Bastille Day: Has democracy become passé ?
July 14th is Bastille Day. I love French culture. I’ve been to France several times and speak French, so I kind of half-way celebrate Bastille Day one way or another every year: baguette bread 🥖 and Nutella, watching the fireworks from Paris online, etc.
Just as many Americans think of the US as the shining example of freedom, many people in France see their country as the defender of fundamental values of the free world.
Their national motto is Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité — Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (as in brotherhood, not like in the movie Animal House).
The UN Declaration of Human Rights was partly based on the French Revolution’s Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen: the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. We owe a lot of what we consider core democratic values to French thinkers before and after their 1789 revolution.
But with the rise of the Extreme Right in the past 20 years, and a general move towards the Right overall, things haven’t been going well politically for a while.
Some things I like about French society are:
1999, successful movement for a 35-hour work week: “Together for a law for 35 hours (of work), creator of jobs and a better living.” Image source: https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/hashtag/quavons-nous-fait-de-nos-35-heures
a better social system (more generous welfare, which is less stigmatized — many think of it as “entitlements” in the original meaning of the word in English: something people are entitled to as part of society)
better workers’ rights (about 5 weeks of guaranteed paid vacation for most workers, the right to strike written in the Constitution itself, protections against being fired)
near-universal health care thanks to la Sécurité sociale (with some out-of-pocket payment for some items, but still so much better than the system in the US)
la laïcité, which more or less means a secular government, with a separation of State and Church, is explicitly in the actual Constitution and considered a fundamental value of French society
protection of women’s rights (no politician would realistically dare to say they were trying to make abortion illegal, for example).
But all is not rosy in France.
2014, part of a long movement to unsuccessfully stop cuts to retirement: “Retirement at 60 years old. It’s a societal choice. Tax capital and not work.” Image source: http://www.retraites-cgt13.com/wordpress/actions/quand-on-vous-dit-que-la-secu-cest-la-vie/
Social programs, including la Sécu (health care), are being gutted — people have to pay more and more for health care, hospitals are underfunded and understaffed, further restrictions on unemployment benefits, the “reform” of the retirement system means people work longer and get less when they retire.
Workers’ rights are also being cut back: the 35-hour work week, which was never truly applied to everyone, is now for only about a quarter of workers. Workers more often have to work on holidays (almost unheard of before) and late hours. There is less job security, with it being easier to fire workers and with fewer long-term full-time jobs.
Even for a staunch atheist like me, I would say there are clear excesses to la laïcité — children aren’t allowed to wear religious symbols in school, which is unevenly applied to Islamic scarves. In the name of women’s rights (in theory), it’s illegal for women to wear full-body burqas in public. The line between wanting a country not ruled by religion, and intolerance, is too often crossed.
The Socialist Party went from being fairly socialist, and one of the two parties essentially guaranteed to get the Presidency or General Assembly — to being a weak, left-ish party. They’re abandoned by many voters and no longer the major force it once was. There’s no one on the Left replacing it yet who seems likely to get to the final round of the upcoming presidential election.
But worst of all, the Far Right is much too close to becoming the majority party in France. I was in France on May 1, 2002 when there were mass protests against Far Right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen making it to the final round of the Presidential election, leaving a choice between him and Jacques Chirac (center-right).
2002: Millions around France protest far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen making it to the final round of the Presidential election. Image source:
The guy who barely concealed his anti-Jewish hatred — saying Nazi gas chambers in World War II were a mere detail, among other atrocious overt or implicit anti-Semitic and racist statements.
Millions of voters on the Left took to the streets to protest against Jean-Marie and the risk of fascism that he represented. Chirac refused to debate Le Pen because he was a fascist.
People held their noses and voted for Chirac to present a common “Republican” front (for the values of the Republic) against Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen was crushed in the final round of the election, getting less than 20% of the vote.
Fast-forward to 2017. His daughter, Marine Le Pen also made it to the final round of the election.
This time, there wasn’t as much of a mass movement to protest her getting to the final round. There was less talk of a common front to defeat her.
Marine Le Pen visited Trump Tower in 2017, after Trump was elected but before the French presidential election, seemingly indicating some collaboration with, or at least support from, America’s growing fascist movement. It doesn’t seem like she or her party are going anyway anytime soon.
2017. Far-Right politician Marine Le Pen at a meeting at Trump Tower. Image source.
But partly do to a horrible debate performance, she “only” got 33% of the vote. After this, in the next Parliamentary elections, she was elected to the General Assembly.
It’s clear that fascism is no longer taboo in France.
Like in the US, people are fed up with the system. Too many people want anything but the same old politicians, which is partly why Macron — the current president who formed his own party instead of running with one of the traditional ones — ended up in the final round also.
Marine Le Pen, similar to Trump, claims to offer easy answers wrapped up in hyper-patriotism and thinly-veiled racism (she generally does a better job at hiding it than her father). It’s appealing to more people who see things are getting worse, but without a strong Left to give them something to vote for instead of against.
So while I celebrate France, its culture, its language, and much of what it stands for, I’m worried that they too aren’t too far away from losing their country to the Far Right.
Their presidential election will take place in April and May next year, long before the US’s midterm elections.
If neofascists take power in France, and Democrats in the US continue to do everything they can possibly do to hand the 2022 midterms to the Republicans by doing next to nothing…then our two countries may share the dubious distinction of being two of the biggest (not-so) shining examples of democratic values plunged into a nightmarish future I don’t even want to contemplate.
But at least both countries will always share a love French baguettes and American hamburgers!
Oh là là ! Image source
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