A convergence of political ideas

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the veteran French extremist, shocked the world last week by placing second in the first round of France's presidential elections. While most commentators had expected Le Pen to do respectably, he wasn't supposed to challenge the two front-runners, Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin and Gaullist president Jacques Chirac. Jospin harbored aspirations of seizing the presidency from Chirac; instead, Chirac came in first, with Le Pen squeaking past Jospin and forcing a final-round showdown between the right and the far right. France, of course, is hardly a right-leaning country, especially compared to the United States: Chirac has more in common with Paul Wellstone than Trent Lott. However, the surprise success of Le Pen has certainly skewed next month's French presidential run-off, causing many to speculate on the broader lessons for Europe and other Western democracies.

In picking over this debacle, the media has concentrated on the rise of extremism within and beyond France. Given a number of anti-Semitic incidents in France and ongoing discrimination against French Muslims, this interpretation of Le Pen's rise is compelling. However, focusing only on Le Pen misses the bigger picture. Why were so few French voters willing to vote for Jospin and Chirac? The president and prime minister could manage only a third of the votes between them, and their lackluster campaigns led to one of the lowest turnouts in French history. One obvious reason for this is that France, like many European countries, has followed the American path of political convergence: the main political parties in France, like the Republicans and Democrats, have gradually discarded their distinctive identities and have come to agreement on many major issues, especially the economy. France, a key participant in the new single European currency, has ceded much of its economic policymaking to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. While this doesn't mean that French politicians have become mere puppets of Germany, as Le Pen might claim, it does limit the range of political options available to the right or the left — and it has allowed Le Pen to present himself as a populist, committed to withdrawal from the European Union and the restoration of France's political and economic sovereignty.

Though Le Pen's perspective on all this is muddled, he has certainly been aided by the failure of Jospin and Chirac to articulate a clear defense of France's relationship with Europe. Moreover, the growing similarities between the Socialist and Gaullist parties in France have fueled the perception that European economic integration amounts to the end of politics. Hence the other phenomenon which led to Le Pen's success: the record number of third-party candidates competing in the first round of the presidential election. Though this may seem to demonstrate the vitality of France's democracy, the lack of cooperation between these third-party candidates — especially between the candidates on the left — created an opening for Le Pen to act as a clearing-house for right-leaning voters. Third-party candidates in France, as in the United States, can play a vital role in reinvigorating the stale and complacent political mainstream; but to do so they need concrete reforms (like instant runoff voting and proportional representation) as well as a savvy sense of how best to harness public disaffection with mainstream parties.

Though we should certainly monitor and condemn French extremism, Le Pen's victory tells us at least as much about the weakness of mainstream politics in France as about the vitality of European fascism and racism. The challenge for major political parties in the wake of Le Pen's victory, then, is not only to denounce his xenophobia and anti-immigration stance, but also to rebut his claims that governments can no longer play a decisive role in improving the lives of their citizens?

There's some good news from Britain, where the traditionally left-leaning Labour government recently announced a big increase in spending on the beleaguered National Health Service. Tony Blair, after five years of blandly cautious governance, has finally realized that British voters need something to differentiate him from his political opponents. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, however, Blair also announced a new anti-immigration policy. Using the bizarre rationale that such a policy would cut off the oxygen supply to British admirers of Le Pen, Blair's Home Secretary promised to make it harder for 'asylum-seekers' to use British social services, to educate their children and to remain in the country. If the British government clearly supports anti-immigrant policies, is this likely to disappoint or encourage the extremists? Once again, the story of extremism is also a story about what's happening in the political mainstream — and so opposing a figure like Le Pen requires not only isolating him and his message, but looking critically at the broader political landscape. Nicholas Guyatt, a graduate student in the history department, is from Bristol, England. He can be reached at nsguyatt@princeton.edu.