Hail to Le Chef

Hello everyone,

I’m back, and I’m blogging. Pardon the delay, we’re in full visitor and travel season…

LET'S GET...PRESIDENTIAL
By popular (or unpopular, depending on what you think of requestor NN) demand, I’m going to share some thoughts about the recent French presidential election. You may have already read something about it. I’ve been surprised at how much coverage the election received—it was the top story on washingtonpost.com virtually all day the day of the election.

MEET THE BIGGIES
The two primary candidates in the election, center left Segolene Royal and center right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, represented a sea change from past presidential contenders. First, they are a generation younger than most previous candidates. But second, they had a reasonable chance of winning the election despite the fact they had never previously run for President. This is unprecedented in France, where candidates often run several time before finally winning. (Francois Mitterrand ran in 1965 and 1974 before winning in 1981 and 1988, and Jacques Chirac ran in 1981 and 1988 before winning in 1995 and 2002). The latter practice clearly flies in the face of the flavor-of-the-month, eating-our-young system in the US, where once you lose one election, you’re tainted goods forever. Admittedly, Nixon ran, lost, then reappeared for a later victory (maybe that’s the exception that proves the rule…) Can you imagine Walter Mondale, Robert Dole, or John Kerry running three times before finally winning?!?

As you know, in the end, despite the presence of charismatic centrist Francois Bayrou, the two “intended” candidates progressed to the second round, and in the end center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy won by a fairly large 53% to 47% victory. Why did Royal lose, why did Sarkozy win, and what does this mean for France?

ROYAL, WITH PLEASE!
Royal would seem to have many points in her favor. First, she’s beautiful, in a country where that matters. Second, she was a surprise, challenge candidate in an election cycle that seemed to favor change. (As a side note, two points that would seem to have disqualified her to be a candidate in the US--the fact that she’s not married to her longtime companion and the father of her children, and the fact that he just happens to be the head of the political party she represented in the election—seem to be perceived as irrelevant in France. Amazingly, as the election results were announced on live TV, Royal’s significant other sat in a TV studio and commented on his de facto wife’s loss, unable to comfort her, and without the media commenting on the absurdity of the situation.) However, in the end, Royal seems to have peaked too early, and to have relied too heavily on the novelty factor without backing it up with proven competence and a clear message. The most damning statistic is this—a post-election poll showed that while two-thirds of Sarkozy’s voters voted for him (as opposed to against Royal), fully two-thirds of Royal’s voters were voting against Sarkozy (as opposed to for Royal).

Two key questions on this front remain to be resolved: First, what is the fate of the Socialist party, which has lost three straight Presidential elections, including one loss in the first round and a wide margin of loss this time around? And second, have we seen the last of Segolene Royal? As indicated above, history would indicate she would run again, but her predecessor as Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, only ran twice before throwing in the towel, and my personal sense is that in this instant-gratification, mass-media age, France will no longer has the patience or the stomach to watch someone lose twice before winning.

SARKO, FASCO?
So, what about the victorious candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy? The son of Hungarian immigrants, he has the classic psychological pairing of an inferiority complex and a massive ego. He didn’t attend the same prestigious schools as most politicians, and he’s famously short in stature. On the flip side, he’s made no secret of the fact that he’s always wanted to be President of France. Napoleon, call your office…

I think the perception of lifelong presidential wannabes is based almost entirely on whether said individual belongs to your political party. For Democrats like me, Bill Clinton’s childhood interest in being president was charming, his photo with JFK inspirational, and his eventual victory a happy ending (no pun intended). Yet, when an politician we dislike has such a lofty goal, we often perceive it as hubris, or ice-cold career calculation. This same dual perception seems to repeat itself here in France.

Sarkozy is a man with a mission, a clear vision he won’t easily be dissuaded from pursuing. I admit my own hypocrisy of perception on this front—I see GW’s unwavering self-faith frightening, but I find newly-elected DC Mayor Adrian Fenty’s single-minded pursuit of his platform impressive.

Everyone agrees that Sarkozy is a gifted politician. In an election that, as stated above, was focused on a theme of change, he successfully spun himself as the best proponent of innovation. This despite the fact that his opponent was the change-personified, first-ever serious female presidential candidate, the fact that his own party has controlled the presidency and the National Assembly for years, and the fact that he himself served as a minister in this same government until a month before the election.

THIRD WAY, THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM?!?
Sarkozy is France’s Bill Clinton or Tony Blair, just fifteen years later—a young, charismatic go-getter in search of the “Third Way.” He claims to want to maintain France’s significant social advances while also capitalizing (pun intended) on the benefits of a more liberal economic approach. Many in France doubt his true allegiance to the social gains, which will be at the core of any changes that occur in France’s immediate political future. France is in an impossible situation—there is a near jihadist-level obsession with the protection of these social benefits, yet an increasingly large national agreement that reform of social programs is essential if France is to escape from decades of malaise and experience the same renaissance as many of its European brethren.

Is Sarkozy the man for this job? He can certainly claim a mandate—he won by approximately two million votes despite facing a groundbreaking and charismatic opponent, an extraordinarily weak endorsement from his predecessor and fellow political party member Jacques Chirac, a request by the head of the Far Right party to his voters (likely second-round Sarkozy voters) to abstain from voting in the second round, and a statement from kingmaker centrist Francois Bayrou that although he wouldn’t endorse a second-round candidate, he would not vote for Sarkozy).

If Sarkozy is to succeed at reforming France, he will have to do so in a “Nixon-in-China” going against expectations mode. If he fails, he will face what the French refer to as a “third round” of the election—in the streets, with protests and riots that could make the disturbances of two summers’ back look minor in comparison.

MISCELLANEOUS

* Turnout in both rounds of France’s election was approximately 85%. Can you imagine? Even American Idol doesn’t get that kind of voter turnout number, let alone for a presidential election.

* Funny Newspaper Correction, from the International Herald Tribune: “Because of an editing error, Nicolas Sarkozy was misquoted in some Monday editions. In his victory speech Sunday night after the French presidential election, he said he loved France as one loves a dear being. There was no reference to a dear master.”