Can the Center Hold?

Bernard Girard considers Gérard Grunberg's thesis that France's future relations with Europe depends on compromise between the center-right and center-left, since both the left and the right are now irrevocably fractured over the question of further European integration. I have been saying this for some time, and Hollande's reversal on the TSCG, which he now makes the sine qua non of sound economic policy after having opposed it during his campaign, seems to me proof that such an "historic compromise" has already been effected in fact if not in theory. The problem is that I am not at all sure that it is a compromise that enjoys majority support, and what support it does enjoy is likely to diminish over the months ahead, as the consequences of austerity become increasingly apparent. This is an alarming state of affairs.

The Left of the Left Demonstrates

The Front de Gauche and allied groups will demonstrate today against the austerity policy that the government of François Hollande has embraced. Their anger is comprehensible. Hollande artfully campaigned on the notion that there was an alternative to austerity. He promised to renegotiate the Merkozy agreement, now respectfully rebaptized the TSCG and erected as a sine qua non of sound government. The gauchistes are also perfectly correct in their analysis of the consequences of austerity: there will be plant closings, business failures, layoffs, and suffering. To all of this Hollande now argues--or, rather, implies--that There Is No Alternative. This is the famous Thatcherite justification for retrenchment. So the only question is whether Hollande's implicit analysis is correct.

So what is the alternative? If France were to try deficit spending, would investors park their money elsewhere and send French borrowing costs higher? This is not absolutely certain. Germany cannot absorb capital indefinitely, and interest rates are already negative. To the extent that investors wish to remain in the euro, France would still be attractive even if it were to diminish the budgetary shock. Hollande seems to be gambling on "shock therapy": if he concentrates all the pain--a shock to GDP of -3%--in his first year, then things will improve over the remainder of his quinquennat. This would be a better bet if Germany were stimulating its economy, but it isn't, nor is anyone else in Europe. Hence the risk is a mutually reinforcing contraction that will steepen the slide and leave everyone in a deeper hole.

Politically, Hollande seems to be tacitly assuming that he can brave the anger from his left, because the left of the Left has no place to go. The Right can cavil, but he is essentially continuing the economic policy of Sarkozy-Fillon and in fact pushing ahead where they were too timid to go. His cuts are deeper, his tax hikes are sharper than the Right dared while it was in power. This is a big bet for an essentially cautious politician like Hollande, and it's not clear where he retreats to if things go wrong. Nor does he have any carrots to offset the lash of his many sticks. The likely outcome is a sharp rise in anti-EU, anti-German, anticapitalist sentiment.

TSCG

A small but telling sign of the times: when the Socialists were out of power, they referred to the European fiscal pact derisively as "Merkozy." Sarko was Merkel's lap dog, of course, as everyone knew, and Hollande had one word for the lickspittle: "Renegotiate!" But now that the Socialists are in power, the treaty has been rebaptized with its proper name: Traité sur la Stabilité, la Coordination, et la Gouvernance, or TSCG. Because, after all, how could the Socialist Party call for ratification of "the Merkozy pact," which rhymed with "pact with the devil."

A vote on the TSCG by the Assembly is shaping up to be the latest dramatization of the split that has existed within the left since 2005. This time, the Communists and Mélenchon will incarnate the No vote. We had an early preview of the script at the Fête de l'Humanité, which this year was boycotted by nearly all the Socialists, including Montebourg and Valls and Aubry, who put in appearances last year when they were running for president. But now two of them are ministers, and winks of connivence with the left wing will not do. Among ministers, only Vallaud-Belkacem showed up, and she was booed for her troubles.

Meanwhile, Mélenchon wants a showdown over the concept of "Europe":

« On veut maintenir ouvert le sillon de 2005, que tous nos adversaires font tout pour refermer, explique-t-il. Le oui et le non ne sont pas “réconciliables”, il n’est pas question de se réconcilier, on n’est pas fâchés, on est juste en désaccord politique. » Selon lui, le premier but de la mobilisation anti-TSCG a un premier objectif, à défaut d’obtenir un référendum ou un vote contre au Parlement : « Il faut que nos concurrents expliquent pourquoi ils vont au bout de cette logique européenne. »

The Endless Quest for an Antiliberal Left

Mathieu Laurent proposes an interesting analysis of what he calls the "antiliberal left." Since the demise of communism, this segment of the electorate has undergone endless "recomposition," with militants and voters shifting from party formation to party formation. Absolute numbers wax and wane with the political fortunes of the day, but the distribution of these forces varies as one new beacon after another rises, only to disappoint the hopes of followers. What is the deep reason for this phenomenon? Two suggestions: Philippe Raynaud sees the absence of the "scientific" core of certitude that underlay what he calls "the communist illusion," while Daniel-Louis Seiler sees "hostility to the system" without offer of "a clear alternative":

Comme le note Philippe Raynaud, qui a étudié la littérature de la gauche radicale : “Chez aucun des auteurs, brillants ou laborieux, que nous avons étudiés, nous n’avons rencontré ce qui faisait la force de l’illusion communiste : la certitude d’être au service d’une cause à la fois juste et scientifiquement fondée, qui devait inéluctablement conduire à l’émergence d’une société radicalement différente” . De la même manière, pour Daniel-Louis Seiler, “les partis étudiés ici se caractérisent plus par l’hostilité au système ou à ses abus que par la proposition d’une alternative claire” . La gauche antilibérale, si elle veut gagner en densité politique, devra réussir la synthèse entre plusieurs projets de transformation sociale : entre la rupture révolutionnaire prônée par l’extrême-gauche, la “révolution par les urnes” du Front de gauche et la “simplicité volontaire” des objecteurs de croissance, le travail de synthèse s’annonce ardu.

Pirate Party

Those of you who follow politics in the rest of the EU are probably aware that the Pirate Party has been making waves in Germany. The Pirates, born in Sweden but spread to other countries, are sometimes dismissed as a "party of geeks," whose main interest is in the use of the Internet as a political forum, free sharing of software, music, and film, and opposition to laws allowing the state to monitor private Internet usage. But the German Pirates have expanded their purview to become a more broad-based anti-system party and defender of civil liberties. They have been receiving 6-7% of the vote in some elections.

In France, there is also a nascent Pirate Party, but it didn't fare well in the last legislative elections, garnering under 1%, despite fairly decent press coverage. This article describes the French Pirate Party and explains why it will have a hard time matching the performance of its German counterpart.

The Feminization of the FN

Like the party's base, the FN's candidates are younger and more of them are women than in the past. All the dynamism on the right is with the FN. With Copé as leader of the UMP and a series of scandals likely to plague the party in the press for years to come, the UMP risks being ringardisé as the FN gains strength. Could the next few years bring a party realignment in France? It's not out of the question.