French politics for dummies, item 56. Why is former right wing president Chirac cheering for the Socialist candidate?
It is not the anticipated celebration of another ugly victory of the French team at the Rugby World Cup that captured the media attention last week. It is the celebration of the victory of Francois Hollande in the Primaries for the Socialist candidate to the 2012 presidential election. Those Primaries are a ‘political innovation’ inspired by the process running in the US to inject a bit of participative democracy in the Socialist Party otherwise dominated by its staffers and entrenched politicians – not an issue exclusive to the French socialists by the way.
The improbable complicity of the Socialist and the Conservative.
And guess who is celebrating in a cartoon from satirical paper Le Canard Enchaîné? Jacques Chirac himself (on the wheelchair), former conservative President from the same party as the current President Nicolas Sarkozy who will soon claim a second mandate. We know political life is made of twists and turns, but why is a notorious figure of the Right cheering for the candidate of the Left?
The explanations lies in history. Chirac once considered Sarkozy as his political son (Chirac has no son). Yet Sarkozy betrayed him to support his other conservative rival (Édouard Balladur) in the 1995 presidential race, who ended up losing to Chirac.
Although Chirac got re-elected, his resentment towards Sarkozy never went away. There was a time when you could have wondered if Chirac’s infuriating order to conduct an ultimate series of Nuclear Tests in the Pacific after he took Office wasn’t part of a covert plan to drop Sarkozy on one of those islands…
Fast forward 20 years, Chirac is now an older man battling a few health issues but his ire doesn’t seem to have faded. So against his political allegiance (right wing) he is supporting Sarkozy’s Socialist rival. Should he be from the other side of the political field is meaningless to him. Chirac did publicly declare that he will vote for the opponent to his camp: Francois Hollande (pushing the wheelchair on the picture). After years of Sarkozy’s volatile style and love for the riches and powerful, Francois Hollande has been nicknamed “Monsieur Normal”. So “normal” that one of his notable weaknesses is to have never been a Minister in 30 years of political life. He main leadership role so far has been head of the Socialist Party for more than 10 years.
Monsieur Normal drives a Vespa around Paris – no chauffeur.
There is a famous precedent. In 1981, Chirac secretly encouraged his supporters to vote for Socialist candidate Francois Mitterrand against his rival on the Right, incumbent President Valerie Giscard-d’Estaing who was seeking a second mandate. Giscard did not re-elected. If history repeats itself, Sarkozy is in deep s***.
As for the rugby fans, they still have to wait a few more hours to find out if the irrational approach to this year’s campaign – no coach, no plan, no flair but victories – will pay off.
Normalisation might be the new black in 2012 – Nicolas and Carla might have normal time to spend with their new young family – as normal people do if they chose to start one…
{ NKN, Paris - leLaissezFaire, Sydney – 23 October 2011, 3:50 pm – before the Rugby game }
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