How far right will our new president take us?

last updated 8 January 2015

France

France has just had a revolution, said Arnaud Leparmentier in Le Monde. A massive turnout and strong margin of victory in this week’s election has given Nicolas Sarkozy, an unabashed right-winger, “an incontrovertible legitimacy.” The tough-talking pro-American now has a clear mandate to “revive the country and rekindle its ambitions in Europe and throughout the world.” Sarkozy’s achievement is all the more remarkable for his refusal to pander to the far right. With his law-and-order platform, he was able to appeal to “the working class” voters who once supported the racist National Front party of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Yet he won these people over without demonizing immigrants. “I will be president of all the French,” he announced.

Sarkozy didn’t do it all himself, said Luc le Vaillant in Libération. He was helped by the Socialists’ implosion. His opponent, Ségolène Royal, was no conquering Joan of Arc but rather a “Calamity Ségo.” Instead of giving voters a clear alternative on the left, Royal came out in favor of military camps for juvenile delinquents and life imprisonment for sexual predators. “A leader of the left clamoring for more police—who could have imagined such a thing?” She was also a calamity for women in politics. Her frequent appeals to biological determinism—“as a woman, I feel …” and “as a mother, I know …”—seemed sexist and outdated. The left hasn’t had such a trouncing in decades.

What this means, said Nicolas Beytout in Le Figaro, is that France is growing up. For the first time in 30-odd years, the voters have chosen a new president from the same party as the outgoing president. We have ended “the frenetic oscillation that too often saw the country backtrack and dismantle everything it had just achieved.” At the same time, Sarkozy doesn’t represent stagnation, but promises much-needed reform. He denounces protectionism and champions entrepreneurship. But can he deliver? asked Olivier Picard in Strasbourg, France’s Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace. These first few weeks after the election are a time of transition. Sarkozy must now “shed his battle armor and slip into the costume of a leader.” The role of “agitator and provocateur” must give way to that of statesman. We believe he can do it.