Apr 13 2007
France reflects general disillusion with mainstream political parties and the EU
The French Presidential election wallows on. The main centre right candidate swaggers as the next President because the polls show he has almost 30% support! The leading centre left candidate, Segolene Royal has the support of fewer than one in four of the voters, and the coming from nowhere centrist Francois Bayrou is stuck on 1 in 5.
The election is played under a type of PR so of course in the first round it encourages candidates and parties to go to extremes. Some left of centre voters are attracted to the Workers Struggle or?? the Revolutionary Communist League candidates, in an effort to push Ms Royal further to the left. Some voters will pledge support to Jean-Marie Le Pen or Philippe de Villiers to try to get any of the mainstream candidates to be tougher on immigration and nationality issues.
??Part of the atomisation of the French vote occurs because of the system.?? PR naturally encourages a movement to the extremes. Part of it is occuring for the same reason as in the UK - the growing power of the EU.?? Jose Bore, from the anti corporatist left is a candidate who made his name campaigning against the EU constitution.?? Dupont Aignan is a candidate who is running against EU integration. Jean Marie Le Pen?? and the far left candidates??are also critical??of EU interference in French life.
The EU political establishment should be very worried by the way the main parties in France can no longer command majorities. Jean Marie Le Pen this time is only on 13% in the polls, although they may be understating his true position. Last time we saw left of centre voters having to vote for Chirac to keep??Le Pen??out of the Elysee.
The true message of the French electorate is they do not see anyone capable of lifting France out of high unemployment, or capable of restoring proper control over their??government to elected and responsible French politicians. There was a Eurosceptic majority in France at the time of the referendum on the constitution. No attempt to explain it away as people wanting more Europe will do. This Presidential election shows the kind of political malaise an overmighty EU creates, inducing a scepticism towards the main French parties allied to?? an inability to unite behind a single candidate of??a Euro-??sceptical disposition to start to change things.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
I’m not sure there is an incentive for the French to vote for extremes it may just be that what you consider extremes have more of the confidence of the left & right sections respectively - ie that they are just voting as they wish. When Le Pen got into the final as the standard bearer of the right, they lost because the moderate right mostly prefered to see the left candidate in.
This is thus actually less likely to produce an extreme result than British politics where the FTPT system ties in rightest voters to whoever the Tory leader is & the left into Labour’s standard bearer.
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