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NEWS & LETTERS, June -July 2007Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mitch WeerthRight wins in FranceThe election of Nicholas Sarkozy to the presidency in France represents an important shift to the Right. Sarkozy’s solid victory in the May runoff election over Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal was grounded above all in his ability to win over voters who had earlier backed the neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen. After his election, Sarkozy moved with lightning speed to appoint a young cabinet with significant women’s participation, a first for France. He also recruited a popular public figure, the Socialist Bernard Kouchner, as Foreign Minister. Kouchner’s humanitarianism led him to support the 1999 Kosova war, but this humanitarianism was so abstract that he also became one of France’s few supporters of Bush’s imperialist invasion of Iraq. Sarkozy won the presidency by courting the anti-immigrant, "law and order" vote, especially the Le Pen supporters. He never took back his racist language during the 2005 ghetto uprisings about cleaning up the "scum" with an "industrial-strength cleaning." Up to now, the traditional Right has not been able to cut into Le Pen’s vote, which has run at 15 to 20% in national elections. It was only because of this split on the Right that the Socialists and the Left, which have been able to muster at most 40% of the vote, have been able to come to power at times in recent years. That period seems to be over. Moreover, during the first round of voting, in April, the Marxist Left did especially poorly, with the Communist Party at a humiliating 2%, its lowest score ever. The one bright spot here was that the anti-Stalinist Marxist Olivier Besancenot did better, with 4%. Overall, though, the April vote was a sobering one for the part of the Left that has opposed neo-liberalism. These groups overestimated their impact on the "No" vote in the 2005 referendum on a European Union constitution, failing to recognize how many of the negative votes actually came from the nationalist Right. France now faces a younger, more energetic Right under Sarkozy, which will try to move toward a neo-liberal economy, getting rid of hard-won social advances like the 35-hour week. The youth have already indicated their determination to fight him every step of the way. Pro-immigrant students occupied a few universities the day after the election, while minority youth confronted police in the ghettoes. Organized labor has also warned it will fight Sarkozy’s economic policies. |
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