THE FALL OF FRANCE

John Laughland reports that France's aspirations to influence Europe are being wrecked by an orgy of high-level corruption

Paris

THE TOMB of the Emperor Napoleon, whose elaborate gilded dome rises behind the Hotel des Invalides, is one of the great- sights of Paris. Visible from many grand perspectives, at the end of a number of boulevards and avenues, the mausoleum can also sometimes be glimpsed between the rooftops, its golden decoration shining against the leaden Paris winter sky. Howev- er, the visitor to the monument is in for a shock if he chooses to enter the building, for the impression is a disappointing and bathetic one. The sar- cophagus itself, guarded by a ring of Olympian statues, lies below floor level in a huge circular cavern, and tourists peer over the top, looking down. The cavern is bathed in a lurid blue light, while sombre Muzak plays from a cheap loudspeaker, mak- ing the place for all the world look like a Greek millionaire's swimming- pool. An absurd exhibi- tion describing the life of the last man but one to have united Europe, which consists of maps, drawings and other memorabilia, is inexpli- cably hidden behind screens, and you have to bend down and squint through postcard-sized peep-holes, which makes it impossible actually to see any of the exhibits properly.

The sensation is akin to that produced by observing French politics today. As Presi- dent Mitterrand struts about like a pompous peacock on the European stage, there appears to be a certain grandeur when viewed from the outside; seen from the inside, however, as the Mitterrand fin- de-regne subsides into a welter of corrup- tion and lies, there is cheapness, deceptive secrecy and a grotesque sense of unreality.

Last week, the headquarters of the gov- erning Socialist party in the Rue de Solferi- no (next to the Musee d'Orsay) were raid- ed by an investigating magistrate in search of evidence relating to allegations that the Socialist party has been obtaining money by fraudulent means and using it, among other things, to finance President Mitter- rand's election campaign in 1988. The scan- dal centres on a 'consultancy company', called Urba-Gracco, into which it is alleged companies and individuals were required to pay bribes in order to obtain favours, such as planning permission and public con- tracts. Urba's contribution to the Presi- dent's campaign alone is believed to have been about 25 million francs (£2.5 million). The investigating magistrate spent six hours in the party's offices, rummaging through files, and seized papers relating to the affair. Two members of the Socialist party have already been arrested for fraud.

This is not the first time a judicial inves- tigation has looked into the matter. A pre- vious investigation was closed by the Minister of Justice, Henri Nallet. It just so happens that M. Nallet was the treasurer of broke, concerning the suicide of two men involved in the sale of a tower block at La Defense. Mitterrand's appointment of Edith Cresson as Prime Minister has been an embarrassment and a disaster — la dame vulgaire rather than la dame de fer. While France's constitution solemnly con- fers on every French citizen the right to obtain a job, unemployment is touching three million after nearly ten years of Socialist government. There is hardly a metro station in Paris without a few tramps and winos sleeping on the benches, and they now even populate the suburbs as well. The prisons are overcrowded, the health and education systems are run down; there are even trains delayed by leaves on the line. In foreign policy, a series of gaffes on eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have left France marginalised, while her famous EEC policy of containing Germany has so obviously failed (what with Yugoslavia and the rise in interest rates in December) that the policy is being rapidly rehashed into a comical attempt just to hang on to Germany's coat- tails.

However, the 'political crisis' of which one reads every day in the newspapers is not merely the result of disillusionment at the obvious failings of the Socialist govern- ment, by whose arrival to power in 1981 so many hopes had been raised. Far more important, it is a crisis of confidence in the institutions of political life themselves.

To be sure, the French are not noted for the political stability of their country, nor for much affection for their politicians or institutions. But this time the wave of cor- ruption seems worse than anything which has happened previously. Nor is corruption confined to national politics: ever since the famous decentralisation measure of 1983, corruption at local level has spiralled, as petty local officials feather their nests. Any- one interested in the details might care to consult a book published last week by Gilles Gaetner, a journalist at !'Express, entitled L'Argent Facile: Dictionnaire de la Corruption en France (Editions Stock, 130FF). Even he, however, omits to say specifically how far he thinks Mitterrand himself is implicated, and contents himself with heavy hints, even though the Presi- dent's name is to be found throughout the book. Perhaps he fears he might end up like Robert Boulin, Giscard's employment minister, found dead under suspicious cir- cumstances in 1979.

Nor are the Socialists the only ones involved. It is widely believed, and has been tacitly admitted, that all parties are in it together. Indeed, when the Urba affair sur- faced, the opposition preferred not to press the matter, arguing that a general revela- tion of the moral turpitude of French poli- tics would only hand political advantage to Le Pen. This has made it impossible for the right wing to offer any coherent opposition to the Socialists even when they are at their most vulnerable. Moreover, despite ener- getic efforts to develop a British-style two- party system, the two main right-wing parties, despite great efforts and recent indications that they may field a joint can- didate in the 1995 presidential elections, have more often been divided (especially on Europe) than united. They are riven by personal ambition, some ideological differ- ences, memories of the Algerian war and the question of what to do about the third right-wing party, the National Front.

The result of these systemic failures is perhaps predictable: a wave of apathy, cyn- icism and disgust with politics has swept France over the last few years. It is aug- mented by the fact that French politics has nothing to do with politics at all, and every- thing to do with politicians. The death of politics in France has given way to the domination of politicking. '

On the day of the Urba search, for instance, the Socialist party's headquarters had been at the centre of attention because the new general secretary of the party, Laurent Fabius, had just replaced Pierre Mauroy. Apparently this had something to do with preparing for the local election in a 'Hello. We'd like to talk to you about Jesus.' few months' time and the general election next year; but, although there were long, detailed articles about the change-over, in Le Monde and elsewhere, one sought in vain for a single reference to anything to do with policy. Instead, the matter was dis- cussed entirely in terms of the various fac- tions of the Socialist party jockeying for position. It was all rather reminiscent of old-fashioned Kremlinology.

This excessive personalisation of French politics is emphasised by the fact that these cliques are united around prominent per- sonalities (les Rocardiens, les Jospinistes, les Mitterrandistes etc.) and by the fact that the same old people have been prominent in politics for ages and ages. Both Jacques Chirac (who has been Prime Minister twice, in the 1970s and 1980s) and the for- mer President, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, hope to be elected President in 1995. Michel Rocard, who has the same ambi- tion, first stood for the presidency in 1969. Most spectacularly, President Mitterrand has been senior in politics for over 50 years; he was a minister on many occasions throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including during the Algerian war and Suez, before which he had been awarded Marshal Petain's highest medal, the Francisque Gallique, in 1942, for services rendered while he was a functionary in the Vichy government.

The result is a political class which seems hermetically sealed from the ordinary voter. The National Assembly is a farce: it is nearly always empty and its 'debates' hardly merit the word. They consist of a series of platitudinous speeches read out from a podium. The reason is obvious: all decisions are taken elsewhere and the gov- ernment has a number of constitutional articles by which it can easily impose what- ever it likes on the Assembly. Deputes might as well sing to themselves in the bath as make a speech in the parliament. Because it is not possible for the ordinary citizen to air a grievance via parliament or bring influence to bear on the government via his MP, political life is transformed into a series of gripes and moans, demands and protests. There is no alternative but for interest groups to take to the streets or go on strike, to brave the tender mercies of the CRS crack troops with their water-can- non and tear-gas, until they are bought off by the government. (They usually are.) As executive power becomes opaque, arbitrary and distant, a kind of brute nationalism develops, of which the rise and rise of Le Pen is only one symptom. For instance, the Maastricht summit, as we know, agreed to huge transfers of sovereignty to the EEC; yet the only issue to have elicited any protest, debate or opposition, is the fact that henceforth foreigners from the EEC will be allowed to vote in French municipal elections.

The impression that all politics has become a pure question of political advan- tage is reinforced by the extreme cynicism of Mitterrand's current plans to tinker around with the constitution. He is now setting about dismantling the structures of the Fifth Republic, determined that when he leaves office in 1995 no successor shall enjoy the massive power he will have had as President for 14 years. He announced his intention to `democratise France's polit- ical institutions' (his words) before the Maastricht summit, and without referring to it. There were a few articles at the time which dealt with the various issues, such as the role of the Prime Minister, the powers of the National Assembly, and the length of the presidential term of office, but most papers seemed blithely unaware of what was being cooked up for them in Europe, and omitted any reference to the constitu- tional implications of Maastricht in their deliberations.

Now that the accords have been signed, however, the proposed transfers of sovereignty will require the constitution to be amended. Yet Mitterrand's announce- ment of a 'personal responsibility' for the ratification, and his procrastination over whether he will decide to have the agree- ment ratified by the Assembly or by a ref- erendum, has been understood purely as an attempt to divide the right-wing parties, which are split over Europe. His proposal to change the voting system is a similar ploy to gain electoral advantage: Mitter- rand knows that by introducing proportion- al representation he'will allow the National Front to gain more seats in the parliament, giving the moribund Socialists a clear enemy, and farther dividing the Right by forcing them either to disown Le Pen's undoubted appeal to voters, or to do an electoral deal with him.

There used to be a boast that France was a Soviet Union which had worked. Now that view is looking increasingly ragged, as the French contemplate the massive failure of their brand of managerial-bureaucratic politics, what the Euro-federalists in Britain approvingly call `consensus politics'. One commentator has written, 'All our great institutions, education, the police, the judiciary, social security, are in a state of paralysis.' Faced with this evident failure, One philosopher has argued, in a rather grandiose French way, for the need for a `post-national identity', a loyalty to prac- tices, a faith in institutions and the consti- tution, rather than an abstract notion of the nation in a republican or revolutionary sense, especially now that the French

nation is shortly to become the 17th Ger- man Bundesland anyway. Reading this, I was struck by a sense of deja-vu. Loyalty to institutions? Faith in practices? A post- national identity? Could it be? Surely not! Something like the loyalty to Crown and Parliament in the United Kingdom? Napoleon must be turning in his swim- ming-pool.

John Laughland is Lecturer in Politics at the Sorbonne