WHO'S RIGHT?
WHAT'S WRONG?
The French Right faces its
Paris THE right-wing political melodrama which has been gripping France since the begin- ning of the month reached its height on the main evening television news programme on 10 April when Dominique Baudis, the good-looking young mayor of Toulouse and former television news presenter, turned his soft eyes to the cameras and appealed to former President Giscard d'Estaing, 'with all the respect and admira- tion I have for him', to commit the equivalent of a political suicide.
What he and the 11 other 'young Turks' from the neo-Gaullist RPR and centre- right UDF parties were demanding was that Giscard step down as leader of the joint UDF-RPR list for the forthcoming European parliamentary elections, and thereby abandon his hopes both of winning the presidency of the European parlia- ment, and of using that as a stepping stone for his ultimate avowed ambition fo be- coming president of a future United States of Europe.
'M. Le President,' Baudis crooned (in France, one always keeps one's former title even though one may no longer occupy tht pariticular post), 'I appeal to you with all sincerity and from the bottom of my heart, make this gesture of generosity and unself- ishness, this gesture full of promise for the future, which the country expects of you.'
After losing the presidential election in 1981, Giscard was written off as politically dead. He had come to be detested by both the Right and the Left. But slowly and painstakingly, he has been forging his political come-back, first getting himself re-elected deputy for Puy-de Dome in 1984, then taking over the presidency of the parliamentary foreign affairs commit- tee, and finally re-imposing himself last summer as leader of the UDF, the loose federation of centre-right parties which he himself had helped form ten years earlier — not exactly the most glamorous post, but nevertheless useful as a launching pad. He is still only 63 and many fear that he continues to nurture secret hopes of being re-elected President of France.
But the rebellion of the young Turks was not just against Giscard. Their uprising is symptomatic of a profound malaise which has crippled the whole of the French Right ever since Jacques Chirac's humiliating defeat in the presidential elections a year ago. Until the unexpected Socialist victory in 1981, the Right had held sway in France for quarter of a century. They had got used to the idea that they were the rightful rulers of the country. Now they were having to face the prospect of being out of power for 14 years.
Many felt that something radical had to be done: the old formulas had proved disastrous. But what? That was (and still is) the problem. One persistent idea was that the two main parties on the Right must get together if they were to have any chance of regaining power. But under what leadership? The three figures who had dominated the Right over the past 15 years had all been discredited — Giscard after losing the presidentials in 1981, and Chirac and Barre after losing them in 1988.
It was the resounding success of many of the younger up-and-coming right-wing politicians in last month's municipal elec- tions, such as Michel Noir in Lyons, which seems to have given them the courage, or the temerity, to rise up again against the established party chiefs. On 5 April, 12 rebel MPs — all in their thirties or forties, most with important positions in local government, and many with former gov- ernment posts, made their declaration of war, calling for a fundamental renewal of ideas and methods on the Right and the 'I'm not 100 per cent about the politics — but it's a cracking uniform.' removal of Giscard from the leadership of the RPR-UDF European list.
The only real hope for a united right- wing front capable of winning the Euro- pean elections was to field a list of candi- dates led by a new generation of young renovateurs (like us, they argued), because a list led by Giscard was bound to provoke a rival centrist list led by Simone Veil, a leading UDF member and consistently voted the most popular politician on the Right.
However, old-guard 'counter- revolutionaries', such as Charles Pasqua, the former interior minister, retorted (with some justice) that he preferred a list which unites all of the RPR and a large majority of the UDF to one comprising a small part of the UDF and a few RPR members.
Other younger opponents of the 'young Turks', such as Francois Leotard, leader of the Parti Radical — one of the main constituents of the UDF — have deliber- ately tried to reduce the affair into a silly quarrel between the generations. 'I reject a political approach based simply on age,' he said. • 'It's ridiculous and shameful. The state of a politician's arteries is not a serious criterion for reflection.'
Leotard, who is is 47 and who has already made public his burning presiden- tial ambitions, has not been known in the past either for his loyalty to Giscard, his former mentor, or for his passionate in- terest in the unity of the Right. But he has apparently decided to back Giscard on this occasion on the understanding that Giscard would hand over the leadership of the UDF to him once he (Giscard) became president of the European parliament.
The national councils of both the RPR and the UDF have overwhelmingly approved Giscard's leadership of the offi- cial RPR-UDF list, and the rebel MPs have now given up any idea of fielding a separate one of their own. However, the opinion polls show that the renovateurs, as they call themselves, have considerable sympathy among the electorate at large, and they say that they are determined to continue with their 'action'.
But what action and to what end? Apart from their relative youth and desire for 'right-wing 'unity and renewal', we know very little about the renovateurs' aims or policies. As so often in French politics, the debate has centred on who is doing the talking rather than on what they are saying. Still, it is not just the renovateurs, but the whole of the French Right which now lacks a coherent philosophy and im- age. The recent shift of the Socialists towards the political centre and the emerg- ence of the National Front and the extreme Right have only added to the confusion of the political demarcation lines. The electo- rate is no longer certain what exactly it is voting for when it is asked to vote for the Right. The renovateurs have started out in the search for a new identity, independent of dominating personalities.
Previous page
