Laurence Grove: Why the right moved left

FRONT National supporters may have been voting against Sarkozy rather than for Hollande, but the result was the same. Now we shall see its wider effect on Europe, writes Laurence Grove

LONG before X-Factor was captivating millions with its cliffhanger unveiling of the lucky winner, the French Republic has had a game show that glues the entire country, and many beyond, to their screens. OK, it is only on every five years – previously every seven – and most would argue that the result is of somewhat greater import, but in many ways the procedures draw upon the same range of emotions. Due to the strictly-applied law banning all prediction polls during the hours of voting, coupled with a near-infallible analysis based on votes counted from those ballot stations that shut at 6pm rather than at 8pm, a nationwide countdown leads up to the TV unveiling of the image of the new president.

Guy de Maupassant wrote that it can take very little to lead your life in one direction or another, and when on Sunday night it was François Hollande that appeared on screens across the nation, for many this seemed to be one of those moments.

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But even in the land of Descartes things are not always clear-cut. Following the first round of the election, Le Monde published an overview of possible scenarios based on initial voting patterns, and suggested that Hollande was almost certain to win. If logic were followed… Perhaps more significantly, internet leaks and tweets, jeopardised the suspense by implying from late afternoon that Hollande would be on our screens at 8pm. However, all would depend on the near 20 per cent who voted for the extreme-right Front National (FN) in the first round. And for many their rhyme and reason remains, a mystery.

The role of the FN did not seem to dampen the euphoria that followed on Sunday night. According to TV estimates, up to 100,000 people flocked to the Bastille to celebrate. Indeed, during the day Paris had seemed remarkably crowded, given that Tuesday 8 May is a public holiday, and in normal circumstances the possibility of a long weekend would have meant mass exodus from the capital. Diminished takings on the Normandy coast attested that this was not a normal holiday weekend, that people had stayed at home to vote – the final turnout was over 80 per cent – and that they were now going to party.

The last time I had seen a street festival on this scale was when France won the World Cup in 1998. And just as the multi-ethnic team was then celebrated with cries of “beur, blanc, black”, so the flags waving at the Bastille were not solely those of France, but also of Europe, of African and European nations and of Gay Pride. A point was being made: that Nicolas Sarkozy’s drive to woo the floating FN voters with a strong immigration policy – and, for many, undertones of racism – had not worked.

For those climbing the column at the centre of the Place de la Bastille it must have seemed like a Manichean combat with Good finally triumphing over Not-So-Good, or maybe even Evil.

It had been an election of contrasts, both in policy and personality, which may have accounted for the high turnout. Indeed, presentation was central, and in opening the mid-week head-to-head TV debate the TF1 anchor made a point of saying that viewers would judge the candidates not just on their policies but also their personalité.

Sarkozy, known for his bling lifestyle and supermodel wife, was up against bespectacled and balding Hollande. Sarkozy attacked Hollande for being too “normal”, saying the job of president was not a “normal” job and Hollande was not up to it. Hollande seemed to take “normality” as a compliment. It was Superman versus Clark Kent.

And the policies were equally divergent. Sarkozy was proposing close links with Germany, tightened immigration with the possibility of revoking the Schengen Agreement, and a further squeeze on public spending. Hollande’s key words were “justice” and “rassemblement” – a coming together – with growth rather than austerity and input to the public sector, for example via 600 new jobs for teachers.

But the elephant in the room, or rather the polling station, was what to do with the millions who had voted for Marine le Pen’s Front National. Logically, it would seem, far-right voters would not switch to the Socialists. But she had publicly refused to offer allegiance to either candidate, saying she would vote “blanc” – the Gallic version of spoiling one’s ballot paper.

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A victory for Hollande would suit her: with Sarkozy retiring from political life should he lose – which he indeed confirmed – the FN would become, in her opinion at least, the real party of opposition. Estimations suggest that two million did indeed vote blanc, enough to change the result. To the contrast of the two candidates we add a seeming contradiction, namely that the Socialists could not have won were it not for FN.

Such a reasoning, however, overlooks, the motivation for those who voted FN: was it in support of Marine le Pen’s far-right anti-immigration policies, or rather as a protest in the strongest terms possible – the vote that would shock, did shock in 2002, and continues to shock those for whom in the UK a BNP vote is the domain of the numpty.

For the disillusioned voting against rather than voting for, a switch to Hollande rather than to the right-of-centre incumbent was a logical progression from round one to round two, with the message remaining, ‘I want change’, albeit a far cry from Baudelaire’s search for du nouveau.

One Monday morning newspaper carried the headline “François II” in reference to the previous, and only other, Socialist president, François Mitterrand – who in 1981 won his first election again Valérie Giscard d’Estaing by exactly the same margin as Sunday’s result. For the historically minded, François II might conjure up the Renaissance French king who married Mary Queen of Scots, although to see Alex Salmond in the latter’s role might take us into the realm of Horrible Histories.

But the election of a Socialist anti-austerity French president can but further distance David Cameron’s UK – or maybe Cameron’s England – from the rest of Europe, leaving us to ask where that might leave Scotland were the 2014 independence vote to return a Yes.

Speaking to the Bastille masses at 1am on Monday, Hollande said that Europe had been waiting for him, or at least the Europe that believed austerity to be a choice, not a necessity, had been waiting for him. Would Scotland be part of that new Europe, or would the frontier-closing influence of the far-right still prevail, and moreover prevail upon Scottish entry to the EU?

And what if the new-found French euphoria turns out to be wishful thinking that cannot deliver? Already estimations are indicating that the Socialists may well not win the legislative elections in June. And if the practicalities make the reversal of austerity unworkable, will those back home suggest that independence is also an emotional pipe dream fuelled by those who vote against a perceived negative – who say “aye” when they mean “non”?

But for the time being the mood is one of optimism in a new beginning. In Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, the characters are taken back to their preferred Golden Age, be it the 1920s, the Belle Époque, or the court of Versailles. On Sunday night, midnight in Paris was working its magic on thousands at the Bastille, transporting them back to the Socialist dawn of the 1980s.

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Equally joyful was the TF1 children’s version of the election on Sunday morning whereby Kung Fu Panda was unveiled as winner. He promised a programme of siestas and eating, nonetheless accompanied by a proud Vive la République. The question remains as to whether François Hollande’s anti-austerity measures will be any easier to implement.

• Laurence Grove is reader in French and director of the Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Text/Image Cultures at the University of Glasgow

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