Astonishing politics

It’s hard exactly to judge just how much of a political sea change is underway here in France at the moment. If the hype – no it’s actually much more profound than that – media coverage/saturation (take your pick) is to be believed, then something huge is in the process of being created.

After having swept to victory in the Presidential elections a couple of weeks ago, Sarkozy has gone for the Opposition’s jugular BIG TIME and probably very effectively.

A little recapitulation:

During his campaigning, he appealed in the nicest possible way of course, to supporters of the Far Right “Front Nationale.” Result? Their vote crumbled and their leader’s political career is all but over, and that of his daughter and political strategist, in tatters.

Then of course there was the period between the two rounds of voting when Centrist François Bayrou threw several tizzy fits, demanded Mr S take note of those who had voted for him (a not negligible 18% of the electorate) and even held a broadcast debate with SR. He outed himself as an extremely bad loser and simultaneously announced the launch of his new party (MoDem).

So what did the very, very clever Mr S do? Well before the second round he invited a chunk of Bayrou’s old parliamentary party to ‘come on board” – hardly revolutionary given that they are natural bedfellows really. Stage one of smashing the Centre. Then after the May 6 vote, he went for the double whammy and invited one of Beyrou’s closest political allies and fellow party member, Hervé Morin, into government as Minister of Defence no less. Game set and match as far MoDem is concerned for the immediate future.

So what was Left for Mr S to do? Tum-te-tum…..take aim at the Socialists. Well the Left in general has been all over the place since SR’s loss. The Communists are completely peripheral to events, the gaggle of extreme Left wing parties have crept back into their shells and the Greens…….well they have “unsigned” any electoral pack they had with the Socialists in the upcoming parliamentary elections and are prepared to stand against them in all constituencies.

Meanwhile the Socialists themselves are supposed to be regrouping and preparing for those very important elections in mid June. Instead the “elephants” have taken aim at SR, rehashing claims that she simply wasn’t the right candidate to take on Sarkozy (cries of “It should have been me” from Strauss-Kahn, Fabius and Jospin). Her companion (definitely trouble in paradise there – he’s shagging elsewhere) and president of the Party, François Hollande has called for solidarity (such a good Socialist word that) and “now is the time to focus on how to stop Sarkers in his tracks by gaining a healthy number of seats in the new parliament.” And then Seggers goes and throws a spanner by saying the Party needs to decide as soon as possible who should be the candidate for the 2012 race and then get behind that wo(man) to stop a repeat of “waking up every morning during the campaign to discover what latest snipe had been delivered by a fellow Party member”. Gotta feel for her.

Anyway while they’re all bickering Mr S weighs into the slug fest by appointing “the nation’s favourite Leftwing politician, former Socialist health minister, founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres and general all round good egg, Bernard Kouchner, as FOREIGN MINISTER (“Outrageous opportunist. We’re discontinuing his Party membership. He’ll simply be a puppet” – Hollande).

To make matters worse – or better – depending on your perspective Sarkozy has also appointed several “socially responsible” Centrists to key cabinet posts and announced the creation of 5 Secretaries of State or “Czars” who’ll be responsible for formulating and implementing new policies. One of them is Eric Besson – former campaign strategist for a certain SR, who had his own little tizzy three months ago and vowed to leave “politics behind” (yeah right). And another “Czar” is none other than the director of Emmaus!

DIVIDE AND CONQUER! And the wounds were salted at the beginning of this week when Sarkozy kept to his pledge (in word) of getting all interested parties together (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, professors of this and that) and TV campaigner Nicolas Hulot) with the newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister/Minister of Ecology/Environment/Transport/Energy and just about anything else you care to name…….oh yes and convicted criminal (the former Prime Minister took the rap for Chirac’s shady dealings and was banished to Canada for a year) Alain Juppé. Good to see that some things never change.

So a lot of Jaw-Jaw about putting the environment at the centre of policy decisions; We’ll see how and whether Mr S can deliver later in the year.

For now he has a whole raft of policies set for the green light, and he’s got a leaner (cleaner, meaner – we’ll see) Cabinet of 15 in place raring to go. But now’t can really happen until after the parliamentary elections….and Mr S is banking on a huge majority (and that seems to be supported in the polls) to be able to force through loadsa legislation in an extraordinary session over the Summer……when let’s face it the whole of France is on holiday and highly unlikely to take to the streets.

So watch this space. I shall definitely be boring you with more missives over the months that follow.

On another note, we Brits…..and especially we Welsh (well my father was from that part of the world and my middle name is Gareth) have a vested interested in the new government here. The Prime Minister, François Fillon is married to a lady from the Valleys – a certain Penelope (pronounced Penny-lope here). Well Yakky – dah indeed!