France’s presidential campaign: A strategy of fear versus a strategy of opportunity

What a strange campaign it has been so far. With a few weeks to go until the first round of the French presidential election, many people in France are stunned by the low quality of the debates, which have been largely dominated by François Fillon’s legal saga. There has, to date, been very little in-depth discussion about actual policy.

So much of this debate seems to be a distraction from the business of governing. And yet behind the highly mediatised judicial turmoil of some of the candidates, it is becoming increasingly clear that the debates in France’s presidential campaign are about two significantly opposed visions of the future: one is declinist, supported by strategies of fear, and the second is optimistic, promoting a strategy of opportunity.

Three candidates claim they represent a majority of the French people, haunted by a fear of French decline and deeply anxious about France’s role in an increasingly globalised world.

This approach of anxiety and threat perception is represented by Marine Le Pen, leader of the Far-Right party le Front National, by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate for the Far-Left movement la France insoumise, and by François Fillon, candidate of the conservative party Les Républicains.

On the other hand, there is a very different strategy, developed by Benoît Hamon, candidate for the Socialist Party, and, more importantly, Emmanuel Macron, leader of En Marche! What is remarkable is that both candidates promote a far more optimistic vision of opportunities for a better life and a better France.

Where Far-Left and Far-Right Meet

Far-Left Mélenchon and Far-Right Le Pen are diametrically opposed in many respects. Nonetheless, as Ernst Nolte showed in his analysis of the similarities and differences between fascist regimes, Far-Right and Far-Left programs also often converge. Le Pen and Mélenchon share four similar diagnoses of the economic, identity and societal insecurities France is facing.

First, both Mélenchon and Le Pen base their strategies on anti-EU policies, claiming that France’s economic independence requires a withdrawal from the euro zone, from the European Union’s treaties, and even, in the case of Le Pen, an exit from the EU as a whole – a Frexit in the style of the UK’s Brexit.

Second, both leaders adhere to significant anti-globalisation policies. Le Pen and Mélenchon both claim that France’s economic difficulties come from its openness to the global market and their remedy is protectionist policies.

A third common approach in narrative is that both play on the rejection of traditional elites and present themselves as anti-system.

This strategy has been successful as a populist strategy, even though they both belong to the system they loudly condemn – a trait observers of Donald Trump will recognise. Le Pen’s family is extremely wealthy and deeply connected to France’s aristocracy and Jean-Luc Mélenchon was a Minister in a former Socialist government.

A final similarity is that both claim to genuinely defend the working class and advance similar social policies, especially to lower the pensionable age to 60 years.

As Nolte might have predicted several decades ago, these similarities partly attract the same electorate - the working class and the less-educated sections of society that have not benefitted from globalisation.

However, the Far-Left has been associated with policy failure because Mélenchon has been in government in the past. Thus the strategy of fear mainly reinforces Le Pen’s popularity, rather than Mélenchon’s.

More broadly, both candidates call for the return to an idealised – and historically inaccurate – past. According to Marine Le Pen, France’s salvation will come from a return to a traditional society that does not value any diversity, implementing strict assimilation policies. For Mélenchon, the solution is a return to a protectionist economy that supports a strong working class. So essentially these two candidates use the language of fear to present a choice of a clash of civilisations.

The graphic representation of the Far-Right electorate in France tends to be an overlay of the traditional map of the communist and Far-Left electorate until the 1990s, when the communist party (PCF) lost its appeal. According to a poll carried out in early March this year, 48 per cent of the French working class now supports Marine Le Pen’s program.

Towards the centre

The conservative candidate François Fillon is not as pessimistic as these extremes, although he does call for tough austerity measures. As the leader of Les Républicains, he argues France’s main remedy to its economic difficulties should consist of drastically reducing state expenditures to shrink the country’s public deficit. For example, Fillon promises to reduce the administration by 500,000 public servants.

He claims the French must tighten their belts for the next five years in order to avoid a situation like Greece. Like Le Pen and Mélenchon, Fillon’s strategy also promotes the idea that globalisation constitutes an obstacle to France’s autonomy, identity and prosperity.

What then of the two youngest candidates in the presidential election, who have developed their strategies with a distinctly optimistic tone?

Emmanuel Macron and Benoît Hamon, whose programs are significantly different, share a discourse around the politics of opportunity. Both candidates promote a strategy of welcome and acceptance when it comes to immigration and refugees, with Macron going so far as to seek to implement Merkel’s immigration policy in France.

At a time of continued crisis in the EU, both candidates promote a significant deepening of EU integration. Hamon is in favour of the strengthening of the euro-zone and Macron has made the development of a genuine European army and diplomacy a priority.

Emmanuel Macron seems to have hit on a successful strategy, at least for now. His centrist approach has become very popular and he is leading in the polls. What’s more, many politicians from the Left and the centre have publicly supported him, as they calculate that En Marche! constitutes the most efficient weapon against Marine Le Pen.

However, Macron, like Hamon, struggles to convince many workers there are benefits for them in a globalised economy. Macron’s electorate is currently limited to the most educated part of the population, which has been the main beneficiary of globalisation.

It is still difficult to predict who will be the next French president. The campaign has an increasingly populist dimension, as all candidates seek to deal with the disaffection with established parties and political elites.

What is clear is that the campaign reveals narratives of two very distinctive Frances - one that perceives an ever-more globalised economy as a direct threat and another that perceives challenges as opportunities.

After Brexit and Trump, will French voters halt the declinist and populist wave in some Western democracies?

This article was co-published with Election Watch and The Conversation

Paul Soyez is a researcher on French-Australian relations at the University of Melbourne. He is also a Lecturer in History and has taught at the Paris-Sorbonne University and Sciences Po Paris.

Philomena Murray is Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, and Research Director on Regional Governance in the EU Centre on Shared Complex Challenges. She holds honorary positions in Trinity College Dublin, College of Europe Bruges and the UN University Centre for Comparative Regional Integration Studies.

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