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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*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.