Meanwhile, In Europe LECTURE 4

Transcription

1 Meanwhile, In Europe LECTURE 4

2 Last week Topics covered: Why Presidents are more powerful than PMs The French Super-Presidency and the French legislature Majoritarian voting and the multiparty system it creates French public s lost faith in mainstream parties ability to solve problems Main figures in the 2017 elections

3 Spoilers: Macron won Final 2 nd round vote (7 May, 2017): 65% Macron, 35% Le Pen Macron won all but two departements Surprising when Macron declared his candidacy, everyone assumed he had no chance Results in subsequent legislative elections equally surprising (En Marche won 308 of 577 seats majority)

4 Legislative election results Yellow En Marche Blue Republicains Dark Blue FN Pink Parti Socialiste Red Parti Communiste Light Blue UDI Green Ecologiste Orange - MoDem

5 Funny observation: Now American media views his success as inevitable And characterizes his leadership as liberal strongman Says that his legislature (controlled by En Marche) is a rubber stamp And he s ramming through policies that no one wants, like a common dictator Excuse me while I find a wall to bang my head against

6 Liberal Strongman Macron? Quote from a recent Washington Post article: Macron s party holds an absolute majority of the 577 seats in the French National Assembly. What is more, Macron handselected those deputies, or law makers many of whom were political novices before their election, diminishing the likelihood any of them would contradict their leader, his opponents say.

7 Liberal Strongman Macron? Sigh this is what happens when American journalists try to write about French politics Author seems to forget that the legislative deputies were ELECTED In competitive districts, against mainstream candidates with more resources Mostly because they were well-known for their local civic engagement

8 They won. For a reason. Long story short: Macron and En Marche candidates won because people wanted to vote for them By putting together the content we ve covered so far in class and today s content, can see why they won

9 2017 Presidential Election Key Players Macron En Marche! Marine Le Pen Front National François Fillon Républicain Jean-Luc Mélenchon La France Insoumise

10 This week How Macron won Anti-system, but moderate Need for a party realignment Other candidates scandals Changes in attitudes about what it means to be French Lessons learned from Brexit/2016 American Presidential election

11 Anti-System Macron presented himself as an outsider Had worked as a banker (appeals to Republicains) But also was an economic advisor to Pres. Hollande (appeals to center and center-left) Quit Hollande s administration before it became too unpopular Characterized this as an act of moral fortitude in his book, Revolution

12 Anti-System Outsider status Also the result of creating his own party Started as a social movement (En Marche!) Deep roots in local civil society Would prove essential to him AND party in elections As Presidential run seemed more feasible, converted it to a political party (La Republique en Marche)

13 Anti-System Why be an outsider? Lack of faith in mainstream parties Remember last lecture: inability to solve big problems Lack of policy options in mainstream parties (austerity and more austerity)

14 Anti-System But Moderate He was not the only anti-system candidate Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon also anti-system Macron was the only moderate anti-system candidate VERY unusual anti-system almost always means extremist in European politics

15 Anti-System but Moderate He held fast to the cordon sanitaire In politics, refers to refusing to indulge extremist views/policies/rhetoric Other candidates (with less chance to win) joined him in this Mélenchon, Hamon All three shut down any equivalency drawn between themselves and Le Pen (esp. if Le Pen said it)

16 Candidate debate

17 Anti-System but Moderate Cordon sanitaire, cont. Macron looked like the reasonable statesman Esp. compared to Fillon, played the Islamophobic card to get Marine Le Pen s supporters to vote for him Le Pen would point out how Fillon was more extreme than her

18 Fillon Courting the Front National Voters Speech at Palais des Congrès So stop believing that it is necessary to harden the rules of laïcité at the cost of religious freedom, when it is only the integrist push that enflames the Muslim world that is a menace to our society. Juppé and Fillon

19 Fillon Courting Front National Voters Speech at Sable-sur-Sarthe No, France was not born in 1789 No, France was not guilty for wanting to share her culture with the peoples of Africa, Asia, and North America. No, France did not invent slavery Why must we excuse ourselves?

20 Anti-System but Moderate Also, Macron s record was clean Couldn t say that for either Fillon or Sarkozy (Republicains) Fillon funding scandal Sarkozy something about taking money from Libya s Ghaddafi? Establishment looked shady, corrupt

21 Need for Party Realignment For too long, French politics had no real policy debate on dealing with big problems No real left especially economically Only option had been either Communist (too far left) or radical right (too far right, very neoliberal) All this changed in

22 Need for Party Realignment Mélenchon (La France Insoumise): Provided a modern leftist model (Labor-based) Hamon (PS): Modern leftist model Scandinavian variety Le Pen (FN): Populist welfare chauvinist

23 Need for Party Realignment People felt they actually had options Esp. on the left not the case since the 1990s Made Macron s centrist approach appealing No longer the only option, but the one the most people could agree on May mean that the French party system is stronger now if these parties can stay competitive

24 Compare st round Pres election

25 Compare st round results Blue Marine Le Pen Yellow Emmanuel Macron Red Jean-Luc Melenchon Light Blue Francois Fillon

26 Le Pen Vote and Unemployment

27 Changing Attitudes: What it Means to be French Macron also benefited from big changes in how French people see their nation and its members Caught Fillon especially by surprise Banked on a very openly Islamophobic approach Thought this would appeal to practicing Catholics But practicing Catholics had become more tolerant Explanations: Pope Francis and inter-religious dialogue

28 Changing Attitudes Macron broke all sorts of taboos on this front at least as far as establishment politicians saw them Seemed to have a better grasp on how attitudes had changed From roaming the country with his social movement? More tolerant attitude displayed by Macron appealed to more tolerant society

29 Macron and National Narratives Some things he said that seem ho-hum to us but were major milestones in France Saying that it was clear that Vichy had intentionally planned the murder of Jews Counters France as victim, not complicit narrative At the Deportations Memorial in Paris

30 Macron and National Narratives Referred to French colonial occupation of Algeria as a crime Causing an uproar from the pieds noirs (former French colonists, FN voters) in southern France (Provence- Alpes-Côte d Azur region) Républicains condemned him for it, he loved it Meeting in Algeria

31 Changing Attitudes The Republic in French national myth: The 1789 Revolution led to the installation of the Republic Republican values: Liberty, equality, fraternity Some also add in laïcité All of these values believed to be universal liberty, equality, fraternity available to all, regardless of race, religion, origin, gender, etc

32 Changing Attitudes Despite constant appeals to universal republican values Political rhetoric among certain candidates was deeply exclusive (esp. on right) Who isn t part of the nation? Who doesn t belong?

33 Changing Attitudes How this circle got squared in the past: If French values are universal, then exclusion must be the fault of the people being excluded They are not integrated or assimilated How you define these values sets the boundaries for who is in and who is out

34 Changing Attitudes Understanding French national identity requires understanding key concepts: Laïcité focus of my most recent paper Citoyenneté belonging to the citizenry Egalité hommes-femmes aka gender equality These concepts can be defined in ways that include or exclude When used to exclude, primary target is French Muslims, immigrants of color

35 Changing Attitudes Much of the exclusive language happened on the right side of political spectrum since 2003 Républicains competing for FN voters Remember three Frances Radical right voters find exclusive, anti-muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric particularly appealing

36 Changing Attitudes But key events may have changed general public s attitudes about diversity, French identity Terrorist attacks Esp. Charlie Hebdo made people attentive to Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism Solidarity movements that followed Inter-religious dialogue that followed

37 Changing Attitudes Responses to Charlie Hebdo/Jewish Kosher supermarket attacks January 2015 Both of the attacks (and heroes of attacks) demonstrate cosmopolitan nature of France One of the first victims of Charlie Hebdo attacks was a Muslim police officer guarding the Charlie Hebdo offices #JeSuisAhmed World-wide marches, outpouring of support

38 Changing Attitudes January 2015 attacks, cont. One of the heroes of the Kosher supermarket attacks was a Malian Muslim immigrant hailed-saving-lives-paris-kosher-store-lassana- Bathily/ Some of the signs in January 11 demonstrations emphasized this, and solidarity of all French people

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42 Changing Attitudes In this context: Le Pen s party members made anti-semitic comments immediately demonized her by association Fillon tried to play on divisions, found himself angering his own target population (observant Catholics) Macron took a stand in favor of diversity better aligned with the general public

43 Lessons Learned from Brexit/US Hack-proofing Macron s website Massive attack on Macron s website before the election Same source as DNC hack But less effective Macron s IT staff hack-proofed his webpage Learned lessons in cyberwarfare from Brexit/US election