouvriere' (Worker's Struggle),
who has already refused to yield her 5.72%--that will make France
tremble for the next two weeks. The stakes are now being set
on assuming how much the French as a whole are willing to display
their 'good sense'.
Prior to moving to Brazil, Norman
Madarasz lived in France, where he did his doctoral research
in philosophy and the social sciences under the supervision of
Alain Badiou. He welcomes comments at: normanmadarasz@hotmail.com
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