France mourns one of her greatest

Sometimes we are not aware that we live in the times of heroes. And they die and we remember.

When she faced a 95% male audience
to regulate abortion in France

Simone Veil was probably the lone France hero alive.  She died last week and the outpouring came from all fronts, except as expected from the far right Front National who could not forgive her among other things that Simone Veil was one of the 2.500 survivors of the 75.000 French Jews sent to Nazi concentration camps. Or rather, that she answered only too well to what Le Pen and daughter are all about.

Update on French elections

Yesterday I went to vote at the Caracas French embassy. I smelled tear gases wafting around us.  On one side democracy, on the other democracy's assassins.

The 2017 French ElectionS

We make a welcome pause in the covering of the Venezuelan protest to discuss the coming French elections where yours truly has a very hard time to decide who he is going to vote for.

Sweet and Sour France

A chapel for fishermen (click to enlarge)

There is sweet living in France, in spite of the crisis. And yet I have more mixed feelings this time around.

The stay is in a fancy resort area of France where relatives happened to live way before it became a famous resort area. Living is cool, for the rich, the casual visitor or the native still hanging there. They all go to the same market two days a week, carrying all their grocery bag as there is no more the "paper or plastic" dreadful question in France: you bring your bags now, almost everywhere.  All mix, whether they come from the fancy villa hidden in the pine forest or the fisherman shack.  There is something about relentless sand and pines and rain that brings up a notch humility in all.

Civility in France is a welcome relief from the unbending vulgarity here, one that this time around I appreciated more than ever.   In Paris we saw Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet walk in front of us while we had diner at a brasserie. What is noteworthy here is that the woman is the top challenger for Paris mayor election next year and she was walking alone in a busy street, no one stopping here, no body guards accompanying her, and yet recognized.  This is simply inconceivable in Venezuela where one year ago I saw Ismael Garcia attend the same pedicure as I do, accompanied with two body guards in a closed mall....

French Idiot of the month: Gerard Depardieu (á la Sean Penn)

For those who understand Spanish there is a clear and concise explanation of Depardieu latest spat over taxes in France which led him to become Russian. Moises Naim, a leading opinion maker in Latin America and now an anchor for Colombia's international network, tells us how Depardieu went from being one of the most prestigious actors in France to a support of "democracy in Russia", without forgetting "all the joy that Castro has brought to Cuba". I mean, this is worse than Sean Penn who at least admits his "progressive" bent  while cashing in whereas Depardieu is your average right wing who earned with hard work his money and does not think he should pay through the nose. Never mind that the French Constitutional Council struck down the tax rise (provisionally while it is rewritten).

The point is that one must be impressed by the pathological admiration that so many artists have for showmen with power, be it some orchestral directors with Hitler (or Dudamel with Chavez) or Nobel writers and actors with Castro (and Depardieu with Putin). I suppose that in a sick and perverse way Castro, Putin or Chavez are perceived by them as brilliant colleagues......

The French legislative elections

If you do not care about French politics or if good electoral maps leave you cold, you may skip this post altogether.

The 2012 French Vote: the Venezuelan representative

After voting for president a few weeks ago, last Saturday for the first time ever I was allowed to vote for a Representative to the French National Assembly.  And it was quite a tale of woe, worthy of a Venezuelan "telenovela".

The French second round ballot: stormy skies ahead for France and Europe

Useless vote getter

So tomorrow Saturday I have to cast my second round ballot at the French embassy of Caracas.  I will vote for Sarkozy but I can assure you that I am not doing it happily.  He will lose the election and he deserves to lose: he made too many P.R. errors in the earlier part of his term that he was unable or unwilling to amend for, he wasted precious time to push critical reforms and the crisis caught him  pants down, depriving of real reform options.  Truly he managed the crisis rather well, but electorates rarely understand such subtleties.

Then the second round campaign was nasty.  I do understand that he had no other choice but to court the National Front (FN) voters of Marine Le Pen who came at a surprising and astounding 18%.  Sarkozy personally has demonstrated that he is a democrat, a gruff one maybe but a real one.  So I never believed his posturing, but I also expect that for opposite reasons fewer than he needs in that 18% will buy it (according to some polls up to a third may end up voting for Hollande anyway, preferring to sink the democratic center right at any cost believing that it will open the door for their control of the opposition to Hollande).  Still, his courting of FN voters was often unbecoming and thus probably counter productive even among his own UMP party.

France: a more undecided result than what many may think.

And by writing the title I do not mean to say that Sarkozy has a chance to win the second round two weeks from today, but that the margin of victory for Hollande is far from certain and the result of the legislative elections in late May are quite up in the air, with a possible socialist landslide that will be absolutely meaningless.  In short, today's vote is far, very far, from yielding a government that will be able to tackle some of the badly needed reforms for France's welfare state to survive in some recognizable form.

And of course this post is also a wonderful excuse to look at the fabulous electoral maps that only the French seem able to do, and Liberation best of all for the past couple of decades.

The first map we are looking at is the general result  for France, AND its overseas territories.  At this point, barely 8 hours after polls have closed, the only ones missing are the embassies (the grey dot in the bottom).  For the record France still uses paper ballots and yet within an hour of polls closing the results were clear and everyone had acknowledged them.  Though in all fairness, before the Paris metro area results percolated.  Since then, the initial hysteria of Le Pen at 20% and Hollande beating Sarkozy by 4 points have receded.  Le Pen is at midnight still at a scary 18 points and Sarkozy is losing now by "only" 1.5 point. And Melenchon is less ridiculous than 4 hours ago.

The 2012 French election post

Dream team?

Next Saturday I will be headed to the French embassy to vote (we vote a day earlier than in France so as not to influence the result over there on Sunday...yeah, right!).  A nice moment for me because contrary to my votes in Venezuela those in France will be counted, the winner will win.  But I digress already.

Contrary to 2007 I am late in writing about French elections even though this time around my vote has been decided long ago: I will vote for Sarkozy this time, having overcome my misgivings on the man.  In 2007 I went for Segolène Royal. Flip flopping?  No, I vote for the candidate more than for the political affiliation of that one; and for the record, were I to be allowed to vote in the US in November Obama is my current choice.

I have chosen Sarkozy for several reasons but the main one because I think he has gotten an unfair bad rap. Even Moises Naim whose analytic acumen I appreciate compared him in El Pais to Berlusconi and South American re-electionists that shall remain nameless when in reality Sarkozy pushed for a constitutional amendment to limit French presidential mandates to ONLY two consecutive terms.  That is right, Sarkozy was elected in a Constitution that allowed him to run as often as he wanted and the amendment he managed to pass limited him to one single, immediate, reelection.  No Cleveland for him.  As he probably will be losing the second round ballot in two weeks we are likely watching his very last weeks in office.

Socialist primaries in France: conclusion

To remind us how lousy the CNE in Venezuela is, the socialist primaries in France barely concluded and Le Monde has already a graphic up with the winner in each French department.  73% already counted, Aubry already conceding and appearing in public with Hollande.

Thus we can gather yet more lessons for the coming primary in Venezuela, the one of La Unidad in February 2012:

Less despondent in Caracas

I am in Caracas for a few days and that trip started well with the news that the French government has recognized the Libyan rebels as legitimate interlocutors.  In fact the French are about to send an ambassador to Benghazi, a position that few people in the world these days are crazy enough to wish for...

Mallarmé and me

A few days before I reached Paris I read that the Petit Trianon had been restored after an arduous year of work and would re-open to the public just as I was making it to Paris. Of course I tried to plan to go but bad weather and the flu prevented me from completing an overdue visit. On my only visit to Versailles, in a year that I prefer not to recall, the Petit Trianon was closed to the public. We could only walk around and watch the stunning architecture all dirty as graffiti covered some of the walls. My young eyes were shocked, from my history book the charming but organized lines had always mesmerized me as the ideal palace.

In truth I suspect the French to have had a difficult relationship with Le Petit Trianon. After all it was the small palace constructed by Louis the XV for his most famous mistress, and then became the private playground of Marie Antoinette. All, of course, at tax payer expense, a symbol of frivolity difficult to stomach for a more austere Republican France.

But years have gone by and culture wars eventually rest under a soothing layer of dust. The restoration of the Galerie des Glaces was hailed and we also forgot or accepted that the German Empire was proclaimed there, at Versailles, in 1870. And now Le Petit Trianon becomes a full member in the hallowed ranks of French cultural masterpieces. French TV did not waste time glossing on the Austrian interloper anymore. In fact her good taste was more likely to be praised. We might not be ready to thank her for starving peasants so as to afford life in the palace, but at least we have learned to look at her in a more consequent way, not the caricature that my school history books still carried.

And thus eventually time reconcile us around a common heritage. Except in Venezuela where Chavez is busy reopening old wounds that we thought long ago sealed. My return was a few days before October 12 which is now the Day of Indigenous Resistance and Columbus a guy that purposely discovered America so its people could be enslaved. Or something to the effect. Now the Colombus monument, destroyed by chavista hordes, will not be restored and the site will be renamed for indigenous tribes. We are told the Colombus statue has been restored but we are not shown the picture to prove it.

If cultural wars occur it is because our past has a meaning. We have a choice between understanding what our past really meant, through understanding the context and free ourself of what stains our heritage. Or we may prefer to look at a context that is no more and make it truer than what has reached us. We can thus chose to embrace Le Petit Trianon without diminishing the pain of an era or destroy the Colombus statue pretending that there was no pain in that era. Such is the final paradox of culture wars when people confuse understanding and knowledge. But being denied a Trianon visit would not deprive me of more musings on this paradox as France is so rich in well digested cultural paradoxes.

Not going to Versailles gave me the chance to go to my most beloved museum: Orsay.


The Musée d'Orsay was built inside the old Orsay railway station, saving this magnificent building from destruction and revealing to us the magnificent temples to travel that were XIX century "gares", the door to the fantastic travels until then reserved to the minority willing to face the hardship of traveling before railways. Today the preserved entrance to the station is also the gateway to a magical trip through XIX century art, with the most magnificent collection of Impressionist paintings you can find anywhere, even though routinely some of the pick choices are on loan somewhere. Impressionism and Railways share in having changed our minds and views of the world.

When I have only one day in Paris, there is one thing I always do, rain or shine: Notre Dame and a walk through the Marais. If luck gives me a second day then it is the Musée d'Orsay, even for only one hour, to go directly to the Impressionists. Besides a few Renaissance painters such as Fra Angelico, the only thrills I get watching paintings are with Impressionists and their near sequels. I got cold sweats when I saw in Chicago the Après Midi à La Grande Jatte of Seurat, I lacked oxygen when I met Renoir's Le Dejeuner des Canotiers at the Phillips Collection and was forced to look for a bench to sit down the first time I was confronted to Mary Cassat's The Boating Party at the National Gallery. She and Lincoln are for me in Washington what Notre Dame and Orsay are in Paris.

The Impressionist collection at Orsay is for me as much a physical experience as a visual one. The power of these paintings reach me in ways that I do not understand, or rather that I understand too well if I start a Jungian archetype self study, not the subject of this blog. But not all, not always. This time Gauguin left me cold. Some of the great Manet were missing and noticing it disturbed me. Thus for once I was able to focus more on what a painting meant than what it did to me. The first one that arrested me was one that I had never paid as much attention before, as so powerfully hidden by the larger Manets. I am talking here of the extraordinary portrait of poet Mallarmé, which adorns any high school literature book in France. Or should anyway.

I have had a difficult relationship with Mallarmé, one of the great poets that I could not study in school as end of year constraints made our French teacher skip over him. Thus if I went deep into Baudelaire and Verlaine, Mallarmé I had to do on my own and I confess with little success and many frustrations. See, Mallarmé is the kind of poet that you do not understand much when you read but somehow you know as your read him that it is really great stuff. A little bit like pornography for a famous Supreme Court Judge who said that he could not define pornography but he knew it when he saw it. Mallarmé was not a pornographer that I know of but then again only him could get away with such a verse to close a sonnet:

Je pense plus longtemps peut-être éperdument
A l'autre, au sein brûlé d'une antique amazone.

Longing for the burnt breast of an ancient Amazon...

His most famous poem is perhaps l'Azur, at times a painful mediation on the curse to have poetry inside, with one of the most famous French verses, if anything for its visual bizarreness.

Je suis hanté. L’Azur ! l’Azur ! l’Azur ! l’Azur !

You can find some translations of Mallarmé verses as some brave souls dared to try, but you also must know that Mallarmé was an English teacher and as such he admired and was influenced by Poe. He translated The Raven. So was Baudelaire by the way whose translations of Poe tales, well, read almost better in Baudelaire's French than Poe's English, a very strange case in world literature where a translation actually brings something. I suppose that in a way, that ability to cross cultures allowed Mallarmé to work through his life towards breaking the ancient molds of French poetry.

Seeing that sobering portrait of Mallarmé brought to me an odd action considering the place I was. Tourists were flocking in front of more famous pictures so, as Orsay allows it, I could take my very own shot while I meditated at Manet's Mallarmé picture. I know, no matter how good my shot might turn out it will never be as good as the exquisite reproductions you can buy at the gift shop at the end. And yet, watching your own shots a few days later bing back that moment and the thoughts you had better than any reproduction. That is, if you shot your picture after your processed your emotions or if you are a compulsive picture taker.

The very relative solitude I enjoyed in front of Mallarmé made wonder how could he possibly be relevant to the immigrant children that the French system is actually raising with lots of problems in its school system. The winner of the Cannes Festival this year, Entre Les Murs, has been a movie about the problems of a "banlieu" classroom and the valiant efforts of teachers to reach the kids, not an alien concept I am sure to the teachers of some inner city areas of the States. A famous scene is the "subjunctive past" lesson, where one child simply said that he would not talk to someone that uses such a tense. I suppose he would not talk to me who rarely uses it but does use it. But is it a generation gap?

If you spit on the French subjunctive, can you reach Mallarmé? Can you also reach Rimbaud and Verlaine through their poetry or will these kids get interested in them for their scandalous liaison when Rimbaud was 16 and Verlaine a married man? It is not that these poets drop past subjunctive in any sonnet. They do not, but the key to understand how the French language works is to understand how its subjunctive works. This verbal mode is the soft form of possibilities and dashed dreams, a complexity so missing in English. Though some would argue that this lack of subjunctive might be a reason of the anglo-saxon energy.

The subjunctive is not the only obstacle to French High Church. Mallarmé remains still a difficult poet even if some managed to put him into music. Brise Marine is quite an example on how difficult Mallarmé can be while still remaining somewhat accessible enough for Serge Lama to sing it.

I would even say that a case can be made that Mallarmé is becoming more difficult for today'snew Frenchmen when the all Mallarmé site, mallarme.net, feels obliged to widget the word "angélus" so people can understand it. The practice of angélus had all but disappeared in France when I was a kid, but yet I knew what the word meant. It seems that today political correctness reserves such knowledge to rarefied elites. An indeed, in the banlieus angelus is as alien as past subjunctive.

I did not think these dangerous thoughts as clearly as I narrate them above today, but they kept coming to me with more precision as I kept my walk through the galleries. In particular how will Muslim children in France learn to appreciate the French cultural heritage, and even more important, can their own cultural and religious heritage allow them to get meaning from Mallarmé or Renoir? Can they also own?

Certainly I do not mean that Muslim children cannot cross the cultural line and appreciate the Orsay Museum, true art speaks to all except for cases like Bamiyan. Then again if the Taliban felt the need to blast Bamiyan's Buddhas it must mean that their ideological construct was perturbed by that art. Though I have yet to visit a Muslim country besides Morroco I know that I can marvel at Islamic art. I know that Isfahan would be marvelous for me. But will it speak to me the way that Mallarmé or a painting by Renoir do? One of my favorite Museums is a small one at the end of the Washington Mall where a treasure of Muslim calligraphy is exhibited, the Freer Gallery. I have been there several times, marveling at the delicate art that pervades all Islamic tradition. It does speak to me, at some level, and I wish I could have one of such hanging on one of my walls to spend at times long minutes of meditation in front. But it is not me. There is something missing for me and it is the physicality of man.

Can the "balançoire" of Renoir not shock a religious Muslim? Is the casualness of the woman, daydreaming as possibly two suitors sweet talk her, accpetable? What about the form fitting dress that follows no proportion giving her impossibly long (and sexy?) legs? No word about the little girl watching all of this ambiguity? True, all are covered enough according to the more modest standards of the time, and current Muslim fundamentalist wishes, but the body language is there for all to see.

France has been wrecked a few years ago about whether to allow Muslim girls to wear the veil at school. The secular French state tradition, from left to right, ruled that the veil was considered a religious symbol and as such had no place in the French public school system, sending a lot or Muslim girls to private establishments. In all fairness the state also forbade yarmulke and crucifix medallions unless totally invisible under shirts. Much talk went around but not that many dared to speak the real truth around the issue: that feminist women in France could not accept that a religion forced submission of women. I do agree about the issue and the measures taken then, but that is not the point I want to make here. I want to come back on how art speaks to us, and to this second Renoir painting at Orsay.

Again here we see a casual couple, the woman painted with exquisite details of near ecstasy while he companion has a more predatory look, a sober, less detailed portrait. He is handsome though, a certain sexy squareness, a sense of dominating strength to which the woman seems to be yielding. He also probably lost his hat in the whirlwind chase, on the right corner, an odd detail to leave as the hat is certain to be trashed as people dance over. But he has no care for it, too concentrated on his prey.

Whether you are straight or gay you cannot escape the sexual power of this painting. But what makes it great is not the erotic allusion, it is the need for human companionship that the people in it reflect, perhaps the animal lust of the man or the longing to be loved of the woman, it does not matter, we are always looking for someone to hold us tight. And yet that need might not be love. This painting has an exhilarating effect on me as it shuts down the workings of the mind, letting instinct surface politely, even in the middle of a crowded museum. Suddenly some tourists do not look as unappealing as they looked earlier.

And there is of course that wonderful ball scene, full of hopeful glances and of people looking at who is not looking at them, where the only people that do touch are two dancers and two women. What can we make of that? Such a scene would still be scandalous in some Western cultures of the Mediterranean, at least not that long ago. Imagine it in Afghanistan! or even Saudi Arabia! But there is also the price to pay for this apparent happiness, on the left side there is a woman that seems to be alone, or lonely, or abandoned, in darker shades. It almost seems that the only dancing couple that is clearly detailed has something to do with that lone woman, they seem to be looking at her. Did the man leave her for another floozie? Or is she sad not because he left her but because she coudl not retain him? Or her? There is a strange message of personal responsibility in that detail.

Perhaps it has been the common thread in the story of humanity but what speaks to me when I see these pieces is of the XX century to come, that from this sort of art came our social, sexual and even moral freedom that today at least some societies enjoy. The works of the Impressionists by freeing themselves form the rules of conformist art helped on our road to civil liberty, Human Rights, and shall dare I say it, better forms of democracy and cross cultural richness. It was after the Impressionists that Western Art really became open to the glories of other cultures, not just a fancy "chinese" room as palaces like the Petit Trianon might have acquired in their day. Perhaps the question I wanted to ask myself is what do we need to do to bring the equivalent of the Impressionist movement to today's Islamism before it is too late and one side tries to erase the other.

The temptation of cultural wars is really big. Even Chavez indulges in it even though Venezuela was, and is still, the Latin American society most open to external cultural influences. Chavistas with money do flock to Mac Donalds, love to go shopping to Miami. But in Chavez case his attitude comes from his ignorance and from the feeling that he has been rejected by Western Culture, an easy way to cope with his own insecurities and possible sense of failure. The consequences of Chavez will be dramatic for Venezuela's future though his manic and silly cultural crusade will eventually be a footnote in the history of the Americas.

What is more of a concern, and Chavez does sense that at some level as he wants to use it, is the clash of civilizations that so many want to avoid and that Chavez foolishly fosters at his own risks. I am talking about how to reconcile a Western World open to new experiences and to a world of risk taking and personal responsibility with a clearly more obscurantists world who stayed in the XVII century where ideas left it as they went ahead with the West. Today the far East and even India espouse many of Western values and Japan is the perfect example on how to retain your culture while burnishing some angles with interesting foreign values. Chavez is playing with fire by thinking he can manipulate the barbarians of today to his own profit, but what he does not realize is that when all is said and done the one that will be on the losing end of the stick is him.

And why will Chavez lose? Because when I was at Orsay Mallarmé talked to me, and Renoir did touch me. And if I go to the Freer gallery something will charm me, and if I go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts the Japanese weapon collection will make me daydream of my world of Kurozawa. What Chavez is trying to do is to erase as many cultural references as he can from us, an easy task as we are not blessed with a long cultural history and a lot of our history was very destructive anyway. Even from the few treasures that make us Venezuelans, that speak to us, even to me, the son of French immigrants, he wants to pick and chose what might serve him and discard most. There might not be a Venezuelan Mallarmé but there is Andres Eloy Blanco and all through my childhood I heard this.

Si queda un pintor de santos,
si queda un pintor de cielos,
que haga el cielo de mi tierra,
con los tonos de mi pueblo,
con su ángel de perla fina,
con su ángel de medio pelo,
con sus ángeles catires,
con sus ángeles morenos,
con sus angelitos blancos,
con sus angelitos indios,
con sus angelitos negros,
que vayan comiendo mango
por las barriadas del cielo.

And these verses speak to me with the same strength than anything that I might have seen in Paris two weeks ago. "que vayan comiendo mango ---- por las barriadas del cielo" nothing more Venezuelan has ever been written.....

And yet, even though the whole poem is one of the finest examples of anti racist literature to be found in any culture, chavismo has never embraced it. Because Andres Eloy Blanco was Adeco and that cannot be forgiven , as the accidental discovery of America by Columbus cannot be forgiven. Columbus must be charged with all the abuses committed after him. And thus Andres Eloy Blanco must be guilty, at some obscure level, if anything because chavismo has proven itself unable to write anything as inspiring and effective as that simple poem, and even if Andres Eloy Blanco died one year after Chavez was born and could not be held responsible for what the Adecos did later.

So Chavez is trying to gut our cultural heritage, without having some coherent system to replace it except his speeches and what are called his thoughts and his personal myths. Will Chavez speeches stir great emotions besides hatred? They will not because culture and art do not happen in a vacuum. If Muslims cannot feel what I feel in front of Mallarmé portrait it is because I cannot feel what they would feel at the Kairouan Mosque, it is because our emotions are constructed on our own cultural past and how it makes us relate to our environment and how they create a place for us.

But then again when Chavez makes Venezuelans stop caring about their real past they will also stop caring about him.

La chair est triste, hélas ! et j’ai lu tous les livres.

I think I am not afraid of Mallarmé anymore. He came to me when I needed him most.

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Translations:

La chair est triste, hélas ! et j’ai lu tous les livres.
The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.

Si queda un pintor de santos,
If a Saints painter remains,
si queda un pintor de cielos,
If a heavens painter remains,
que haga el cielo de mi tierra,
that he may do heavens of my land,
con los tonos de mi pueblo,
with the hues of my people,
con su ángel de perla fina,
with a mother of pearl angel,
con su ángel de medio pelo,
with a curly hair angel,
con sus ángeles catires,
with light haired angels,
con sus ángeles morenos,
with brown angels,
con sus angelitos blancos,
with white angels,
con sus angelitos indios,
with indian angels
con sus angelitos negros,
with black angels
que vayan comiendo mango
that they walk eating mangoes
por las barriadas del cielo.
in heavens neighborhoods.

And GP offers us this version

If there's a painter of saints left,
if there's a painter of skies left,
let him create my land's sky,
with the tones of my town,
with his fine pearl angel,
with his mediocre angel,
with his blond angels,
with his brown angels,
with his little white angels,
with his little Indian angels,
with his little black angels,
may they go on eating mangoes
through the neighborhoods of the sky.

-The end-

French Legislative elections: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

These French Electoral season has been a box full of surprises. One year ago, strong from the victory at the regional elections and the European Referendum rejection all bets were for a presidential victory for a socialist candidate. In a year Nicolas Sarkozy turned all tables and got a month ago a solid, very solid victory by French standards against the hapless socialist candidate Segolene Royal. Over the weeks that followed all polls were giving a crushing victory to the UMP right. The first round ballot results of last Sunday seemed to confirm that tendency when in a very unusual result 20% of seats were won outright, when the norm is closer to 10%.

And tonight the ones with smiles glued on their faces are the socialists even if the next parliament will be controlled by the UMP. What happened? How come the victors look like they were defeated?



As usual hubris and excessive self confidence can explain why the UMP failed to gain the 400+ seats that were expected. And thus, even as they win the election, it is a maimed victory that will jeopardize the Sarkozy agenda for the next five years. Make no mistake, the UMP will rule, but the opposition will be strong enough that whatever Sarkozy does not bag in parliament by the and of the year will never happen. With a 400+ victory Sarkozy would have gotten a full year honeymoon. Now he will have to settle for a quarter and maybe some more with luck and strong political skills.

The reason is quite simple. When the new Fillon cabinet was named a month ago it started by a program of tax incentives that, no matter how the UMP tried to hide it, favored folks who already had some money. The idea was of course to try to promote more investment in France and boost the economy growth. It did work in some countries and it certainly was worth trying in France which seemed blocked for years.

The problem is that such a loss of income must be compensated from somewhere, even more so in a welfare state of the size of France. The right had no better idea than to leak a possible increase in sales tax, and clumsily labeling it "social sales tax". And it did that this week, in between the two round vote. I suppose that Fillon and Sarkozy truly thought that they had a lock on 400 seats and they decided to gamble. Such a measure in France could only pass in time of a great crisis, not the case today, or after a major electoral victory. Not only it failed miserably as the left encountered an unexpected last minute boost, but it cost the right 56 seats from the previous parliament. That is, instead of adding seats to their majority, the right loses more than 50.

Personally I am not upset. I thought that a projected 440 seats parliament for the right was too much. Not that democracy would be threatened since in France there are institutions, not the case of Venezuela where the 100% monochromatic assembly is sponsoring democracy demise. But the right in France has no common sense and the larger its majorities, the more mistakes they make. Good right wing French governments were always when the right had a narrow lead in parliament. If history is to be repeated, the Fillon government might now have a chance to be a smash hit.

The left does not have much to crow anyway. Until last Monday, before the sales tax scandal started, it was looking at the possibility of having less than 100 seats in the parliament and be thus a token opposition. And now this surprise reprieve will in fact open the gates for thorough recomposition. The Socialist party owes its "victory" tonight to the center votes this time going all to them at the second round (more than half of them went for Sarkozy one month ago!). And that as a courtesy of a political miscalculation that will go into the annals of French political history. The socialists were unable to motivate their voters and got that boost from elsewhere than their programs or candidates.

What is in store for the socialists is a revision of heir ideology and programs, looking for a way toward the center of the political spectrum to either reach an alliance with the disappointed Bayrou voters, or absorb them. Along the way they risk breaking with the radical left. Worse, they risk breaking their own party as a large faction of the socialist party wants to tighten its bonds to the radical left (Fabius) and another faction wants to become a real social democrat party (Strauss-Kahn, Royal?). The clean up within the socialist party had started tonight already when its first secretary reelected is known not to seek a new term in the next year socialist congress, but also when he and Royal announced that they are splitting ways: it seems that Royal now with grown up children and a socialist party to conquer and rejuvenate does not need a hubby anymore.

There were other good news: the Communist party only got 18 seats. More perhaps than expected a week ago but still not enough to form a parliamentarian group which requires 20 deputies. There is a renewal in store for the commies, either become socialists once and for all, or join the radical Trotskyte left.

All in all I am satisfied with the results. Sarkozy will have the means to effect the necessary changes but his possible excesses will be reined in. The socialists will be in a better position to do a serious aggiornamento. A 100 seats representation could have browbeat them into a scared fake unity and a postponement of their internal reforms. Now there are enough of them to divide if necessary, plus three national elections to settle their internal issues before the next presidential and parliamentary vote. The Communists keep on their way down and the radical crowd is unable to place even one seat. As for the extreme right National Front, it is back to its historical low.

Other things

First, let's observe that again, with paper ballots individually counted, about a couple of hours after the last polling station was closed we had the all but exact composition of the National Assembly. Here in Venezuela, well, you know....

French cartography is good. Liberation already has the map and the total vote count of the second round. The Le Monde map is better but not quite complete yet. So Libé it is (the above one is from Le Monde by the way)



From this we can see clearly the division in France. Areas of modern industries, of European oriented economy, of services, of large immigrant population, tended to vote any shade of blue (Paris, the Parisian West, the East, the South East, Lyon). The areas voting from pink to red are the areas of a more agrarian nature, more afraid of change, of old economical tradition now in trouble (the old mining North, the South West far from European buzz, except for the resort areas all voting blue, agroindustrial Brittany).



-The end-

More on French election results: towards a new parliament

Since it is too upsetting to discuss Chavez continued vulgarity I am indulging in one more French post before I face Venezuela again. After all, as the election results decant and as the electoral maps come out, there is interesting material to discuss on how a true democracy functions, not the farce here in the bolibanana republic.

That is where great maps as the French love to make come in hand. Today I have taken two maps from Le Figaro, since it is the first one to come out on the web with nifty maps (Le Monde's maps are coming out also but are more technical and only interest French people).

The first map is the result of Sunday. It is almost the same as the map I showed from Liberation two weeks ago except that Segolene Royal did pick up something like a half dozen more "departements". Which is something to be expected.



The first thing to note is a rather clear division of France. The right is concentrated on major urban areas, and borders. The areas more exposed to global markets and foreign ideas and also immigration, legal or not. Thus the socialist vote appears a much more conservative vote in the proper sense of the word: a vote of people a little bit scared of the bright new world ahead of them, a vote of people more worried about protecting foie gras tradition and welfare state than dealing with immigration and economic growth problems.

And you also have at the bottom a nifty map of all French overseas possessions which are considered as French as Paris, believe it or not :) the Caribbean and Indian Ocean went for Segolene but Nicolas won in the Pacific and South America.

But there is also something that must be noted: the map does not reflect if a blue "department" is 60% for Nicolas or only a bare 51% (and vice versa for the red ones). With the legislative elections coming next June it might be useful to look at the 2002 parliament results, and Le Figaro publishes it again.



What we find in this map is that the geographical repartition of socialists and right wing votes has not changed much. In fact a close study (of which I will spare the reader) makes me suspect that the socialists are much weaker than what I was expecting them to be. This is due to several basic factors:

Sarkozy has won reasonably big, more due to the high participation than his actual score. His 53% score is good by French standards, but added to an 85% voter turnout it is close a real mandate. That is, the French right has all what it takes to win a majority in the June legislative election but is is not assured of a locked comfortable majority.

Such a locked majority was in doubt two weeks ago when Bayrou came out with an 18% share that was basically trashing the above map where his allies are in deep blue (Sarkozy's UMP is in lighter blue). But the wishy washy management of Bayrou in the last two weeks and the fast defection of most of his allies to the UMP side indicates that maybe after all the Bayrou vote might not change anything. If the UMP manages its campaign well there is no reason why it would not retain its majority even if it loses a couple of dozen seats. The paradox here is that the new reduced majority will in fact be stronger in resolve and convictions than the one issued from the 2002 vote. And thus a smaller majority might be able to do the profound changes that Chirac balked at in 2002!

The socialists have the traditional loser problem: lack of motivation of their disappointed voters and thus no matter what a rather lackluster perspective. But the paradox that emerges today is that to retain the few seats the socialists have, they will require an active Bayrou support. Thus the aggiornamento of the Socialist Party is knocking at the door sooner than expected. If they do not reach a deal with Bayrou fast they might be at risk to lose several of the pink seats in that map, and many of the red dots from a communist party near collapse. Though arguably those red dots could become pink dots. In other words, the socialist party is faced between becoming quickly a social democratic party by setting an alliance with Bayrou or remaining the core of a left government relying for a majority on very weakened greens and communists and sabotaging Radical left such as the one from Besancenot who everyday looks more like the anarchist left French tradition. If they chose the last option, they could risk losing ground overall. Will Royal impose the renovation or will the apparatchiks impose the "only left" grouping?

A sense of perspective

Some comments rather of topic to conclude.

In the comments I have read all sorts of things. But also in the US media I have read that Sarkozy could become an ally of Bush. Most of these comments are wrong. Sarkozy is neither Bush nor Pelosi. By US standards Sarkozy would probably fit quite nicely in the moderate wing of the Democratic party, closer to folks like Clinton (Bill). It is very dangerous to try to draw any parallel between France and the US such as some try to do between Hillary and Segolene or Sarkozy and Giulani. In fact Hillary might be smack in between Segolene and Nicolas, and Giulani quite to the right of Nicolas.....

There is really no lesson for Hillary in Royal's defeat and no lesson either for Giulani in Sarkozy's victory.

Foreign Policy?

Finally a little word on future possible French foreign policy.

A French president will always be independent in foreign affairs, and any possible sympathy of Sarkozy for the US is only that, a sympathy for the US, not for Bush or any of his possible successors. Certainly Sarkozy would be more likely to help the US out of Iraq than Royal would, but do not expect any military help in Iraq unless under a UN umbrella.

The relationships between the US and France WILL improve under Sarkozy. But then again they were never really that bad (Chirac spoke English and loved the US). Except for freakish Vichy France, the two countries have always been allies, never at war. People tend to forget that when they are involved into their Iraq personal cause.

-The end-

The electoral results in France are in: Sarkozy wins by 6 points

(updated)

At exactly 8 PM Paris time, TV5 announced that the estimation were giving Sarkozy winning with 53% of the vote. Not a landslide by French standard but a very strong victory nevertheless, made even stronger by a strong participation. In fact, the record turnout of today makes this 53% much, much more significance than the fake landslide of 80% for Chirac 5 years ago. With a 53% share, a real share this time, Sarkozy will be able to effect and affect French policies more than what Chirac did with his trumped up and undeserved landslide.

Within two minute, as I type, Segolene Royal is giving a great concession speech. No useless waiting for a concession speech, Segolene Royal is a democrat, not a fake one as our local banana republic tyrannos. She is giving such a fast speech because she has already in mind future political and democratic battles.

Vive la démocratie!

Some quick analysis

I think that Segolene lost more because she was a feminist than a socialist. During the two rounds campaign she came across more as a woman pursuing her own cause rather than one trying to unify the French people around some common program. That perhaps was enough to convince the Extreme Right voter to go and vote against Le Pen indication NOT to vote. That also was counterproductive with the centrist voter much more concerned by national cohesion than individual ambition.

The high turnout is rather surprising. I mean, true, there is in general an increased turnout from the first to the second round vote, but this time the first round was already a record and for the second round Le Pen and Bayrou did not sponsor active voting. So we must conclude that the French voter is much more independently minded than what pols would like them to be. This is an excellent sign for the immediate future of France, for a revived democracy after the rather long doldrum of the long and boring Chirac years.

Sarkozy will not be hostage of the Front National. This party not only did not follow its historical leader orders, but it will also face now a difficult succession as that was Le Pen last political round: he is too old for aspiring to the presidency in 5 years from now. The internal struggle will neutralize the Front National and stop it from cashing any chips it might have thought Sarkozy owes them. Le Pen ill tempered orders voided such cashing in anyway....

The speeches of Royal and Sarkozy were very dignified and each one acknowledged the other side in rather generous term. This is, hopefully, the first real demonstration that a new generation of politicians has come to power and will change the habitual crispation that goes along French debates. It also goes for the Socialist party that is now faced with the dilemma of renewing itself, of looking toward the middle for its future or hoping that the 10% of the Radical Left is enough for it to return to power. Obviously, after tonight even if Royal gamble to seduce the center did not pay off as hoped for, it still did not fail: she got the maximum that she could have expected after the first round. I think she was right to try it. She might not have had a choice but she tried it earnestly, and clumsily perhaps, but she was right in trying that approach to the Bayrou center. The question is: will the socialist party take the brave new road pointed by Segolene Royal or will they turn away from her and dump her and her ideas. And risk a decade of opposition.

The very best news

However for me, the best news of the evening are the turnout and that the immigrant son of Jewish and Hungarian heritage is now the president elect of France. Note: I could replace the last part of the sentence for "and that a woman is now the president elect of France" with the same emotion and satisfaction. A society that has seemed for so long stuck, unable to continue its integration, with social and cultural problems growing constantly, has done the unthinkable, bringing to the forefront a woman and an immigrant son. And massively at that, with a stunning 86% turnout.

This bodes very well for France, a revitalized democracy, a passover from an elite generation unable to renew itself. When I compare this sudden and bright overture to the closing of the Venezuelan mind and spirit, our descent into the darkness, I can only delight in this new promise coming from France.



-The end-

The French election Result in Caracas

Well, I should not be saying that but I am going ahead anyway: Sarkozy won in Caracas with 68% (at least from what I have been told). I say that because in the greater scheme of things it is meaningless, Sarkozy had already won Caracas on the first round with 55% so there was no way he would lose at the second round. In fact I can even say that this 68% is not great, that he should have reached 70% to reflect the polls in France, the 15% share he needs to get to overcome Royal.

But things are not looking good for Royal: at noon the turnout was higher than two weeks ago. In other words French folks are voting in even larger numbers than the record first round. The first conclusion is that the Le Pen call for abstention did not work and that his voters are all going out to vote in droves, presumably mostly for Sarkozy (some, perhaps 25% will vote for Royal, hoping that the Front National regains strength under a socialist administration, don't ask!). The Second conclusion is that the Bayrou voters decided to go out and vote and if the poll trends are true this is bad news for Royal too since the Bayrou vote was going more toward Sarkozy than Royal in spite of a clear rapprochement between Bayrou and Royal. In other words, if Sarkozy wins with at least 6 points lead with an even greater turnout than two weeks ago, then Bayrou has not much influence over his voters and his announced new political party is not going to start under the best omens.

Are we in fact witnessing a major redrawing of the French political map and we were not even having a clue? Nobody previewed the drop of Le Pen or the temporary surge of Bayrou. And now if these two characters have their voters decanting for Sarkozy in large numbers, what does it mean? A possible 55% vote for Sarkozy woudl be a true mandate by French standards and could embolden Sarkozy to actually implement some of his controversial changes. We'll see.

-The end-

Sarkozy Royal to the finish line

The second round vote campaign has not been disappointing, and unusually rich in "péripéties".

As the interested reader might remember, we had left the hero of the first round, François Bayrou, courted by all sides. Well, he seems to have gone for the charms of Ségolène but it seems that his voters are not. Polls have been stubborn: Sarkozy has kept a 4 to 8 points lead for the past two weeks, even after the presidential debate of Wednesday. In fact, as I thought it would be the case, the debate seems to have helped Sarkozy even if he did not win outright.

I missed the first 2/3 of the debate. But the last third was enough for me: Segolene Royal came across as the school marm that would be berating France for the next 5 years whereas Sarkozy came much softer than what the Socialist attacks wanted us to believe he is. If Segolene could show that she could hold her own on a debate of such importance, Nicolas was definitely the guy you wanted to go out for "un verre au bistro" after the said debate. And that was all that Sarkozy needed. Royal needed more.

The debate was in fact good (I watched part of the earlier part in a rebroadcast). It lasted over two hours and contrary to stuffy US presidential debates, the two candidates were allowed to talk to each other, to actually attack (with all polite forms respected) each other. It was quite refreshing to see them expose themselves to such a democratic exercise, something that is not seen in the US except in early primary rounds, and that is never seen in Venezuela (and unthinkable with Chavez!).

The issues were the same, Royal more principled, Sarkozy more innovative. But where Royal sort of lost the debate, and me, was on a certain dogmatism from her part. Sarkozy came surprising as more statesman than Royal (gender considerations taken, of course). Royal would do a great Prime Minister but Sarkozy showed more presidential timber (though not much, I am still weary of his adventurer side).

In my case it was not necessary Royal faults that made me decide for Sarkozy, but Chavez. Poor Ségolène started using words such as changing institutions, a 6th Republic, participatory democracy and that was the end. That she used that in a presidential debate instead of campaign trail fodder showed that she believed too much this crap and I have seen the result of this crap in Venezuela. Oh, yes, France political culture is way more sophisticated than Venezuela and institutions infinitely sturdier, but such words these days give me eczema. Eventually it came down to this: the only reason I was still thinking about voting for Royal was to have a French female president. Call it sexism in reverse if you please. Thus when characters are considered and proposal feasibility assessed, the choice for me became Sarkozy. Just as I had expected for weeks: the debate for me would be the deciding point. There is a difference however: whichever of the two candidates win I will be OK.

And the prospects? I am not too confident of polls anyway.

Bayrou has all but called his people to vote for Royal. His sneaky maneuvering and his carelessly advanced pseudo indecision might have hurt him a lot! I do not know what his followers will end up doing anyway, even if they decide to vote. And Le Pen call for a "massive abstention" is his sloppy way to be present at the second round vote by dropping on his own participation by at least 10 points. I think both were wrong in their strategy and both will get out diminished. If Sarkozy wins, Bayrou people would have gone to the right above their leader head, a very bad way to start a new political party.... If 80% of French vote then Le Pen would have failed even more and Sarkozy would be a shoo in.

But if participation drops below 80% all bets are off and no matter what the polls say Royal could win with the narrowest of margins, just to lose the legislative vote a month after and become Bayrou hostage for 5 years. The behaviour of the Bayrou voters is just too unpredictable and they will really decide the election. Their effect will be felt more if many Le Pen and Bayrou voters abstain.

At any rate, it seems that Sarkozy should win. I think he will beat Royal by 6 points, 53 to 47. That is an excellent result in France.

-The end-

Bayrou: how to lose and win in France

For the regular readers of this blog I must apologize. There are so many things to write about Venezuela these days, but... Forgive me for indulging in yet another post where I can discuss about a country where politicians do not show obvious pathological signs, where a real electoral campaign happens, with real propositions that actually could be implemented and give measurable results, a campaign that offers all sorts of surprises, where appealing, educated, smart candidates are able to campaign against each other without gross barrack insults such as a certain candidate does in a country that shall remain nameless. Yes, you guessed it, I am still following the French election, may TV5 be blessed.

The nature of a second round election

A second round election is in the French system a flash campaign that must manage to combine the work done in the preceding 6 months, with the ability to modulate enough one's message in two weeks to convince enough of the folks that did not vote for you to come over and get you over that 50%. In other countries the second round can be extended to several weeks and in a way it becomes a brand new campaign. But in France politicians do not have that privilege to reinvent themselves. They must demonstrate in two weeks that they can go from being a mere politician to become a statesman. French people, once the election is over, tend to think of their president as the embodiment of the nation, for better or for worse; and impeachment is not a word as easily flung as in the US.

This in a way surprises foreign observers who see all sorts of nasty words hurled at the diverse candidates but once they are elected there is almost a monarchical respect about the president and his private life. For example the extra marital affairs of Chirac or Mitterrand were never daily fodder of tabloids. Mitterrand was even able to hide for years the existence of an out of wedlock daughter. This became finally an issue when he started taking her on his travels. The second round campaign, its brevity and single debate structure, must be understood as the opportunity for both candidates to rise from the common of mortals and show that they can be France. It is a weird concept but that is the way it is.

For the observer that has a lot of trouble understanding this, in particular the US observer, let me make a parenthesis about the US electoral system. Most folks are amazed at the length of the American Presidential process. After all, general election is in November 2008 and you would think that Hillary and Barak are already preparing for the Democratic convention in a few days. What people do not realize is that in fact the American voter likes these long drawn primary battles because it sorts out candidates on their ability to direct a very complex federal state. The US being the Empire it is, folks like to see up from close their future emperor, to let him (or her?) know that they are the ones that will put her/him in office because a given candidate could make the difference between San Diego and San Antonio. How best to measure the management ability of a presidential candidate but to watch them running the primary road show, its scores of peoples, travels, issues, money raising, etc...? That is what matters to the US voters: will s/he manage my tax money adequately? In France it is: will s/he make me feel good to be French? The Prime Minister is the one who gets the blame for tax money mismanagement, by the way.

To each countries its peculiarities.

Bayrou, the loser who won

In this context we can see a new Bayrou emerge today. What? Bayrou? Isn't he the guy who came in third last Sunday?

He did but he holds the key for the second round and today he announced that he would not give an indication to his followers on how to vote. That is, 18.5% of French electors will do as they think fit, without any indication from their leader. And believe it or not this was a master strike by Bayrou. With this announcement he has taken control of the campaign while Sarkozy and Royal will do the impossible to have his folks come over their respective dark side of the force.

But that is not all: Bayrou also announced that he will be forming a new centrist party, that his current UDF had served its purpose and could not keep carrying with it the rightist connotation it received when it was Giscard D'Estaing vehicle. With this Bayrou implied that he is already starting his campaign for the legislative elections of June, making these elections a real third electoral round where he could well come out the New Prime Minister of whomever wins two Sundays from now.

Now, I am impressed. Not by the announcement: this was the way to go for him. No, I am impressed because he actually pushed the envelope to the max, he had the guts to confront the Socialist challenger and the official UMP as well. For the next month and a half Bayrou is on the driver seat of French Politics, unless he makes a mistake. But I saw his press conference today, and his TV apparitions and it was a different Bayrou: poised, in control, directed. A man with a plan. We are not done with him.

Segolene Royal reacts

The socialist front woman reacted quite fast and quite well and quite surprising. As Bayrou she showed that she had guts by confronting her fossiliferous left wing. She immediately challenged Bayrou to a public exchange of ideas BEFORE she meets Sarkozy for the official debate. She also said that she would consider UDF ministers in her next government.

In other words she decided that the Socialist party should open itself to the Center, where the votes are, where the victory will come from. And may the radical left or the fossil socialists deal with the new French political reality! Ms. Royal has decided to play down her cards of modernization and of turning the socialists into a truly social democratic party, not bound to outdated, retrograde and unworkable dogmas such as the 35 hours work week or the anathema on any politician that does not put social programs ahead of any other governmental considerations.

Ms. Royal for all of her failings knows how to read an electoral result. After all she learned from the best, François Mitterrand. She knows that the right has the votes. She also probably already knew what is the surprise these days: that maybe as much as 50% of Bayrou voters are in fact socialist deserters! These people who have abandoned the socialist party because they realize that a 35 hours week, and an incredible burden of social regulation is slowly asphyxiating France and that the socialist policies will eventually doom the welfare state. Yet they are not ready to go all the way to the free wheeling ways that Sarkozy is proposing with some economical aspects. She sensed that these people might not have deserted her, but rather have not followed her because they do not think she can control her left wing. What better way to demonstrate your will to control your left wing by going to your right in search of new allies, of a new presidential majority?

It is too early to know if her gambit will pay off. If she pisses of the radical left she might not be getting enough Bayrou votes anyway to compensate. But does the Radical Left has a choice? As I pointed out last post, Voynet of the greens was already claiming loud that only a victory was possible if Royal stuck on the leftist ideas. Because Voynet knows full well that a Royal-Bayrou alliance would make her green movement irrelevant (and deservedly so, by the way, for all the mistakes they have done along the way). But what if Royal's gambit pays off? All will change in France. For better or for worse, who knows!? But the way politics are done will change and the repercussions will provoke a likely division of the socialists and of the UMP and who knows what will emerge.

Sarkozy does not react

If there was another surprise today it was that Sarkozy dismissed Bayrou words. True, he does not need Bayrou as much as Royal needs him. With the Radical Right and half of Bayrou votes he might make it. But if Bayrou and Royal debate works out for them, Sarkozy might not even be sure of 25% of Bayrou votes. The surprise today was finer exit polls that actually show that more voters of Bayrou come from the left than form the right, and thus the center is build mostly on tired disillusioned leftist. That is not enough to transform them overnight in conservative voters.

Thus it is surprising that Sarkozy did not want to meet Bayrou over a debate, sticking to the tradition that the campaign should be between the two winners of the second round. And that is likely a mistake as Sarkozy breaks the main rule of second round campaigns: try to become the image of France! The mood is for a change in the ways things are done and this sudden "conservative" approach is not in l'air du temps.

But Sarkozy also knows how to read results. A Royal victory would probably mean a legislative hemorrhage toward the new UDF that Bayrou as promised to create. French right wing electors ever so pragmatic will realize that their interests might be better defended by Bayrou folks inside a coalition where they will exert a moderating effect, than outside the parliamentary majority with the UMP, which by the way has lost control of the regional government for the next three years. And a safe victory WITH Bayrou might not be much better for the UMP. No, Sarkozy knows that his gamble is to win by appealing directly to enough Bayrou voters. If he succeeds he will get a parliamentary majority in June. If he loses? The UMP might be out of office for the next ten years, even if it does not divide itself and meet further trouble. If he wins with Bayrou? He will be blackmailed by him as this one will all but immediately start his presidential campaign of 2012. That is, Sarkozy winning with direct help from Bayrou would also become a hostage of Bayrou.

Conclusion (for the time being...)

Sarkozy and Royal have in fact evaluated very well the Sunday result.

The socialist candidate knows that she is in trouble and that the best she can get is a presidency with a coalition government with Bayrou. She went for it.

The UMP candidate has realized that he has a chance of winning without Bayrou, or play it safe but accept that he will depend on Bayrou good will for the next 5 years. He decided to go for broke and win on his own.

Paradoxically both have made a choice that appeals to the French in their president. Royal decided to play the unification card. Sarkozy played the strong presidency above political parties card. It remains to see which one will win. So far polls are smiling to Sarkozy but today's event could quickly turn this into a tight race, relying all on May 2 debate.

Whatever, it will give us one of the most interesting second round campaign in memory.

-The end-

The French Election Results

It is nice to follow French elections. Newspapers in France have such a wealth of graphs and maps that they should be the envy of any country. Within a couple of day Liberation will have an interactive map that will allow you to look for complete results in small districts. Meanwhile tonight they already, ALREADY, have an interactive map with the regional results and the main cities of France (1). I copied it here so you can have an idea. And also see the favorable position that Nicolas Sarkozy holds at the end of the first round election. As one would say in the US political jargon the second round vote is for Sarkozy to lose (blue areas). It will be very difficult for Segolene Royal, in pink, to catch up with Sarkozy and this one could well win by an 8 point margin, a huge victory by French political standards. However, such a result is not automatic as I will discuss below.

The very good news of the election

There are two excellent news coming out from the election this week end.

The first one was the highest voter participation since the beginning of the 5th Republic in 1958 (republic numerals change in France for very good reasons, not because some caudillo says so!). The final abstention number is expected to be barely above 15%! The immediate conclusion is thus that when there are good candidates and real options offered, well, people get interested in the outcome of an election and contribute to that outcome. Take that US political system! Or take even more of that Venezuela: think about the legislative election of 2005...

The second news is that when you have such a massive participation the motivated extremes tend to show their true strength in the country. The French Extreme Right of Le Pen dropped to barely more than 10 %. But also the Communist party got its lowest score ever falling below 2% while the Radical left, mostly Trotsky ersatz sums at most 7 points. All in all, all of these extremes put together do not reach 20%! The 2002 debacle is reverted, we know that 80% of France espouses strong democratic values and even when they want real reforms they want them in peace and democracy, be these reforms coming from the right or the left.

France remains on the right side

No matter what the second round reserves for us in two weeks, from the graph below we can see that the right in France remains the majority, even after 5 years of a very lousy Chirac administration. In this graph I have added the totals of the different parties in somewhat ideological similarities.


I have tried to avoid words such as Extreme as I think it is unfair to describe Le Pen as an Extreme when some of the Trotsky candidates are barely more moderate than he is... but also because it allows me to group by political families the different groups and then perceive better what could be the outcome of the second round. Thus we have:

The Radical Right

This is Le Pen and de Villiers, a strong right wing anti European who in older days would have been the pro monarchy candidate. Together they are the most anti European groups of the lot, but together they do not even get the Le Pen score of 2002. They are expected to go at least half to Sarkozy in the second round even if this one does not court them. Their allergy to the left will be enough, though not an insignificant number of them might end up voting for Segolene hoping that she will fail and that they can grow for next election. These people are able to conceive such strategies.

The Center Right

Sarkozy's UMP alone has made a rather respectable score considering that it is an outgoing administration. In fact Sarkozy gets 10 points more than Chirac did in 2002 when he did not even reach 20%! A truly shameful result for a president seeking reelection. A number, by the way, that goes along way to explain his lackluster second term. At the very least this places the UMP in a very favorable position for the next legislative election even if Royal were to win in the second round.

The Center

The Center used to be a force to reckon with in France, during the 4th Republic and during the 5th where it got a very strong boost under Lecanuet and even reached office with Giscard D'Estaing though he was definitely on the right of the Center. But the Mitterrand years polarization laminated the center. It is still too early to see if Bayrou more than respectable 18%, a success that the Liberals of the UK would envy, will be transformed in a revived centrist option. The first requirement for that would be that the Socialists were to accept to share power with the UDF of Bayrou, and that is far from acquired.

But the main weakness of the Center is that it is formed by many right of center folks that do not like much Sarkozy but in the second round will likely go back to the right anyway. Also there were a significant number of socialists voting for Royal as a pragmatic vote since all polls showed that Bayrou would win against Sarkozy whereas Royal would lose. My prediction is that at the very least half of Bayrou voters will go to Sarkozy but 30% to Royal at most. That would be enough for Sarkozy to win. Segolene Royal needs to make an electoral pact to try to get an endorsement from Bayrou, which probably means that he would become her prime Minister if he wants. I do not see the socialists accepting such a pact, nor even Bayrou voters going for it. In such case Sarkozy would still get nearly 50% of Bayrou voters and Royal would climb up to 50% of that share, while she might lose from her radical left...

Other

This is really a small hunter's movement, a rural curiosity, and it probably would go towards Sarkozy or abstain. It is loosely considered a center right ecological option.

The Center Left

The French Socialist Party is more and more looking like a Social Democrat party and a Royal victory would likely accelerate such evolution. Also, after having been supported by many leaders of the old fashioned left in a less than lukewarm fashion, she will be very tempted to accelerate such a renovation. However, together with the Greens, we find that this is a rather meager score for the legislative majority that she will need, but we can call it Center Left as of now.

The surprise here is not really a surprise: the collapse of the Greens who barely get 1.5% after the 5.25% of 2002. What happened? first the Greens are victim of that need to vote pragmatic at the first round to make sure that Royal would reach the second round. The trauma of 2002 when Jospin was eliminated at the first round is still too fresh. But the Greens have made another big mistake which eventually explains their disaster tonight: they have associated themselves too easily with the Socialists since 1997. No serious Green party can expect to maintain its originality and its ecological message if it ties its fate to a mainstream party for too long and too tightly. The Greens enjoyed too much the Socialists offerings of some of the perks of power undue for a rather small group; and they lost a lot of their attraction. It is likely that the Greens will experience a crisis in their movement and that we could even see a more independent Green movement emerge.

But back to the Socialists. Their score is relatively good. Indeed, they regain their position in French politics but they are in fact weak. Their weakness comes from two angles. First the rather surprising strong Sarkozy score, passing the magical 30% is bad news per se. But also they do not have a "reserve". Mitterrand in 1980 counted on a Communist Party with more than 10% that could be counted on to automatically transfer its votes to his name on the second round. This is not the case as the Radical Left is now a divided mosaic of prima donne that need to be individually courted. In other words, the "historical vote reservoir" of the socialists has disappeared without fattening much these ones.

Segolene Royal faces thus a difficult second round campaign and her rather somber demeanor tonight, where she was far from exulting, showed that she knows she is far from becoming the First French Female President. And even if she manages it, she is far from assured to get a majority in the coming legislative elections. If Sarkozy can afford not to court too much the Bayrou voter, Royal has to find a way to gain over their good will. Her victory goes through the center this time, not the Radical Left.

The Radical Left

This one tonight, through Buffet of the Communist party was already saying that Ms. Royal had to reassert the values of the Left if she wanted to win. Ms. buffet is not misjudging the situation, in fact she understand it very well even if she is saying exactly the opposite of what she should be saying according to logic. She knows that in fact Royal does not even need to request for her vote and Buffet already gave her the Communist Party endorsement. No, what Ms. Buffet knows is that if Royal makes a pact with the Bayrou camp this can send the Communist Party of France into oblivion, and thus her blustery warning. She must prevent such a pact even if she is forced to support such a pact in the end.

The situation has considerably changed in the Radical Left. The Communists have ceased to be the dominant force there. Now it is Besancenot and his Revolutionary Communist League (LCR in French) turn to become the standard bearers of the radical left as he manages almost half of its votes. Now France is the only Western Country, as far as I know, whose main Radical Left political expression comes in part from Trotsky ideas, even above traditional commie jargon. However what is more remarkable is that Besancenot retains his 2002 percentile which means that in absolute numbers his score increased and that LCR could become someday a 8-10% movement once the other minor parties dwindle into oblivion. This would complicate considerably the Socialists games to retain or gain power.

The question is whether this Radical Left which has attacked the social blandness of Segolene Royal a lot will be able to convince its voters to vote for her. I think that at least a 80% of them will go and vote anyway. But I also suspect that there will be enough of these radicals that will prefer to see a right wing government in the hope that in 5 years from now they will be stronger, betting on a renewed polarization, on gaining more and more over the immigrant poor neighborhoods (which is far from a proven theory).

Conclusions?

The election, for me, is for Sarkozy to lose. There will be a only debate on May 2 and unless Sarkozy stumbles badly there, it is difficult for Royal to overcome what seems to be a 54-46 advantage for Sarkozy, something that has been constant in all polls for weeks and something that can be confirmed by tonight's results (if I include my predictions here and some other I did not write down, I get a 5% advantage for Sarkozy, already less than the 8% predicted by polls. Even a 5 % is still a more than decent margin in French politics).

But even if Sarkozy messes thing up (and he well could if he gets exasperated by an "anti Sarkozy front" promoted from some leftist sectors) the victory of Ms. Royal would be a hair thin victory of a completely atomized camp whereas Sarkozy hair thin defeat would be within a more unified camp. Thus the legislative elections would become a "third round" where any majority could pop out. A weak government would follow and France would have to postpone for a t least a couple more of years the long overdue reforms.

Thus if Royal does well in the debate I might find myself voting for her in two weeks while hoping that Sarkozy wins. But if she does not convince me I will find myself voting for Sarkozy hoping that her showing is good enough in the second round so that she will still be able to modernize the socialist party. In other words, if I vote for Sarkozy that might mean that he indeed will win by an 8 % margin.

Again, no simple answers. You gotta love politics :)

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1) Or you can go to the pages of Le Monde and look at the great interactive charts.


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