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In France, the political commentary sounds familiar.
- After losing in the 2012 national elections, the rightwing moves farther right, taking extremist positions into the mainstream.
- The nation’s top justice official is taunted by racists who insist that it’s them, the white people, who are the victims of racism in their own land.
- The right condemns the President as a Socialist. The left says he’s a corporatist collaborator. His popularity rating sinks.
- The economy lacks vigor. People are out of work. There is endless bickering about the budget and taxes.
Where on Earth would anyone find the political situation described above? The United States? How about France? Yes, as odd as it seems, this is France.
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The month of October was full of turmoil. Time will tell whether the increasingly provocative far right finally found its limits and hit a wall, or if it will metastasize to consume the entire nation.
It seemed October would end with a break from the usual corrosive and dispiriting news. Four men held hostage by al-Qaeda in Niger for three years were coming home. President Hollande went to meet the freed hostages as their plane landed in France. In the brief moments that they appeared on the tarmac, one could only wonder what these four ragged men had been through. Not long ago, politics was put aside for a moment like this. The French have seen how Benghazi was used by the rightwing in America for its own political advantage and it’s a cause for concern.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right political party, Front National, was asked to comment on the release of the hostages. She has a reputation for bigoted remarks directed against the presence of Islam in France.
The hostages made her uneasy and others felt the same way, she said. She was startled by their demeanor, their appearance, with beards, and one with a scarf across his face, which isn’t the norm in France. They really need to explain themselves, said Le Pen. The interviewer asked her to explain what she was getting at. Are you saying that the hostages were Islamized during their detention?
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Marine Le Pen is a skilled politician who was born into it. Her father, Jean Marie Le Pen, led the Front National for decades when it was too far from the mainstream to succeed as a major party. Marine took over the party leadership a few years ago and began a program of
de-demonization, as she calls it. By disguising the Front National’s fascist roots, Le Pen found mainstream acceptance. In October, for the first time ever,
it placed first in a public opinion poll. (To keep this in perspective, in France’s multi-party system it only took 24% to come in first.) At the same time,
a local election in the south of France seemed to confirm the national poll. Marine Le Pen will almost certainly run for President in 2017.
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In the map of France above the départements are shaded dark blue to show where support for Le Pen and the Front National was strongest in the 2012 election. These areas include the old industrial north and northeast and the Mediterranean coast.
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Le Pen’s comment about the hostages was a stumble. If she suspected they had been Islamized during their three years in the desert she didn’t say so. What she said was worse. She was just describing the feeling of unease they gave her when she saw them. Somehow, she didn’t recognize these four individuals as her own French countrymen. She didn’t feel any sympathy for them, or pity for their suffering, or gratitude for their safety, or joy for their release. There was an uproar from the public who lashed out with harsh criticism. Despite Le Pen’s efforts to sanitize the FN, to disguise what it is, she evidently couldn’t disguise herself. Like father, like daughter, this is a heartless Nazi consumed by hatred.
The hostage comment wasn’t the worst of Le Pen’s problems.
Asking for de-demonization of the FN is one thing. Le Pen pushes it, threatening court action, to stop the media from using the label “extreme right” to describe the party. And without noticing any dissonance or contradiction in her words, Le Pen habitually stirs up fear, anger, and resentment against immigrants. She encourages her followers to believe that they, the “vrai francais” (true French), “les français de souche “ (literally, of French stock), they are the real victims of racism, an anti-white racism.
France has a diverse population, its legacy from the days of colonization overseas. The large Muslim population from France’s former colonies in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco and the large black population from France’s former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa have an opinion about racism in France, too, based on their experiences applying for jobs and renting apartments. No one is being denied because their Name is Jean DuPont, or because they have blond hair, or white skin.
Without any inhibition about appearances, Le Pen initiated a dispute with the Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, who is the first black woman to hold a cabinet position in the French government. Two weeks after Taubira’s appointment, Le Pen began agitating for a law against anti-white racism. Her rhetoric was harsh. Speaking about the impoverished immigrant communities found at the farthest edges of France’s big cities, where French society fractures, Le Pen has only one concern:
The situation came to a head in October when a television news show reported on racist material posted by an FN provincial candidate on her Facebook page. Pictures of a baby monkey and Justice Minister Taubira were placed side by side. A caption suggested that it was Taubira in both pictures, as an 18 month old baby, and as an adult. The FN candidate, Anne-Sophie LeClere, said she saw nothing racist in what she posted. And she also added that Taubira belonged
“in a tree swinging from the branches rather than in government."She was removed from the FN slate but that wasn’t the end of it.
As Justice Minister in a country which has outlawed racism, Taubira’s position is awkward. She can’t use her office to settle personal scores. As Justice Minister she can publicly condemn the FN, comprehensively, for its destructive anti-social positions against Muslims, blacks, Jews, and gays. And she did so on solid ground. Le Pen and the FN responded by threatening a lawsuit against Taubira for speaking out against bigotry. As of today, the matter continues to escalate.
Millions of French still cherish the ideal of France as the world's leading progressive nation. Its voters elected a Socialist government 18 months ago. Its lawmakers passed a ground breaking marriage equality law with parental rights earlier this year. It was Christiane Taubira who sponsored and introduced Marriage For All and she demolished fierce opposition to get it passed. There’s racism in this stew pot and more.
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Late in October, thousands of angry protesters, wearing red caps, battled police in the province of Brittany on France’s west coast. The protesters, known as “Les Bonnets Rouges,” for the red hats they wore, demanded the immediate repeal of the Ecotax that was going into effect. One demonstrator lost his hand when the grenade he was about to throw exploded prematurely. The government agreed to suspend the tax after 15,000 Bonnets Rouges showed up at a protest demonstration in the Breton town of Quimper on November 2.
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To understand the failure of Hollande’s government and its record low 26% approval rating, Les Bonnets Rouges and the Ecotax illustrate. The tax was passed by the center right UMP in 2009 during Sarkozy ‘s administration. Now that it’s time for the Ecotax to take effect, a rightwing alliance of the UMP, the FN, and MEDEF, a private sector business organization (Movement of the Enterprises of France) organized protests against it and blamed its passage on the Socialists. A sea of red caps swarming the streets of Quimper was an eye-catching prop that French TV couldn’t resist. Red is the color of the Left in France. Les Bonnets Rouges appeared from nowhere like an instant protest movement. Why they were suddenly rampaging in the streets with their colorful caps was a mystery to most French people who never heard of the obscure Ecotax. The news media glibly described the protestors as part of the leftist labor movement who were fed up with unemployment.
Who bought all the red caps? Why was MEDEF speaking for labor when it is labor’s foe? Why would labor protest against a tax levied on business? Why would it protest unemployment in a region where unemployment is much lower than the national average? Why were politicians on the right so delighted by the protests?
To passive and disinterested TV viewers, the story they saw of protesting workers turning against the Socialists was convincing enough. The Socialists in power surrendered to the business owners who opposed the tax. The revenue loss will add to the deficit so that the business owners and the right can look forward to a paddling for Hollande by the European Commission soon.
On the left, there is still a hero remaining, the outspoken and blunt, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the Parti de Gauche, and the Front de Gauche coalition that holds 15 seats in the Assemblee National. In the last election he came in fourth with 11% of the vote.
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In the map of France above the départements are shaded dark red to show where support for Mélenchon and the Parti de Gauche was strongest in the 2012 election. Those areas include the Pyrénées region along the border with Spain, the area around the industrial city of Lille in the north, and the eastern part of the Paris region.
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The alleged link between Les Bonnets Rouges and labor or the left is a lie that can’t get past Mélenchon. His persistent questioning about the identity of the protesters and the organizations behind them is leading others to investigate. 15,000 leftists protesting in the street doesn’t happen without Melenchon’s involvement. France has relatively strong labor unions and it would be very unusual for workers to protest in the streets against a tax that would affect their bosses, not them. As Mélenchon said, any working class people who might be among the Bonnets Rouges would have to be “simpletons” and “slaves protesting for the rights of their masters.”
In the confusing farce of French politics, Mélenchon's moment may be coming. The Socialists are collapsing and those who are true have nowhere else to go but to the left. Mélenchon is the only remaining leader in the small ring of credible presidential candidates who speaks the truth. For those who can read French, his blog is always full of interesting information about politics, seen from inside. He sees the European Union as a Trojan horse pushed by neo-liberal corporatists and the privileged elite who confiscate the wealth of the middle class while insisting that they must be untaxed. Income inequality is getting worse and measures like the VAT (Value Added Tax) are regressive. The Socialists are an inexplicable failure. They side with employers over labor again and again, then talk about having made difficult choices. It hasn't earned them any respect from the right. And the continuation of Sarkozy's neo-liberal fiscal policies hasn't improved the economy. Unemployment continues to tick upwards.
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This is a diagram of the seating plan in the French Assemblée Nationale. The 15 seats of the Front de Gauche are in dark red on the left side (of course) of the chart.
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