The Front National’s new clothes. This excerpt from ‘Le Front National (FN), entre extrémisme, populisme et démocratie’, published as part of Counterpoint’s ‘Europe’s Reluctant Radicals’ project, examines the new face of the FN, highlighting its nuanced relationships with the ‘invisible’ and the ‘forgotten’. The succession battle to fill the post of Front National President (held by Jean Marie Le Pen since 1972) in 2011 pitted his daughter, Marine Le Pen (who, it has to be said, won without much difficulty) against Bruno Gollnisch.
The latter embodied the values of the ‘early FN’, those of the membership base, and was generally seen as the keeper of the party’s ‘identity’. Marine Le Pen, imposed a noticeably different discourse on the Front National, one much more in keeping with the mood of a sizeable portion of the population. Marine Le Pen on stage during a 2012 rally for the National Front. Demotix/Xavier Malafosse. Invisible and forgotten In the world of politics, this was not exactly a novelty.
French Voters Counter Austerity with Democracy. Austerity policies are the last thing Europe's economy needs, and voters are making sure their leaders get the message. Can democracy be raising its wonderful, if often lazy, head in Europe? Too often there is skepticism that democracy itself -- the will of the people -- can lead to wise economic decisions and that the American founding fathers were all fearful of the rule of the masses.
I have long held the opposite view. We all know examples of populist uprisings that have failed. The French Revolution was hardly an adulterated success. Populism in the U.S. in the 19th century led to many an ugly idea and many a bad economic solution. But democracy creates demands for more equal wages, for social goods that reinstate confidence in a nation, and for the spread of opportunity. Now the people of France may be saying they have had it with austerity. But there is more than just a reaction against austerity in France. All this is refreshing and highly welcome. How naïve, you say. French capitalism: Biting the hand that feeds it. Schmidt_frenchCapitalism.
"The French Cul de Sac" by Brigitte Granville. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space PARIS – As France’s presidential election looms, the country is approaching a breaking point. For three decades, under both the right and the left, the country has pursued the same incompatible, if not contradictory, goals. With the sovereign-debt crisis pushing French banks – and thus the French economy – to the wall, something will have to give, and soon. When the crunch comes – almost certainly in the year or two following the election – it will cause radical, wrenching change, perhaps even more far-reaching than Charles de Gaulle’s coup d’état, which led to the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
Most French politicians and bureaucrats call such notions scaremongering. While the euro has not caused France’s economic problems, its politicians’ commitment to the single currency represents an insurmountable barrier to solving them. The current election campaign is accordingly centered on France’s fiscal position.
Le PS et Gbagbo : les embarras africains des socialistes français. Le PS peine à prendre position sur le coup de force de Laurent Gbagbo, qui dénonce l’ingérence occidentale en Côte d’Ivoire. Les embarras du PS avec le coup de force de Laurent Gbagbo pour se maintenir au pouvoir en Côte d’Ivoire ne sont qu’un héritage d’une relation jamais réellement clarifiée : celle des socialistes avec l’Afrique. Depuis le résultat des élections ivoiriennes, il y a dix jours, et la proclamation de deux présidents rivaux, il y a comme un flottement au Parti socialiste, que cache mal la position officielle qui reconnaît, avec la communauté internationale, la victoire d’Alassane Ouattara, et demande au Président sortant de l’accepter, alors que celui-ci accuse l’Occident d’ingérence en Côte d’Ivoire.
Vendredi, en tchat au Monde.fr, il a clarifié sa position : « Il faut donc obtenir que Laurent Gbagbo reconnaisse le résultat [favorable à son rival Ouattara, ndlr], car je ne vois pas bien comment, sinon, la Côte d’Ivoire peut s’en sortir. » L’Elysée ou la rue de Solférino ? French: The Most Productive People In The World.