THE RESULTS OF the first round of the French National Assembly elections suggest that the country’s interim center-right government, appointed in the wake of last month’s presidential win by Jacques Chirac, will become permanent. The 43 percent that it gained on Sunday and the pathetic showing by the socialists and their allies are a clear sign that the French public, like the public elsewhere in much of Europe currently, have no confidence in solutions to social and economic problems put forward by the left.
In the rise of the right, France is thoroughly in step with the rest of the continent. But there are special circumstances in France. In particular, the French are tired of the partnership system — they call it ‘cohabitation’ — that their constitution has produced in recent years: A president from one party and a prime minister and government from another (and not just any other, but from the main opposition to the president).
Some may see this producing a balance. Americans, for example, are often happy to vote Republican for president and Democrat for Congress or vice versa, and likewise at state and city elections, precisely because it produces a balance. But then balance is what the US constitution was designed to achieve. Its 18th-century authors set out to prevent absolutism. Balance, however, was not in Charles De Gaulle’s mind when he devised France’s Fifth Republic. The idea was that the president would run the country with a prime minister and government appointed to carry out his policies; Parliament’s job was to vet and approve his legislation. But this was based on the premise that president and the majority in Parliament would be of the same party.
That has been the exception rather than the rule for the past decade. With French presidential and parliamentary contests taking place at different times — sometime a couple of years apart — it gave the electorate the time to change its mind. And it did. Like Mitterrand before him, Jacques Chirac had to choose a prime minister who could command the support of the National Assembly even though that it meant appointing his principal opponent. The result has been stalemate and inaction: The president, unable to get through the National Assembly the reforms, especially privatization and tax cuts, which he believes are long overdue in France.
All that the two could do was administer the system — with barely disguised mutual resentment. In future, there is much less chance of this stultifying ‘cohabitation’ now that the presidential term has been changed from seven years to five years, the same as for the National Assembly. With both contests taking place within just a month of each other, the electorate are unlikely to do the American thing and vote differently in the two ballots. Possibly the two may even take place at the same time in future: Presumably there will be a move to do something about the record 35 percent abstention rate registered on Sunday, due largely to the fact that the French are sick not only of cohabitation but also of voting. But with Jacques Chirac freed from the shackles imposed by a hostile government, what will it mean for France, for Europe, and for the rest of the world? Taking on board his fervent belief in the private sector and his desire to cut taxes and improve competition, the most immediate and most significant effects of him being given a power surge have to be in the economy. Privatization is likely to be pushed to the top of the agenda.
But there will be pain and much howling on the streets if the government actively becomes less interventionist and reduces subsidies. As for foreign policy, which during cohabitation was a regular battleground between president and prime minister, there may be a shift toward the US. Chirac is an Americanophile, and his sympathies became stronger after Sept. 11. That, however, will depend how much he feels the need to wrap himself in the Tricolor. Immigration is the other big issue. There France is likely to take a much tougher line — which may be the cause of much bitterness in Islamic countries if it is seen to target Muslim immigrants.
