The Canadian National Newspaper: French Elections: European Union and Political Mal-contents

This weekend, France will go to the polls to elect a new President in closely contested elections, which could go into the second rounds. The issues range from immigration to social policies that will benefit the lower strata of French society. Alliances might prove useful but the configurations are not yet clear.

Monsieur Nikolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Leader, Madame Segolene Royal are running neck-and-neck, but a strategic alliance between the Socialists and the Communists may tilt the balance in favour of the alliance.

The most important issue facing France is how the new government will swing public opinion to support the European integration processes more positively.

The rejection of the European Constitution by the French was aimed at their leaders, who failed to deliver on social policies and programmes. Unemployment, in some European states, has been a major point of discontent. The withering attacks on the Constitution perplexed European leaders and citizens. The dissenters found the document cumbersome and strange. However, European integration needs legal regulation and so the EU Constitution must stand.

The endless twists and turns of constitution making will not weaken hopes that the EU Constitution will not be rejected again, if and when re-presented. It is needed to regulate the complex business of European integration.

The main aim of the European Union is to strengthen its ability to operate a continental Union of European states. Jurists and politicians worked tirelessly to present a workable constitution. The document appears to be too all embracing and formidable for the ordinary citizen to comprehend.

In June 2004, the Government of the European Union approved the new Constitution. However, it was agreed that all the participating States must ratify the Constitution before it could become law. Maybe this was perhaps an error, as a majority of approving states would have been easier to guarantee.

While some European states like Germany and others took the parliamentary road, France and the Netherlands gambled with the populist approach. The British Government's reaction was to shelve the referendum it had earlier proposed on the EU Constitution. Why did the French and the Dutch oppose their governments? Some political malcontents ascribe this situation to out-sourcing of jobs overseas and the competition for jobs between nationals and immigrant personnel, who are ready to accept lover wages. If things remain the same, this could affect the present governments during the 2009 elections to the European Parliament.

Many existing European treaties both bilateral and multilateral have fallen into disuse or have been abrogated in view of the envisaged European Union.

The Constitution seems to be an ambitious document that purports to define politically, agreeable governance norms as laws. This, perhaps, jolted the people in France, the Netherlands and England who feared that the loss of sovereignty would be disastrous, if swarming hives of European Parliamentarians in Brussels are empowered to legislate for and on their behalf. Added to this loss of pride is the prospect of Turkey, a non-European state being admitted, for geo-political reasons, into the Union.

The question that many have pondered over after the rejection vote is: Should democracy be subjected only to law or expediency?

I raised the above question after the rejection of the European Constitution by France and the Netherlands. To answer correctly, one may examine the legal structure and political processes in some European states. However, such extensive study has no place here. Regimes of constitutional democracy are springing up in most Eastern European states that were hitherto authoritarian, totalitarian, monarchical or austere.

Must law prevail in shaping democratic institutions or should culture yield to radical change through legislation? Experience shows that racial groups, minorities, religious groups, ethnic groups may not yield easily to democratic change through the law.

In France, elections are conducted and won by people who claim to represent geographically defined electoral districts. This system has proved inadequate as money determines who is put up for elections in various states. The forth-coming elections in France, must address the nagging issues of social policy and democratization. In 2005, there were demonstrations in France, which tended to point to a failure of French social policy.

Unfortunately, France suffered from anarchy and arson in mid October-November 2005. Mon Dieu! What took place in France at that time was very regrettable. It should not have happened to the French who, by all accounts, are the most tolerant and accommodating among Europeans.

The events leading to the outburst of protests and arson in the French suburbs are of long standing historical origin. It is true that France, after the revolution embraced, equality, fraternity and egalitarianism. But the core of the French aristocracy only accepted these populist principles as political slogans which helped to calm irritated nerves after the French revolution of 1789.

France and French society have retained bourgeois and petty-bourgeois traits, habits and convictions. It is an article of faith among Frenchmen that one has to be extremely capable in order to be accepted into the decision-making, managerial strata of French society. This is very legitimate. France does not suffer fools gladly. You have to go to school. That is the only way to the Eifel Tower. Mediocrity is unacceptable in any form. If you are very good, colour is a minimal inhibiting factor. Remember Leopold Senghor, Houphet Boigny and others who sat in the French National Assembly in the 1950's. Other well-educated Africans both from the continent and in the diaspora found acceptance in France.

The policy of assimilation was consciously pursued but later lost steam after many French-African colonies became independent.

Since these African states were no longer laying golden eggs for France, their appreciation and usefulness depreciated to their just being tolerated. After many decades of just being tolerated, French Africans decided to go to school, obtained the diplomas that they reasoned would propel them to the top of the Arch du Triomphe. This thinking proved illusory as their certificates, some excellent, some not so excellent, only kept them at the lower rungs of the Eifel Tower. So, hopelessness led to despair and so despair pushes social humans to revolt, it happened.

It can be recalled that the French President, Jacque Chirac and the French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, appealed to the rioters in full understanding of their discontent, but the same could not be said of the French Minister, Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy, who seemed to have aggravated matters by his comments. Let us hope that, those political malcontents have forgiven him.

French society thrives on the abundance of respect for civil liberties and civil rights. The society was mentored and nurtured by the advanced thinkers of the French Revolution.

President Francois Mitterand repeatedly referred to the essential decency of the French people. This whipped up a widespread underlying vein of idealism, of a patriotism that expresses itself in "live and let live".

The substructure of the French legal system has, and is enlivened by its history, philosophy and rich traditions. There is ebullient right of political dissent, freedom of the press and the tolerance of unpopular speakers.

French society overlooks the human frailty, which pushes some people to obscenity and pornography, in the hope that the man or woman will tire himself or herself out and return to regular prayers.

There is a clear demarcation between discrimination by the state, which is non-existent in France and discrimination by private individuals, which is natural. It is often difficult to see the thin line that separates the two. The political role of the State in ending discrimination anywhere in the world has often ended in failure.

States are weakest at the level of enforcing social liberties policy, policy-making, implementation and sustenance. While the citizens focus their attention on social, economic and cultural rights, some States in capitalist nations extol political rights above all other rights. Failures of social policy always result in revolts; demonstrations and they throw up social mal-contents. As Milton wrote in Areopagitica, men can reason if they are presented with all sides of an issue. The Second French Revolutionaries chose anarchy and arson to protest their exclusion from the process of national reasoning. However, there is promise, which permits hope that a new day will break in due course.

The protesters moved by night when "the shadows of the evening were lengthening." They hurt fellow Frenchmen whose cars were burnt leaving them no relief.

Although the generic concept of "French cultural heritage" is widely used to describe Francophone relations, this heritage has become fundamentally incompatible in France where Arabism and multi-cultural traits are on the ascendancy.

The European Union will prefer a victory in favour of Sarkozy who may advance the complexity of its international political and economic life. A coalition between the socialists and the communists could present a serious challenge to Sarkozy's ambitions. One hopes that Le Pen will act out his last political theatrics, which will end in failure. Whoever, wins in the French elections will have a Herculean task of restoring European hopes in its integration pursuits.