Not as good an article as most in openDemocracy - the odd a-historic comparison of the ‘right-wing’ positions of Napoleon and DeGaulle is really, well, galling!
Moreover, it misses the real context. Zemmour is indeed ‘a creature of the establishment’ - in just the same way as Johnson, Trump, etc are. Electorates all over the developed world have moved to the extremes, and many formerly centre-ish parties have moved with them. These include successful left alliances either in coalition (as in Iberia where the Communist Party and Podemos are in the governments) or within one party (US Democrats), as well as right alliances (US Republicans, UK Tories - having successfully incorporated UKIP). The point is that both sides of the political ‘spectrum’ have become more extreme. It’s simply a response to the collapse of the formerly dominant ‘consensus’ around neoliberalism (in turn due to the perceived failure of capitalism to return to prosperity after the 2008 crash, and to respond to climate/ecological breakdown).
I know little of Zemmour, but I do know that the LePens (both father and daughter) achieved at their height between a quarter and a third of votes cast (again not untypical of the extreme right across many countries - eg. again UKIP) - LePen was at nearly 30% on the eve of the last (regional) elections - her share in opinion polls has gone down like a mirror image of Zemmour’s going up - add them together and - you guessed it - 30% again. Plus ça change.
French native here, cannot be more accurate than this !
It’s always funny and constructive to read what foreigners and brits think about our politics.
French are really conservative, but our jealous culture relative to money makes the majority of people socialists, only when their neighbours are richer.
If you find contradiction funny, this country is a big Disneyland.
As for me, I stopped voting lots of years ago, as all french politicians all belong to the same unofficial networks.
This is a version of the the UK Tory myth of ‘the politics of envy’ and other such empty sloganising. Better to look instead for more substantive insight (for example the research evidence that more equal societies are both happier and more sustainable - society’s richest 10% are responsible for 50% of all environmental damage).
Moreover, it’s really just playing with the ambiguity of the word ‘conservative’, isn’t it?
Political conservatives have not exactly played a leading role in conserving the natural environment - by and large they have to be dragged kicking and screaming away from despoiling it, and many are even now the backbone of climate change denial.
On the other hand, much of what many French people want to conserve in their way of life is the broadly ‘socialist’ nature of its state and community infrastructure: state-funded education, health, etc, state-run utilities, state-employed lawyers, state-owned churches, strict employment protections, decent pensions, tenancy protection and rent controls, etc, etc - and indeed its tradition of street protest.
‘Conservative’ has a whole different meaning in rabid small-state, free-market-free-for-all countries like the UK and USA, from the meaning it has in a country like France, in which two-thirds of the economy is already in state or community ownership.
Soon after moving to France 10 years ago I found myself (at an Xmas party in fact!) on the edge of a dispute between French and English people (to the French a discussion, to the English a row!) around the highly regulated nature of the French economy compared to the British, during which one of the Brits said ‘it’s communism really. isn’t it?’- I kid you not. That summed up for me the culture shock some anglo-saxons seem to feel moving to France (if they really get involved in the nitty-gritty of earning a living, having a family, etc, here - some of course don’t see much outside ‘ex-pat’ bubbles).
Exactly. We’ve always said (in a positive way) that France is the last truly communist country. Things work here from the bottom up, starting at the level of our excellent local commune.
The thing is, I admire how France gets the balance right. There are higher taxes associated with employment in France, and a key thing is the employer bears a high rate of tax to employ someone. But taking it overall it seems to me the French earning a living with income at mid- and upper levels do pay more tax, but not that much more than in the UK and French people receive far better value from that relatively small increase in tax.
I wonder as well how much of it is to do with what some French observers refer to as the French reluctance to take risks/make mistakes. If you communitise (it’s a word now, if it wasn’t before ) everything, then you spread the risk.
Oh I do agree - France is among the few countries in the world (most of them in north-western Europe, excluding England) achieving a half-way decent balance.
I’ve probably mentioned before somewhere that when we moved our home and businesses to France our tax went up, but we were still actually better off - mainly because our family allowance (with 4 children) more than trebled! This is the point always missed by UK media reporting of taxation in France: you pay more, but get even more back!
The ‘balance’ is one of my passions. I am - or rather was - a serial entrepreneur, and I am a strong believer in free enterprise, but at the same time a socialist. A society that facilitates the creativity and dynamism of enterprise within a broadly socialist framework would I think be ‘the best of both worlds’. France and some other countries - notably obviously in Scandinavia - approach this - but you’re right of course @tim17 - it still has a way to go.
Just come across this shocking analysis of US ‘conservative’ politicians…
There are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change… These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries… These climate deniers comprise 52 percent of House Republicans; 60 percent of Senate Republicans; and more than one-quarter of the total number of elected officials in Congress… Of note, no currently serving Democratic or independent elected officials have engaged in explicit climate denial.
Yes indeed - the Democrats are almost as notoriously beholden to big business interests as the Republicans - one reason why the whole political spectrum in the US is shifted to the right compared with France - where at national level at least there is little explicit climate change denial…
But try as we might, there is no fighting it. They are blatantly corrupt and getting worse all the time. People vote and protest, write their officials, and nothing changes. The republicans just change local laws to make it harder for people to vote and illegal for people to protest. They are blatantly criminal and the Democrats won’t take any action to stop them.
Tired of beating my head against that brick wall…time to leave
My reasons for moving to France (from the UK) were mainly personal/family - but despair over the political direction of the UK was definitely also a factor!
In the UK, Labour has become ineffectual - largely I think because it is increasingly focused on its own internal divisions, and has undermined its own activist base - but It’s very hard to understand why the Democrats are soft-pedaling in the face of a serious and present anti-democratic threat, isn’t it?
I think the problem is with putting people into simplistic categories like “left wing / right wing”.
Recent times have shown more than anything that many of those who’ve long associated with the (hard) left now find themselves identifying with the (hard) right…this applies in both the UK and France.
It seems to me that the key to understanding the French is to grasp that they are very big on the idea of ‘protection’ and the state as a ‘protecting’ entity…hence their attachment to the social security and genererous benefits systems. At the same time, they are no bigger fans of heavy taxation than the rest of us.
It’s interesting in this light to consider the Gilets Jaunes movement, which was essentially a popular uprising triggered by a tax hike. Much of the energy for this came from a growing resentment of the state for not having already jumped to the rescue as more and more working people were struggling to make ends meet.
« plan complet de sécurité sociale » c’est-à-dire une Sécurité sociale pour tous prévoyant remboursements des frais médicaux et indemnités de chômage ;
retraites étendues à toutes les catégories de salariés (les commerçants en resteront exclus) ;
« retour à la nation » des grandes entreprises exploitées par l’occupant, en particulier Renault, la SNCF, Air France, de grandes banques, sans pour autant rompre avec le capitalisme (compromis majeur avec le programme du PCF qui cédait ainsi, au moins provisoirement, sur un principe) ;
subvention d’un programme culturel ;
indépendance de la presse vis-à-vis des capitaux des grandes industries ;
Parmi les mesures appliquées à la Libération, citons la nationalisation de l’énergie (création d’Électricité de France en 1946), des assurances (AGF en 1945) et des banques (Crédit lyonnais en 1945, Société générale en 1946), la création du régime général de la Sécurité sociale10. Ces actions ont constitué jusqu’à aujourd’hui une grande partie des acquis sociaux de la seconde partie du XXe siècle.
I would add though that there is a much more international historical context to these ideas. In the immediate aftermath of both the 20thcentury world wars there was a realisation that capitalism had always led to to unconscionable exploitation, crisis, social division, depression, fascism, war, etc. This was particularly clear in the 1940s, and was behind the creation of the highly regulated and highly redistributive capitalism/socialism hybrid - including the ‘Bretton Woods’ international financial regulatory framework - that was responsible for the only period in history that capitalism actually worked (roughly 1945-75 - at least in some countries) - characterised by the development of welfare states, Roosevelt’s fierce anti-monopoly infrastructure, 80-90% marginal tax rates, etc.
It’s this model that was gradually undermined, especially in the anglophone world, by the adoption by Reagan, Thatcher, etc of the ‘neo-liberal’ (actually neo-fascist) ideas of the likes of Hayek, the dismantling of national and international regulatory and redistributive frameworks, and gradually the inevitable return of the same severe social divisions, and fascism in more sets of new clothes, that the world had rejected in the 1940s (not to mention the globalised acceleration of unsustainable environmental impacts).
The return of the 20thcentury nightmare is everywhere - but much less so I think in those countries like France that actually bore the brunt of it before. In the UK and USA, for example, I think the right has entirely lost its ‘one nation’ thread, and it’s open class warfare (racialised class warfare in the US) - but I still see greater attachment to the idea of social solidarity in France.
We’ve always said (in a positive way) that France is the last truly communist country. Things work here from the bottom up, starting at the level of our excellent local commune.
) everything, then you spread the risk.