Commentary on the French Elections

CLASH OF POLITICAL PARTIES, CONTEST OF IDEOLOGIES:
COMPREHENDING THE FRENCH POLITICAL SYSTEM
AND WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM IT

by Roland G. Simbulan*


In just a few days from now on May 6, 2007, France is scheduled to have its second round of voting for the presidency of France from the top two contenders of the April 22, 2007 first round of national elections. The May 6 elections will decide who will be the next president of France and who will succeed President Jacques Chirac. What makes this particular presidential elections in France interesting is that, having become one of the top two contenders in the first round of national elections, the Socialist Party's(PS) Ms. Segolene Royal, who garnered 24% of the votes in the first round of national electtions, has a fighting chance and is within reach of becoming the next and first woman president of France.

The favorite presidential candidate however, is still the top contender in the first round, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), who got 31% of the votes but were not enough since a majority vote is needed for the presidential elections. The winner in the second round will be determined by who will get the support of the centrist party Union for French Democracy (UDF), whose presidential candidate, Mr. Francois Bayrou, got the third largest number of votes in the first round of elections. Already, opinion polls are putting their bet on Sarkozy. But in the light of the public declaration and refusal of the centrist UDF to put their support behind the UMP, Ms. Royal may still have a chance to win, though Sarkozy is still the favorite, but it is predicted to be a close fight. Centrists in France, especially at the beginning of the current 5th Republic, have had occasion to unite with the Socialists, based on certain common political grounds and commitments.

Nevertheless, it is clearly a contest between the ideologies of the rightist Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and the left of France as represented by the Socialist Party (PS). The other smaller French parties like the Movement for France (MPF-led by Philippe de Villiers), The Greens ("Les Verts"-led by Dominique Voynet), the French Communist Party (PCF-led by Marie-Georges Buffet), Republican and Citizen's Movement (MRC-led by Jean-Pierre Chevenement), Radical Left Party (PRG-led by by Jean0Michel Baylet), the Front National (FN-led by Mr. Jean-Marie Le Pen) of the extreme right and extreme left's the Lo (Lutte Ouvriere-led by Arlette Laguiller ) and the LCR (Revolutionary Communist League-led by Olivier Besancenot) parties, have traditionally been aligned to their respective allies in the dominant Left or Right parties. The basis of unity of the party alliances are usually based on similarity or commonality of party programmes or certain parts of it. For example, we would never see the French Communist Party or the Greens aligning with the rightist UMP; in the same breadth, it is unthinkable for the rightist Front National (FN) to be aligned with the Socialist Party. Other parties like the Republican and Citizen's Movement(MRC) and the Radical Left Party(PRG) have also historically rallied behind the Socialist Party(PS).

The French political system has always been a model for certain Filipino politicians with obvious vested interests to suit their opportunistic designs. The Marcos dictatorship tailored the 1973 Constitution with a unicameral Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly) headed by a prime minister and with him (Marcos)as a strong President similar to the French model. House Speaker de Venecia and the proponents of the failed Cha Cha proposals have been pushing for this to accommodate a Prime Minister de Venecia alongside a President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo . For all what it is worth, we can learn a thing or two from the French political system, their elections and very mature political party system.

The French Legislature

Though France is a parliamentary democracy, with its Assemblee nationale (at the Palais Bourbon in Paris) whose majority members elect a Prime Minister, it has a President who is directly elected by the French people in national elections. The Assemblee nationale is composed of 577 directly-elected deputies while in the Senat, there are 321 senators elected by an electoral college representing local communities and French people abroad.

The French Presidency

Since 1958, the role of an elected President as carved by General Charles de Gaulle when he founded the Fifth Republic in 1958, has actually taken the place of the monarchy and the Napoleonic empire that France abolished. But the role of monarch has been taken over by the role of a strong French Presidency whose power is derived by the direct voting by the people. The French President is considered to be the "guardian and continuity of the State" and when elected, puts him above party politics as he is directly accountable to the people who elected him. It is the President who chooses the Prime Minister from the majority group or coalition in Parliament. The President is so powerful that he can in fact, call for the dissolution of the Assemblee nationale, which cannot remove him. Likewise, the President may call for and organize a referendum, and determine the directions of policy implemented by the government under the Prime Minister whose government controls the parliamentary agenda. Even the Prime Minister(PM) cannot claim this kind of power and mandate of the President for the PM is elected only by the members of Parliament.

The national electorate is where the people are directly courted by politicians with presidential aspirations, but it is also an electorate that is already subdivided into fierce political and ideological loyalties. In the current presidential contest, the Left and the Right must now try to win over the votes of an estimated 6 - 7 million centrist voters as represented by the Union for French Democracy of the defeated presidential aspirant Francois Bayrou. But this may not be possible if the centrists decide to go at it on their own since they will be competitor of the Left and the Right in the June 2007 parliamentary elections. As for now, the top presidential candidates are both trying to project a "centrist" approach as they each try to reconcile with and to win the critical 18% centrist electorate that is the nation-wide mass support of the UDF.

French Political Parties

Political parties are the institutions of French democracy that are rooted in the ideological and class conflicts within French society that continue to persist. Without these political parties which are well entrenched with regional and sectoral constituencies, the various constituencies at both the local level and sectoral interests cannot be fully represented in a diverse body like the French National Assembly. Fundamentally, French political parties are differentiated by first, their economic programs/ plan to boost the country and second, by their perception of the role of the state in the implementation of that program/ plan. Issues like the shape of the identity of France in the integrated European Union, the Socialists' 30-hour workweek proposal, crime and public spending for police and the health care system are likewise critical issues. The political party's presidential candidates must give a more credible, and humane face in addressing these issues before the national electorate using the consistency of their party's platforms and ideology as their vehicle.

Mr. Sarkozy's political party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) is considered to be the heir of Gaullism in France. It is the political party of the current President of France, Mr. Jacques Chirac. It is known to unite the right-center right and liberal democrats. Its platform includes a bias for privatization, deregulation, competition, accelerated process of European integration. With a reported party membership of 294,000 the UMP is the majority party in the Assemblee nationale. They are considered to be the party of the Right and conservatives in France.

Ms. Royal's party, the Socialist Party (PS), the largest opposition party, inside and outside of Parliament, was the party of former French President Francois Mitterand . It brings together the left, the center left and social democrats. The Left as represented by the main opposition Socialist Party, has a program for protecting French industries and French workers from unemployment. It has taken a more cautious approach towards European Union integration and economic globalization. More state support for basic social services is almost a permanent Socialist Party platform as well as its call for regulation of profit-seeking sectors and protection for the vulnerable sectors of society like the disabled, elderly, women, unemployed and immigrants. It has a reported party membership of 218,000. Not far behind the PS in party membership is the French Communist Party (PCF) which was founded as the French section of the Communist Internationale in 1920 with Vietnamese patriot Ho Chi Minh as one of the founding members when he worked as a seaman for a French shipping company.

In short, this is not only an election. It is a debate between the forces of profit-oriented capitalist globalization as peddled by the Right, and the Left in France who are supported by the progressives and vulnerable sectors who are being eaten alive by the rampaging waves of market-driven forces of globalization. During the 2002 presidential elections , the issus of unemployment and insecurity became the most important issues where the Right under Mr. Chirac was viewed by the electorate as more credible than the Left under Lionel Jospin.

The winner of the coming May 6 presidential elections - whether from the Right or Left - however, is not expected to change the course of France's foreign policy vis a vis the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq or the U.S.' other hegemonic global initiatives. France, as a nuclear power in its own right, has always maintained an independent posture in relation to the United States even under Rightist leadership. With an 85% voter turnout in the first round of the presidential elections, the May 6 second round promises to be exciting if not more profound.


French politicians try to be philosophers, for how many French politicians have at least projected themselves in national debates through books, even novels, and pamphleteering where they discuss the philosophy of this or that, even the issue of whether god is French! It is in short, a clash of political parties, a contest of ideologies. If France's political past is to be a barometer, the winner will likely be the one at the forefront whose political platform and plan, and not necessarily personality or charisma , can more credibly respond to the key issues in the mind and eyes of the electorate.

In the style of the French, elections (as well as everything that is French) is done not only with that profound word called efficiency. It also has to be done in a grandeur style. It is politics that applies the words that the French have themselves invented --chic, style and savoir faire.

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*The author is Full Professor in Development Studies and Public Management at the University of the Philippines. He is a former Vice Chancellor for Planning and Development and also a former Faculty Regent of the U.P. System.