This was written in September 1997. It will be updated soonl.
As in Britain, the most important event in 1996-1997 was the parliamentary election. In the case of France, however, the election came as a total surprise in two respects. First, as recently as the beginning of 1997, no one expected President Jacques Chirac to call an election, and when he did, very few observers gave the left any real chance of winning, which is exactly what it did in what Le Monde called the Òboomerang vote.Ó
Throughout the year, France faced a double crisis. First, its economy was in trouble. The unemployment rate never dropped below 12%. The growth rate remained sluggish. Second, the government had to enact major austerity measures to bring the inflation and deficit figures down to a level that would allow France to quality for the European single currency scheduled to be introduced in 1999 (see the EU update). The prospect of drastic cuts in social services further eroded support for the government, though it did not lead to a repetition of the massive strike wave that greeted the new Chirac-Juppé administration in 1995.
In April, Chirac made what turned out to be a disastrous decision. The National Assembly had a year to go in its term. However, waiting until the term ended would put the elections at a time when the austerity measures would be most affecting individuals' standards of living. Therefore, he decided to dissolve the National Assembly and hold elections a year early on 25 May and 1 June which the Gaullist majority seemed all but certain to win. As late as 10 May, Britain Economist wrote about France's Òsluggish socialistsÓ as all the signs pointed to a continued, albeit much slimmer, center right majority.
As the following table shows, that is not what happened. Despite resisting the ÒmodernizationÓ of Britain's Labour Party, the Socialists ran a strong campaign as they had in the presidential elections of 1995. Most notably, they and their left wing allies capitalized on the continuing dissatisfaction with Chirac and, especially, Juppé. As the campaign wore on, the polls showed the election turning into a toss-up.
|
Party |
% of first |
Seats |
|
Environmentalists not associated with Socialists |
3.59 |
0 |
|
Far left |
2.18 |
0 |
|
Communists |
9.91 |
37 |
|
Socialists |
28.62 |
282 |
|
RPR-UDF and other outgoing government supporters |
39.51 |
257 |
|
National Front |
15.09 |
1 |
The first ballot reflected the evenness and dissatisfaction in public opinion. Less than 70% of the electorate turned out, quite low by French standards. And, they left everything up for grabs in the second ballot which most observers still expected the right to win by an electoral nose. However, in the end, the Socialists fell short of an absolute majority, but did win control of the Assembly and hence the Government in coalition with the Communists and other leftist groups. More importantly, the right was devastated by a defeat that wiped out the massive victory it had won in 1993.
President Chirac had no choice but to name Lionel Jospin, head of the Socialist Party, the new Prime Minister. Thus began what could prove to be five more years of cohabitation, leaving France with a Òdivided governmentÓ for two thirds of the time between the 1986 legislative and 2001 presidential elections.
Jospin's government may have marked a break from a group of leaders who have dominated political life since the early 1970s. The likes of former Prime Minister Michel Rocard and European Commission President Jacques Delors were not included in a cabinet which included a record number of women and members under 50. It is too early to tell how far the new government will go in its muted opposition to further European integration or in creating 700,000 new jobs. The first signs though have been that it will be more moderate than many expected, moving slowly on macroeconomic reform and refusing to block the closure of a state-controlled Renault factory in Belgium. On 7 July, however, it did announce that France could not and would not meet the requirements for the single European currency if they were applied strictly.
Things look good for the Socialists, however, because of what the election did to the outgoing majority. President Chirac seems like a lame duck, though he does have five years left in his term. Juppé was so discredited by the first ballot that he announced his plans to resign as premier, whatever happened at the second. In the end, he was forced to give up control of the Gaullist party as well, a job that passed to the more Euroskeptic and populist Philippe Séguin in early July.
The election also solidified the electoral base of the all but openly racist National Front. It had done as well in presidential and other elections but had always fared poorly in legislative contests in which the electoral system worked against it. This time, after taking control of the city of Vitrolles earlier in the year, it won roughly the same 15% of the national vote it had won at the presidential and European levels. Even though it could only turn that into a single seat in the Assembly, most observers were convinced that it meant that the Front was likely to be a major force on the right for years to come.
Everything in the election suggested that the real stakes of French politics would not lie in what the Socialist government could or could not do. Rather, as one would expect in an era when the barriers between comparative politics and international relations are evaporating, the growing concerns about further European integration undoubtedly hold the key to France's political future. As of this writing, there is no way of telling if that will benefit the left, the right, or some new, as yet unheard of force.
That anxiety extends beyond politics to most areas of French life, including sport. France will host the 1998 World Cup. However, its own side has not fared all that well in the last few years, despite having what most observers think is the best talent in Europe. What's more, the team's fate became political during the Euro96 competition when the National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen criticized it for not being ÒFrench enoughÓ when it routinely started sides that had six or more players from racial and ethnic minority groups.
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