International political observers following the run-up to France’s presidential elections next year are on high alert. They are desperately trying to make predictions based on the outcomes of this summer’s British vote to leave the European Union and America’s choice of Donald Trump as president.
First of all, remember that most prognosticators, a miserable lot, predicted the British and American elections wrong. Second, trying to string the three elections together is probably a mistake. France is different, even idiosyncratic.
What the three electorates have in common is that they don’t like the way the way their countries are being governed — they want a change. Britons voted to get rid of the EU and Prime Minister David Cameron, although not Conservative Party government yet. In the United States, voters favored a new-to-politics businessman and rejected a return to the White House of a member of the family of a 20th-century president.
In France, the desire for change is overwhelming. A recent Ipsos Mori survey showed that 89 percent of adults believe the country is on the wrong track, which ties France with Mexico as the most pessimistic nations. The data match the unpopularity of President Francois Hollande, whose approval rating has descended to 4 percent in one poll.
The first round of the Republican party primary on Nov. 20 eliminated former president Nicolas Sarkozy. Last Sunday’s runoff pitted two former prime ministers, Alain Juppe and Francois Fillon, against each other. Fillon, a social conservative who sounds like an economic radical, won by a strong margin. An admirer of Margaret Thatcher, he promises to get rid of a half-million civil servants.
Fillon is likely to end up standing against Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front in the April general election, given that the Socialists can’t run Hollande and are likely to offer instead Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who’s damaged by his association with Hollande.
Even though Fillon usually bears a facial expression like a mortician’s, he will probably win in the end. It is important to note that French primaries form a shaky basis for prediction since the French can vote in them across party lines, leading to what is politely called “tactical voting.”
In other words, they might vote in the primaries of the party they oppose to try to make it choose the candidate they would most like to see their own candidate run against. Le Pen is also hampered by her party’s far-right stance, which the French have traditionally rejected at a national level, and her gender.
Still, April is a long way off. The French will also be watching Trump’s performance before deciding how much change they actually want.
