A NATION DIVIDED OVER GAY MARRIAGE

I sat in bed on Tuesday morning sipping my green tea with lemon and thinking of Gay marriage. I should explain this took place in Paris. “Ah, all is now explained,” you may say.

Well it is by the fact that on the same day France’s Parliament, the Assemblee Nationale, started the long debate to introduce Gay or same sex marriages which should become law by the middle of the year. Such laws are already the norm in Catholic Spain and Portugal. Indeed in the UK David Cameron is determined to extend the current civil partnerships to include religious services.  Hence it may surprise you that in France, which Anglo Saxons have always thought to be liberal in sexual matters, the introduction of this law has caused such acrimony and division.

The left in France has always had the bragging rights when it comes to bringing people out on to the streets over a political or social issue. Hence it is no surprise that according to the police 125,000 activists demonstrated in Paris in support of the new Hollande law on Sunday. The shock comes when you learn 340,000 opposed to the legislation were on the streets of the capital on Tuesday of last week.

Pierre Kanuty, who speaks on international affairs at the Parti Socialiste HQ in Paris told me, “There is a majority in Parliament to pass the law, so there is no serious risk.” Indeed that is so and whilst some PS MPs may abstain the measure is also supported by the Communists, the Greens and some centrists. Not only that but allowing Gay marriage was part of Hollande’s left wing manifesto during last year’s elections so in introducing this controversial measure he is merely honouring one of his election pledges.

The bill is a complicated one covering Gay marriage, Gay adoption and assisted pregnancy for Gay couples. A majority of French people support Gay marriage (55 to 60 per cent), it’s around 50 – 50 on adoption and a majority oppose assisted pregnancy.

The Catholic Church is obviously at the head of the movement to oppose the law. Pierre Kanuty observed: “In a crusade mood, the right wing reopened somehow, the traditional split between the church and the non believers. The law will pass, but probably for a while, this split will last until mentalities change.”

This is undoubtedly true but those who oppose the law surprised themselves by the widespread support they attracted. The coalition against the Gay marriage package, although supported by the main religions and parties of the right, promoted itself as a citizens’ movement. Bizarrely at the helm is a spokeswoman, a performer who goes under the name Frigide Barjot, who in recent weeks has never been off national radio or TV. Only in France!

To get a full flavour of the sentiments of those who oppose one has to look no further than Serge Dassault, the CEO of Dassault and a senator for the centre right UMP. He is quoted as saying “We’ll have a country of gays and in 10 years there’ll be nobody left – that’s stupid.” Cardinal Philippe Barbain, who is the Archbishop of Lyon, said the Hollande law would open the door to incest and polygamy.

Off course the wide ranging nature of the bill is another reason for the opposition given that the majority support one section, a majority then oppose another and the French are divided on a third. Also the legal requirements regarding marriage in France are said to have played a role.

Under French law all marriages have to be civil marriages. In other European countries churches have the right to conduct wedding ceremonies that are also legal acts. Not so in France: the marriage has to be civil and then you have the option of having it blessed in the religion of your choice if you so choose.

This means because all marriages are civil everybody is caught up in the legal change. In Spain, for instance, if Gay couples wish to get married they have a civil service conducted by the town hall. It is very different for the nation’s Catholics who are married in church and hence have no contact with a civil service or the indeed the Gay marriage process.

Much of the opposition in France has been generated according to Barjot by Hollande’s law that will “de-structure” society by “destroying the concept in law of mother and father” and changing the time-honoured essence of the family.

However supporters of the legislation, especially amongst the young, counter that French society has changed. The family today, they argue, is not the same as the family of yesterday. They say the nation has to rethink its total concept of what makes up a family.

What is certain is that France will change when the French Parliament passes the new Gay laws. It remains to be seen how long it takes society to catch up.

Final word on this issue goes to the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, who is one of France’s few openly Gay politicians. Perhaps another reason for Anglo Saxon’s to review their long held views on the French and matters sexual. Delanoe observed: “The majority of French people wants all couples to have equality in love and parenthood.”

This new law will ensure they do.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on February 7 2013)

“IT WAS SO BAD YOU JUST WANTED TO LAUGH”

At the weekend the Sunday Times gave a whole broadsheet page to French politics. Six columns were dedicated to a sneering report on Francois Hollande, to the effect that the socialist president’s popularity was in freefall and the nation could be soon seeking bailouts. The other column went to French tycoon Arnaud Lagardère who apparently has a fiancée much taller than him. It comes as no surprise then that the once most respected of British newspapers is today part of the Murdoch stable.

However the real story of political interest on Sunday wasn’t at the Elysée Palace or indeed at Chez Lagardère but at the election count for the next leader of France’s Conservative opposition party the UMP – Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. The BBC correspondent in Paris, Hugh Schofield, in his report described events thus: “Watching the results come in was like seeing a really crummy disaster movie. The events were terrible, but it was so bad you just wanted to laugh.” It is his turn of phrase that makes up this article’s headline.

First a bit of history. In Britain all our main three political parties are to say the least well established. The Conservative Party was formed in 1834 but traces its roots to the Tory Party which started in 1678. The Liberals grew out of the Whigs in 1859. Even the new kids on the block, the Labour Party, was formed in 1900.

In contrast in France whilst it has long established socialist and communist parties the groupings on the right change with the wind. I am old enough to remember De Gaulle’s splendidly named Rassemblement du peuple francais. He formed that party in 1947 but by the time he left politics in 1970 he had lead three different parties of the right: all anti socialist and communist. So when we talk of the fight to lead the UMP, the party of Chirac and then Sarkozy, we are speaking of one that is just a decade old.

The reason this election to choose the new leader of the UMP created such headlines is both candidates claimed victory a day before the final result was declared and then accused their rival of fraud and ballot-stuffing. The right-wing candidate Jean-Francois Cope finally came in ahead of former Prime Minister Francois Fillon by just 98 votes and the UMP has been badly damaged by the fiasco.

I asked Pierre Kanuty who is in charge of European and international relations at the Parti Socialiste in Paris for the left’s take on these events. Pierre also started with the historical context. He told me: “One needs to understand that as a matter of fact, there has never been a true conservative party in France though we have a strong right wing party. All of them have been presidential organisations dedicated to ensure networks aimed at one man’s victory.

“In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Gaullist MP’s needed a political frame for campaigning so they created the UNR (Union for a New Republic), followed by the Union of democrats for the Republic.

“In 1976, Jacques Chirac organised his party, the RPR (Gathering for the Republic). His first success was to be elected as mayor of Paris. The rest of the history is well know, the RPR used municipal jobs to have manpower for the party and got money from many companies to fund the party and its campaign. They also cheated many times on local votes in Paris.

“The following year Valery Giscard d’Estaing, President of the Republic at the time formed his own party, UDF (Union of the French democracy).

“Chirac’s RPR was depicted by its founder as the “French social democracy” supposed to be more leftist than the UDF. The truth there was always a conservative – neo liberal wing and a centrist, pro-welfare state fighting each other within the RPR and the UDF.

“The rise of a successful conservative revolution in the UK with Thatcher and in the US with Reagan gave them hope, but the electoral cost was very high as the French conservative voters still wanted a strong state even if they were in favour of strong tax cuts.

“The crisis of the conservative leadership is a very long story, but as long as the parties were dominated by high figures like Chirac, or Sarkozy, it was easy to reduce it to childish games.

“In 2001, the RPR decided to merge with centre right UDF to form the UMP. Some of people from UDF refused to join, claiming there was room for a true centre party that eventually became the MoDem led by François Bayrou.

“Nicolas Sarkozy took over the party and he organised it as a war machine entirely aimed at the 2007 victory. Renewal of ideas, networks, activists, communication and media strategy, nothing was left behind. But the main thing was to assume a true neo liberal and neo conservative ideology.”

With the defeat of Sarkozy in May by Hollande and the defeated president’s subsequent resignation from the party leadership obviously the UMP had to seek a new leader. All parties after defeat lick their wounds, rally round a new leader and move on. What went so disastrously wrong for the UMP?

Pierre explained: “As long as Sarkozy was President, he was also the true leader of the Conservative Party, and obviously when he left, his succession had to be secured. But it is a tradition in the right, no heir, no successor. Conservative leaders like Jean-François Copé were too busy thinking about their own career, focusing on 2017 the year of the next presidential elections.

“François Fillon, former prime minister comes from a social conservative background, but as Sarkozy’s Prime minister, for five years, he implemented a neo liberal policy and, even if he ended his term with a better popularity rate that Sarkozy, he was symbolically defeated since his old constituency was won by a socialist candidate, Stéphane Le Foll who became minister of agriculture. Fillon decided to target an easier place to be elected in the “bourgeois” Paris’s 7th district and Quartier Latin as a first step for a further fight : being mayor of Paris in 2014.

“Jean-François Copé never left his home town, in a Paris suburb. With his “uninhibited right” he’s ready to do whatever it takes to grab the extreme right National Front’s voters.

“The vote of 18th November was a opportunity for UMP members to choose for the first time their leader without any electoral pressure as we are only six months after the presidential and legislative elections. The rules of procedures were very hard. Each candidate had to be endorsed by almost 8,000 party members representing 10 local branches at department level. The 265,000 party members could vote in 650 polling stations. Only 176,000 persons voted.

“The socialists with less party members (around 150,000) had more than 3,000 polling stations in their vote on the leadership one month earlier. This is one of the reasons of the mess.

“The means never matched the needs. Copé finally won with only 50,03 %, just 98 votes ahead.

“Such a small margin requires a huge effort to bring legitimacy to the new leader. If there is no surprise in Copé’s victory, it shows that the leadership crisis is not over yet since somebody can argue that the “minority” represents 49.97 % of the party.”

I leave the final word on this debacle to Pierre:

“In the 1980’s, there was a slogan saying “the French right is the dumbest in the world”. Seems it is still accurate.”

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on November 20 2012).

HISTORIC VICTORY AND A SPICY TALE

The various rounds of the French presidential and parliamentary elections are now over. Before they started socialists throughout Europe were on the back foot. Now France has a socialist president and the Parti Socialiste will also have an overall majority in the National Assembly for Hollande’s five year term. This is historic but as Pierre Kanuty, who runs the international affairs of the Parti Socialiste in Paris points out – it is the end but also the beginning.

As I write this the final share of the seats in the French parliament is not known but the Parti Socialiste will have between 312 and 323 of them. The figure for an absolute majority is 289 out of the 577 so Hollande’s party will rule outright without having to rely on the support of the Greens or other left wing groupings.

One of those MPs will be Axelle Lemaire who is the first MP to be elected for the new constituency which embraces the UK, Republic of Ireland and all the Nordic countries. Lemaire is a French Canadian who spent her teenage years in France before settling in London. In the second round of voting she secured 54.8 per cent of the vote (Hollande received 53.1 in the presidential voting). A clearly delighted Lemaire expressed: “Un immense merci à tous ceux qui ont cru en moi, à mon équipe et aux électeurs! Fierté, responsabilité.” Her constituency must be one of the largest in the world but thankfully 80 per cent of her electorate are in the British Isles.

So now to Paris where Pierre Kanuty is celebrating the second major victory for the Parti Socialiste in just over a month. However he takes a sober view of events telling me: “the socialist party made it and won an absolute majority. This is historical, but we’re not hysterical. Historical because, for the very first time in the history of our country, the left, has all the powers. The local level and the national level. In a sense, it was mechanical, and no one forgets where we are coming from.”

Indeed the socialists in France have spent years out in the cold. Pierre observes: “Ten years ago, the defeat was so bitter that we’ve been through a deep depression. Under the leadership of François Hollande, the crisis was hard but we started to re-conquer from local basis thanks to our victory at all local elections from 2004 to present. With the local powers came the main cities like Paris, Lyon, Nantes, Toulouse, the regions and the departments - local councils.”

So Pierre why did Sarkozy win in 2007? “In a way, winning the presidential elections of 2007 was possible, but at the time, there was a strong gap between the fierce campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy and the controversial campaign let by Segolene Royal. Although we lost that year, we got more MPs than five years before and it was the promise of future victories. The landslide of municipal elections in 2008 and regional elections in 2010 brought a historical change with our victory in the Senate, for the very first time in history.”

So what was left for the Parti Socialiste to achieve? Pierre stated: “What was left was a national success for the left. Our primaries, the presidential campaign and the legislative elections, gave us a momentum we never lost. But on the other hand, voters were fed up with a whole year full of politics and elections. This is one of the reasons for the low turnout.”

I have already mentioned that Axelle Lemaire will be one of the new MPs and Pierre makes the point this election was: “Historical also because, more than one hundred female MP's, most of them socialists, will enter the new assembly. The conservatives had decided to sacrifice gender equality to secure an impossible victory. Ethnic minorities are also part of the winning pack with a dozen new MP's.”

So I asked Pierre how will the new parliament look? He explained: “François Hollande and Jean-Marc Ayrault have now a strong majority to implement their commitments. For the first time, the Green party will have a parliamentary group. The left front (a coalition including the communists) are the big losers of the campaign. Melenchon decided to defy Marine Le Pen, but the socialist candidate was ahead. This personal failure is to be added to a political crisis for the left front on the very day Syriza didn’t win the elections in Greece.

“On the right side, the Right went wrong. Most of the MPs from UMP who had been flirting with the National Front have been defeated. The National Front will have two MPs: a former controversial lawyer and the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen who will be the youngest MP.

“If we look at the map, we have historical victories in traditionally conservative constituencies. In many parts of the eastern side of the country, next to the borders, in areas that have not recovered yet from the collapse of industries, the conservatives and the nationalists made a strong performance.”

Pierre started his remarks by saying the Parti Socialiste had secured a historical victory but the socialists were not being hysterical. He explained why: “we're not hysterical because we fully understand the pressure of responsibilities. The current economical and social situation is the main frame. The situation has never been so hard. The socialists never had such a majority. But mathematical superiority must match political possibilities.

“It is the end of a decade in opposition and the beginning of a new era full of uncertain stakes and challenges. This will question the real strength of politics. Are we able to tackle unfair choices, to take over financial markets and stop the hysteria of austerity or are we just good to manage hard times.

“The government has the support needed to rule for economical efficiency and social justice. It is also a momentum for François Hollande and the time for him to make the right moves in Europe and in the G8 and G20. It is a strong hope for the progressives. Now it is time to move forward.”

The Spicy Tale: It was in early April that I wrote the first of this series of articles on the French elections. I touched on the colourful love lives of French politicians and that is how I shall close. Segolene Royal, the former partner of Francois Hollande and mother of his children was of course the party’s candidate for president in 2007. This time around she stood as an MP in Charentes-Maritime in La Rochelle. She was defeated by an independent socialist Olivier Falorni 63 per cent to 37.

Hollande had pledged his support for Royal but the new first lady who sits in the Elyse Palace in her place, Valerie Trierweiler, is said to have posted on Twitter her support for Falorni. In her speech conceding defeat Royal spoke of betrayal as well she might.

“Cherchons la femme” as they say in the Rue du Chat-qui-Pêche.

 (The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on Wednesday June 20 2012)

FRENCH CANADIAN BATTLES TO SPEAK FOR LONDON IN PARIS

The French Presidential elections are done and dusted and France now has a Socialist President, Francois Hollande, who has replaced the centre right incumbent, President “Bling Bling” Sarkozy.

Now France is embroiled in its elections for parliament. Nothing in French politics seems easy. There were two rounds of Presidential elections and whilst voting is underway for its MPs the final outcome will not be known till the second round on June 17.

Life is too short for me to enquire further in to France’s electoral system: for the wider centre left in the UK there are only two questions. First will the French voters elect a socialist majority to support Hollande and will the voters in the Northern Europe constituency return the Parti Socialiste’s French Canadian-born candidate to the 14^th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic as their MP?

French nationals à l'étranger have previously been able to vote for their president and for Senate seats. Now the French parliament has decided that for this election there would be overseas constituencies to represent its nationals abroad. I personally applaud the concept but given the size of the Northern Europe constituency I wonder how effective a voice the voters will have in practice.

When an MP stands for a seat he or she campaigns in their constituency which covers a small confined area. National leaders of the party are expected to travel from one corner of the country to another to canvass for votes. However for Axelle Lemaire, the Parti Socialiste candidate in the Northern Europe Constituency, and her rivals they have to campaign in the UK (which is home to 80 per cent of the voters), the Irish Republic then from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia to Greenland. I understand Lemaire has visited 25 cities on her campaign trail.

Axelle Lemaire is a true French international. Born of a French Canadian father and a French mother in Canada she lived there to her teenage years. Then after school and university in France she did a post graduate degree in law in London where she has lived for the past ten years. Her two children are as “international” as she is. The former advisor to a Labour MP now heads the socialist campaign in a constituency that is the Parti Socialiste’s to win.

The initial omens are good. In the first round of voting held on Sunday Lemaire took 30.16 per cent of the vote. Whilst in the second round of the French presidential elections a month ago 53.1 per cent of Lemaire’s voters backed Hollande compared with 46.9 per cent for Sarkozy. However it remains to be seen whether French voters in her constituency and wider France will give Hollande the socialist led parliament he desires. Fingers crossed for June 17.

For the picture in wider France I once again turned to Pierre Kanuty who runs international affairs for the Parti Socialiste in Paris. Pierre told me: “We hope our expectations will match the pundits' predictions. In a couple of weeks, the French voters will decided whether they want a left majority or not in the National Assembly after the victory of François Hollande three weeks ago.”

So how have French voters taken to Hollande’s new administration? Pierre stated: “As the first steps of the government led by Jean-Marc Ayrault seem to get positive media coverage, we believe a victory for the socialists is possible. The stakes are high. We need to find the tools necessary to shift from austerity to growth. Even if François Hollande's debuts on the diplomatic level and the first public appearances of our new members of government brought fresh air, style and determination, we cannot depend on an artificial momentum. There is no time to rest!”

In a presidential system of government how important is it to also have a majority in the National Assembly. Pierre is in no doubt: “We need an absolute socialist majority for if we need allies, we should, without arrogance, be able to count on our own in case there are hard decisions to make. By claiming so, we ask our voters to vote for us. But we have also decided to endorse candidates from the Green party so maybe, for the first time they will have a parliamentary group after the one they gained in the Senate last September.”

And what of the conservatives and Sarkozy’s supporters?

“The conservatives are very strongly divided and they have already started a violent fight between current UMP leader, Jean-François Copé and the former prime minister François Fillon. The quarrel goes from the leadership vacuum left by Sarkozy and the strategy towards the National Front. Copé claims he wants no deal with the National Front, but he and his friends use a NF like rhetoric,” warns Pierre.

“Most of all, the conservatives haven’t recover yet from their electoral hangover as they call for national unity and a new cohabitation. They consider the victory of the left as a danger, and the results of implementing our programme as catastrophe for the nation. It is weird to see a party, in power for ten years, kicked out from is by a clear vote, trying to keep its hooks in what they believe their property.”

Pierre has a clear message to those who supported Hollande on May 6. He stated: “We also use the scarecrow of cohabitation and the victory of the right to mobilize our voters. There won't be a mechanical effect just because on May 6 more than 51 per cent of the French voters chose François Hollande.”

The centre left fight back started in France on May 6 with the election of Hollande as the president. However it is clear that for socialists the job is only half done and the outcome of the June 17 parliamentary elections are vital. Let us hope for a Parti Socialiste victory and that French Canadian Axelle Lemaire will be London’s first French MP in Paris.

(Photo courtesy of Axelle Lemarie)

(The above article was publishing in the London Progressive Journal on June 6 2012).

“I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THE YOUTH OF FRANCE”

Francois Hollande is the president-elect of France. On Sunday evening after the polls closed he addressed a crowd in his home constituency of Tulle before heading off for the Parti Socialiste victory bash in the Place de la Bastille in Paris – the traditional rallying point of the left. In Tulle he declared to his jubilant audience:  “I am the president of the youth of France. You are a movement that is rising up throughout Europe.”

It will come as a reassurance to those of us who are ‘long in the tooth’, or a “vieille personne” in French argot, that Hollande is fast approaching 60 and is balding. He is also intent on restoring the retirement age to 60 years for some – outgoing centre right presidents perhaps. So for all of us who are young at heart in the progressive left in Europe we can clamber aboard the renewed sense of hope that Hollande has brought to the young, the middle-aged and the old alike in his native France.

On Sunday in the second round of the French Presidential election Francois Hollande became the socialist party’s first president since 1995, when another Francois, Mitterrand, stood down after serving two terms. Hollande secured victory with just under 51.63 per cent of the vote (roughly the same as Mitterrand) leaving his centre right rival Nicolas Sarkozy as the first president not to secure a second term since 1981.

In Paris on Sunday night was Pierre Kanuty of the Parti Socialiste’s Europe and International Department. His verdict: “It was the day we made history!”

After a long night of celebrations Pierre told me: “Sunday was an important election day in many ways all over Europe. The Labour did very well in UK’s local elections, the SPD as well in Schleswig-Holstein. In Greece, the defeat of PASOK was predictable but the serious threat of extreme right shows the reality of a danger we have experienced here in France. The campaign in France was not just a domestic political event. It was observed and monitored abroad and we were aware of that.”

The progressive socialist movement throughout Europe had been pinning its hopes on a Hollande victory. Pierre confided: “The support, the messages and the help we’ve got from our comrades was not just symbolic. It gave us faith, strength and it helped us having constantly in mind how important it was for social-democracy and Europe.”

So why did Sarkozy fail to win a second term? Pierre is in no doubt: “Because the hyper-president never understood he’s been too far in his hustle. The TV debate between him and François Hollande showed clearly two styles, two ways to do politics. The conservative candidate was acting as if reality was on his side but he never faced the contradiction between being a super president, like the heroes you see in blockbusters and a real impotent man blaming the crisis for his failure. The most symbolic argument was that in 2007, shortly before he took office, he had promised to reduce the unemployment rate to five per cent. Five years later it is around 10 per cent: it was not halved, it was doubled.”

Pierre continued: “Sarkozy never acted as somebody who embodied France as a whole. His nickname was the ‘President of the Riches’ and during the campaign he moved to the right. Some of his supporters even talked about alliances with the Front National of Marine Le Pen. He kept talking about immigration as invasion, Muslims as the symbol of all immigrants coming to our country and changing our ‘way of life’.”

The voting on Sunday saw the Parti Socialiste triumph in historically conservative places. For the first time the PS was ahead in both Paris and its region. The overwhelming rejection was perhaps the reason that Sarkozy conceded defeat just half an hour after the polling stations closed.

François Hollande will officially take over as president on May 15. The immediate battle for the Parti Socialiste is not over: in June it faces all important parliamentary elections. The challenge says Pierre “is to win a socialist majority in order to be safe from a green-red pressure” from Sarkozy’s defeated Union for a Popular Movement and the far right threat of the Front National.

For Hollande the challenges are just starting: meanwhile his party is launched once more into a vital election battle.

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on May 9 2012).