There has been a preoccupation during the current American election cycle with how an incumbent president on the left has energized the Tea Party. Perhaps it should not be a surprise that in France, the combination of a president from the right and tough economic challenges has encouraged the resurgence of the hard left. The Front National on the hard right has been active in France for the last several elections. This time, the torch has been passed to former Front National President Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter, Marine. Yet the real news is that after many years of slowly dwindling support, the far left is back in the form of the Left Party. This has implications for the election results and policy actions post-election.
Tom McGrath, an America business working in Paris, tells me that for decades, many in France have asserted that there's no difference between the two major political movements: the neo-Gaullist on the right and the Socialist Party on the left; they're both bureaucratic, socialist, and elitist. Jean-Luc Mélenchon experienced this firsthand and ditched the Socialists in 2008 because the party had become too limousine liberal, status quo, and centrist. Now, it looks increasingly like France's left is returning to the post-World War II habit of a split between a social democratic left and the far left.
Mélenchon, currently backed by the Left Front, is feisty, full of ideas, deeply passionate (the French love impassioned pleas), and constantly on the attack. He makes his Socialist Party rival, François Hollande, look timid, plodding, and awkward. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is deeply unpopular, primarily for his personal style -- that is, appearing more focused on hanging out with the new rich and his famous wife than on engaging the average citizen and tackling the economic crisis. There are high odds against his reelection.
Many French voters are too young to remember the humiliating retreat François Mitterrand was forced to undertake in 1982. The Left Front, with Mélenchon at the helm, is having its Howard Beale moment -- "... mad as hell, [fed up] and... not going to take [it] anymore." It's unlikely that Mélenchon will get into the May 6 runoff; if he gets anything approaching 15 percent of the first round vote on April 22, Hollande will have to reach out to Mélenchon and cut a deal with him to secure sufficient support to assure his second round victory.
What could this mean for post-election France? This outcome could risk preventing France from undertaking any of the labor market and welfare reforms that Socialist politician Gerhard Schröder undertook 10 years ago. These reforms set Germany on a growth path that is leaving France behind in terms of employment, growth, credit rating, exports, and eventually the political clout that comes with superior economic performance. A France that ends up less likely to resolve its fundamental competitiveness problems means a weaker country and a less stable Europe. That would be bad for Hollande, bad for France, bad for Europe, and bad for America.
Mark R. Kennedy leads George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management and is Chairman of the Economic Club of Minnesota. He previously served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Federated Department Stores (now Macy's).
There will be no one remaining to reign in the absurd excesses of the public employee unions in France.
Somebody needed to deliver the bad news to the French that this is the 21st century. Sarkozy was that someone. We live in a global economy. Everyone needs to work more hours per week, more weeks per year, and more years per lifetime. And that is just tough luck. True everywhere.
France is in a situation where soon the majority of people will be non-employed.
An unworkable situation.
If France and the United States among other places around the globe are seeing a reawakening of The Left that is because there is a need for The Left that Centrists and Rightists don't fill. I view the return of The Left as a reason for hope, and a return to common people focused sense.
It's all good.
Not at all. Mélenchon's voters will cast their ballots for Hollande whatever he does or says.
Nor did the hard left suddenly arise from the ashes. They never disappeared, just were irrelevant because they split their votes over too many small parties. Mélenchon managed to group most of those votes, but it's not like there were more of them than before.
If Hollande does not engage in economic reforms, that will not be out of fear of upsetting the far left, but simply because he and his party don't want to.
I say "hooray" for any kind of "left"-politics that manages to survive, much less thrive, in a world where the moneyed elite rules almost unchallenged.
"Limousine Liberals"? Is it still the '60s? The "liberals" I know, most of whom now call themselves
"progressives," in the same way that "Protestants" have become "Unitarians," can barely afford new cars, much less limo's. They are an endangered species in the U.S., especially since their choice for president turned out to be just another defender of the status quo, and made those of us who voted for him feel like suckers or fools.
I'm glad that at least in France there's still some glimmer of a true workers' party. "Austerity"
is a scam, proposed by the bankers and politicians who serve the ruling class, to "shock doctrine" the economic chaos in Europe in order to squeeze the last drops of blood out of the workers
and the hard-won social support network that protects them and their families.
Aux baricades!