John Lichfield is a former foreign editor of the Independent and was the newspaper’s Paris correspondent for 20 years.
PARIS — In two decades covering France, I’ve never witnessed such political hysteria.
There was the slap in the face given to President Emmanuel Macron last week; there was the bag of flour poured on the head of the hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Saturday; there was the absurd letter from retired generals forecasting civil war last month.
The country seems to be heading for a nervous breakdown as it meanders toward regional elections on Sunday and an explosive presidential election in 10 months’ time.
A question arises. Is the hysteria spontaneous or is it — in part at least — organized?
All the incidents described above were the work of people involved with the far right (though not necessarily directly linked to Marine Le Pen or her far-right National Rally party).
The French expert on the Arab World, Gilles Kepel, has defined what he calls “atmospheric jihadism” — a generalized state of mind that promotes violent Islamist radicalism. France is suffering from a kind of “atmospheric Lepennism” — a state of permanent anxiety, which favors the advance of the ultra-nationalist, anti-European right.
This is promoted by a strategy of denigration and exaggeration (and frequent lies) by far-right websites and by Le Pen and her supporters.
Damien Tarel, the unemployed young man who slapped the president, said at his trial that Macron had hastened the “decay” of France. France’s most popular, far-right commentator, Eric Zemmour, told his TV audience that Macron “got what he deserved” because he had “desecrated” the presidency.
Politicians and commentators of the left and traditional right contribute to the trend. Macron is not just misguided, they say, he is “violent” or “destructive.” Opinion polls suggest that the mainstream opposition benefits little from this exaggerated miserabalism — but Le Pen does.
Fractured France
Not all French people succumb to this hysterical anti-Macronism.
The president’s poll ratings remain surprisingly high. He had a 50 percent favorable rating in the monthly Paris-Match-Ifop league table of politicians last week.
And yet, as France emerges blinking into the light of summer from a third COVID lockdown, it is a troubled and divided nation. On the one hand, there is a yearning to return to normal. On the other, there is an inchoate desire to tear down politics-as-usual.
Many people, especially the young and the old, have a renewed confidence in the president since he defied “experts” last month and unlocked France early (to great success).
Others — many others — blame Macron for everything that went wrong in France during the pandemic. They refuse to accept that some things went well, such as the generous state support for businesses and individuals and, after a ponderous start, the vaccination rollout.
The camps straddle the old divisions of left and right — instead, the principal (but not the only) line of fracture is largely geographical. There is a gulf between the successful, outward-looking France of a score of successful metropolitan areas and the struggling, inward-looking France of the countryside, small towns and some suburbs.
That gulf is familiar. It matches the divisions that shaped Brexit Britain and Donald Trump’s America.
Macron bashing
There are also purely French factors at work. The opinion-shaping left-right structure of French politics has collapsed. Macron gave it a final shove four years ago. He reaped the benefits in his election victory in 2017.
Since then, however, he has failed to create a narrative of purpose or direction for his reforms. He is still regarded as an arrogant upstart by politicians and media of both the center-left and center-right — hence the extreme violence of the language of otherwise sensible commentators.
One of the president’s great failures has been his inability to create a grassroots centrist movement. And because of that his high opinion poll numbers will not help him much on Sunday, when France holds the first round of the regional elections.
His party, La République en Marche, will top the poll in no region and will come third or fourth in several places.
Le Pen’s party, which has never won a region before, could top the first round in six regions out of 13. It also has a good chance of winning at least one region — Marseille-Nice-Avignon — in the runoff round on June 27 and some hope of winning the eastern region, Le Grand Est.
FRANCE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION POLL OF POLLS
For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.
Alliance building before each round of the elections has become explosively difficult. Scarcely a day goes by without a Lepennist regional candidate being exposed as an unreconstructed neo-Nazi or anti-Semite or Islamophobe (a decade after Marine Le Pen said that she would clean up her father’s political business).
And yet much of the regional campaigning by the left and the mainstream right in the regional elections has been about attacking Macron, not bashing Le Pen. Some politicians, it seems, would rather Le Pen won a region than agree to deals with Macron’s party.
What if she wins?
On past form, French electors are better than their party leaders at forging de facto anti-Lepennist alliances with tactical voting in the second round. But if Le Pen does win the Nice-Marseille-Avignon region, it would be a minor earthquake, and possibly a major one.
A three- or four-party list can contest the second round in a regional election, meaning Le Pen may need only 40 percent of the vote, or less, to capture a region. That’s a far cry from winning more than 50 percent in the two-candidate second round of the presidential election with a much higher turnout next year.
Still, the momentum would be important. Winning a region would increase her credibility. If she were to win more than one, the hysteria level in French politics would go through the roof.
Does the Trump-like divide in French politics prefigure the success of a blonde “French Trump” next year?
I don’t think so, but in the present febrile mood — whether organized or disorganized — such an improbable outcome is no longer completely impossible.