Vive La France - but not just yet!

According to all the experts, the Hungarian dwarf is in for a thrashing at the forthcoming electoral rounds in France.  His main opponent, Francois Hollande, is expected to win and I certainly hope he does.  Of course, you may construe my desire to inflict socialism on France is part of English animus against the French.  This would be a mistake.  Of course, I enjoy teasing the French, in exactly the same way they do us, but I like France and on my many visits there I have always found the French to be tres amiable.  So why do I wish for the curse of socialism to hit them?  Well, simply because Hollande is promising to take a severe line against the European Union, not least, the EU fiscal pact (or the German Iron Fist, as I like to think of it!)  Apparently, Hollande is determined that everyone in France should retire at 60 and that millionaires must be taxed at 75%.  Excellent news, just think how property prices will rise as they come over to London!  Also, he is promising more public ownership, more government spending and, of course, more borrowing.  Finally, he is threatening to veto the euro stability pact.

All of this will give the 'Kaiserin' (and Brussels) a severe headache, or at least, I hope it will. Again, the experts assume that relations between Mrs. Merkel and 'President' Hollande will be frosty, to say the least.  However, one must remember that politicians' promises are as cheap as yesterday's fish.  As Der Spiegel asks and answers:

Can Merkel and Hollande work together? The chancellor has given the Socialist candidate the cold shoulder for a long time but, in the meantime, her aides have carefully put out feelers. Hollande has responded by saying that, if elected, his first trip would be to Germany. The EU needs a German-French partnership during its deep crisis, he says.

Elmar Brok, a CDU politician and the chairman of the European Parliament's committee on foreign affairs, agrees. He maintains that German-French relations have never been especially influenced by the party affliations of the two countries' leaders. "Experience shows that other issues become more important, such as whether there is chemistry between the main players," he says.

In Brok's opinion, a partnership between Merkel and Hollande is possible. In the end, the conservative French President Giscard d'Estaing and the Social Democrat Chancellor Helmut Schmidt worked as closely together as the Socialist Francois Mitterrand did with Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl.

The French are facing the same problem we face in Britain - or will be facing in two or three years, that is, a supposedly Right-wing government that promised Right-wing policies but ratted us out.  In their irritation with Sarkozy I suspect the French will take their revenge despite my suspicion that not too many of them are enthusiastic for more expensive socialism.  However, they cannot allow Sarkozy, the promise breaker, another seven five years (I stand corrected by Pascal in the comments) because he will then take them for granted.  That, I suspect, will be part of how the British public will feel when Cameron, another promise breaker, is forced to face his electorate.  In both countries it will be interesting to see how well the small fringe parties do.

 

Comments

[Whyaxye]

Interesting point. The problem with our "First past the post" system is, of course, that the electoral support for the small parties can increase quite a lot without affecting the distribution of seats. And even then, the first changes would be merely to erode enough Tory support in marginal seats to let in Labour. Result? A weakened conservative government, a sprinkling of loons like Galloway, and some false hopes for Labour based on electoral share.

I think we could do with a catastrophe or two...

[David Duff]

Yes, you're eirght, of course, 'W', but every vote for a minority party is one that is not cast for a majority and that could upset some apple carts as well as a send a signal to the inmates of the Westminster loony-bin!

[Pascal]

It's a 5 year mandate...

[dearieme]

"because Hollande is promising to take a severe line>>>": aw, Duffers, what's a promise got to do with anything?

[David Duff]

Thanks Pascal, ignorant Englishman that I am!

DM, your cynicism is shocking in one so, er, young!