A sentence or two can, at times, say more than some essays or doctoral theses. This is one of those instances. As the campaign for the first round of voting in the French presidential election entered the home straight, American Joseph Stiglitz felt constrained to take to Twitter: “I wish Marine Le Pen would stop acting as if I agree with her and her (political, economic and monetary) ideas”, raising a more sinister note when he went on: “Apart from anything else, I am Jewish and my wife’s family fled France during the war”.
That sentence on its own reveals the horror that France’s National Front candidate can arouse wherever there remains an ounce of lucidity as to what is really now at stake in vote after vote across Europe, and elsewhere. It resonates with the reaction of former member of the European Parliament François Roelants du Vivier from Belgium who said on Facebook that it “sends a chill down (his) spine” reading some of the comments from the extreme right and the extreme left about Emmanuel Macron: “by branding the candidate as a hitman for the Rothschild bank and the Bilderberg group (substitute Jew for Rothschild and free-mason for Bilderberg and you’ve got the picture), you give free rein to the most reprehensible anti-Semitism”. A few sentences can, indeed, say much about the state of the world we live in, whether we want to see it or not.
Some have decided no longer to close their eyes, no longer to say nothing when extremists lie, distort the truth, or take advantage of people’s ignorance to turn their dark designs into reality. Joseph Stiglitz was joined by 12 Nobel Prize winners – including a Frenchman, Jean Tirole – and 188 economists in setting the record straight and condemning “the instrumentalisation of economic thinking” by the French National Front.
While being highly critical of the way the euro zone is managed, they refuse to endorse populist nonsense, on the contrary issuing a crystal clear warning: “Isolationist and protectionist policies and competitive devaluations, all carried out to the detriment of other countries, are dangerous methods of trying to generate growth” and will only lead to “reprisals and trade wars”. Hence this call for sanity: “The problems are too serious to be left to divisive politicians”. And is that not precisely what German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk was thinking when he gave this lesson in semantics? “Any party that calls itself a ‘front’ is in the wrong century. We have moved into the time of coalitions, not of fronts. Misguided terminology is revelatory of misguided policies” (Le Monde, 20 April).
Some have decided no longer to remain silent because what is being played out in France is of concern to more than just France. For a very long time, Europe’s “responsible” political leaders have shied away from commenting on elections or votes in any other country than their own for fear of being accused of interfering. This restraint now belongs to another time, is simply obsolete even, because, on the way the French citizens vote will depend to a large extent the continued existence of the single currency and, more broadly, the European Union itself. That is why the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the economic and financial affairs commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, and also the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, and all the “foreigners” speaking from the European Parliament were right to stand up and make clear the great, desperate, intolerable danger that the National Front in the Elysée Palace would represent (see EUROPE 11773).
As Mr Moscovici said, the reasons that led almost 50% of French voters – and 52% of British – to turn their backs on the European project still have to be addressed.
It is reasonable for committed Europeans to think that the election of Emmanuel Macron would be a blessing for the European Union, evidence of perhaps a brighter future. This man who believes that “real sovereignty is achieved through European action” and who has made very clear his openness to very definite progress, won through, as Olivier Costa notes, against ten other candidates who “had spoken against ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. Moreover, for those who were already in politics, they had also rejected the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty” (College of Europe Policy Brief, April 2017). What is there not to be happy about?
But still this French European who belongs to a generation that is perhaps re-engaging with the two French “founding fathers” needs to show the will, the courage and the determination to see right through to the end this revolution that his election hints at – and of which another famous German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, has just, very subtly, provided the outline: “What is important is not … the choice between being ‘for’ or ‘against’ Brussels. It lies in choosing the ‘how’ of a cooperation which now more than ever must be taken forward. Continuation of the current situation, with peoples deprived of power in disregard of all democracy, peoples constantly hauled back into line for economic reasons and strongly advised to do what they are told, would seal the disintegration” of the European project (Le Monde, 20 April).
Will this call be heard? That is what is at stake in the French election.
Michel Theys