For a year, France’s fourth prime minister, François Bayrou knew he was in trouble. In his inaugural speech in December, he acknowledged “all kinds of difficulties”: debt mountain, political conflict, and shockingly “split of society itself.”
So far, he has at least successfully brought the government together. Mr Bayrou is tasked with reducing the current deficit of over 6% of GDP, clearing a major obstacle last week. After many disputes, he secured the support of the country’s fragile parliamentary budget and survived the subsequent vote of unconfidence. The relief from government training camps is obvious.
But Mr. Beiru is not wrong about danger. In France, discomfort to all: In a recent poll, 87% of respondents agreed that the country is declining. The story is often told in the language of civilized threats and cultural wars, which is amplified by recent conflicts in French overseas territory. In the rising Fox News-style conservative media, the three-person insecurity, immigration and Islam burns an increasing number of calls to defend the surrounded French identity. Even Mr. Centre Pearl Lu talked about a feeling of “drowning”.
From inflation and low investment in energy prices to weakening of flagship industries, we are also trapped in the discomfort of economic problems. But there is a more fundamental reason for this: citizens’ belief in the country has declined. The responsible French social model for decades after the war was created by a combination of state-led investment, welfare protection and labor rights. Its slow tilt places France in a deep hole, from which there is no easy exit and gives the main chance to the far right.
This is a long-term process. Although the pandemic has aroused admiration among medical professionals, the survey shows that most French believe public services, especially hospitals, are underperforming. They say they believe most of the agencies are small and medium-sized enterprises, the army and the police. With the loss of services and underinvestment of infrastructure (need to mention the political dysfunction in Paris), it may be easy to understand why.
The blame is not only for President Emmanuel Macron. For decades, both left and right center governments have overseen the decline in management of French social models. Privatization and the pressure to serve are more cost-effective, leading to regulations in schools and hospitals, even as politicians blame laziness and ruthless people overwhelm the services that do exist. There are loud calls to give up the 35-hour work week, which is already a novel by many, especially in the private sector.
Some leaders demonstrated the process in the language of restarting the elite – one should “make more money” in the phrase “foreign President Nicolas Sarkozy.” But if most French people think hard work should be paid, wage growth and longer working life will make this desire untouchable. This frustrated elite hope promotes a variety of other discontent, from anti-immigration sentiment to protesting the rise in fuel taxes.
This is where the Marine Corps’ far-right national rally comes from. The party has often been shaped into a protest vote against “backward” industrial workers, but its appeal is wider. Although the party still lags behind the lowest salary, its electoral support has penetrated into the middle class in recent years. Given that Ms. Le Pen inherited the leadership of her millionaire father, the party did not seem to be the ideal champion of elite management. However, this commitment to restore the value of personal efforts is today’s investment.
Ms. Le Pen is often served as a defender of the ancient French social model, and her party opposed Mr. Macron’s increase in retirement age is a fact. However, she is usually in a more ambiguous position in welfare provision, as her preference for the pension system is more dependent on the contribution of individual employees. To be sure, her party has caused dissatisfaction among many late-stage workers who have been forced to work longer, but younger voters are skeptical about the system that pays may never reward them. Through the same balance logic, the party tends to oppose budget cuts, while also opposing higher taxes for consumers and households.
The party’s signature move is to abandon ethnic minorities, immigrants and unworthy poor people as a special consumption of resources. Ms. Le Pen’s supporters were excited by fears of this population, but interestingly, even whites, they didn’t agree with broad welfare support. Instead, they increasingly agree with the value of self-reliance and home ownership. This is the nostalgia of honey eyes in the post-war “Golden Age”, rather than the expression of personal autonomy in the 21st century. It takes a tough command, albeit always for others.
For most of France, Ms. Le Pen’s rise is itself a cause of pessimism. Her poll rating for the next presidential election is about 2027, about 35%. Given the dispersed party system in France, she is expected to earn the highest percentage of the first round for any candidate in the past half century. In last summer’s parliamentary elections, the Republican front of so-called left-wing and centrist voters blocked her party’s expected victory. However, warnings about the dangers of the far-right are ensuring that returns are reduced.
Maybe France is not a disaster. Despite recent anxiety, it remains far from the Greek-style sovereign crisis. If borrowing rises sharply, the country has violated EU deficit restrictions for most of the past 25 years without risking the economic collapse. Productivity and workers’ income are much better than neighboring Italy. Social mobility is not particularly strong, but wage inequality tends to decline in recent decades. Even Ms. Le Pen’s victory was barely guaranteed. Trials with embezzlement may soon be banned from running for office.
However, France’s discomfort is not only a product of overheating complaints about cultural or political missteps, such as Mr Macron’s rash appeal to the snapshot election last summer. National rally is exploiting deeper dissatisfaction with the public sphere, as the residual elements of compact jars in post-war society have been increasing sentiment in privatization. In some areas, trade unions and social movements have firmly defended welfare and labor rights. However, it is not clear that left-wing parties today commanded by one-third of voters can rebuild a broader consensus around a broader model of collectivism.
This is not the only project in question. Mr. Macron began his presidency, promising to rally behind the modern liberal agenda. His support, however, was a surprise, as it cuts the consequences of social protection without ensuring a wider public purchase and providing tax relief to the rich without ease of debt burden. His presidency revolves around what is known as the “bourgeois group”, attracting a wealthy constituent population but not providing much service to the majority. The exhaustion of this strategy and the political division it causes may prompt the election immediately in the summer.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the long-time patriarch on the far right of France, passed away last month. However, although the bodies are located on the ground to explain Victor Hugo, these ideas are standing at their feet. France is in the process of starting – time has run out of use of Mr. Le Pen’s heirs.
