You have undoubtedly noticed from the sudden flurry on social networks in recent days that elections are approaching…
Indeed, on May 25 we will vote to elect our regional, provincial, and European representatives. Yesterday, in France, the first round of municipal elections (mayoral choice) took place, leading to a profound disapproval of the policy conducted by the socialist president François Hollande.
With 46.54% of the votes in favor of the UMP-UDI coalition, the right is the big winner of this first round. However, two other lessons are challenging for democrats. Firstly, the abstention rate, which broke a historical record at 35.87%, and the breakthrough of Frontist candidates with a triumph in the first round by Steeve Briois in Henin-Beaumont, a town of nearly 25,000 inhabitants, so close to us…
Can we already draw lessons from this election regarding the reasons for the inexorable rise of far-right ideas over the past 20 years, and can we find similarities in Belgium?
In the municipal elections in France, voters will have to deal with tripartites
Earthquake this morning in Matignon and at the Elysée Palace: the socialist party, which holds the presidency, the National Assembly, the Senate, and the municipalities, receives a terrible blow: 37.74% of the votes compared to 46.54% of the votes given to the UMP-UDI coalition. It is evident that this result is a punishment vote against the policy conducted by French president François Hollande.
It must be said that the missteps and scandals that undermined the first two years of François Hollande’s five-year term were not lacking. No one will forget the Cahuzac affair, as well as the recent wiretapping scandal involving Thierry Herzog, Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawyer, not to mention the incredible imbroglios that exist within the presidential majority between the PS and the greens over certain campaign promises of the president that will not be kept (the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes airport, the closure of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant to name just two).
However, what worries the French citizen, but also the European citizen, is the inexorable rise of Frontist candidates to the point that for the second round of the municipal elections next week, the voter will have to deal with numerous tripartites since the Frontist candidates qualify for the second round.
The republican pact, a historical error in France and Europe
For nearly 20 years, the National Front has been gaining votes in France and its weight and importance have been strengthening from election to election. For nearly 20 years, the leaders of traditional parties have not heard the message from the polls.
French voters are tired of the solutions proposed by traditional parties, and they express this in two complementary ways: by abstaining from voting and by voting for the extremes. Make no mistake: not voting is the democratic expression of a very clear choice, and this choice is to tell politicians: “You disappoint us! You do not meet our needs.”
The entire French political class is responsible for this result. It must be said that we have rarely seen such a flood of mediocrity in the political life of France. We no longer count the scandals, the absurdities, and the low blows exchanged by the leaders of the PS and the UMP. The French voter is right to feel disillusioned in the face of such a torrent of pathetic behavior. When a minister in charge of the budget and the repression of tax fraud is prosecuted by the Justice for not declaring the existence of bank accounts in Switzerland and Ireland, and when an incumbent president is caught riding a scooter, one must accept that the voter reacts.
For 20 years, the PS and the UMP have formed a republican front to block the National Front. This, in our opinion, is a historical error that will be perpetuated in the second round of the municipal elections in France. Traditional parties do not admit that the National Front is a republican party and that voters can freely choose to embrace the political program of this party. By demonizing the National Front and excluding it from any political responsibility, traditional parties only exacerbate the resentment of FN voters. How, indeed, can we accept that a political party that collects nearly 20% of the votes in the presidential elections has only two representatives in the National Assembly (Marion Maréchal and Gilbert Collard)?
The French left, in the great tradition of left-wing policies, does not understand this and loudly proclaims, on the evening of this first round, that it will form the republican front by urging its voters to vote for a UMP or UDI candidate in the event of a tripartite. This is a historical error! Indeed, there is no need to infantilize voters who can very well decide on their own for whom to vote. Moreover, it denies FN voters the content and responsibility of their choice. Yes, some voters are seduced by the demagogic and dangerous theses of the FN, and traditional parties would do much better to improve their governance and results on the ground rather than forming an anti-democratic republican barrier.
However, the UMP, through its former president, marked a right turn by breaking the republican pact and instituting the “neither-nor” policy. Neither socialist nor frontist. By doing so, the French right accepts the choice of the voter and takes the risk of leaving power to the Frontist candidates, which is the least mark of respect in democracy.
In Belgium, the PS is no more visionary than the French PS
In Belgium, we cannot speak of a republican front but rather of a particratic coalition. Our traditional parties agree to form what they call (not without a disdainful concupiscence), the “sanitary cordon“, nothing less, excuse the term!
Yesterday at the PS congress in Ixelles…Mr. Elio di Rupo already stated that the PS would never govern with the N-VA, that is, with a separatist party. In doing so, the Belgian PS makes exactly the same mistake as its cousin from across the Quiévrain.
How can one not understand that this irresponsible statement by a prime minister will only exacerbate the sympathizers of the N-VA?
Whether Mr. di Rupo likes it or not, he will one day be forced to govern with the N-VA, which, as long as it does not access responsibilities, will inexorably strengthen until it takes power.
But how can democracy be conceived in a country that has 60% Flemish voters, 40% of whom vote N-VA, and is governed by a PS prime minister who relegates them to the rank of pariahs of democracy?
In our opinion, the definition of democracy is to call to responsibility the parties that have been favored by the votes so that the voters can first have the satisfaction of seeing their choices respected (which is the least one can do if one wants to fight abstention) and then measure the quality of the policy implemented by the favored party.
