Please note that this programme transcript is BBC copyright and may not be reproduced or copied for any other purpose. RADIO 4 CURRENT AFFAIRS RADIO ANALYSIS LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE? TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED DOCUMENTARY Presenter: Quentin Peel Producer: Simon Coates Editor: Nicola Meyrick BBC Room 1210 White City 201 Wood Lane London W12 7TS (020) 8752 7279 Broadcast date: 29.03.2007 2030-2100 Repeat date: 01.04.2007. 2130-2200 CD number: PLN713/07VT1013 Duration: 27.41 Taking part in order of appearance: Dr. Nicolas Baverez Historian, author of La France Qui Tombe & contributor to Le Point & Les Echos Sylvie Goulard President, European Movement of France & author of Le Coq et La Perle Akram Belkaïd Deputy Editor, La Tribune Dr. Robert Tombs Fellow in History, St. John’s College, Cambridge & co-author of That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present Dr. Zaki Laïdi Professor, Sciences Po (Institute for Political Studies), Paris; head of the Telos website; & co-author of Sortir du Pessimisme Social: Essai sur l’identité de la gauche Arnaud Vaissié Chief Executive, SOS International, London & co-founder of Le Cercle d’outre-Manche Dr. Anne-Marie Le Gloannec Senior Research Fellow, Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales, Paris Jean-Louis Bourlanges Member of the European Parliament & Vice-President, Union pour la Démocratie Française Dr. Rod Kedward Emeritus Professor, University of Sussex & author of La Vie en Bleu: France and the French since 1900 PEEL: Nearly fifty years after the foundation of France’s Fifth Republic, a new generation of politicians is scrapping over General de Gaulle’s succession. The voters are volatile, turbulent yet fearful. Seldom has the country been so prosperous—or so miserable. BAVEREZ: This is a split country and a split nation. You have the divide between the urban areas and the country; divide between generations; divide between people in the system and people excluded. That’s why this campaign is so important because it’s perhaps the last opportunity for us to modernize France without a civil war. GOULARD: The French exaggerate right now, and it has something to do with the fact that we have very old people ruling this country. If you look at other countries in Europe, in no one country you still have people who were at the power in the 1970s. And the fact that we have now election is a very positive element. PEEL: Civil war may sound hysterical, yet scarcely a year ago urban riots swept through three hundred French towns for three weeks. Attempts at economic reform have met with violent demonstrations against the government. At least both optimists and pessimists agree on one thing: the presidential elections give a chance for change, for modernization, and new leaders. Others talk of a crisis of national identity. BELKAÏD: The main problem for France is that this country is unable to face the globalization, and the mediocrity of the political class today is shown by the fact that they don’t talk about the globalization. They don’t say to the French people that the globalization is shaping a new French identity. PEEL: Akram Belkaïd, deputy editor of La Tribune, the business newspaper, sees the need to forge a new sense of identity. The question has emerged as a vital issue in the campaign. Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing front-runner, links “national identity” to immigration, to stop voters defecting to Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front. On the left, Ségolène Royal stresses family values to attract the centre vote. François Bayrou, the man in the middle, is the reassuring son of the soil, rooted in the provinces. This isn’t a programme about the elections, but about the French malaise. All the candidates agree that it exists. But what sort of medicine does the disease require, or is it all in the mind? After France voted “no” in the European constitutional referendum, and jobless youths set the suburbs on fire, the mood of national gloom is palpable. Does the disease threaten the very survival of the Fifth Republic? And will these elections offer the cure that the voters seem to want? Akram Belkaïd sees problems at the very top. BELKAÏD: The French elites—and this is le mal français—are unable today to give life to the French myth of égalité, liberté, fraternité. The French elites have a speech saying that the school—the Republican school—is for all; that we don’t have to give advantage to this one or to this one. But in the same time, the French elites are sending their kids to public schools, écoles privées. L’ENA, our great school of administration, if you see who is entering this school, you may say that it’s the same class coming from the same part of the society. How can you change a country with this? How can you give a chance to people that are in unfavourized areas? PEEL: But France always prided itself on its Republican ideals—on liberté, égalité, fraternité. Are you telling me they don’t work, they don’t exist any longer? BELKAÏD: I can tell you that égalité doesn’t exist. That is a big, big, big lie. And this is why we had riots in 2005 and this is why sometimes you may find people really angry against the French political class. PEEL: There’s hypocrisy at the heart of the Establishment, he says. But wasn’t it ever thus? Robert Tombs, a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and specialist in nineteenth century French history, identifies the Republican traditions at the core of the question. TOMBS: France in the past has been very good at dealing with immigration. Indeed France, of all European countries, is that with the largest tradition of importing people. But the deal always was that you would become French and then we would accept you as French, and that in a sense is the Republican tradition: you’re French because you have French citizenship, not because of your race or your colour or your creed indeed. The problem for France is what happens when there are immigrant groups who don’t really want to accept this deal. PEEL: How is France going to come to terms with that? TOMBS: That, for the French, is not simply a social or cultural challenge, as perhaps people in Britain would see it, but also seems to be, in many ways, a political challenge and something that brings into question fundamental Republican political principles. That’s to say, the Republic does not recognize communities within the Republic because everyone’s supposed to be equal. LAÏDI: The problem is society is not colour- blind. And we are idealizing also the past. PEEL: Zaki Laïdi, professor at Sciences Po, the elite Institute for Political Studies in Paris, and co-author of a study on the “social pessimism” of the French left. LAÏDI: Having communities is regarded as the most horrible thing that may happen to the French society! Having a black community saying that you are talking to the black community, saying that you are talking to the Muslim community is something with which the French are not comfortable. They say, “Well, they are French. The only community is the French community.” So the idea that your personal identity may be in contradiction with a national identity is something that is extremely strong. PEEL: But is Nicolas Sarkozy playing with fire when he’s talking about this question of national identity—or is it a debate you’ve got to have? LAÏDI: Yeah, of course! I mean, it’s one of the most absurd things to consider that you are creating a ministry of identity. If you consider that identity could be shaped by a minister—in the rest of Europe it would be regarded as something odd! And linking after that the national identity with immigration is something very dangerous. The problem of integration is not a problem of integration of foreigners. It’s because they are French. It’s a problem of social integration, discrimination; the job problem is one of the big reasons for which we have this problem. PEEL: The tension between personal identity and national identity isn’t helped by the banishment of migrant communities to ghettoes in the banlieues. But the picture’s complicated. Sylvie Goulard, president of the French European Movement, travelled widely through the suburbs during the referendum campaign. GOULARD: One should not see everything in black and white. I used to go to the suburbs to speak on Europe and I am always impressed by the readiness of the young generation to study very hard, to get jobs, to improve themselves. If you stay in Paris, if you look at France through the television, you have a very negative image. When you go into the regions, you will see a very dynamic society with people making projects, but they are not interested in big politics. They are rather trying to find a place on their own, are acting in associations or are working in the framework of the family. But the thing is probably that people do not feel any more committed to the political class or they do not trust them in general. PEEL: The failure of integration is part political, part economic. Nearly a quarter of all young workers are unemployed, and thirty-eight per cent in the mostly-immigrant communities of the banlieues. It affects every social class. Just how bad is the economic situation? Nicolas Baverez, an historian and economic liberal, wrote La France Qui Tombe—France in Decline—in 2004. BAVEREZ: If you look at the economy, things are very clear. In 2006, we were the last performance in Europe as far as growth is concerned—two per cent. We have very huge unemployment—ten per cent for more than a quarter of a century. There is now a real problem of poverty. The revenues of the average French are twenty per cent under the Irish one and fifteen per cent under the British one now. And then you have a huge problem of integration of the immigrants with three million peoples living in seven hundred and fifty urban ghettoes and totally excluded from the society. So, the result of all these elements are, of course, the marginalization of France. VAISSIÉ: Every single measure which has been taken by our politicians has been with unemployment in mind. PEEL: Arnaud Vaissié, chief executive of SOS International and co-founder of Le Cercle d’outre-Manche, a London- based think-tank set up to study and compare French and British economic performance. VAISSIÉ: France has been very successful after the war, in the Sixties and Seventies, through a very strong central government. When the world changed after the oil crisis, instead of adapting themselves we kept the same principles; we continuously rigidified our system bringing measures after measures of government intervention in order to fix unemployment. When we look at what has happened in the UK, we realise that the opposite happened. PEEL: But telling France that it should do what the British are doing is like waving a red rag to a bull, isn’t it? VAISSIÉ: Absolutely—I fully, fully agree! But I would say that it has come through a change because of the speed at which our young people are moving to London, and so people are starting to ask themselves questions now about the English success. PEEL: French politicians are paying attention. They can see how the rigid French labour laws have failed to produce jobs. British GDP per capita in 1980 was seventy-five per cent of France’s; today it’s one hundred and ten per cent. Nicolas Sarkozy came to London to address a rally of young expatriates in February. He urged them to come back home to a more flexible France. Ségolène Royal has dared to mention Tony Blair as a role model who believes in the market, as well as social protection. Yet most British visitors look at France’s public services with envy. The trains are comfortable, quick and on time. Health services deliver and the French birth rate is the highest in the EU. Doesn’t Nicolas Baverez see a contradiction? BAVEREZ: The very curious and strange situation of France is that, if you look the country, you have very important strong points—demography; globalized companies; you have beautiful infrastructures; you have qualified workforce; you have, of course, a beautiful climate and beautiful way of life; and that’s a marvellous country for tourism—or to buy houses as many Britons do! But the problem is the gap growing between these strong points and the performances of the country. And the explanation is that we have political institutions, we have an economic and social model which are totally outdated. TOMBS: It’s a crisis that a number of countries would be quite envious to have, I think! PEEL: Robert Tombs, of Cambridge University, who’s co-author with his wife, Isabelle, of That Sweet Enemy, a wry study of three centuries of Anglo-French rivalry. TOMBS: The French economy, after all, is one of the most productive in the world—many of the French industries are world-beaters—but there are problems, which are more than just cyclical. There’s, of course, the problem of unemployment which most people think is due to a legal system that makes both hiring and firing too difficult and too expensive. And there is generally a belief that whole sectors of French industry and particularly small- and medium- sized firms are simply not competitive enough on the world market. PEEL: It’s a tale of two economies. One’s outward-looking and competitive, the other inward-looking and dependent on the state. Why does the defensive side seem to be winning the propaganda war? The European Movement’s Sylvie Goulard thinks fears of globalization go deeper than worries about jobs and competition. GOULARD: There is also a huge part of the population benefiting from globalization. And, nevertheless, a feeling of being under pressure of the globalization because, in some regions or in some fields, people lose jobs. There are winners and losers and for the losers it’s very difficult. And there is also a more cultural problem with globalization—the problem of losing the French influence in terms of language, culture and whatever and this has a very strong impact on the self-perception of the French. PEEL: French culture—and the language—play a powerful role in the sense of national identity. But English is now the global language. French is in retreat, even in Europe. Was that a factor in the “no” vote to the EU constitutional treaty in 2005? Anne-Marie Le Gloannec, senior researcher at Sciences Po, is an expert on Europe and Franco-German relations. LE GLOANNEC: There is a lot of unease among the the French elite. What is this Europe? It’s not a French Europe any more. It’s not the er continuation of France. How can we play a role in the world if we don’t play a leading role in Europe? Now, when we look at French society and the way a majority of the French have turned their on the constitution, it’s linked very much with a general dissatisfaction with their own condition. The middle classes are losing in today’s France; Europe is not protecting them from globalization which is the the boo man of the whole story, the reason for being losers. PEEL: Europe’s no longer French enough, nor protective enough. Jean-Louis Bourlanges is a member of the European Parliament, and vice-president of François Bayrou’s Union for French Democracy, the UDF. He saw contradictory tendencies in the “No” vote. BOURLANGES: On the one hand, there are people who just didn’t want to lose their sovereignty. But, on the other hand, there were people who wanted a stronger Europe—and who do not accept the idea of a mere international organization which is supposed to organize free exchange and globalization. And it was extremely difficult for us to propose an intermediary way—you know, the way saying, “Well, we accept globalization, we want market economy, but at the same time we make efforts to have a more politically organized Europe.” And the French nation is extremely ambiguous on that, and my opinion is that it is possible to have a positive attitude of the French people concerning Europe because I think when they voted “no”, they voted “no” just to express unsatisfaction. PEEL: “Ambiguous” is very true. But if French voters can be persuaded to change their minds in a second vote on the constitution, it would leave the eurosceptic British rather exposed. Or has France fallen out of love with Europe for good? Sylvie Goulard. GOULARD: I do not share the analysis that things have changed suddenly in 2005. If you look at the history of the European integration, you have always had a very small minority of the elite being in favour of the European integration, but the huge majority of the elite was against. And also in the people, you have more people being in favour of the European integration than the ones being against. PEEL: But I do get the impression that the French are more uncomfortable about Europe—which has been a very central part of the French identity for the last fifty years. GOULARD: Of course, Europe was a very important part of the French foreign policy first and then policy—internal, economics and whatever—but the problem the French have right now is more with the globalized world and the place of Europe in the global world than the relationship between France and Europe. PEEL: It’s remarkable to hear the head of the European Movement in France sounding so doubtful about her country’s European vocation. Fear of globalization really seems to affect the whole French psychology. Zaki Laïdi is an analyst of left- wing attitudes to globalization. He was political adviser to Pascal Lamy, the former European trade commissioner. LAÏDI: That’s the big debate on Europe. Is it the Trojan horse of globalization or is it the shelter? Obviously, the dominant opinion is that it is a Trojan horse. But here lies the responsibility of the leadership. You cannot seriously relate the level of unemployment with globalization. We are the country in Europe which has the lowest level of imports coming from low wages countries— eleven per cent—and we have one of the highest level of unemployment. So this idea of correlating globalization with unemployment is probably easy, but it’s not an explanation. PEEL: The problem is the structural rigidity in the system, the refusal to reform the system and make it more flexible internally so you have greater mobility. LAIDI: OK, it’s globalization which is pushing us to change. It’s, of course, a problem—which means that you put the burden on the state and you expect the state to solve all the problems. BOURLANGES: Don’t forget that France is a country which has been built by the state. PEEL: Jean-Louis Bourlanges of the UDF. BOURLANGES: The state is a maker of the nation. And so, as we see that state is supposed to abandon power in favour of free market and so on, it is something which not only threatens selfish interest of various social groups, but which affects the identity, the idea that French people have of their own nation because it was, at the beginning, the state. And the main political problem is to build a new contract between the nation and the state. PEEL: The state shapes French identity, as do French language and culture. If globalization threatens the power of the state in France, it can seem to threaten national identity. No wonder the French are feeling so defensive. Does Anne-Marie Le Gloannec, from Sciences Po, see any alternative? LE GLOANNEC: The history of France is the history of a country with weak intermediary institutions, weak civil institutions. Look at the political parties which are far less powerful than they are in Germany, for instance. Look at the trade unions. Of course, in Great Britain Margaret Thatcher broke the trade unions, but till then you had very powerful trade unions, which is not the case in France. But this was traditionally compensated by face-to-face between the citizens and the states, but also with an understanding about the public good. The state was delivering public services and the citizens were cared for. Now the notion of public good is disappearing; society is becoming individualized. Now there is a gap between the state and the citizens—I would hardly say “the citizens” anymore. PEEL: Aux armes, citoyens! Remember the Marseillaise! The citizen is in danger of becoming a mere individual. The whole concept of a citizen, so dear to the French Republican self- image, is in danger from globalization, technology, the blogosphere. It’s a good point, too, about trade unions: only eight per cent of the French workforce is unionized, almost all in the public sector. But are there other links between citizen and state? Rod Kedward, emeritus professor at Sussex University and author of La Vie en bleu, a recently published history of twentieth century France. KEDWARD: It’s not so much identity, but this question of participation. Now, this is a very interesting word because it was the word used by de Gaulle and participation then meant people should come to the nation, come to the state and join in with whatever the state or the nation offered. Now it’s the other way round. How and when should the state go to the people and listen to the people? And that is inventing a new kind of relationship between the citizen and the state. Many people form all kinds of associations—social associations— which are normally seen as outside politics and not given a political position at all in France. Actually, people in these associations have very political things to say. And listening to those and including those in a new kind of form of citizenship, I think, is one of the driving forces of the election. PEEL: Remember Sylvie Goulard’s comment on the dynamism of regional societies and political associations. But no wonder the whole election campaign is so unpredictable. The national political parties are weak. There’s fragmentation of French politics. All four front-runners could get around twenty per cent of the votes. How far does Cambridge’s Robert Tombs think that’s a consequence of the constitution? TOMBS: The Fifth Republic is the only regime France has had since Louis XVI which more or less commands general support. But it’s also one that is, in some ways, dysfunctional, particularly the constant conflicts between president and prime minister; the possibility of having a president without a parliamentary majority; the often unaccountable, quasi-monarchical style of presidential government. PEEL: It is very strange, isn’t it, for a British audience to look at this figure who’s elected president and then sort of seems to be in denial of the prime minister that he appoints? TOMBS: Well, being prime minister in France is not a very enviable position because usually he wants to be the president’s successor and often the president wants to make sure he won’t be—or at least he won’t be a threat in the immediate future. So presidents often use prime ministers as fall guys or as people who are going to get the blame for when things go wrong, but are not really in a position to profit from any successes they might have. PEEL: Does that matter? Surely the president delivers his own policy, where a prime minister would in Britain, or a chancellor in Germany? Jean-Louis Bourlanges, of the centrist UDF, though, still sees a real problem with the system. BOURLANGES: Mr. Chirac obtained, on the first ballot of the presidential election five years ago, twenty per cent of the votes. With our system, his party has sixty-three per cent of the Parliament and practically the totality of the power—which means that, of course, he has no institutional problem to govern but he has an immense political problem to obtain support from the society. We have seen that, for instance, in our political struggles about labour contract and things like that. The President proposed, the government proposed, the Parliament voted and afterwards the street said “no”, and the Parliament and the government had to withdraw. The majority of the nation has a feeling of being excluded from the decision-making process. PEEL: If voters don’t feel they can influence government policy, no wonder they may take to the streets—although that’s always been a peculiarly French way of doing things. Has President Chirac invited more popular protests than his predecessors? Robert Tombs. TOMBS: Chirac is widely considered, of course, not to have kept his promises, not to be terribly honest—to put it mildly—and therefore not a man who can be seen seriously as an incarnation of the nation, which is what the Fifth Republic president is supposed to be. And hence for the first time, I think, since the Fifth Republic came into being in its present form in the late Fifties and early Sixties, serious politicians are saying that the institutions themselves need to be reformed. PEEL: Because, in fact, the Fifth Republic was a very Gaullist creation. It was General de Gaulle’s idea of what the presidency should be. TOMBS: It is a Republican monarchy. That’s what the designer of the constitution called it and it was, of course, designed for de Gaulle as the great man and the leader of the nation. And, in a sense, it’s been downhill all the way since then. PEEL: A Republican monarchy without a figure like de Gaulle is simply top-heavy. As the French philosopher, Jean- François Revel, put it: “In France, the person held responsible is not the one who gives the orders, but the one who receives them.” There lies the fatal flaw in the Fifth Republic. It’s high time the French constitution was overhauled. Both Ségolène Royal and François Bayrou have suggested it. A new constitution would give the National Assembly more power, and less to a meddling president. A prime minister with a parliamentary majority would be held accountable, as in most other European countries. But would it suit France? Nicolas Baverez, the free marketeer. BAVEREZ: We have to find a French way for reform. I believe it’s possible and it’s true that in our country the key for reform is the state. It’s impossible to reform France without reforming its state. And that’s why the core of a programme of reform is the way to adapt the French state to the twenty-first century. PEEL: The French crisis of identity is not about immigration. It’s not really about globalization, although that’s deepened the anxiety. It’s about the failing relationship between the state and its citizens. French voters are confused and undecided. They want both change and security. None of the new generation of candidates seems to be offering a clear prescription. The system needs to be more open, less centralized and less dominated by a self-perpetuating political class. There’s dynamism to be tapped in the provinces, and the banlieues. The next president of the Fifth Republic should be the architect of the Sixth. 1