Current political issues (this page is under construction)
 
In France    In European countries
WARNING! In this page (still under construction) I try to list some of the key issues, in French political life. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm prejudiced : it is only my opinion!
  • First issue : can the French understand that they are not alone in the world ?
    • Typically, in French political life, Europe is only an exterior entity, trying to impose rules that we are free to accept or not
    • More to come
  • Second issue : can a Left Wing government rule the country without making major mistakes ?
    • The French Socialist Party refuses to give up its old marxist tradition (as the German SPD did in 1959 at Bad-Godesberg) : even when reasonable Socialists know perfectly well that some decisions are based on old (an absurd) marxist principles, they do not dare being unfaithful to them (examples : huge nationalizations in 1981, 35-hour work week in 1998, refusing to support the reform of the pension system today, etc...)
    • More to come
 
  • Third issue : the French mood is bad
    • why do people feel so unhappy when,objectively and comapartively, their situation is not that bad
    • more to come .....
  • See more French political strange specificities

DID YOU KNOW THAT....? People who support the Left Wing and radical ideas although they are very well-off, and sometimes billionaires, are called the "Gauche Caviar" (caviar left).Typical members of it are Pierre Bergé (who owns Saint-Laurent), Bernard-Henry Lévy, Philippe Sollers, and many others.

French polical forces

  • In France, political forces are not extremely different from what they are in other European countries but there are three important national specificities, all grounded in history. The first on is the importance of Marxist philosophy on the whole French political Left, the second is the quasi-absence of any political expression of religion (see : laicité) and the third is the large agreement on the necessary role of the State, both on the Left and on the Right (see : Bonapartisme).
  • Political forces are rather stable over a long period of time, although they take different names. The French vote is divided into :
    - extremist parties, very small, on both sides, with less than 5% each : today Lutte Ouvrière (Olivier Besancenot), Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, etc... (see : Trotskism)
    - a significant openly Marxist Left (10 to 15%), today Parti Communiste, La Gauche (Jean Luc Melanchon)
    - an important Socialist Party (20 to 25%) which does not dare to do what other European Socialist Parties did when they openly abandonned any Marxist reference and called themselves Social-Democrats, today Parti Socialiste (François Hollande, Martine Aubry, SegoleneRoyal, Dominique Strauss-Kahn,...)
    - one or several Ecologist parties (5 to 15%), today Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (Daniel Cohn-Bendit)
    - one or several Center parties (5 to 15%), today Modem (François Bayrou)
    - an important Center Right party (15 to 25%), today UMP (President Nicolas Sarkozy)
    - a (growing) extreme Right party (10 to 20%), today Front National (Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the founder) whose voters today come equally from the Communist Party (Front National has become the party of the working class) and from the most conservative part of UMP
  • Globally, the Left and the Right are close : the Left+Extreme Left and the Right and Extreme Right represents each around 50% of the vote and the results of national votes are always almost 50/50 (according to the French Constitution, only two candidates may run on the second round of Presidential elections)
  • More to come.....
   WARNING! This page (still under construction) is not a study of the political situation of other countries. Its aims is only to underscore a few facts, well-known in Europe but maybe not everywhere else.
  • In Belgium,
    • the major issue is to remain a country when it is so deeply split between two communities : in the North 6 million Flemish-speakers ("flamands"), in the South 4 million French-speakers ("wallons"), in between them, Brussels, de facto capital of Europe, with a population of 2 million, mostly French speakers.
    • When Belgium was created in 1830 (i.e. recently!), the "wallons" were rich, industrialized and had the political power on the "flamand"s, poor and rural. Now it is the opposite and the rich, developed, enterprising "flamands" are sick and tired of (as they say) paying for the welfare state of the less dynamic "wallons". They want to go from a federation (as of today) to a confederation of two states and, for some of them, toward an independant "Flandre".
  • In Spain
    • in spite of all the efforts made by the Spanish state to transfer its powers to regions at least two regions have a very strong independentist movement : Catalunia (speaking Catalan instead of Spanish is mandatory) and the Basque country (were the terrorist group ETA is still active)
    • Spain was a model for Europe : after 35 years of dictatorship, the "movida" of the 1970s made it one of the fastest-growing countries ; the 2009 crisis is hitting both the economy and the morale of Spaniards
  • In Italy,
    • one of the main issues is to improve the quality and the efficiency of the State
    • another one is the North-South split, common to all European countries but certainly deeper in Italy and the LegaNord is a major party in Italy
  • in the UK :
    • the only thing to know is that UK does not believe in the future of Europe : its only policy is to take advantage of it and be ready for any other policy (as long as it is consistent with the US policy....)
    • regarding Europe, British policy has always been to prevent another country to dominate continental Europe (Spain with Philippe II, France with Napoleon or Germany with Guillaume II or Hitler) : the only reason UK joined the European Union was to avoid it to become anything politically strong : this is why De Gaulle opposed its admission in the 1960s and this it why UK supported the enlargement of Europe rather than its strengthening in the 1990s (read my colum about UK stepping aside in 2011)
  • More to come...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Harriet Welty Rochefort writes articles and books about France and the French. Order her books :

  • "French Toast, An American in Paris Celebrates The Maddening Mysteries of the French", St.Martin's Press, New York, 1999
  • "French Fried, The Culinary Capers of An American in Paris", St.Martin's Press, New York, 2001
  • "French Toast - Heureuse comme une Américaine en France", Ramsay, Paris 2005

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