Jacques Chirac died a few days ago, a lifelong "statesman" and Gallic charmer with the usual French politician's taste for personal corruption and boundless greed, but an impressive sexual appetite even by the standards of his peers. In 2002, his nation and Europe were momentarily convulsed when Jean-Marie Le Pen, the soi-disant fascist, managed to make it into the final round of the presidential election. With hindsight, this supposed "freak" result was a forerunner of what was to come - not just in France, but in other parts of the Continent and beyond. Fifteen years later, Jean-Marie's daughter, Marine Le Pen, gave the "respectable" candidate a far closer run for his money, and after the spring Euro-elections her party remains geographically dominant throughout France with M Macron's support confined to the large cities. Much of what I wrote in this column, published in April 2002 (or about six months after 9/11), foreshadows the changing political landscape in the European Union, and the rise of an economically protectionist/culturally nationalist "right":
On Sunday, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the alleged extreme right-wing madman, managed to place second in the first round of the French Presidential election. Since then, many Europhile commentators in the English-speaking world have been attempting to reassure us that the significance of this event has been much overplayed -- Le Pen only got a little more than he usually gets, pure fluke he came second, nothing to see here, move along. The best response to this line of thinking was by the shrewd Internet commentatrix Megan McArdle: "They're completely missing the point, which is that it's hilarious."
Absolutely. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be weeping with laughter at the scenes of France's snot-nosed political elite huffily denouncing Sunday's result as an insult to the honour of the Republic. I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago and I well remember the retired French diplomat who assured me that "a man like George W Bush is simply not possible in our politics. For a creature of such crude, simplistic and extreme views to be one of the two principal candidates in a presidential election would be inconceivable here. Inconceivable!"
Please, no giggling. Somehow events have so arranged themselves that French electors now face a choice, as the papers see it, between "la droite" et "l'extrême droite." The French people have taken to the streets in angry protests against ... the French people! Which must be a relief to the operators of McDonald's franchises, British lorry drivers and other more traditional targets of their ire, but is still a little weird. Meanwhile, the only thing that stands between M Le Pen and the Elysée Palace, President Chirac, has declared himself the representative of "the soul of the Republic." In the sense that he's a shifty dissembler with a long history of financial scandal and no political principles, he may be on to something.
While M Chirac has cast himself as the defender of France, M Le Pen is apparently the defender of the Jews. While I was over there, he was the only candidate who was seriously affronted by the epidemic of anti-Jew assaults by French Muslims. The Eurosnots told me this was "cynical," given that M Le Pen is notoriously anti-Jew and not above doing oven jokes in public. But that doesn't necessarily make him cynical. Maybe he just loathes Arabs even more than Jews (which, for linguistic pedants, would make him technically a perfect anti-Semite). Maybe he just resents the Muslims muscling in on his turf: "We strongly object to the Arab attacks on the Jews. That's our job." But, given that Chirac and Jospin brushed off the Jew-bashing epidemic like a speck of dust on their elegant suits, Le Pen's ability to co-opt it into his general tough-on-crime/tough-on-immigrants approach showed at the least a certain political savvy.
Still, despite the racism and bigotry, I resent the characterization of M Le Pen as "extreme right." I'm an extreme right-wing madman myself, and it takes one to know one. M Le Pen is an economic protectionist in favour of the minimum wage, lavish subsidies for France's incompetent industries and inefficient agriculture; he's anti-American and fiercely opposed to globalization. In other words, he's got far more in common with Naomi Klein than with me. He would fit right in as a guest host on the CBC's "CounterSpin". Even the antipathy toward Jews is more of a left-wing thing these days -- see the EU, UN, Svend and Mary Robinson, etc. Insofar as anyone speaks up for Jews in the West, it's only a few right-wing columnists, Newt Gingrich, Christian conservatives and Mrs. Thatcher -- or, as a reader e-mailed the other day, "all you Hebraic assholes on the right." M Le Pen is a nationalist and a socialist -- or, if you prefer, a nationalist socialist. Hmm. A bit long but, if you lost a syllable, you might be in business.
But terms like "left" and "right" are irrelevant in French politics. In an advanced technocratic state, where almost any issue worth talking about has been ruled beyond the scope of partisan politics, you might as well throw away the compass. The presidential election was meant to be a contest between the supposedly conservative Chirac and his supposedly socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. In practice, this boils down to a candidate who's left of right of left of centre, and a candidate who's right of left of right of left of centre. Chirac and Jospin ran on identical platforms -- they're both in favour of high taxes, high unemployment and high crime. So, with no significant policy differences between them, the two candidates were relying on their personal appeal, which, given that one's a fraud and the other's a dullard, was asking rather too much of French voters. Faced with a choice between Eurodee and Eurodum, you can't blame electors for choosing to make it a real race by voting for the one guy running on an openly stated, clearly defined manifesto.
M Le Pen wants to restrict immigration; Chirac and Jospin think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen thinks the euro is a "currency of occupation"; Chospin and Jirac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to pull out of the EU; Chipin and Josrac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to get tough on crime; Chispac and Jorin think this, too, is beneath discussion, and that may have been their mistake. European union and even immigration are lofty, philosophical issues. But crime is personal. The French are undergoing a terrible wave of criminality, in which thousands of cars are routinely torched for fun, and more and more immigrant suburbs are no-go areas for the police. Chirac and Jospin's unwillingness even to address this issue only confirmed their image as the arrogant co-regents of a remote, insulated elite.
Europe's ruling class has effortlessly refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it. You might disapprove of what Le Pen says on immigration, but to declare that the subject cannot even be raised is profoundly unhealthy for a democracy. The problem with the old one-party states of Africa and Latin America was that they criminalized dissent: You could no longer criticize the President, you could only kill him. In the two-party one-party states of Europe, a similar process is under way: If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain topics, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable politicians -- as they're doing in France, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere. Le Pen is not an aberration but the logical consequence.
The Eurosnots, of course, learn nothing. President Chirac, for his part, has announced that he will not deign to debate his opponent during the remaining two weeks of the campaign. M Le Pen beat M. Chirac in nine of France's 22 districts. Unlovely he may be, but he is the legitimate standard-bearer for democratic opposition to Chirac. By refusing to engage, the President is doing a grave disservice to French democracy. Similarly, Gerhard Schroeder, facing difficult electoral prospects this fall, is now warning German conservatives that he will decline to participate in a "campaign of fear" -- i.e., on touchy issues. But the way you defeat poisonous ideas is to expose them to the bracing air of open debate. In Marseilles, they're burning synagogues. In Berlin, the police advise Jews not to leave their homes in skullcaps or other identifying marks of their faith. But Europe's political establishments insist that, on immigration and crime, there's nothing to talk about.
A century and a half ago, Tsar Nicholas I described Turkey as "the sick man of Europe." Today, the sick man of Europe is the European -- the urbane Continental princelings like Chirac and Michel, gliding from capital to capital building their Eutopia, oblivious to the popular will except on those rare occasions, such as Sunday, when the people do something so impertinent they finally catch the eye of their haughty maître d'. I've said before that September 11th will prove to be like the Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo -- one of those events that shatters the known world. To the list of polities destined to slip down the Eurinal of history, we must add the European Union and France's Fifth Republic. The only question is how messy their disintegration will be.
~from The National Post of Canada, April 25th 2002
If you're a Mark Steyn Club member, feel free to disagree in the comments section - but please do stay on topic and be respectful of your fellow members; disrespect and outright contempt should be reserved for Mark personally. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership.
Tonight, Thursday, Mark returns to "Tucker Carlson Tonight", and tomorrow, Friday, he'll be here for another Clubland Q&A, live around the planet at 4pm North American Eastern - that's 8pm Greenwich Mean Time.
Comment on this item (members only)
Submission of reader comments is restricted to Mark Steyn Club members only. If you are not yet a member, please click here to join. If you are already a member, please log in here:
Member Login
36 Member Comments
Hmm! Marine le Pen's father is of Breton stock, that is to say, Celtic. Those are of the tribes subjugated by the Franks, so doesn't that make her more Vercingetorix, Asterix and Obelix than the Germanic Franks - the modern French? Isn't Tommy Robinson Celtic Irish?
Is there something cosmically profound about the Celts that needs to be squashed time after time?
I'm a little short-sighted and when I saw the picture my first thought was that it was Bill Clinton with Chirac!
In the final scene of Animal Farm when the pigs seem to have turned into men, does Orwell mention whether individuals could be told apart?
Meanwhile, do you remember that Chirac simply refused to have a debate with Le Pen, an incredible step at the time? Le Pen was going to focus on "corruption"' and could have asked some really interesting questions. We were denied a really interesting spectacle.
French TV should have told Chirac to turn up, or Le Pen would be talking to an empty chair.
Some members of the Welsh-language group I used to hang around with were hoping Le Pen would win, in spirit of Brythonic solidarity: either his father or his grandfather spoke Breton in preference to French.
A long favorite and well-remembered column by M. Mark. Had many occasions over the years that brought it to mind. Bravo, well-done! Extra delight when not long after one of the peeps, a wee 10-year-old at the time in the French education system was watching an episode of Les grignols d'info with a shadowy figure surreptiously trotting back while dropping wads of cash and laughed out loud--pointing, "Chirac!"
Yeah, it was known, even the primary school kids knew!
But the problem has always been, the People couldn't do anything about it. Their choices were always Eurodee and Eurodum. Always. Hence why so many Gilets Jaunes who said they've been voting 'blanc' for years - the silent, ignored protest --- now warning.
"I resent the characterization of M Le Pen as 'extreme right'." Quite right. I think it's not only the French, though. As far as I'm concerned, "the far right" always were, and today remain, essentially lefties, to a man: good solid working-class heroes with a strong herding instinct. It always amused me to see the chief nazis in cock-and-bull adventure flicks depicted as be-monocled aristocrats: as far as my understanding goes, the nazis hated aristocrats as much as they hated Jewish capitalists. Just because they want the economy bent to the welfare and advancement of a particular working-class population does not make them any less partial to the working class and its tiresome struggle against real or imagined oppression by real or imagined enemies.
As it seems to me, it is thematic xenophobia which makes it possible for lefties to characterise the "far right" as the far right. It is, I suggest, in an endeavour to justify the characterisation of their political enemies as "far right" that lefties ascribe xenophobia and racism to them without any recourse to meaningful evidence. It makes me very happy when lefties are caught, so to speak, with their fingers well up their own noses every time they exhibit racism and xenophobia of their own. As far as I'm concerned, these things do not make them less left-wing in inclination, but more so.
On the other hand, I'm not myself so conservative that I pine for a stronger religious element in legislation, want government-funded schooling summarily ended and insist on the abolition of trades unions ('though I'd be a dolt to recommend government-funded education as the acme on the market and to deny that trades unions are awfully comfortable with all sorts of criminality), so if Mme le Pen and her ilk want the title "far right", they can have it. I know them for an uncharacteristically honest faction of the left.
The Left brands any opponent , right of left of them , fascists and far right. Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" discusses this. Hence fellow socialists with a national racial bent over international communism are "far right" even though Hitler said and acted socialist.
Even Fox News plays along - in that annoying scrolling it's always 'far right Marine le Pen' whenever she's in the news.
That's about the sum of it, R., and I think that's at least part the point the author was making by invoking Tweedledum and Tweedledee: the lefties are fighting their twins. Amusing. We do have fun, don't we?
Dead right, R. Sadly, we all play along when the lefties hijack the language. It goes deep. I see an opportunity to mount my favourite hobby-horse here. How in hell did the left corner the market on the terms "progressive" and "liberal"? In no sense of the word do they stand for progess, and in no sense of the word do they stand for personal liberties or tolerance, and they never have, except in the wake of so-styled "conservatives". It annoys me, because, like many in the conservative camp, I'd have liked to describe my views as progressive and liberal. Now I have to settle for "quirky", and "suspicious of the welfare state". No, make that "a whole lot more suspicious of the welfare state than the British Conservative party and Mr Trump's Republican party seen to be". In short, my views are suspicious. But I digress.
Yes S. Swamp creatures come in two distinct flavors which is why Trump received zero support for enhanced
border security when the GOP controlled all 3 branches during his first two years. The near future is very clear to me - America ruled by a hard left democratic party (done) opposed by a soft left republican party (almost there now).
I can't think of a single, tiny reason to quarrel with that prognosis, R., little as I like it.
I like "swamp creatures", though. The designation, that is, not the creature. Something flat and slimy springs to mind.
You can almost substitute in Trump for Le Pen. The Donald was elected campaigning on topics beneath discussion such as immigration/the Wall, trade/jobs and stopping the endless wars. The main difference is Trump won.
Back in the early 2000's I kept closer track of French politics. I could never figure out what the French electorate wanted except to go on vacation in August.
If we may. Well, after seeing how this is all rolling out, the French People must be on to something... in the U.S. the pressure to extend work-weeks to 50+ hours and make acceptance of perpetual overtime 'normal' isn't living, but a form of commuter slavery. How many supposedly 'free' Americans would love to have a month off every year, but are told they should be happy to get five days vaca, after a year of six-day work-weeks.
A lot of 'established' things are seriously messed.
The French, having limited the working-week, now dine in the Restauration des Micro-Ondes. They also,as serial devaluers, have helped to stuff the ECB with worthless IOUs. Hey ho.
Hey sailor. How does anyone much less the French dine in the restoring of micro-waves?
At the resto-rapide of course, mon ami.
Hey mec. Funny thing to say, after the number of faux amis packed into those two short posts.
The true faux ami is the idea that you can regulate a language. Such a waste of energy.
Regulation is the garrote of choice for the EU and it's working well.
Random phrase generator.
Kindly let us know where this is available. AI is simply GIGO. Have a nice day. The spiritual home of the BBC is Doha. Fade to black.
Such a waste of energy.
Foreshadows indeed. This entire column reads as prescient today as it was almost 20 years ago.
"You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be weeping with laughter at the scenes of France's snot-nosed political elite huffily denouncing Sunday's result as an insult to the honour of the Republic."
Pundits, intellectuals, philosophers, whatever, often rhapsodize on the old age conflict of man (allow me the gender usage here): good versus evil, right versus wrong, rich versus poor, etc. I believe the perpetual conflict of man is self-rule versus rule by others. Others means everything from monarchs to dictators to canals of technocrats.
And that's where we are today. Do people believe in self-rule of the people, which means Trump and brexit and everything associated with these positions, right or wrong though they may be, or do people prefer the rule of others, be they kings, dictators, elitists, statists, bureaucrats, whatever?
It's clear the left favors rule by themselves; it's less clear what the right believes.
Have to respectfully disagree. The Left wants us all to live under rule by the bureaucrats, the central planners, in a word, the government, those who think the know what's best for us. I have lived under leftist socialism and you can have it. I wouldn't wish it on anybody.
You've spoken for me, G.: "I have lived under leftist socialism and you can have it. I wouldn't wish it on anybody." Hear, hear!
Then we don't disagree. The Left only wants rule by bureaucrats if they are the bureaucrats, hence they want to rule over the rest of us. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough on that.
Can I ask what I said specifically that you disagree with? I'm trying to understand why you think we disagree.
I remember Chirac refusing to support Bush in Iraq and not respecting sanctions and profiting from that.
Le Macron was materialised in an hour of need and an hour later he was leading a full-service, wildly popular political party. You couldn't make it up.
Hard to believe this magnificent piece is from seventeen years ago. What has changed that much? To the list of polities destined to slip down the Eurinal of history we must add the European Union...." If that's not a call to flush the elites all away, what is?
YES, yes, yes...THIS is why I am humbled by Mr. Steyn's mind and heart...impossibly unique writing...can I SAY that???
"Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental." That said, the pattern of voters turning to candidates deemed beneath contempt who address subjects deemed beneath discussion does ring a bell. So does the reaction of the ruling class to try to silence the beastly upstarts. On the same day, Kamala Harris called for President Trump to be thrown off Twitter, while Maxine Waters demanded he be thrown in jail—and in solitary for good measure. That both these Commissars of Colloquy were women of color puzzles if not disturbs me. I wonder, however, how long it would take The Squad to turn into The Firing Squad.
"[...] how long it would take The Squad to turn into The Firing Squad."
Turn into?
Not that big of a leap from where we are now. They are not joking about imprisoning our president when he leaves office - The N.Y. attorney general has expressed great frustration that she can't put him in Rickers now, claiming no one is above the law regardless of position. Like all democrats she states this with a straight face. Now democrats working with the Ministry of Information - formally known as the national media - are ginning up an investigation of the vice President. Like the Russian sedition attempt the'll start with the conclusion that he's guilty and work from there. Who was more spot on in warning of a dystopian future George Orwell or Aldous Huxley? Touch and go at present with "America Alone" nicely serving as a modern update to what seems to be an unstoppable descent into collective madness - at least in the west. That future has arrived and it gets ever uglier with each passing day.
Not long ago I would have said Brave New World was the better description of our future. The Orwellians have put on quite a kick and now it looks neck and neck. The Orwellians never play fair so they are seeking to ban fruity flavored soma vaping. Our devotees of Stalinism never thought 1984 was a warning but that it was an instruction manual.
Neither BNW nor 1984 foresaw the forthcoming clash of delusional socialists vs. the sunni with their handbook of rapine. The crystal ball used by the socialists is in constant use in its hollowed out tree trunk, somewhere in Al Andaluz.
I know why my bookie is not making a price.
Meanwhile, the U.S. invasion continues unabated.
My own little bedroom community's city council (prodded by an aclu hit-squad) is considering an ordinance that would obligate the city to invite impoverished federal fugitives to settle in our town. The battle is joined this Monday. Prayers welcome.
Bravo Mark for a smashing assessment of the French quagmire. We ignore world events at our peril. Much more concerned about im-preachment!Yawn....