Political Leadership in France: From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy (French Politics, Society and Culture)

Political Leadership in France From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy John Gaffney French Politics, Society and Cu...

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Political Leadership in France From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy

John Gaffney

French Politics, Society and Culture Series General Editor: Jocelyn Evans, Professor of Politics, University of Salford, UK France has always fascinated outside observers. Now, the country is undergoing a period of profound transformation. France is faced with a rapidly changing international and European environment and it is having to rethink some of its most basic social, political and economic orthodoxies. As elsewhere, there is pressure to conform. And yet, while France is responding in ways that are no doubt familiar to people in other European countries, it is also managing to maintain elements of its long-standing distinctiveness. Overall, it remains a place that is not exactly comme les autres. This new series examines all aspects of French politics, society and culture. In so doing it focuses on the changing nature of the French system as well as the established patterns of political, social and cultural life. Contributors to the series are encouraged to present new and innovative arguments so that the informed reader can learn and understand more about one of the most beguiling and compelling of all European countries.

Titles include: Gill Allwood and Khursheed Wadia GENDER AND POLICY IN FRANCE Sylvain Brouard, Andrew M. Appleton, Amy G. Mazur (editors) THE FRENCH FIFTH REPUBLIC AT FIFTY Beyond Stereotypes June Burnham POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS AND LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS Lessons from Regional Planning in France Jean K. Chalaby THE DE GAULLE PRESIDENCY AND THE MEDIA Statism and Public Communications Pepper D. Culpepper, Bruno Palier and Peter A. Hall (editors) CHANGING FRANCE The Politics that Markets Make Gordon D. Cumming FRENCH NGOs IN THE GLOBAL ERA France’s International Development Role David Drake FRENCH INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS FROM THE DREYFUS AFFAIR TO THE OCCUPATION David Drake INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS IN POST-WAR FRANCE John Gaffney POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN FRANCE From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy Graeme Hayes ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST AND THE STATE IN FRANCE

David J. Howarth THE FRENCH ROAD TO EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION Andrew Knapp PARTIES AND THE PARTY SYSTEM IN FRANCE A Disconnected Democracy? Michael S. Lewis-Beck (editor) THE FRENCH VOTER Before and After the 2002 Elections John Loughlin SUBNATIONAL GOVERNMENT The French Experience Mairi Maclean and Joseph Szarka FRANCE ON THE WORLD STAGE Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey and Jon Press BUSINESS ELITES AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN FRANCE AND THE UK Susan Milner and Nick Parsons (editors) REINVENTING FRANCE State and Society in the Twenty-First Century Rainbow Murray PARTIES, GENDER QUOTAS AND CANDIDATE SELECTION IN FRANCE Gino G. Raymond THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE FIFTH REPUBLIC A Crisis of Leadership and Ideology Paul Smith THE SENATE OF THE FIFTH FRENCH REPUBLIC Francesca Vassallo FRANCE, SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM Sarah Waters SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN FRANCE Towards a New Citizenship Reuben Y. Wong THE EUROPEANIZATION OF FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY France and the EU in East Asia

French Politics, Society and Culture Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0–333–80440–7 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0–333–80441–4 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Political Leadership in France From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy John Gaffney Professor of Politics, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

© John Gaffney 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identiﬁed as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-00181-7

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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaffney, John, 1950– Political leadership in France : from Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy / John Gaffney. p. cm. – (French politics, society, and culture series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-230-00181-7 (hardback) 1. France–Politics and government–1958– 2. Presidents–France– History–20th century. 3. Presidents–France–History–21st century. 4. Political leadership–France–History–20th century. 5. Political leadership–France–History–21st century. 6. Presidents–France– Election–History–20th century. 7. Presidents–France–Election– History–21st century. I. Title. DC417.G33 2010 944.083092’2–dc22 2009048510 10 19

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To the memory of my mother and father

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Contents

Acknowledgements

x

List of Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

Chapter 1

6

Chapter 2

1958: The Gaullist Settlement and French Politics The elements of the new republic in 1958 The birth of the new republic Understanding the new republic The characteristics of the new republic

6 11 21 29

1958–68: The Consolidation and Evolution of the Fifth Republic The 1962 referendum and elections Gaullism and the Gaullists De Gaulle on the world stage Left opposition The new conditions of the republic Gaullism and government De Gaulle The left 1965–67

37

Chapter 3

1968 and its Aftermath Sous les Pavés, la Cinquième République ‘Opinion’ The unmediated relationship escapes to the streets Personal leadership (and its rejection)

67 71 82 83 83

Chapter 4

1969–74: Gaullism Without de Gaulle The 1969 referendum The 1969 presidential election The Pompidou presidency: 1969–74 Pompidou and the institutions Pompidou and foreign affairs Left opposition, 1969–74 vii

40 45 47 55 58 59 60 61 63

89 89 95 96 98 103 107

viii Contents

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

1974–81: The Giscard Years The 1974 elections Slowing down the ‘Marseillaise’ then speeding it up again Giscard and his presidency Gaullism and Giscardianism The left 1978–81

113 113 116

1981–88: From the République Sociale to the République Française The 1981 elections The 1986 election 1986–88

138

1988–2002: The Long Decade of Vindictiveness, Miscalculations, Defeat, Farce, Good Luck, Good Government, and Catastrophe. The Presidency Right or Wrong 1988–93: System dysfunction and occasional chaos Rocard Cresson Bérégovoy 1993–95: Balladur. Almost President 1995–97: Balladur out, Chirac in; Jospin up, Chirac down: Politics as farce 1997–2002: The eternal cohabitation. Good government, and catastrophe 2002: Jospin snatches defeat from the jaws of certain victory Jospin and the 2002 campaign The republic saved – by presidentialism The left, lost again Beyond neo-Gaullism

154

The Presidential Election of 2007 Ségolène Royal The trajectory The Mitterrand years The Jospin years From the local to the virtual

179 179 179 180 182 184

120 123 130 134

140 146 148

155 155 159 162 163 168 171 173 174 176 176 177

Contents ix

Ségolène Royal and ‘Ségolène’ From virtual to presidential The campaign Nicolas Sarkozy The trajectory Neuilly’s favourite son Balladur’s favourite son Return from the wilderness Sarkozy and ‘Sarko’ Sarkozy the hero Sarkozy the minister Sarkozy the lover The campaign

185 186 187 191 191 192 193 194 195 195 195 196 199

Conclusion

206

Notes

215

Bibliography

237

Index

252

Acknowledgements I wish to thank a number of colleagues for reading all or parts of the manuscript of this book. David Bell and Graeme Hayes read the whole draft, and their comments and criticisms have been extremely helpful and truly appreciated. Others who read various chapters have helped me enormously to focus my ideas and produce a better book than I would otherwise have done. So my thanks also go to Alistair Cole, Catherine Fieschi, Cressida Gaffney, Nick Hewlett, Angela Kershaw, Andrew Knapp, Amarjit Lahel, Rainbow Murray, Paul Smith and Hélène Stafford. My thanks also go to Robert Elgie for his support throughout the writing of this book, and to the editorial staff at Palgrave. I should also like to include in my thanks the late B.D. Graham, my former supervisor, whose kindness and intellect were always an inspiration to me. None of these people has any responsibility for any inaccuracies, which are my own.

x

List of Abbreviations CD CDS CERES CFDT CGT CIR CNIP CPE CPSU CRS CSG EEC EFTA ENA EU FDS FGDS FLN FN FNRI GPRA ISF MDC MLF MRG MRP NATO OAS ORTF PACS PCE PCF PCI PDM PR PS

Centre démocrate Centre des démocrates sociaux Centre d’études et de recherches socialistes Confédération française démocratique du travail Confédération générale du travail Convention des institutions républicaines Centre national des indépendants et paysans Contrat première embauche Communist Party of the Soviet Union Compagnies républicaines de sécurité Contribution sociale généralisée European Economic Community European Free Trade Association Ecole normale d’administration European Union Fédération démocrate et socialiste Fédération de la gauche démocrate et socialiste Front de libération nationale Front national Fédération nationale des républicains indépendants Gouvernement provisoire de la république algérienne Impôt sur les grandes fortunes Mouvement des citoyens Mouvement de libération des femmes Mouvement des radicaux de gauche Mouvement républicain populaire North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organisation de l’armée secrète Office de la radiodiffusion télévision française Pacte civil de solidarité Parti communiste d’Espagne Parti communiste français Parti communiste italien Progrès et démocratie moderne Parti républicain Parti socialiste xi

xii List of Abbreviations

PSA PSU RI RMI RPF RPR RS SFIO SMIC SNESup UCRG UDF UDR UDSR UDT UFD UGCS UGS UMP UNEF UNR

Parti socialiste autonome Parti socialiste unifié Républicains indépendants Revenu minimum d’insertion Rassemblement du peuple français Rassemblement pour la république Républicains sociaux Section française de l’internationale ouvrière Salaire minimum interprofessionel de croissance Syndicat national de l’enseignement supérieur Union des clubs pour le renouveau de la gauche Union pour la démocratie française Union des démocrates pour la république Union démocratique et socialiste de la résistance Union démocratique du travail Union des forces démocratiques Union des groupes et clubs socialistes Union de la gauche socialiste Union pour un mouvement populaire Union nationale des étudiants Union pour la nouvelle république

Introduction

On 1 June 1958, Charles de Gaulle returned to power in France as the last Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic. In the preceding three weeks, the country had experienced a series of events that seemed to be dragging it towards civil war or a military coup. The regime itself seemed to be collapsing, and the political elites were unable to impose their authority on the deteriorating situation. Twelve years earlier, in January 1946, de Gaulle had resigned as Prime Minister, leaving the new Fourth Republic to its fate. He returned to his country home in Colombey-les-deux-églises, about 200kms south east of Paris, to write his Memoirs and observe politics sadly from a distance. His modest home and the village of Colombey became a kind of mythical site and place of pilgrimage. He was considered a controversial figure by many during the 1940s and 1950s,1 but for a brief, crucial moment in 1958, he was seen as the only person who could prevent the country from descending into chaos. The Algerian War had begun four years before in 1954, and in 1958 the government was still searching for a solution to the continuing crisis. Most of the French army was in Algeria trying to suppress the rebellion. The main problem for government was that the French state’s authority in Algiers was weak. Successive and unstable governments in Paris had been unable to impose reform or to defeat the independence movement or to satisfy the European Algerians, who regarded these successive governments as vacillating and untrustworthy. De Gaulle’s return therefore had two related aspects. On the one hand, he was to solve the Algerian problem, and, it was assumed, keep Algeria French. On the other, he was to restore the integrity of the state and the effectiveness of the government. It took him four years for the former, and his solution, Algerian independence, was the opposite 1

2 Political Leadership in France

of what had been expected, the opposite of what he had been brought back to do. The latter saw him, in the space of six months, introduce a new constitution and a new republic which exists to this day, over 50 years later. Why was de Gaulle seen as legitimate? Why was he seen as able to solve both the problem of Algeria and the problem of France’s political instability? What were the effects of conferring authority upon this individual? And what effects did he then have upon French republicanism and the regime he created in 1958? De Gaulle’s claim to legitimacy in France’s crisis in 1958 did not arise only from his having been France’s Prime Minister between 1944 and 1946, nor even from his having, Cassandra-like, predicted and warned against the ‘immobilisme’ and instability of the Fourth Republic, and gone unheeded. An even greater source of de Gaulle’s claim to legitimacy – and this was why he had been Prime Minister in 1944 – was that he had been a kind of warrior-philosopher of French national pride, embodying, personifying almost, French national identity through World War Two. On 18 June 1940 de Gaulle, then a 49 yearold General and junior government minister, flew to London to continue France’s struggle against the invading German army. He refused to accept the conditions of the armistice imposed upon France, or the legitimacy of the new Vichy regime, led by his former superior officer, Marshal Pétain. In the summer of 1944, de Gaulle entered Paris as the commander of the Free French forces, the liberator of the nation and the hero of the Resistance. He had been right when most others had been wrong, and as the head of the provisional government he saw himself as a kind of personalized expression of the nation as it emerged from the trauma of the 1939–45 period. This was the ‘persona’, the character, and the man who came back to solve France’s dire problems in 1958. Another aspect of this persona – his own perceived view, his philosophy, his ‘vision’ – would have crucial influence upon the nature and development of the Fifth Republic. One of the essential characteristics of de Gaulle’s approach was his attitude to how a republican regime should be organized, given France’s history and political culture. More importantly, this attitude was based upon a fundamental conviction that certain individuals – in this case, himself – were endowed with the wisdom and the duty to impose their view, their will, upon reality. The lone individual based his action – and this framed his political ethics and selfjustification – upon a love for France and a devotional commitment to its well-being.

Introduction 3

There were of course others who had different views about the organizing principles of the republic. In the Resistance period and the postwar provisional government he had to work with political parties and individuals who saw good governance very differently from him, and disapproved of his emphasis upon personal leadership and upon himself as the solution to France’s problems. The antagonism between him and the political parties was one of the most divisive issues in French political life. In the main, the political parties were based upon the democratic process and upon gradualism rather than the exalted individual and an envisioning personalism. Many felt that Europe had seen quite enough of that in the preceding decades. This difficult relationship between competing conceptions of democratic republicanism would be formative of the Fifth Republic. The political actor who came to power therefore in 1958 was a complex, composite, and although acclaimed, controversial character. He was seen as singular, even unique: professing a philosophy of the state and of national pride; in an ambivalent relationship to republicanism and to the political parties; in personal terms was proud, brave, intelligent, self-certain, devoted to a romantic notion of France – for many, had been anointed by history or some historical or mysterious force; and, finally, he was the man, the character, who had saved France (1940), returned in triumph (1944), then been as if rejected (1946), and was returning, vindicated, in dramatic circumstances, to save France once again (1958). He was in a constructive relationship with the new regime he set up, but a destructive one with the regime he replaced. What was his symbolic significance in the Fourth Republic as it unravelled? And what was his symbolic significance as he stepped up onto the political stage to construct his own new Fifth Republic? This ambivalence is the focus of our study, how this integrating of an individual persona into the mainstream functioning of a new regime established in dramatic circumstances affects politics, and how such a beginning and the decisive presence of an individual within the newly configured political institutions goes on affecting the regime as it evolves through his presidency, then on into the post-de Gaulle period up until the present day. De Gaulle brought to French politics not simply Gaullism but, as it were, himself; that is to say, by bringing his political ‘self’ and political persona to the heart of the Fifth Republic’s institutions, he changed French politics completely, and introduced elements into the French polity whose dynamism is still there. De Gaulle’s character and comportment meant that, in 1958 and thenceforward, both the real


personality and the ‘imagined’ political persona would inform politics in fundamentally new ways; and this would continue to be the case in the aftermath of de Gaulle’s return and in the aftermath of his departure. What all the French Presidents share is a set of circumstances in which both their real attitudes and actions and their symbolic selves have inordinate significance within the Fifth Republic because of the way that the political performance of individuals within a particular configuration of institutions resonates within politics and the political culture. This is the real nature of the Gaullist settlement. Political ‘performance’ (of individuals – in action, in language, through ascription, and through the projection of a particular image) takes place within a particular configuration of institutions (e.g. of the presidency, Parliament, the parties, the media). The institutions are embedded within the political culture, and in the wider culture’s institutions, traditions, attitudes, memories, shared expectations, hearsay and experience, shared political past, shared understandings and misunderstandings of the meaning and significance of discourse and rhetoric and its place within the culture and within political relationships. Given the attitude and relationship of the French to de Gaulle in 1958 and subsequently, his own attitudes and behaviour, and those of each of his successors and contenders for leadership, and their relationship to the electorate, to the ‘people’, to the ‘nation’, and to ‘opinion’, the role and influence of culture upon the polity and institutions has been all the greater. The culture, in turn, is informed by myths and memories (for example, about France, about leadership, about past leaders, about imagined relationships between leaders and regime or nation, and between people and leaders). One could say this perhaps of all regimes: the wider culture and history and historical memory inform the institutions, and the configuration of these frames action, allowing political personae to act, perform and speak to political purpose and with a range of political outcomes. What makes the French case so compelling is the degree of ‘performance’ allowed to political actors given the configuration and the culture, and this because of the Fifth Republic’s dramatic beginnings and the performance of its first President. In order to demonstrate this, we shall take a narrative and analytical approach and show how the nature of the Fifth Republic has unfolded over the last 50 years. We shall analyse the narrative of the Fifth Republic through the prism of person and persona. De Gaulle’s stamp upon French politics meant that his own intervention not only took place in highly dramatic circumstances, but also

Introduction 5

brought drama itself inside the parameters of the republic, and that in various forms, and in crucial relation to persona and to institutions, it remains there dynamically informing the republic. ‘Personality politics’ therefore develops both dramatically and dynamically, in particular in its relation to political relationships and imagined political relationships within the polity and culture, so that it becomes in many ways the motor, the driving force of politics and the organizing principle of political activity. After the Third Republic, the Fifth is the longest surviving regime in France since the Revolution. In those 200 years and more, when compared to the UK or the US, for example, the French polity has been chronically unstable and fragile. In part, the longevity of the Fifth Republic is due to the Gaullist settlement; itself arguably unstable, that is to say, the bringing to the heart of the institutions and practices of the regime a romantic and chivalric notion of a leader being needed and called forth by history and the nation to reaffirm the strength of the state and the integrity of the body politic, and develop a very particular relationship with the ‘people’, themselves a composite – as is the leader himself or herself – of both real and imagined characteristics. Once the presidency of the Fifth Republic was established and took on the shape it did, it began to inform politics significantly. The President became the main political actor in the regime, with very different modes and styles of political action from other regimes, whether presidential or not. Even though the President was the principal political actor, he also used all the ceremonial, ritual, and symbolic aspects of the new office to assert his position and the authority and legitimacy of the new regime. The presidency began to have decisive influence, and the political parties began to respond in a series of ways. The Gaullist settlement did not just confer upon the President the authority to act in dramatic circumstances. By bringing the President to the heart of the institutional configuration, the Fifth Republic made the President central in all circumstances, and the character and comportment of the President also became central and formative. After de Gaulle, all the Presidents, in a variety of ways, asserted and reasserted the centrality of themselves and their persona as decisive political agencies within the configuration of institutions and in relation to opinion. This scope for presidential initiative and its emphasis upon the personal, and the consequences of these, link Charles de Gaulle through Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, to Nicolas Sarkozy. Let us narrate the Fifth Republic from this perspective.

1 1958: The Gaullist Settlement and French Politics

The elements of the new republic in 1958 De Gaulle’s new Republic had two essential characteristics: the centrality of the personal, and the emergence of complexity. First, it introduced into the new configuration of political institutions the primacy of the President and all that flows from this as regards personal power, executive authority and decision making and its relation to public policy and the influence of the political parties. In so doing, it increased the significance of the interplay of the personal and the institutional. This is why strictly constitutional or institutional approaches to the Fifth Republic are inadequate, for what de Gaulle did was to add as a permanent and complex feature of the Republic the influence of the personal within the institutional. And the personal is not just personal, but cultural and relational, as we shall see. Beyond giving the President political primacy and importance within a given protocol, de Gaulle brought a dramatic but marginal political style and set of relations within republicanism into the heart of its institutions thereby transforming it. Personal authority for de Gaulle meant the authority to act, based upon an imagined (inter)relationship between a visionary individual called forth by history, and the people who ‘recognize’ him and his authority to act. This brings us to a major consequence of this new and central relationship. At the very moment that the mass media itself comes into the mainstream of modern society, ‘opinion’ takes on a privileged role.1 ‘Opinion’ is a contested term, and we shall use it here in a wide sense, in its most diverse range of meanings and categories, in order to show how it, or perhaps rather, they – opinions, become central players in the regime. Opinion is appealed to by political actors, 6

1958: The Gaullist Settlement and French Politics 7

referred to by the media; it is ‘imagined’ and given discursive reality. It also has in many forms a reality or realities of its own. Opinion may be the nation, as perceived by de Gaulle, as the ‘Françaises, Français’ he always addressed in his broadcasts, or as a series of opinion polls, or the expressed result of an election or referendum, or an extrapolated population based upon consumption, or opinion as expressed through trade unions, associations, street demonstrations (orderly or disorderly), or newspapers, TV viewers, or anxious parents, disaffected youth, or any range of measurements and frameworks, ascription or assertions. Opinion may be pro or anti de Gaulle (or indifferent), pro or anti politicians; or it may be a movement large enough or bold enough to claim affinity with the country’s revolutionary, or anti-revolutionary traditions, or with ‘la France profonde’. However it is manifested or imagined as manifested, opinion becomes from 1958 onwards a major player in French politics (irrespective of whether it itself has any real power). A range of opinion/s and especially opinion as evoked in the imagination and discourse of the leader, and opinion as mediated through the mass media, floods into the institutions, practices and political exchanges in the republic, bringing the wider mass culture as well as the myriad of more discrete cultures to political prominence.2 Introducing the cultural3 in this way into the mainstream of the political and the institutional meant that the discursive and rhetorical also became central; and unlike the relative isolation and self-referring nature of the political discourse of the Fourth Republic, the Fifth became in many ways a ‘discursive’ Republic (as we shall see below regarding Algeria, its first discursive-political challenge). ‘Utterance’ (and silence or omission – in the first years almost exclusively that of de Gaulle alone – and his interpretation of ‘opinion’) had major impact upon the political process. The media, radio, television, press conferences, speeches and pronouncements, and language itself, became decisive in the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle’s Republic was not only created by his own use of ‘persona’ and its interaction with the dying political days of the Fourth Republic, which we shall analyse below, it made persona, its discursive performance, and its relation to opinion an essential feature of the new republic. It is true, as we shall see, that there was an assumption that this compelling aspect of the new regime would disappear when the Algerian crisis was overcome or else when de Gaulle left office; this was far from being the case and underscores once again how party political or constitutional interpretations are inadequate. The personal within the institutional configuration brings the discursive and rhetorical to the fore. And their often direct appeal


to opinion ‘mobilizes’ opinion, in discourse at least and often in reality. The second and related characteristic of the new regime was that the first characteristic – the centrality and ‘play’ of opinion and of the personal/discursive/cultural – would render politics in the Fifth Republic extremely complex. Many polities can be relatively accurately described in a quite straightforward way: a socio-economic base upon which parties are structured and where politics, within the framework of a set of institutions, allocates/distributes resources, structures political debate, and – through parties and their interactions with opinion – creates cycles of political power and the possession of political office and the elaboration and application of policy. In Fifth Republic France, because of the unusual and dramatic nature of its advent and the centrality of the personal referred to above, seven elements interact constantly, often creating dynamic ‘rushes’ of very consequential political activity, as we shall see. The seven elements are: first, the institutions themselves and their configuration and interaction. Any analysis of politics in the Fifth Republic has to appraise the powers and activity of the presidency, National Assembly, Senate, Constitutional Council and so on at any given moment. Second, analysis needs to involve appraisal of the exalted notion of personalized leadership in the Fifth Republican French imagination, as well as the actual comportment of the President (and later a whole range of political leaders and aspirant leaders), and the effect of character, personality, persona and personal initiatives upon the political process. Third, accompanying the institutionally central role of character will be a consequential series of discursive and rhetorical resources such as visions, envisioning, a ‘high’ rhetorical register about France and its history/role/destiny; and a discourse upon the relationship of political activity/envisioning to the ‘state’ and its health and integrity; and the role of the ‘people’, the ‘nation’, the rally or ‘rassemblement’ (e.g. a rassemblement d’idées), the ‘electorate’, ‘la France profonde’, and later a series of additions to these rhetorical resources, often tied to other mythologies, such as ‘projets’, ‘projets de société’, ‘le changement’, other kinds of ‘rassemblement’, ‘les forces vives’ and a continually evolving vocabulary, but, and this is the essential point, a vocabulary which has influence upon political developments. This elevated vocabulary will also have a significant effect upon personal leadership, and upon France’s self depictions, upon interpolations of ‘grandeur’, upon political protocol and diplomatic protocol, and therefore upon foreign policy and France within a system of international relations.


Fourth, ‘opinion’ in a myriad of real or imagined forms will be a major factor in the evolution of the political process, and in more dramatic form: strikes, demonstrations, civil disorder (or their memory) will take on mythic qualities, or if not mythic then psychological. French street demonstrations, coordinated strikes, even tipping vegetables or wine onto roads, can have political effects well beyond those seen in comparable countries, and in fact, normally well beyond the financial or strategic power of the section of the workforce or community taking action. Because of the personal nature of the Fifth Republic, there is wide scope for reference to what opinion really feels, truly wants, demands, desires, and so on. Ironically, we should stress that in spite of or perhaps because of the fact that ‘opinion’ has taken on such significance in the Fifth Republic, it remains time and again politically unpredictable in so many of its manifestations. Fifth, the political parties (and other forces politiques like the trade unions) remained major players into the Fifth Republic, structuring its politics, its evolution, and its discourse, and in turn being structured and transformed by it. This irony was lost on many, though not all, political actors, analysts and observers, perhaps the most dramatic example being de Gaulle himself who overestimated the strength of the political parties and underestimated their mutability. Sixth, all of these interactions take place in the context of a rapidly changing society.4 Seventh, the dramatic nature of the Fifth Republic’s creation, and the political dramatization of self and of events by de Gaulle, became a constituent element of political life; and whether real or imagined or rhetorically constructed, drama becomes continual (perhaps if it became continuous it would cease to be drama), in perceptions, in language, and, because of the often discordant other six elements, in reality. In the case of the Fifth Republic one cannot overstate the way in which the first six elements – the political institutions (and we would need to add to this, the ‘given moment’ of the cycles they find themselves in), personal leadership, discourse, opinion, the political parties, and societal changes – interact, particularly at political moments such as elections (but also referenda, second-order elections, moments of social protest, or events telescoped into the run-off period between elections) to produce what we might call storms of political activity in which a series of related developments occur and which have deep and far reaching effects upon those involved and upon the political process more generally. The events often occur in such a closely packed and


dramatic series, that they appear to be stunningly choreographed and follow consequential sequences like moments of revolution. It is the interaction of the above elements in the context of a dramatic origin – the Fifth Republic truly began not on 28 September 1958 when it became a juridical entity but on 13 May 1958 (with the dramatic events in Algiers then Paris) – that accords a kind of dramatic license to French politics. Most observers see the referendum confirming the new republic (28 September 1958) as the act that domesticated the drama of 13 May. The opposite is equally true: 28 September brought the drama of 13 May into the republic. And in drama, performance is crucial. And de Gaulle’s was at this moment highly accomplished. From reading his Memoirs,5 we would believe, or he would have us believe, that he foresaw the events of 1958–62, and/or that a teleology unfolded. In fact, de Gaulle was often either mistaken about or unaware of issues, e.g. the consequences of the electoral law adopted in 1958. The apparent teleologies, however, can be explained if we bear in mind the seven elements constitutive of political action in the Fifth Republic that we have outlined above. So that, for example, between June and December 1958, de Gaulle’s Fifth Republic was everything that the Fourth Republic was not: dramatic where the Fourth was workaday, problem solving, dynamic, personalized, bold on the international stage, and as if in touch with the people. In essence, however, the Fifth Republic was not that dissimilar from its predecessor, which had itself been trying to rationalize the executive and streamline the political process. Both were republics (this was the first time in France’s history that there had been a republican sequence), the state bureaucracy remained, much of the political personnel, French foreign policy did not alter radically, the economy continued to grow and society to modernize in the same way as before. France’s alliances remained by and large the same, and so on. We can say that it was in large part in appearance, style, language and symbolism that the differences needed to be stressed, if de Gaulle’s difference and therefore justification were to remain effective, and the new republic was to function. It is this that explains an important aspect of the character of the young Fifth Republic, and has so much influence upon the evolution of the republic. From this we can say that not all political legitimacy was about republican integrity on de Gaulle’s part, nor about his relationship to a coup (still argued), but about mythical legitimacy. For de Gaulle to attain and hold on to mythical legitimacy, both republican integrity and distance from the coup were necessary although not sufficient conditions. The overriding condition was for both elites and opinion


to recognize the need for – and/or to allow – a (recognized) personal figure to restore the (fallen) state; and for a whole series of players to imagine the scene and their own parts, and enact their roles, or at least to stand back and allow those who felt they had these roles to do so. De Gaulle’s return to power in May 1958 (and the concept of ‘return’ was important) began, therefore, not only in real time but also in mythical time. This is crucial to an understanding of how the Fifth Republic then developed. In the context of our analysis, the immediate conditions of de Gaulle’s return were three: that he had been the war hero who, in 1944, had restored the state’s integrity from within a republican framework; that he had dramatically abandoned this ungrateful nation in January 1946 and had withdrawn to his home in Colombey; that by 1958, the state’s authority was again faltering.

The birth of the new republic The ‘real’ event that began the return of de Gaulle to power in 1958 was the May rising in Algiers.6 Until this moment, he had either been almost forgotten or was seen as a potential leader but one who would probably not return to politics. A first point to note is that the event was characterized as much by emotion as by political/strategic calculation. Algerian nationalist fighters of the FLN executed three captured French soldiers. In response to this, one group, a comité de vigilance (which had organized a successful demonstration three weeks earlier), called upon the Algerian population to strike between twelve noon and 8pm, and to demonstrate at 5pm against the new government in Paris and its Algerian policies (at the same time as the National Assembly in Paris was setting up a new government to be led by the young and reformist MRP figure, Pierre Pflimlin). There was an assumption in Algiers that only a government committed to a major campaign against the FLN in the context of an unequivocal commitment to keeping Algeria ‘French’ was acceptable. In metropolitan France too, particularly among MPs, there was an overwhelming sympathy for this view. This is worth bearing in mind: that the aims of the Army and the Algiers crowd coincided with the general view. The demonstration was nevertheless ‘insurrectionary’ in as much as it hoped, from Algiers, to block or interfere with the nomination of a government in Paris (as it had continually and politically consequentially interfered for several years). Exactly how this would be done and to what political purpose was, however, unclear (to all). What was clear was the complete success of the strike call. Everything stopped: transport, cafés, cinemas,


schools, and the university and the civil service all took action. By early afternoon, thousands of people (estimated at 100,000) were converging on the centre of Algiers, animated by young people on motor scooters exhorting the growing crowd. A minute’s silence for the three dead was followed by calls for the army to take power. Government buildings were besieged and, after the riot police were replaced by soldiers, the demonstrators stormed the gates unhindered, in fact, were helped by soldiers, and proceeded to occupy the government offices (throwing paper out of windows essentially, an insurrectionary gesture always highly symbolic of political attitudes and relationships but of no strategic interest). Irrespective of 30 years of right wing plots and disdain for elected politicians in the French military, it is worth underlining the spontaneous, almost ‘now-what-do-we-do?’ flavour of these events of 13 May in Algiers. In the confusion and brouhaha, the demonstrators set up a committee of public safety (Comité de salut public) headed by General Jacques Massu, who himself, although a hero for and sympathetic to the local pieds-noirs population, was acting out of a desire to control the turmoil, with the help of other military and civilian activists (among them some Gaullists). Massu telegrammed Paris urging that a similarly minded government be sworn in there. Comités sprang up across Algeria’s main towns, and it is worth stressing here that a kind of pieds-noirs/Muslim solidarity and fraternity also seemed to accelerate over the next days in a kind of revolutionary celebration. In Paris, by the evening, the events in Algiers had (possibly predictably) the opposite effect to their intention. Many parallels have been made with the riotous events of 6 February 1934 in Paris,7 but one needs to stress that however potentially dangerous were the events in Algiers they posed no immediate danger to Paris. In a kind of republican, ‘étatiste’ solidarity (actually too late to stabilize the regime’s legitimacy), Pflimlin’s premiership/ government was endorsed by an impressive 274 to 120 against (with 137 abstentions which in Fourth Republic terms was akin to a vote in favour). Only that morning had the newspapers predicted that if Pflimlin won it would be by only a handful of votes. Pflimlin’s government endorsement came after a period of four weeks where, effectively, the country had had no government. The Algiers revolt was like an electric shock into the French body politic. The French government gave orders not to open fire on the demonstrators, and soon (both outgoing and incoming Prime Ministers agreed) accorded civil powers to the senior General in Algiers, General Raoul Salan, already in possession of military powers. In terms of our subsequent appraisal of


de Gaulle’s actions, that Salan’s authority conflated civil and military powers is crucial. Salan, moreover, had been urged by Massu, himself at pains to avoid accusations of outright rebellion or mutiny, to take overall command in Algiers. Many commentators have quite rightly commented that Paris’ recognition of General Salan, and therefore a certain complicity after-the-fact with the Algiers events, was simply realistic: he already held the power, and therefore could help stop an escalation into a military coup (most of the French army was in Algeria at this time) or even a civil war. All of this is true. As regards legitimacy, however, the ambivalence of attitude by Paris would simply find a certain echo in de Gaulle’s failure to condemn. The following day, 14 May, there was a kind of stand off, with the massively endorsed Pflimlin forming his government. The government reached from Mollet and the tough-minded Socialist Jules Moch (who had faced down the Communists and Unions in 1947) across to Gaullists and the strong Algérie Française supporter, Georges Bidault. The problem for this, perhaps the strongest government of the Fourth Republic, was to know what to do. There were two other ‘actors’ in the frame: de Gaulle himself, and public opinion, and the actions and reactions of these would also be decisive in a situation where the Algiers demonstrators were reluctant to embrace a Franquist putsch if they could still enjoy even tacit approval or acceptance, however reluctant (in the form even of silence), from Paris. Early on 14 May, the President appealed to the Army to remain under the authority of the Republic. Interpretations of legitimacy, therefore, could still at this time be ‘stretched’ by the actors involved. The government too did not want to provoke the army, but had a very unclear view of how much authority it itself possessed. What both sides (Algiers and Paris) needed was for the other side to act the way it wanted so that it did not need to act itself. Time itself, therefore, was the worst enemy of each as its passing demonstrated that neither side was taking the initiative. Into this almost freeze frame stepped de Gaulle the following day. We shall come back to the true nature and significance of de Gaulle’s actions below but should stress here that the condition of de Gaulle’s initiative was the (true or apparent) moment of inaction of 14 May by both sides. And inaction (true or apparent) by others was essential to de Gaulle’s fortunes. Before looking at de Gaulle we should stress that ‘public opinion’, the other ‘actor’ in France over this whole affair (Algeria, the fall of the Fourth Republic, the return of de Gaulle) was an enigma. It seemed rather unconcerned with the events (the war in Algeria had been going


on for four years); holiday weekend plans went ahead, there had been few demonstrations outside trade union demonstrations for some years, no groups were pouring on to the streets; confidence in ‘the system’ and in politicians was very low, but few expected ever to see de Gaulle again, who was becoming a memory for many of the French, indeed for some not even a memory. Newspapers on the 14th expressed attitudes that ranged from seeing the events in Algiers as a coup, to seeing them as a passing protest, to stressing the huge confidence placed in Pflimlin by MPs, to (very few) calls for de Gaulle’s return. The media coverage was wide ranging yet was beginning to canalize opinion, making it more aware that, whatever it was, something dramatic seemed, this time, to be happening. It is also worth mentioning here that ‘opinion’ was quiet partly because although having little faith in the Fourth Republic, it was, right across the spectrum, overwhelmingly in favour of keeping Algeria French, from the die-hards to those who simply did not want to abandon a people heartlessly. Into this strange scene where none of the actors – Army, Government, Opinion – were mobilizing, stepped de Gaulle. We can say outright, therefore, that whatever may have happened subsequently, his own initiative was the product of nothing at all but his own personal gamble, and was initially a series of initiatives (almost exclusively discursive) that had no substance to them at all, and relied utterly on the perceptions of others (of each other and of him), and upon the inaction of others who, like bystanders or a theatre audience, watched him perform. On 15 May, Salan,8 recognized as the only authority by the mushrooming Committees of Public Safety, and as the legitimate voice of Paris in Algiers, finished a speech to the crowd with the words ‘Vive de Gaulle!’. It is clear that a lot of demonstrators saw de Gaulle as their best or only, or only legitimate, way of attaining their aims, even though many pieds-noirs disliked de Gaulle, regarding him as a liberal. This included Salan. It is also true that a tiny group of conspiratorial de Gaulle supporters in Algiers were working overtime, and possibly even prompted Salan to utter these words. Salan’s call echoed a certain shift towards de Gaulle in French public opinion, in the Army, in the Algerian population/s and by a growing trickle of party politicians. We have here the first and a classic illustration of de Gaulle’s significance: that different and opposing groups could see in him, some through devotion, respect or allegiance, others through cooler appraisal, the person who could help them achieve their aims or solve their problems. It is clear that in such a situation, de Gaulle had to respond, both by what he said and what he did not


say. At five o’clock on the 15th de Gaulle put out a press release, his first significant public intervention in politics in three years. He commented, in fewer than 100 words, that the state had faltered, the people were alienated, the army was in turmoil, and that the country had lost its independence. He added that the political parties were unable to stop the slide to disaster, and that the country had once put its trust in him. As the country once again was threatened, he was ready to assume the powers of the Republic: ‘La dégradation de l’Etat entraîne infailliblement l’éloignement des peuples associés, le trouble de l’armée au combat, la dislocation nationale, la perte de l’indépendance. Depuis douze ans, la France aux prises avec des problèmes trop rudes pour le régime des partis, est engagée dans ce processus désastreux. Naguère le pays, dans ses profondeurs, m’a fait confiance pour le conduire tout entier jusqu’à son salut. Aujourd’hui, devant les épreuves qui montent de nouveau vers lui, qu’il sache que je me tiens prêt à assumer les pouvoirs de la République’.9 Four things are worth mentioning here about this crucial ‘moment’: de Gaulle makes no specific reference to Algiers, therefore leaving it and his reaction to it open to interpretation; he identifies everything as a symptom of the troubles (even the parties are not a cause but are simply inadequate); he puts the exclusive focus upon himself as the only solution; and he declares his willingness to ‘assume’ republican power (there is ambivalence as to who is to give him this power and authority – the candidates being the people, the public authorities but also almost destiny itself), but the Republic he will inherit, not (yet) overthrow.10 The effect of de Gaulle’s declaration was to offer a solution in the form of himself being brought centre stage. The situation now involved not just the power of the army but the legitimacy of de Gaulle, so that the site of possible legitimacy now involved three places: Algiers, Paris and Colombey. The reaction of the parties in Parliament was to strengthen for a time their support for Pflimlin by condemning de Gaulle’s intervention, in particular for his failure to condemn the actions of 13 May. We can say here that de Gaulle was adding his ‘site’ to the duality Paris/ Algiers, the latter already (however coercively) acceded to by Paris. The condemnation of de Gaulle’s not condemning Algiers therefore added to de Gaulle’s authority by implicitly urging him to take on, as it were,


‘Paris’’ status. And Paris’ own condemnations of Algiers had been extremely equivocal. Much more importantly, de Gaulle had placed his own ‘site’ (Colombey) symbolically between Paris and Algiers. There were to be two more weeks of this gavotte. De Gaulle’s ‘I am ready’ communiqué of 15 May indicates how, rhetorically, he enters the Paris/Algiers relationship. The immediate effect however was to strengthen opposition to him among politicians, in fact to reverse the developing change in their attitudes. On Friday the 16th, the first to engage de Gaulle in discussion in order to domesticate the Gaullist threat, and perhaps profit from it, even use it to the republic’s advantage, was Guy Mollet, perhaps the key figure of the Fourth Republic in the ultimate transfer of power to de Gaulle – for several reasons. As both vice-premier and leader of the Socialist Party (SFIO), he asked de Gaulle (via answers to journalists and – significantly in terms of the developing rhetorical matrix of May–June 1958 – without consulting his Prime Minister): did de Gaulle recognize the legitimacy of the Pflimlin government? Would he condemn the Algiers insurrection? And would he, if he, de Gaulle, were himself appointed Prime Minister, observe republican conventions? Such questions clearly constrained de Gaulle in terms of containing him within the Fourth Republic’s legality, but the logic of Mollet’s questions brought dramatically into the discursive framework the idea that if de Gaulle passed these tests, fundamentally of his own legitimacy within the republic, then he (in discourse) became eligible for leadership of France (in reality).11 De Gaulle’s response was to maximize his own symbolic significance, in that he did not answer Mollet’s questions, but stated that he would hold a press conference the following Monday, the evening of 19 May. A weekend of deferred anticipation followed, and on the 19th, in front of the national and international press, with thousands of police and gendarmerie on the streets, limousines arriving and camera bulbs flashing, and in the context of demonstrations and actions by the Communists and the Unions (e.g. cutting electrical supply in the metro), de Gaulle arrived at the press conference. By announcing but deferring his press conference de Gaulle had slowed down the pace of the dramatic unfolding of events, while making the protagonists (Paris and Algiers) critically dependent upon his awaited words (and we have already stated that neither Paris nor Algiers, the first to hide its impotence, the second to hide its aggression, enjoyed or profited from the passing of time itself). He also did the opposite, that is – while bringing himself centre stage – speeded up discussion, debate, activity, and speculation to an extreme level, thus transforming the conditions of subsequent events. We have


seen how opinion was still not politically mobilized, but it is worth noting that in this two-week period sales of portable transistor radios quadrupled.12 At the press conference, a fundamental shift takes place in that de Gaulle’s style as well as what he says (and does not say) become crucially important. It is also worth remembering (essentially via photos, journalists’ descriptions and newsreels) how de Gaulle looked would be consequential. Many had not seen him for years. In 1958 (compared to January 1946), de Gaulle was a significantly older and more portly man, here in civvies (he would soon wear military uniform when visiting Algeria), and he used humour, generosity (towards Mollet and others), and a sense of care and concern that are crucial to understanding the unfolding events. Given, especially over the weekend, the PCF’s depiction of him as dangerous, and a generalized concern about de Gaulle’s anti-republican and monarchical comportment, his style and friendliness (he was rarely to be so relaxed in his many subsequent press conferences – arguably not until between the two rounds in 1965) had a dramatically relaxing effect. The prevailing virtual notion of violence pervading the events of the previous week was transformed into an easy and friendly exchange. This was the press conference where he asked, to much shared amusement, whether people really thought that at 67 he was going to start a career as a dictator.13 What is significant and rarely commented on is that the question was not only humorous but rhetorical – the answer could only really be an embarrassed one of – of course we never thought that, or else laughter. As regards answering Mollet’s other questions about his republican probity, first, de Gaulle was able to make reference to his republican integrity both as France’s liberator but also as premier of one of its most reformist republican governments, where he had observed legality and convention between 1944 and 1946. In so doing, de Gaulle was not only justifying himself, he was focusing upon himself as France’s hero. He acknowledged the concerns of the military without condemning them. We shall come back to this, but can say here that his defence here was, crucially, to stress that the government itself had not condemned outright the military insubordination and its alliance with the civil disobedience. De Gaulle’s demeanour, moreover, was such that he was behaving as the equal – at least – of the government itself. This conference was a didactic, highly publicized lesson to government by an individual in Paris who was not himself in government. This kind of thing had never happened in French history. De Gaulle again


portrayed the Algiers events as a symptom rather than cause, stressing that the defect lay in the institutions, that the country’s trials all flowed from that. Having put the focus upon himself, his achievements and his views, he then stated that he would go back to his village and wait for ‘the country’ to come and get him (in so doing also stressing again this new and alternative reconciliatory site of political authority, his home, Colombey-les-deux-églises).14 Two contradictory consequences flowed from de Gaulle’s press conference and the rhetorical and symbolic insertion of de Gaulle into the developing equation, such contradiction illustrating the bewildering complexity of unfolding events. The first was the further legitimation of de Gaulle. We should remember that, given his ‘I am ready’ communiqué of the 15th, Parliament had reacted very strongly against him (and therefore could not simply change its institutional attitude). What happened were personal responses to his press conference persona of the 19th, a series of reactions by significant political leaders, across the board – who came out in support of him, by letter or in the press, or by engaging in meetings and discussions with him or with one another, thus creating massive impetus to his legitimacy – first Bidault, then Pinay, then Mollet, and so on, until all the major figures of the political elite of the Fourth Republic who would then transform their own parties’ approaches, came out publicly in favour of him. This was not universal; some significant figures opposed him, in particular Pierre Mendès France and François Mitterrand; and the parties themselves split, but for the most part in favour of de Gaulle a week or so later. The second and less commented upon consequence of de Gaulle’s semi-legitimation was to radicalize activity in Algiers (and thereby threaten to further de-legitimize government inaction). De Gaulle’s devoted supporter and Algiers hero, and former Governor of Algeria, Jacques Soustelle (escaping house arrest in Paris) returned to Algiers to wild welcome (on the 17th). The Army seemed now to be in open insubordination, and it was now less likely that the army and police would obey the legitimate government. It had also become clear that it and the Algiers comités would obey de Gaulle. Soustelle was like an ambassador for de Gaulle. The movement of allegiance to de Gaulle by Algiers was triggered in part by Paris’ according him potential legitimacy. The consequence of de Gaulle’s becoming potentially the central player was that he too now faced the problem, previously only faced by Paris and Algiers, namely time itself which would strip him of his advantageous ambivalence if events


in Algiers accelerated, and in Paris did not, pushing him towards sedition. And they did accelerate. The following Saturday, after several days of de Gaulle’s receiving and talking to people like Pinay, the Algiers movement was transformed into overt military action as contingents of parachutists based in Algiers invaded and occupied Corsica with, apart from some very limited symbolic republican resistance, no significant resistance whatsoever, from the authorities, the police, the CRS, or the population. It seemed as if the semi-secret operation ‘Résurrection’, a complete military takeover, was underway. The government in Paris began to take some action: press censorship, moving against MPs who seemed to be involved, and long-awaited constitutional revision in order to set up mechanisms that would strengthen government in times of crisis. In a sense, countering a military coup with constitutional revision was a clear demonstration of the utter ineffectiveness of the government. Late in the night of Monday the 26th, de Gaulle and Pflimlin met to discuss the situation. There is disagreement as to whether the principal instigator was Pflimlin trying to get de Gaulle to denounce the coup, or de Gaulle’s simply bullying Pflimlin to stand aside. What is significant is that de Gaulle’s refusal to denounce is understandable both strategically (the threat of a coup was bringing the republic down) but also mythically – he had to maintain his symbolic position as observing the coup as a symptom of the republic’s malaise. De Gaulle could do no more without either supporting the coup or abandoning his strategic and symbolic advantage by rallying to the defence of the republic he detested. The government seemed to have confirmed both its own powerlessness and his centrality. He too, however, had run out of (his own invented) time, and therefore would soon face the choice of becoming a Fourth Republic politician or a putschist. What he did, once again, was to perform an act of discourse that, once again, had no base at all in the reality of power, but mercifully for him, did in the perceptions of all the other actors involved. He simply publicly pretended, after having left his stalemate meeting with Pflimlin, that he was in complete political command, whereas he was not in command of anything at all (except perhaps via some of his wilder conspirator lieutenants such as Delbeque a potentially catastrophic coup attempt). He pretended the opposite: that he commanded republican legitimacy. On the morning of 27 May, that is soon after leaving Pflimlin, de Gaulle put out a communiqué saying that he had the day before begun the process of setting up a republican government, that any threat to public order would threaten this, and that all armed forces should show exemplary


behaviour and obey their superiors, who he named, including Salan. The tone of the press release was as remarkable as its contents: ‘J’ai entamé hier le processus régulier nécessaire à l’établissement d’un gouvernement républicain, capable d’assurer l’unité et l’indépendance du pays. Je compte que ce processus va se poursuivre et que le pays fera voir, par son calme et sa dignité, qu’il souhaite le voir aboutir. Dans ces conditions, toute action de quelque côté qu’elle vienne, qui met en cause l’ordre public, risque d’avoir de graves conséquences. Tout en faisant la part des circonstances, je ne saurais l’approuver. J’attends des forces terrestres, navales et aériennes présentes en Algérie, qu’elles demeurent exemplaires sous les ordres de leurs chefs : le général Salan, l’amiral Auboyneau, le général Jouhaud. A ces chefs j’exprime ma confiance et mon intention de prendre contact avec eux.’15 It was as if he were the commander in chief of the army and the symbolic Head of State and of government. This symbolic self-depiction would become a national perception once his own self-legitimizing had been transferred to the level of the whole polity. In terms of the text’s content, it was republican, yet responded, for the first time, to the army, as if telling it to ‘stand down’. This was all the more impressive given that he had no power in either camp. Once again, the politicians reacted against de Gaulle. The socialists voted a motion of 112 to three against him. Such reactions again increased not his immediate legitimacy but his symbolic presence. All the left wing organizations followed suit, and on the next day, Wednesday, a rally of between a quarter and half a million marched in Paris against the putschists. For some, though not all, it was also a demonstration against de Gaulle. In terms of the emerging pattern of ‘moves’ in this series of events, what is odd is that, at this moment, each of the putschists’ moves was intended (as a political solution) to bring de Gaulle, and not the army, to power; each of the government and politicians’ moves was a gesture of support for Pflimlin, for blocking de Gaulle (but with de Gaulle in their minds), and for the initiation of reforms, none of which had any real backing. Each of de Gaulle’s moves was made in a vacuum of authority and power; and now the ‘crowd’s’ moves were formidable yet ambivalent. No one’s plan to overcome the crisis, even de Gaulle’s, were clear and concerted; each was a gesture that provoked each other


actor to react in some way while nothing actually happened. And the vacation of power was increased on the same day as the demonstration against the putschists because Pflimlin resigned along with his whole government. De Gaulle met in secret, this time with the Presidents of the Assembly and Senate but, as with Pflimlin, there was no outcome. The following day, as the result of one act, the Fourth Republic fell, or rather fell into de Gaulle’s lap. Its President, René Coty, who now had no Prime Minister and no government, was free to take a crisis initiative. He decided to call de Gaulle himself to be appointed as Prime Minister and form a government. He threatened to resign if this did not happen. De Gaulle of course accepted, and proceeded in an utterly Fourth Republic manner to meet all the party leaders (except the communists) and establish a government that included all the party bigwigs, appointing Mollet, Pinay, Pflimlin and others, and not appointing Soustelle (at this point – and when he did, not for long).16 On Sunday 1 June de Gaulle was voted in as Prime Minister by 329 against 224 (36 abstentions). All the parties of the right voted for, those of the centre (Radicals, MRP, UDSR) voted in majority for, the socialists split down the middle, and the PCF voted against. To have turned an almost totally hostile political class into a largely sympathetic one in the space of a week was astonishing. And over the next three days with three more majority votes, de Gaulle got everything he had (ever) wanted: special powers to deal with the Algerian crisis, the right to rule by decree on all but the most fundamental rights and liberties (and electoral law) for a period of six months, and the right to draw up a new constitution. How had all this been possible? If we can answer that question it will help us understand the nature of the republic that was coming into being.

Understanding the new republic France in 1958 was a rapidly changing society. Based upon an economic boom that had been going on for over ten years (and would continue for nearly another 20, although it is true that 1958 was not without economic difficulties),17 the late 1950s were witness to rapid social and economic change. This socially, culturally and economically rich context was the paradoxical setting for a government in paralysis and under threat of a military coup, and even civil war. Even if the government had had more grip on itself and on political power, it was extremely uncertain whether it would have the support of the police,


gendarmerie, and CRS, if the situation exploded, let alone the army, which was threatening to invade its own mainland. What is significant for our purposes, is how symbolic politics and rhetoric filled the political space and gave a dynamism and outcome to four dramatic weeks in which, apart from symbolism, gesture, and discourse, nothing really happened; and yet the language and ‘grammar’ of this dramatic symbolic politics seemed to be understood by all the actors involved, even though no one knew the true significance of what any one actor was doing or saying. It was as if everyone understood the language but had different interpretations of the specific gestures and utterances. The Algiers events seemed immediately readable – once again, force was being used to move against a weak regime. The nearest parallel seemed to be 6 February 1934. In this case of course, the Mediterranean would have to be crossed, although this too almost happened. In many ways, however, the Algiers events evoked left wing traditions too: the Comité de salut public had echoes of 1793 and a lot of the commotion and declarations were reminiscent of 1789; the fraternizing of the crowds in Algiers and other Algerian cities between Europeans but also between Europeans and Muslims, and especially between the ‘crowd’ and the soldiers, the sporadic outbreaks of joy, and the sense of celebration, were reminiscent of French revolutionary tradition. The declarations and appeals (the ‘appel’ is a very French and dramatic political form of address cf. de Gaulle, 18 June 1940) of the main players like Massu and Salan demonstrate acute historical awareness. The invasion of Corsica was strategic, cautionary, but also highly symbolic, and ‘liberationist’ – Corsica had been a springboard of the liberation of France in 1944 from Nazi rule. A further element of the grammar that all actors shared and which played a major role in both thinking and outcome, was the idea of ‘unity’ (‘unité’, ‘unicité’ etc) that pervades French political thinking. Colonial thought based upon difference and racism is not part of this; but a strong part of Algérie Française thought was arguably not racist, in fact, was high-minded (and perhaps unrealistic): and the joyous fraternization that went on through May 1958 attests to a desire for a kind of transcendence of difference. This desire for unity informed all of the actors: the army, the party politicians even in moments of deep crisis; and de Gaulle’s political philosophy was based upon the partly Thomist idea that unity is the constantly to be striven for prerequisite to greatness and happiness. And the Rousseauist notion of an all-embracing General Will underpins French republicanism – distinguishing it from other forms of democracy. In many ways, this is where legitimacy lies


in the French political imagination, and this in all ideologies; and if one bears this in mind, we can see that a great deal of the manoeuvring, the claims, the mises en garde, the reassurances, and so on made by each and all between 13 May and 1 June are actually about unity as opposed to division, or rather claims to legitimacy in the name of unity. Each actor used ‘unity’ and ‘division’ to define themselves and their opponents and gain symbolic advantage in relation to this mythical notion. In de Gaulle’s thought the emphasis is upon the state, but even this is in order that France be maintained and prosper as a near-sacred unified entity. This was the aim: that effective politics was to be the expression of an all embracing mythical national unity. The question was how to do it in the context of the division of France into two political camps: military/colons dissent v. Parisian political legitimacy. The representatives of the former were almost illegal but not quite totally; the latter almost incapable of action and without authority. De Gaulle’s success would depend upon his being seen to reconcile the two without becoming one or the other. To do this, he had to maintain the coup as part of that which had to be transcended, and to do this he had to ensure that it remained in the public’s imagination a symptom of a sickness created not by the French tradition of virulent nationalism, but by the absence of the true legitimacy of the political institutions. And having true legitimacy would depend upon the leader’s relation to ‘the people’ (in some form) on the one hand, and to ‘France’ on the other. De Gaulle was therefore not a republican in the classic or received sense, but was no less committed to the republic for that, in that republicanism, the overwhelming choice of the French at this moment of history, was necessary to his being on the side of unity. And it is this personally envisioned notion of unity that would inform the republic henceforth and become the essential condition of its strength. We can add that this is an extraordinary political phenomenon – a person who, in a crisis, refuses to condemn or endorse either side (almost an imperative in crises) and who posits himself as the transcendent site of legitimacy. This will become the true source of legitimacy of the new republic. In the almost empty space opened up to symbolic politics in May 1958, rhetoric became crucially important, and then a major feature of the new republic. It is the discourse and rhetoric of individuals, echoing, interpolating, bringing onto the scene, the mythologies of unity, greatness, strength, happiness, extraordinary and exemplary leadership, and so on, in dramatic and arresting ways, that become, in part, the currency of the new republic.


For de Gaulle to claim supreme legitimacy and provoke reaction in this empty space of inaction, meant making rhetorical interventions in the hope that, recognized as significant in the mythologies informing French politics, others would react in particular ways so that these would indeed inform politics. It is essential to our understanding to recognize that these were all discursive gambles de Gaulle made, and depended upon the shared mythological grammar in the first instance, and upon people reacting to them, in the second. De Gaulle knew better than anyone that the army, the press, the government, and the public’s failure to respond to him (negatively or positively) would leave his initiatives lettre morte. It is a truism in history and political science that ‘what ifs’ have no currency in analysis, but even though not anything could happen in 1958, nothing was determined. It is not to speculate fruitlessly to mention but a few things that could have happened or not happened; and this not to know what might have happened but in order to underscore the contingency of what did happen. There was no finality to Massu’s having become the figurehead of the rebellion, for example, and if he had not, things would almost certainly have developed differently. Similarly, if he had not in turn called on Salan to take on the overall leadership of the rebellion, or Salan had refused, or Paris had disowned him, things would have developed differently; or if de Gaulle had felt his 67 years more heavily, or if de Gaulle had denounced the rebellion, or identified more closely with it, or if Mollet had not asked his questions of de Gaulle or had not been persuaded by de Gaulle, or if Coty had not decided to facilitate de Gaulle’s accession to power; if de Gaulle’s press conference had been a less masterly performance, and so on, then things would have developed differently. What each of these semicounterfactuals shares is that each involved nodal actions by individuals. And it was the myriad individual actions which were so consequential. None more so than de Gaulle’s three (discursive) interventions: the communiqué of 15 May, the press conference of 19 May, and the communiqué of 27 May. Let us look at these three crucial discursive acts again, for a moment. They have generally been recognized in the literature as crucial. Rémond as well as Berstein and Milza note that what was remarkable about them was that they were each simply discursive interventions: a first press release, a press conference, and a second press release.18 What has not been stressed is the nature of the discursive interventions and their consequences. The first and last were simply communiqués, press releases, but ones that had the tone of the leader, the last communiqué especially had the tone of someone


already in power, like the pronouncement of a President or king giving orders to the political class, the people, and the army. These framed the perceived character of de Gaulle, but they remained just that, frames in which his authoritative ‘character’ was portrayed. We should add that both communiqués triggered the momentary ire of the political class, particularly the National Assembly and most of the political parties. The alternative, however, would have been his irrelevance. It is also the case that the ire was, in large part, from those who wanted him to denounce the rebellion, but by demanding that he do so, legitimated him, ascribing to him power over the rebellion, and a potential republican legitimacy. The truly consequential discursive intervention, however, was de Gaulle’s press conference of 19 May. We have to understand it as a performance. The contexts of the performance were four: 1) that de Gaulle had almost been forgotten by the public and was being dramatically reintroduced into the public’s imagination;19 2) even physically his appearance was novel – he was older and greyer than he was remembered. He had withdrawn almost totally from the public’s view certainly for three years, but for many the memory of de Gaulle was that of 1944–46, and to a lesser extent of the creation of the RPF in 1947; 3) the received view of de Gaulle was that he was aloof, austere, unsmiling, monarchical, indeed old fashioned by 1958 standards, and his somewhat frightening image had recently been confirmed by the first communiqué, and had been continually stressed throughout the Fourth Republic by the opponents of personal power; 4) the events of the previous week and the calling of a press conference themselves conferred upon de Gaulle enormous significance, as well as injecting further drama into the series of events. These made up the context. The performance itself brought the question of perceived character decisively into the (beginnings of) the Fifth Republic; for de Gaulle was not at all as people expected him to be: he was relaxed, urbane, generous, spirited, funny, and responsive, and this was the persona that the French and the political class, and the military, and the national and the international media20 saw and heard (on newsreels, on radio and in papers and in magazines, and through personal exchanges and hearsay). It was this new aspect of character, this new persona, that accompanied, replaced, vied with, complemented as it were, the highminded aloof character that would have himself the incarnation of France itself. The ambivalence associated with character and with discourse, and the performance of persona, brought so consequentially into the mainframe of politics, would play a central role here, in the aftermath, and then throughout the Fifth Republic.


The near totality of political debate about de Gaulle in 1958 and subsequently has revolved around four ambivalences: was he involved more than he ever admitted in the 13 May rising and its aftermath (even the possible coup against the republic, ‘Opération Résurrection’)?; was he always going to give Algeria independence?; was his Republic in the true tradition of republicanism or was it a distortion of it?; where does or should power and authority truly lie in the Fifth Republic? All of these questions are necessary and their answers informative of the nature of 1958 and the republic (although none of them has ever been answered with clarity). What these debates have ignored is the new political significance of ambivalence and ambiguity themselves, for in all four cases the answers need to include the fact that de Gaulle’s ambivalence had major effects: upon the coup, upon developments in Algeria, upon the nature of republicanism, and the nature of power in the republic. Ambivalence feeds into the political process at the founding moment and then at every moment. Ambivalence and ambiguity do not just lie in the actor or spectator, they lie in the language itself: this is in part why de Gaulle could be all things to all people; and the register he used quite naturally involves striking, yet ambivalent, concepts: France, greatness, the nation, and so on, but even apparently more straightforward terms such as Republic are rich in ambiguity. Add to this the desire on the part of a listener, member of the public, party leader, putschist etc that he say something they wish to hear, and ambiguity, paradoxically, is increased. The ambivalence or polyvalence of intention, accident, of language itself, and of listener reception, are all made more consequential by the emphasis that was put, during the drama of 1958, upon what individuals said, should have said or did not say. We should remember the formative role not just of words but of silence too, again, de Gaulle’s case being the most important. Williams refers to his silences at this time as ‘delphic’.21 De Gaulle himself as early as 1932 in his writings on leadership22 had stressed the importance of silence. In terms of his persona, his not condemning the Algiers rising was significant, but more so was that he had been silent (more or less) for a decade, so that his stepping back into the (discursive) arena and performing so (rhetorically) dramatically meant that a communiqué, a press conference, would confer upon him the image of a returning saviour (or that of a fool if circumstances had been different). We can add on the question of character that – to the extent that it is ever truly known to observers – actual character will also become significant: de Gaulle’s pessimism, his overblown view of himself, his depressions, his coolness towards even those who devoted themselves


to him, his ingratitude, his higher calling, and so on also play into the early republic informing the nature of executive authority.23 We can make two observations. The first is that for the early Fifth Republic, a series of extremely important factors other than institutional and constitutional change had critical influence: a sense of drama, the role of exceptional individuals, a sense of the complexity of politics, ‘crisis’ as a political concept, the mainstream role and ‘foregrounding’ of myths about France, an emphasis upon unity, the role of rhetoric and political image, and the imagined relationships between things and people; all these will be formative, and understanding the republic will be dependent upon their analysis. The second observation is that de Gaulle could only have succeeded in a polity and political culture in which he and the things he believed in were recognized and understood as existing by others – or these latter could at least be persuaded of the existence of these things, whether they be in the military, the political class, or the general population: that is to say, a polity that subscribes to the notion that the state needs to be united to be strong, that exceptional individuals exist and can change history, that the notions of Gaullism had a currency in French political culture. It was these parts of the culture – in the name of democracy – that the Fourth Republic had pushed to the margins; in a sense, even the Fourth Republic itself ‘recognized’ de Gaulle, not as a has-been but as its own antithesis, so that when he re-entered the public political arena, it immediately – negatively and positively – responded to him, both in the context of Algiers, and in the context of its own paralysis, thus beginning a process which over just a three-week period handed him the possibility of changing the regime. Two related phenomena must be taken into consideration in any appraisal, and seen as significantly informative: a relative social stability and economic expansion, on the one hand, and the role of opinion on the other. Stability and expansion are usually seen as an infrastructure that ‘explains’ the transition from the Fourth to the Fifth Republic (e.g. a new part of the Resistance elite fulfilling the same socio-economic function, i.e. modernization). This is not wrong, but to compare the socio-economic and the political in this way explains very little. What this wrong view does, however, is provide us with a very interesting question, namely, what was the relationship between de Gaulle and his context? We can say that social stability and economic expansion do in fact set a stage for de Gaulle. Unlike other regime changes in France, there had been no economic collapse, no war, no massive dislocation, no famine etc. The opposite was true and set the


limits of that ‘stage’ and performance, but facilitated it too, that is to say that economic stability allowed for instability in politics, and increased the political system’s ‘tolerance’ of individual performance, allowing it to claim that it stabilized rather than destabilized democracy and the regime. This aspect of the Fifth Republic has continued up to the present day. The second and related aspect of this is that it brings ‘opinion’ in as a key player.24 Here ‘public opinion’ and surveys can be real, scientific, and so on, but they are still just a version of ‘opinion’ playing a significant role. ‘Public opinion’ with or without inverted commas may be ‘real’, may exist in society or as an object in and of discourse, or both, and inform politics. We are interested in how the ‘informing’ informs the politics. For example, as we have noted, commentators often refer to public opinion as late as January 1958 assuming de Gaulle would never return to power. How are we to appraise the value of public opinion if it can change so rapidly? What does it mean for our understanding of opinion if it can go from near ignorance to devotional followership in a few months? What is the value of de Gaulle’s relationship to the French if he can be acclaimed so soon after being ignored? What should we think? Perhaps ‘opinion’ can step on to the stage where a stage is there for it to step on to, and then it, and de Gaulle, can perform. Perhaps the ‘stage’ must be discursively created before it can be ‘real’. This means that three things happen: the first is that the politics of drama, the politics of ‘the sudden and unexpected’ (although ‘recognized’) becomes politically significant.25 The imagining of alternative (previously imagined) politics has increased salience. The ‘unexpected’ moves into a more privileged relationship to the institutional political process, and takes on a more active role, and will become the foundation for politics in the post-1958 republic. Second, given the ‘January polls’ idea – that de Gaulle was expected never to return – the notion of inevitability actually becomes absurd, or else in the French case we need to include the unexpected in any definition of the inevitable. Third, a further consequence is that all the actors – the Army, the communists, individuals, activist groups, the Algerian crowds, and participants and observers (‘opinion’, the electorate, the media) start to ‘live’ politics as drama. The overall result of this was to alter the nature of political legitimacy in the closing months of the Fourth Republic and the opening months of the Fifth Republic. In a great deal of literature on 1958 – and this becomes the standard for analysis of the Fifth Republic from then onwards – there is great emphasis upon understanding the juxta-


position of the parliamentary and the presidential, and on a wider scale, republicanism and personalism or personal leadership. These preoccupations have often masked the truly interesting point about the events of 1958 and their aftermath, namely the evolving nature of French political legitimacy. It remains within republicanism generally, but its modalities are fundamentally altered. The dramatically heightened level at which political relationships are imagined and enacted through symbolic politics is carried into the new republic.

The characteristics of the new republic The regime became something other than its architects had assumed it would become because of the way de Gaulle (mis)interpreted his own constitution, often, in fact, ignoring it, ‘inventing’ the presidency after he had taken office.26 This is something of a puzzle: that the architect of a constitution would treat the constitutional settlement he had striven for, for almost 20 years, with a cavalier attitude, so that it took on new characteristics. The answer lies in the constitution’s introduction, that is to say that Algeria and the collapse of the Fourth Republic provided a dramatic context in which the persona now in the frame would have relative freedom of action that would have far-reaching constitutional and political consequences. We could almost argue that the constitution and its elaboration became but a moment of a much more wide-ranging process which elaborated simultaneously an unwritten constitution based upon de Gaulle’s comportment. We shall analyse the reasons for this below, but can say that procedurally also the constitution was part of a dynamic and dramatic process. On 2 June de Gaulle had the special powers (voted since 1956 to the Prime Minister) to try to deal with the Algerian crisis, new full powers for six months, and the go-ahead for a government-led constitutional law to be ratified by referendum. De Gaulle maintained an enigmatic distance from his own constitution. It is equally the case that his distance from everything was an imperative. This often excruciating aspect of de Gaulle’s – we can say real – personality all his active life was crucial to the development of the regime. De Gaulle kept a distance not only from the political parties, from constitutional obedience as we have mentioned, but also from the army, from the media (very formal press conferences/ broadcasts), distance from the political activists of Algeria, and, as we shall see, from his own Gaullist supporters. These latter, however, are key: his distance is both real and apparent, that is to say that his own


‘army’ of support had to act utterly in accordance with his views in order for him to behave as if he were not in any relation to them, or to anything else apart from a mythical relation to France, and a highly-contrived equally mythical relation to ‘la nation’. De Gaulle’s first government was like one of national unity, like 1944, and the drafting of the constitution throughout the summer of 1958 replicated his probity so that conflict could not arise. The four ministers of state, like deputy Prime Ministers, included Mollet (SFIO) and Pflimlin (MRP). The others were an independent (Louis Jacquinot, who had been in London with de Gaulle) and a Radical/UDSR African, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Three Gaullists held portfolios, Malraux, Debré, and Michelet, but it was Debré as Garde des Sceaux (Justice) with a team of legal advisors in control of drawing up the new constitution who was crucial. This is not to say that there was no input from others, particularly Mollet, but the true significance of all this lies elsewhere. Many writers allude to the fact that ‘real’ power lay with de Gaulle (and with his cabinet run by Pompidou). The point of wider significance, however, is that republicanism as a doctrine could not really fault de Gaulle at this point. If a doctrine (parliamentary republicanism) does not understand that it – and its rivals, here Gaullism – is a discourse as well as a doctrine, that is, has potentially far wider connotations and implications than its formal elaboration, it is vulnerable to discourse itself. This means that the question: will you maintain a parliamentary regime?, can be answered, and was. The far more consequential question: will you by your complex comportment introduce what we might call romanticized mythical leadership into the centre of the new institutional configuration and its practice? cannot even be asked, because for parliamentary republicanism only a very rudimentary understanding of this – related to Louis Napoleon and ancient Roman notions of tyranny – exists; and de Gaulle had already demonstrated that he was neither a Bonapartist nor a tyrant. From its June 1958 beginnings, the constitution was drafted, debated, modified, submitted to referendum and became law within three months. De Gaulle was called to give evidence to the consultative committee, chaired by Paul Reynaud. Once again, there is clear evidence here of republicanism’s (all doctrines’) forensic concern with doctrine, which almost by definition (because it is there to focus meaning rather than encourage ambivalence) could not ask the fundamental questions of the political use of leadership persona and character, nor interrogate the issue of the mythical establishment of an imagined, politically transcendent relation between leader and people. On this last point, of


course, the constitution would – in true republican fashion – be submitted to referendum, for sanction by the people. But, once again, this referendum would also and simultaneously be a plebiscite (as were all de Gaulle’s referendums). More, in fact, than a plebiscite: an act of anointing by the people. Subscription to doctrine precludes discursive attention to the wider symbolic implications of a political act, and the new space given to persona meant it would now influence greatly what was actually meant by republicanism itself. In the Fourth Republic’s constitution, the section on the presidency came only sixth. In the Fifth it came first, immediately after the section on ‘De la souveraineté’. This discursive arrangement of the Fifth Republic’s constitution was far more telling (though constitutionally inconsequential) than any of the issues debated. Having said this, yet another ambivalence – paradox, in fact – emerges, in that, ultimately, as the non-Gaullist drafters assumed (and doubtless Gaullist ones too, especially Michel Debré), the Fifth Republic’s constitution, particularly as regards the President, was not that different from those of the Third and Fourth Republics.27 For example, and here we come back again to the crucial role of (ambivalent) language, the President of the Fifth Republic – like the President of all republics, has as his/her mission to maintain the integrity of the state, and of the nation, to uphold national independence, and the constitution itself, and ensure that the state’s institutions function. For de Gaulle, such a charge probably meant just about everything (excluding concern for the price of artichokes). We can see that the debate (still lively, 50 years later) surrounding the true meaning of ‘arbitre’, for example, is necessary within the forensics of constitutional law, but, as we have seen, to paraphrase Durkheim, all that is in the constitution is not constitutional. Most constitutional lawyers and political scientists at the time debated the interpretation of the term ‘arbitre’. Few identified the ambiguity in the language then, and in relation to which meaning is elaborated. Upon a de Gaulle, that is to say a leader who is allowed to establish a particular kind of political authority based upon a mythical relation with several entities (France, people, nation, state, destiny), the words of a constitution bestow magical powers. ‘Arbitration’ can be interpreted as relating to anything. Authority to act is conferred not only upon the office of the presidency but also upon the persona of the President. There was further ambivalence in the public presentation of this constitution. De Gaulle, at a grandiose event ‘staged’ by Malraux, presented his draft constitution to ‘the people’ (with a lot of the ‘people’ – and in particular PCF protestors, kept well away from the action by


the police). In many ways, the event was what all observers said it was: a republican spectacle, of a kind not seen since the late nineteenth century. The date was the anniversary of the Third Republic (4 September). The place was Place de la République, a huge ‘RF’ adorning de Gaulle’s podium which was fronted conspicuously by Republican guards, and the whole square surrounded by huge ‘Vs’ denoting the Fifth Republic. Observers stressed how carefully republican all this was. The symbolism, however, is all this and more. In fact, film and photographs of the event do not seem republican at all to the Anglo-Saxon eye, but, rather disconcertingly, darkly imperial, as do the towering podium and the, as if, praetorian guard. Over and above this spectacular symbolism, moreover, we need to stress that this was the public celebration not just of a constitution but of personal leadership. The two would be difficult to counter because (in part, recovered) memory of de Gaulle was now that of a man who through courage, fortitude, and lonely certainty, was now, at last, celebrating his mystical union with France as public spectacle. Over and above this, de Gaulle used this occasion as a very personal plea, a warning that for him, and France, and the republic, this referendum on the constitution had to win. De Gaulle made this, like most of his ceremonial moments, one in which emotion was fired, but with a sense not only of the magnificence but also the fragility of his envisioned France and the necessary centrality of himself. Opinion polls at the time suggested that 50 per cent of the French – as with most texts of this kind – had not even looked at the draft constitution they would vote upon, and only 15 per cent claimed to have properly read it at all.28 The text itself had a significance, but more as an object that symbolized de Gaulle rather than as a constitutional text that defined the workings of the republic. We should add that the success of the constitution was also seen – irrespective of allegiance to de Gaulle or a ‘strong man’ – as a means to avoid a return of the ill-loved Fourth Republic, a communist takeover, or even a civil war. Cast in this way, except for the PCF (and minimal intellectual opposition), it became a text that almost could not be voted against. On what grounds? And of course the political parties had themselves helped make this constitution, even though, in reality, they were almost all split over it and the events surrounding it. Not for the last time in fact, not for the last time by any means, would either opposing or supporting de Gaulle really only benefit de Gaulle himself. The Radicals, because of the vicissitudes of the previous few years, were in pieces, and called for a ‘yes’ vote. The SFIO would probably have voted against but for the efforts of Mollet and latterly Gaston


Defferre of the powerful Bouches-du-Rhône federation who supported the ‘yes’ and came through with a (September 1958) 69 per cent conference vote.29 The MRP, de Gaulle’s natural allies, also recommended a ‘yes’ vote. Little good fortune would it bring them. This first storm of events in favour of de Gaulle would go on through October and November like a developing rally, a rassemblement, a phenomenon more associated with de Gaulle’s RPF rally of the late 1940s.30 Surge politics, rally politics, normally on the margins of political life, particularly of non-revolutionary republican polities, was brought right into the mainstream, with ‘opinion’, now on a national scale, fuelling it. It was as if the surges of opinion were now right in the centre of politics, aggravating the stresses the parties were under and in some cases, tearing them asunder. A further feature of these developments was the fact that the stresses and strains that were fracturing the parties (often, as a result of the Algerian War itself as much as de Gaulle’s return) had a long term effect upon some of them. Reduced to virtual electoral annihilation, many little groups, the PSA, UGS, and so on, and a myriad of individuals would criss-cross one another through political clubs and little think tanks, and small political parties, and become the seeds (albeit at this time without seedbeds) of doctrinal renewal of the left, of left Catholicism, of the trade unions, and of the right, and the extreme right, in the post-de Gaulle Fifth Republic. Many of the brightest, most modernizing and forward thinking political actors were against the now apparently unstoppable tide of political renewal.31 The univocal nature of the referendum was symbolized by thousands of posters exhorting ‘Oui à la France’, implying that a No was tantamount to treason, or to allegiance to a communist party that was suspected of solitary allegiance to a foreign power. The turnout was 85 per cent (France throughout this period had a 20–25 per cent average of abstentions for elections and referenda), and 80 per cent of that 85 per cent voted ‘yes’ (including an estimated third of the PCF’s voters).32 The Fifth Republic became a juridical entity on 28 September, less than four months after de Gaulle’s re-emergence into mainstream politics. From the referendum triumph, the political process then moved immediately into its next phase, one that would tie the non-Gaullist political parties even further into the contradictory situation they found themselves in. On 1 October, that is, immediately after the referendum, the Gaullists created a new party, the Union pour la Nouvelle République (and there is ambiguity even in the word ‘pour’). Distant as


ever, de Gaulle forbade his name to be used in the party’s title. We should add that his apparent distance was only apparent. He was now synonymous with the new republic. His will, his intentions, however, were ambivalent. The party had, therefore, to become a party that had no views of its own, because even his anticipated views could not be depended upon. The first casualty was his greatest supporter, Jacques Soustelle. From the beginning, the strongest Algérie Française supporters were replaced by Gaullists whose Gaullism either resembled a kind of state bureaucracy mentality or else was a kind of vacuous pensée gaulliste. Soustelle would happily have taken the presidency of the party, but de Gaulle himself imposed an administrative secretary general (Roger Frey). And it was Frey and his entourage who chose the candidates for the forthcoming legislative elections (as would Malraux, another utter devotee, four years later). The voting system chosen during the course of the summer (and therefore very hurriedly put in place) resembled that of the Third Republic. Any of the many forms of proportional representation was excluded because it might reproduce the Fourth Republic (and favour the PCF). The two round, single-member constituency system with a run-off one week later and usually leading to standings down and therefore run-offs between two candidates, had strange but very formative effects on the Fifth Republic. It is arguable that de Gaulle himself was unaware of the effects it would have. It gave him his highly successful Gaullist party, and would establish the party political basis of a bi-polar, and potentially bi-partisan and stable political regime in which the political parties would play a role that was far more positive than de Gaulle could have imagined. The scrutin d’arrondissement uninominal à deux tours also maintained or brought back a kind of Third Republican style local and personal element to legislative politics that de Gaulle did not envisage either. Such local fiefdoms, and local politics generally, became the breeding ground for a new breed of personalized politicians, even though at this time they gained their seats solely through association with de Gaulle. The newly formed Gaullists were the real winners. Their success was amplified dramatically by the two round system; and the Gaullists controlled most of the state machinery for distributing publicity, commandeering the airwaves, and had the means to finance their campaign. And the UNR stood unequivocally for the new republic. The other parties who had stood for the constitution now had to campaign as if against it. On the first round of 23 November, the PCF vote (as in the referendum) fell by one third to just above 19 per cent. The


socialists and the MRP held on to their 1956 vote of just over 15 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. Ahead of all three came the UNR, only two months old, with over 20 per cent. The ‘moderates’, the CNIP, a loose but large conservative federation that had supported de Gaulle (and had a lot of Algérie Française supporters) gained just over 22 per cent. The Radicals (depending on how the party now in pieces is measured), the Mendésists, and non-SFIO socialists, and the Poujadists were virtually wiped off the map. The abstention rate was 22.9 per cent – a sign perhaps of the uninterested, the very confused, the very hostile, the anti-parliamentarian, and those who having given de Gaulle his republic were not interested in legislative politics. One week later on 30 November 1958, in round two the PCF was decimated. In 1956, it had 150 seats. With the electoral loss we have indicated, one might assume therefore a fall from 150 to 100. They won ten seats only, such was the new logic of round-two désistement, and the need for alliances, agreements, and some ideological affinity between neighbouring parties. By the same or similar token, the socialists and MRP who as we have seen remained steady in round one compared to 1956, lost respectively, 50 and 30 (they held, respectively, 44 and 57) seats. Of the 475 sitting MPs 334, including figures such as Pierre Mendès France, François Mitterrand, Edgar Faure, Gaston Defferre, and other leading Radical and MRP figures lost their seats (over and above the 475, there were 87 seats that represented Algeria, the Sahara, and the overseas Departments and overseas Territories). Between them, the UNR now with 198 seats, and the Moderates (CNIP) with 133, held a commanding majority. On 21 December to crown this tumbling series of victories, de Gaulle was elected President by the new electoral college of 80,000 elected ‘notables’. He took office with 75.5 per cent of the vote against the PCF candidate who gained 13.01 per cent and the leftist UFD candidate with 8.4 per cent.33 The UFD candidate, an academic, did rather well considering the ramshackle UFD had only gained 1 per cent in the legislative elections, an early though forgotten sign of how presidential elections can amplify a vote. But the hour was de Gaulle’s. A year earlier he had himself assumed he would never return to power. On 8 January power was formally handed over to him by the outgoing President Coty, whose decision the previous May had helped bring de Gaulle to power. Together they laid a wreath for the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, and de Gaulle left him standing on the pavement, and had himself driven down the Champs-Elysées without him, as if the Fourth Republic had never existed. It had, of course, and


de Gaulle can only be properly understood with reference to it. Several more events marked the end of the sequence. Michel Debré was appointed as Prime Minister on the 9 January 1958. The socialists soon moved into opposition. The moderates (CNIP) remained (with Pinay still at Finance), as did some MRP and non-partisan ‘technical’ ministerial appointments. A shift would begin however that would eventually push all but the Gaullists and their close supporters out of the nest, some of them for a decade, some of them forever.

2 1958–68: The Consolidation and Evolution of the Fifth Republic

Between 1958 and 1962, de Gaulle moved from one matrix of support to another. In the case of the army and public opinion, he went from having particular elements support him for one set of reasons to others supporting him for a different set of reasons, arguably the opposite ones. He moved to and fro across support from the parties, the army, his own supporters, ‘opinion’, the electorates: legislative, presidential and referendary, Algérie Française, both in Algeria and in France, the trade unions, intellectuals, small town and village France with its local allegiances, the female vote, republican/legalistic opinion, eventually to a new configuration of sources of support. By 1962, he had almost got to the other side, as it were. As regards the parties, certain sections of the army, the media, the pieds-noirs, and some parts of fluctuating opinion, most of these had been ‘for’ him (for a range of reasons, and this is crucial). By 1962, all of them were now against him (for a range of reasons, and this is still crucial). It was certain, moreover, that the parties that had brought him to power to solve Algeria would, once it had been solved, try to, if not abandon him, then ‘domesticate’ his republic, bringing it much closer to a UK model (Debré’s preference), or a Fourth Republic with all the safeguards that figures like Coty, Mendès France, Faure, Mitterrand, Pflimlin and Defferre (and Vedel and Duverger and others) had striven for, largely in vain, in the months and years running up to May–June 1958.1 The political support de Gaulle enjoyed from the UNR was unequivocal. By 1962, its Algérie Française element had more or less been sifted out. It is worth pausing here to note that the bitterness felt by some bordered on the heartbreak of those who had been the most devoted. The emotional intensity of allegiance to de Gaulle by many cannot be overstated. With the loss of its right wing, the UNR nominally gained a 37


left wing. The Union démocratique du travail was made up of left wing Gaullists such as Louis Vallon, Léo Hamon and René Capitant. It formed in April 1959, bringing together many of those who had supported him since the Resistance years, some of whom, like Jacques Debû-Bridel, were even close to the Communist party. Many of them were the most intelligent, theoretically informed and intellectually interesting exponents of Gaullism. The UDT fused with the UNR in 1962. The left of the party, however, never really developed into a significant force, perhaps because of a fundamental contradiction between a left wing philosophy and the focus on an individual, but mainly because by 1962 the nature of the UNR had already been defined. The two most interesting theoretical aspects of Gaullism – Soustelle’s Gaullism, and Capitant’s – were almost certainly incompatible with one another but more importantly were incompatible with the exigencies of political support within de Gaulle’s new Republic.2 The most politically devoted support was already becoming ideologically neutral by the time the UDT joined it. The most loyal became the least ideological and the most politically practical, acting unconditionally for de Gaulle, and efficiently on his behalf. Against the UNR were the communists who, although reduced to ten seats in 1958, remained a mass party and in clear opposition to de Gaulle. Having said this we need to recognize that at various moments they lost swathes of their voters to de Gaulle – up to 30 per cent in the 1958 referendum as well as in later referenda. And even they – against the putschists in 1961 – came out in support of him.3 In spite of their likening him to Franco or Salazar and a version of fascism, their task was hard because he had been the leader of the resistance to Nazi Germany, and had even gone into resistance before the PCF had. He had also worked reasonably well with the PCF in the closing stages of the war; and immediately after the war had communist ministers in his government, and was on reasonable to good terms with the leaders of the Soviet Union and was respected by them, and was – increasingly after 1958 – identified by many Third World states and independence movements as non-aligned. He was, like the PCF, sceptical about Europe, had a penchant, like them, for anti-Americanism, and was not without concern for ‘the social’, unlike some of his contemporaries on the right. Even within their own ranks, therefore, the communists were never able to rid themselves of a reluctant respect for their arch-enemy. Nevertheless, the PCF was able to survive and prosper as the clearest anti-de Gaulle movement. It did this by portraying him as the new figurehead of a brutal capitalism, which in France, given the uneven-

1958–68: The Consolidation and Evolution of the Fifth Republic 39

ness of the spread of much of the prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s was true in part. As regards other oppositional political forces, the PSU (first called the PSA) was formed in April 1960 from dissidents from SFIO Algerian policy in 1956, then from progressive opposition to de Gaulle’s coming to power in 1958. It was vociferously anti-Gaullist and vocal in intellectual circles (essentially Paris) and in the ‘serious’ press, and had some of the best minds (including Mendès France and the young Michel Rocard). Politically and electorally it was insignificant in terms of the political drama unfolding in 1962. However, many of its members, via rejoining the big political parties, or founding think tanks and influencing/forming political opinion, would go on to play major roles in the post-1962 period. The CNIP in the early stages of the 1958–62 legislature was the UNR’s coalition partner. The CNIP or ‘moderates’, however, were not really a party fit for modern purpose, rather a large conservative coalition of local ‘notables’. They represented a France that at the national level was about to be overtaken by a rapidly changing society and polity. Even more internally destructive was its strong support for Algérie Française. This created great internal ‘stress’ and meant that once Algeria was lost, it risked being washed away by the next tide. The socialists, unhappy with the social and economic policy of de Gaulle’s government, and his own brand of presidentialism – which Mollet regarded as a deviation from the constitution he had helped draw up, left government in January 1959. The problem for the socialists, and this more or less throughout the following four years, was that by and large they strongly supported de Gaulle’s Algerian policy. It was only from early 1962, therefore, that the SFIO could really move against his government; and one had the sense that when they did move against him they did so precipitously, and without proper reflection upon strategy, and even less upon the nature of the republic they found themselves in. The MRP was forever in a fragile situation because many of its leaders were either significantly more right wing or significantly more left wing than the MRP’s electorate (essentially centre right and centre left Catholics). On top of this, on many issues, the UNR and MRP (who had wanted de Gaulle to lead them in 1946, and some of whom were with de Gaulle in the Resistance) were in broad agreement, and in terms of electorate were in fairly direct competition with one another. Moreover, as in the CNIP, Algeria had created serious stress within the MRP, and several of its ministers were in government in 1962 and in


disagreement with parts of their own party. The MRP, moreover, was very ‘pro-European’. Any gestures of anti-Europeanism from de Gaulle would throw the party into further disarray. And de Gaulle’s antiEuropean gestures were about to start raining down into the political arena. By 1962, it was clear that the Algerian drama was almost over. De Gaulle had been returned to power to solve Algeria, but had done the opposite of what had been anticipated. As his strategy moved towards accepting Algerian independence he took the French population with him, strengthening his support over the divided political parties through two referendums, the first in January 1961 on the question of Algerian self-determination (over 75 per cent yes), the second in April 1962 on independence (over 90 per cent yes). As French opinion followed him, the parties also followed with varying degrees of enthusiasm. At certain points, his most unequivocal support was from the PCF and SFIO. His shifts in policy involved endless speeches, ambivalence, silences, ambiguities, and then action. As the pieds-noirs and elements of the army saw their own stars waning, they reacted, first with a week of rioting (January 1960), then a military putsch (April 1961), then with an OAS terrorist campaign of increasing brutality and nihilism. With the April 1962 referendum, the drama was over. Algeria gained its independence. Nearly all of the European Algerians returned heartbroken and bitter to France. De Gaulle then turned immediately to the political challenges facing his authority, legitimacy and political capital. The real test for de Gaulle’s new republic, however, was not Algeria but de Gaulle’s conception of leadership politics. And the test was about to take place.

The 1962 referendum and elections On 14 April, de Gaulle replaced Michel Debré as Prime Minister with the non-parliamentarian and relatively unknown Georges Pompidou. Debré had remained loyal but had agonized over Algeria. Pompidou was considered as merely the President’s delegate in Parliament. One month later, on 15 May at a press conference de Gaulle made clear ‘anti-European’ remarks, this to the horror of France’s most proEuropean political party: Dante, Goëthe, Châteaubriand appartiennent à toute l’Europe dans la mesure où ils étaient respectivement et éminemment Italien, Allemand et Français. Ils n’auraient pas beaucoup servi l’Europe s’ils


avaient été des apatrides et s’ils avaient pensé, écrit en quelque espéranto ou volapük intégrés.4 What is striking about de Gaulle’s remark is how personalized it is with its references to Goëthe, etc; how deliberately provocative it is – several of his own ministers were pro-European; how insulting it is – referring to European integration as a kind of volapük is denigrating and more scornful than the use of the more musical expression ‘Esperanto’; and finally how extremely amusing it is. Here is one of scores of examples of how de Gaulle used his press conferences as political performances to consequential political effect. To move away from some forms of support, to move towards new policy positions, de Gaulle used himself. Henceforth, the direction of politics would follow de Gaulle’s press conferences. The six MRP ministers in his government immediately resigned. As regards the CNIP, Pinay had resigned in 1960, but the party had remained silent – rather than support or oppose – over de Gaulle’s Algeria referendums. Many independents wanted Giscard d’Estaing, the new Finance minister (and also pro-European) to resign. He had his own plan for future collaboration with the UNR, and he refused. Nevertheless, the new Pompidou government was now essentially a UNR government. On 8 June 1962, this time in a television broadcast, de Gaulle alluded to the idea of a constitutional reform regarding the mode of election of the President at the next presidential election. On 22 August, there was another assassination attempt (there had been a previous one on 8 September 1961). The President was in a car with his wife and son-in-law at Petit-Clamart just outside Paris when OAS activists opened fire. Such a dramatic event (and his own calm response) came at the perfect moment.5 On 12 September following a cabinet meeting, de Gaulle announced that on 28 October 1962 there would be a referendum on the election of the President by direct universal adult suffrage. He repeated this in a message to Parliament on 2 October 1962. This time, all the political parties except the UNR opposed it.6 They decided in fact to organize a joint ‘cartel des non’ (excluding the PCF, itself, of course, also opposed). Many leading, now opposing, figures spoke out against de Gaulle’s plan. Paul Reynaud, for example, spoke stirringly in favour of the spirit of republicanism. From his April volapük speech de Gaulle was forcing, daring the parties to oppose him in a bold move to consolidate what was now his version of the Fifth Republic. On 5 October, Pompidou’s government was overturned by


280 votes. Instead of replacing Pompidou with a new Prime Minister who could create a new majority more reflective of the prevailing majority, the President maintained Pompidou in post and dissolved the National Assembly. The new elections to the National Assembly would fall immediately after the referendum that had provoked the motion of no confidence in the government in the first place (18 and 25 November, the referendum being set for 28 October). Many in the political parties and the print media believed that de Gaulle’s act was desperate and misplaced. As well as the parties, he also now had ranged against him most legal opinion concerning the constitutionality of his proposed reform, the trade unions, all those who were spokespersons of the ‘republican tradition’, as well as those who saw themselves as modernizers, but who wanted a kind of updated Mendésisme, and a Fifth Republic free of the drama of de Gaulle’s politics. There was no basis in his own constitution for what he was doing; what he was doing was asserting the centrality of his own action. The two factors that had helped bring him to power, fear of the army and despair over Algeria, were, by 1962, no longer issues. In several of his broadcasts at this time, de Gaulle stated that if he lost (or even if his majority was an unimpressive one) he would resign and return to his self-imposed internal exile. Most observers remarked at the time and later upon the kind of blackmail such declarations exercise; that they amounted to frightening an electorate and almost threatening it. In fact, what they also did was to focus upon the true object (target and prize) of the election, himself. In terms of the regime’s subsequent evolution, 1962 was a dramatic showdown between de Gaulle wanting to reinforce personality politics and almost everyone else trying to dedramatize the republic. With all sectors of political society against him and the threat of a coup or war now passed, and the fact that this really was a leap into the unknown for the republic, if de Gaulle were to win, it would be a stunning victory against the odds. And he won. There was the usual quarter of abstentions (22.76 per cent) and a majority in favour of 61.75 per cent of votes expressed. This was his lowest referendum achievement. Nevertheless, nearly 62 per cent, given the opposition and the audacity of his undertaking, was a breathtaking victory for his new style republic. It also put the drama of the assassination attempt into clearer relief: this truly was a personal (although ‘imagined’) relationship of some intimacy at the heart of a modern republic. With every element (except the UNR) of the political elite against him, he had won with the help of the mass of the French, dramatically demon-


strating that the republic was based upon an unmediated relationship between the leader and the people. In 1958 he had set up the republic in a kind of alliance with the political elites. In 1962, the people confirmed through their vote that the republic truly belonged to him. For the ‘no’s, the defeat was truly significant, for it meant that with the whole political class against him they had still lost. We should remember that in the 1958 referendum they were all for him (except the PCF), and now, without the threat of major civil disorder, the ‘no’s had only increased their vote by 18 per cent. One could argue that the totality of political parties that stood between the PCF and the UNR totalled 18 per cent.7 This is a strong indication of the power of the personal in the political process. Events had polarized the political parties; on one side de Gaulle’s supporters (with a few big names – like Maurice Schumann, MRP but a long-standing Gaullist – who rallied to the Gaullists), and on the other, virtually all of the political parties united in a kind of impotent exasperation with de Gaulle’s style of leadership and its consequences for Parliament and the republic. And just as in 1958, the dramatic referendum was immediately followed by legislative elections. On the Gaullists’ side, Malraux and Frey organized the UNR and now the left wing Gaullists, the UDT, into an electoral Association pour la Cinquième république, and, as the new party had done in 1958, selected the candidates to represent the party on the basis of their unequivocal allegiance to de Gaulle. Alongside the UNR-UDT were the ‘Giscardians’ who would form themselves in the course of the campaign into a parliamentary party, the Independent Republicans. For the opposition, the ‘cartel des non’ developed a programme of désistements (standing down for the best placed among them in round two); and the SFIO, to the annoyance of the other parties, also developed a similar plan with the PCF, so that all the political parties were ranged against the Gaullists. The abstention rate for the first round of the election on 18 November 1962, rose to 31 per cent. Between 1958 and 1962, largely because of the highly personalized referendums, all elections and participation in them was seen as an indication of support for de Gaulle. The 31 per cent abstention rate here reflected perhaps confusion and voting fatigue, but also perhaps more than a hesitation about de Gaulle’s republic. The UNR-UDT, however, gained 32 per cent of the vote. No party in the history of French electoral politics had ever crossed the 30 per cent barrier. All the other parties, except the PCF who increased their vote slightly (on 1958) because of the understanding with the SFIO, either


just about held on to their poor 1958 score or did worse, in some cases far worse. In the second round, the UNR was only nine seats short of an absolute majority, and Giscard d’Estaing’s new Républicains Indépendants with 36 seats provided it. We should remember that over a third of the 1958–62 National Assembly majority had been made up of the now hostile CNIP. This non-Gaullist right almost disappeared, with in total a disparate 55 seats, hundreds of seats down from its former glory. It was as if in 1958 de Gaulle had thumped down through the National Assembly and devastated the left, and now in 1962 had thumped again and devastated the right. In the run-off, the communists’ gains quadrupled because of SFIO désistements. The SFIO through désistements with the PCF and others raised its seats by 20 or so. Former Radicals and Mitterrand’s fraction of the UDSR gained 39 seats.8 This was the beginnings of the emergence of a left-of-centre opposition (between them they held almost 150 seats, with what remained of the MRP and Independents another 50 or so). In quick succession, French politics had seen: a series of referendums favourable to de Gaulle, an unsuccessful coup attempt, (at least) two assassination attempts, Algerian independence, a change of Prime Minister and government, a showdown between the political parties and de Gaulle, a major constitutional revision, the near annihilation of several large political parties, and the electoral triumph of de Gaulle’s own party. Let us look at the post-1962 period under three consequentially interrelated headings: Gaullism and the Gaullists; de Gaulle on the world stage; the Left opposition. But first let us examine a paradox borne of de Gaulle’s 1962 triumph, for it informs the nature of de Gaulle’s leadership between 1962 and 1965, the nature of the relationship between society and politics, the style of Gaullist party rule, and the political and discursive context of the left’s response to the Gaullist republic. The paradox is that a condition of drama is that it cannot, by definition, be continuous. Dramatic moments, particularly if they end in triumph, are followed by calm, if not bathos. De Gaulle could now take on the ‘grandes querelles’ of international politics because he had ‘solved’ the domestic, could go on up to the higher ground where his historic destiny awaited him. Those left minding the shop seemed consequently rather dull. Such a phenomenon has political consequences, for negotiating drama (as we have seen in both 1958 and 1962) and the pauses between it; creating it, responding to it, being ready for it, knowing how to profit from it or its absence, all these become part of understanding a now very complex political process. This inter-


relationship between drama and calm would have formative political influence throughout the next 50 years. And for the present, bathos descended upon political life. In one sense it was deliberate. De Gaulle’s appointment of Pompidou was made for all the obvious reasons of Pompidou’s competence and allegiance to de Gaulle. He was also affable, down to earth, and unpretentious; a real contrast to the fiery, tortured, larger than life Michel Debré. Pompidou represented, particularly after the November elections, the acquiescence of parliamentary politics in presidential politics, in a form of personality politics that saw the effacing of all personalities bar one. Reynaud’s withering treatment of Pompidou in the Assembly, treating him as nothing more than ‘la voix de son maître’, had no effect not only because of the severe downgrading of Assembly discourse but because that was precisely why Pompidou was in position. Gaullism and the Gaullists One of the striking things about the government and the UNR, given their single purpose, was how distinct from one another they were. They were distinct phenomena that were often not that compatible. The new Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, was not even a member of the party at this time. Debré was, although he was never its leader. One of the developmental features of Pompidou’s appointment is that it shows how the relationship between President and Prime Minister was an evolving one, with ambivalences on both sides that made the relationship more subtle than it appeared. It is true that Pompidou was de Gaulle’s creation in a way Debré was not. But the relationship was not a capricious one. Pompidou remained Prime Minister from 1962 until after the 1968 elections. This was unprecedented in French history, and although unfaltering service to the President was a prerequisite to the relationship, Pompidou’s ordinary style was related to de Gaulle’s as if in a kind of system, as if they were contrasting aspects of the same thing. It is true that although de Gaulle could never be publicly opposed, the government often countered effectively de Gaulle’s arbitrary or misguided initiatives. During the Algerian War it was counsel that prevailed over de Gaulle’s wanting to militarily crush the pieds-noirs opposition during the ‘semaine des barricades’ in January 1960. Similarly, as early as the spring of 1963 de Gaulle’s impetuous and old fashioned (and ineffective) requisitioning of the striking miners was countered by a wiser government response to the problem; and to an extent, the quiet competence of the new government contrasted not only with its predecessors, and the sorry


state of the opposition, but also with de Gaulle’s own style, and would begin to be perceived, in spite of itself, as eventually a welcome alternative to de Gaulle’s own imperious style, and would become another aspect of Gaullism. The nature of power and authority in the new regime, however, was defined by de Gaulle. His press conference of 1 January 1964 was unequivocal in its stress upon the undisputed supremacy of the President. He also chaired the all-important Conseil des ministres (Cabinet) throughout his presidency. Pompidou’s government settled into a full five-year term, addressing the implications of a booming economy and the formidable challenges of the sectors of finance, agriculture, education, and defence. It is worth noting that Pompidou’s own position did not change until 1968, but in Education (the ministry dealing with the issues that would trigger the 1968 events) there were eight changes of minister. Nevertheless, no government after 1962 was overturned, and the government had a rock solid parliamentary (presidential) majority. The UNR itself, however, faced difficult times, and behind the smooth public face, had very difficult beginnings. It too saw no less than seven general secretaries in the 11 year period from 1958–69. In a sense, maintaining the party as a ‘parti des godillots’ (devoted followers) and as de Gaulle’s ‘transmission belt’ was imperative, but no less difficult for that. First of all was the question of its own identity. It had been born of a surge of support for de Gaulle in late 1958, immediately after the referendum on the constitution, and brought together all the small Gaullist groups and old RPF activists and the Républicains sociaux. It had 86,000 members in its early days, an impressive figure that grew from none. Nevertheless, this was akin to the quite small SFIO (80,000), and nothing like the alleged million-strong RPF (and PCF). It was a mass party, but one that would group sufficient cadres for the tens of thousands of elected posts nationally available to the new party. The UNR had to ‘de-ideologize’ itself while maintaining an identity. We have seen how its first extremely difficult task was to oust the very members who constituted its ideological strength and its fervour: namely, the often lifelong supporters of de Gaulle and of Algérie Française, which, they had thought, were synonymous. The early years saw much heated debate, even violence, as the ‘true Gaullists’ like Delbeque and Soustelle were rejected by Gaullism along with Algérie Française. Nor did the UNR replace the ideologies it lost – its left wing version never took hold. This is an extremely problematic issue for a political party,


and it replaced ideology with the pursuit of power itself. In many ways the UNR became the political ideology of those who wanted to modernize the French economy, open France up to international trade, and modernize business and industry. National implantation of the party became one of the party’s main concerns, particularly after the municipal and senatorial elections of March and April 1959 and again during the senatorial elections of September 1962 which demonstrated the challenges of creating a political presence at local level.9 De Gaulle’s thought, as could be gleaned from his writings and speeches, could not be ‘developed’ by the party, as the allegiance had to be to him rather than his ideas. This alters somewhat the view10 of the UNR as a ‘catch-all’ party. It was ideologically ‘thin’ not for strategic electoral reasons but for reasons of its identity (or non-identity) and raison d’être. The young cadres of the party, moreover, soon owed their allegiance and careers not to de Gaulle but to people like the Prime Minister, and other ‘barons’ of Gaullism; so that by the mid-1960s a new generation of the Gaullist political elite was emerging that had few links with the Gaullism of the RPF, let alone of the war. For the moment, and of necessity therefore, Gaullism, the philosophy of the most passionate and dramatic of political actors, lost its passion and its drama. The colonizing of the state machinery, of industry, of all walks of life by the UNR, turned UDR in 1968, would lead to the accusation, indeed the generalized perception, that there was, by the 1970s, a UDR-state.11 The weakness of parliamentary control over this highly successful party and its government involved a whole series of scandals that would also become part of the fabric of the regime.12 De Gaulle on the world stage We are not arguing here that after the victories of 1962, de Gaulle could proceed to perform unfettered upon the world stage and leave domestic politics behind.13 He maintained his grip upon domestic politics right up until the time his grip was broken almost completely in 1968. In spite of his triumphs, the inevitable negotiation with the prevailing political forces both domestically and internationally meant that even de Gaulle was in a perpetual state of political advance, concession, advantage, and retreat. In certain ways, the domestic situation became more conflictual after 1962, and ‘opinion’ in a whole range of manifestations appeared where it had not appeared before. The Fourth Republic had structured social conflict along classical lines of political sociology, expressing if not resolving, the myriad conflicts of interests and class that haunted France as it entered a very rapid period of


modernization and social change after World War Two. Without these conflicts being properly expressed through Parliament or political parties, it was to the ‘social’ that politics-society relations would shift, and this would become a permanent feature of the Fifth Republic, channelling political activity into a range of contestatory channels, as we shall see. This was compounded by the Fifth Republic’s reassertion of the state and its administration’s centrality in political and social life, making it more than ever the ‘target’ rather than the channel of political protest and competition. The relatively stable domestic situation allowed de Gaulle to address wider foreign policy questions. Conversely, the foreign policy style of de Gaulle, the ‘politics of grandeur’,14 had major domestic social and political effects. An appraisal of de Gaulle’s foreign policy lies outside the scope of our analysis. What we wish to demonstrate is how his style and some of the effects of his style upon policy were the result of the nature of his leadership. Domestic political stability was necessary for France to ‘be itself’ on the world stage in the 1960s, but the way in which France would comport itself was, in a sense, could only be, the comportment of its leader, legitimated in drama and legitimating of drama in the domestic context. For de Gaulle, economic prosperity was a condition of France’s greatness, not an end in itself. This would lead France down paths that could be argued as being detrimental to its economic well-being. De Gaulle, himself an austere man uninterested in the pettiness of material wellbeing, wanted a rich France devoted to its own greatness, not devoted to its citizens’ acquisition of hi-fis, Renault Dauphines and fridges. Ironically, de Gaulle’s success as a grandiose leader representing France’s higher calling was utterly dependent upon the successes of this consumer society, a success he himself presided over; and which was a necessary yet contradictory condition of ‘greatness’. Improvements in ordinary life – not least the acquisition of televisions through which de Gaulle’s political authority was maintained – were preconditions of his ability to comport himself dramatically as if such triviality were of no consequence. Mundane selfimprovement became a condition of the politics of grandeur, but it is a contradictory condition which would have consequences. The international developments and events of the 1960s were, even by de Gaulle’s standards, dramatic. However, they were not dramatic in the way de Gaulle would have wanted them to be, for it was a drama – from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the end of the Vietnam War – that was ‘played’ by the USA and the USSR, leaving little room for manoeuvre for smaller actors. It could be argued that de Gaulle’s interpretation of


political action: to use personal (now national) volonté and volontarisme against fatalité could only take place within the ultimate inflexibility of the super-power stand-off. It is further arguable that de Gaulle’s exploitation or creation of the spaces within this overall inflexibility was not in France’s interests; and that a great deal of posturing and diplomatic noise ultimately led to a series of Gaullist failures. Let us examine our own contentious suggestions. Measuring success and failure are open to enormous qualification. It has been argued that de Gaulle’s role and true function was to make failure look like success.15 We could perhaps say the opposite, that one of de Gaulle’s greatest successes was, apart from the Algerian tragedy, the near-pacific loss of Empire. Even though the 1958 Constitution itself devoted so much space to the ‘Community’, and all of its members bar one signed up to it, within a year or so, Cameroon, Chad, Dahomey, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal, Togo, and Upper Volta were independent, leaving France with just a few overseas departments and territories. And the most successful failure was de Gaulle’s bringing an end to the appalling human and economic costs of the Algerian conflict. Let us not try to measure but look at some of the consequences of his leadership style in this arena. From 1962, de Gaulle had a devoted, docile, stable and competent government, with no internal opposition. And Algeria was over. He could replace his many Algeria tours at least for new ones. He enjoyed enormous popularity at home at this point, and he was already seen as a figure of international status who had put France back on its feet, as it were. This meant of course two things: that France would be represented almost exclusively by him alone, and that the representation would be his own ‘certaine idée’, a definition of French independence, greatness, and so on, that was only given interpretation through himself. This romantic view is at once simple and elusive. It was not only that Gaullism was whatever de Gaulle happened to be doing or thinking, but rather that France itself and French Foreign policy had taken on this ‘character’. Two related themes or factors dominated de Gaulle’s reign. The first was that his highly personalized and uncompromising almost caricatural assertion of France’s national independence followed logically and inevitably from the assertions he had been making about domestic politics since the 1920s, but in particular since 1958. The second and related factor was that the context of this assertion was the overwhelming world controlling power and might of two other powers, the USSR and the USA, but as regards de Gaulle’s 1960s foreign policy, in particular the USA.16 In many ways the whole of de Gaulle’s decade in power


was dominated by his hostile attitude to the United States. In March 1959, he took the French Mediterranean fleet out of NATO control. This semi-withdrawal from NATO would later include the fleets in the Channel and the Atlantic, the refusal to allow US nuclear weapons in France, the taking control of all French airspace and the eventual withdrawal of France from the integrated command structure of NATO and the withdrawal of all US and Canadian troops from French soil. In February 1960, France exploded its first Atom Bomb in the Sahara (and its first Hydrogen Bomb in August 1968). In March 1960, the Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev visited Paris. Because of the subsequent U2 spy scandal,17 this came to little, but the notion of France seeing itself as a kind of intermediary between West and East had been created. In June 1961, President John Kennedy made a highly popular and highly publicized state visit to France. The public and the media were very taken by Jackie Kennedy and by the warm and instant mutual admiration between her and de Gaulle. The irony here was that the ‘real’ enemy was never the Americans. De Gaulle’s support for the US during the U2 scandal in 1960 and his total support for Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 were, if one can use such a term in international relations, almost instinctive. But the logic of de Gaulle’s world view when faced with US hegemony made his responses almost inevitable. It proceeded from a symbolic refusal of US domination of the ‘free world’. The US gave de Gaulle ample diplomatic reason to be such a difficult ally for the US. It was in part the United States’ utter command (with, in fact, Soviet backing) and humiliation of both the UK and France over the Suez crisis, before de Gaulle came to power, in 1956, that produced such different national responses. The UK’s lesson learned was never to cross the US again; France’s, and de Gaulle’s, was to be sufficiently independent to be able not to have to toe the American line. De Gaulle had spent a lot of time trying to obtain a particular mode of treatment as an ally rather than a servant of the United States, but whether it was over procuring nuclear capability, nuclear related technology, greater status within NATO strategic decision-making and so on, from Eisenhower through to Lyndon Johnson, France was rebuffed. There was also a credible strategic logic to de Gaulle’s analyses, if not his subsequent politics. The fact that the USA and the USSR could not embark on total nuclear war, meant that it was likely that the first and perhaps only (before negotiation) battleground between the superpowers would be Europe itself which in the event of a Third World War would be either destroyed, or else overrun, in about three days, by


conventional Warsaw Pact forces. So even though under the US nuclear umbrella, it was very clear from a military point of view what this meant. Such strategic concerns allowed de Gaulle to try to develop, in line with his philosophy, a Metternich-style balance of powers between several poles of power (even though it seemed that truly there were only two). For de Gaulle, there was something unreal about transnational power blocks acting in unison. This desire to bring other actors in to rearrange the chess board was the logic behind de Gaulle’s helping to bring Communist China, ‘Red China’, into the UN in January 1964. One of France’s most fundamental relationships, indeed the most fundamental, was its relationship with Germany. Here also, the United States would influence Franco-German relations. In September 1958, the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and de Gaulle met at Colombeyles-deux-églises. Their mutual admiration and subsequent friendship was the quintessence of de Gaulle’s world view: two leaders as if incarnating their countries, and expressing national reconciliation through their personal relationship. This friendship between the two men would develop into a treaty between the two countries. In July 1962, Adenauer visited France, and in September, de Gaulle visited West Germany. Adenauer impressed and reassured the French, while de Gaulle impressed and entertained the Germans with his high rhetoric and the historic sweep of his speeches. A solemn treaty, the Franco-German treaty, was signed in January 1963. This was only 20 years after the cataclysm of World War Two. For de Gaulle this was not only an act of reconciliation, but an opportunity to begin to draw West Germany into a less pro-American, more pro-European system of alliances, guided in particular by France, politically the most powerful of European countries. In the Cold War context, however, West Germany was the front line of any potentially devastating conflict. In the same year, 1963, President Kennedy made his politically stunning (although grammatically incorrect) ‘lch bin ein Berliner’ speech, thereby publicly offering to West Germany, even West Berlin in the heart of East Germany (and Berliners had already had experience of the Berlin Airlift), protection from the USSR by the United States. The notion that West Germany in such circumstances would do anything to jeopardize US goodwill was out of the question and, therefore, de Gaulle’s diplomatic intentions were, particularly in retrospect, almost amusing. The Franco-German treaty itself contained little apart from solemn intention to dialogue, hold meetings and develop cultural and youth exchanges.


De Gaulle ‘inherited’ the EEC (EU) as he did so many of the Fourth Republic’s policies (e.g. its nuclear programme). He was not hostile to the organization, recognizing its enormous economic advantages. Even politically he was initially involved in its construction. The failed ‘Fouchet Plan’ of October 1961 was a French initiative and proposed integrated cooperation in a range of areas: diplomacy, defence and culture, and powers for the Commission, European Council and Parliament along the lines that in fact the EU was to achieve in the 1970s and 1980s. In May 1962, he made his overtly anti-European speech, which triggered the resignation of his pro-European MRP ministers. It is arguable that once again de Gaulle’s attitude to the US was decisive in his hostility. His failure to advance France’s own leadership of Europe led to a reversal in his attitudes; thereafter he sometimes saw the EU as yet one more potential avenue through which the US could dominate Europe. Hence his hostility, from the beginning, to the UK’s joining the EU. For him, the UK was a Trojan horse for US policy.18 In 1965, France’s failure to get its own way on the Common Agricultural Policy led to the ‘empty chair’ crisis of the EU whereby France just simply refused to cooperate with its partners. This lasted six months, at the end of which France’s demands were met. By this time, de Gaulle had come to be seen by his allies – the US, the UK and the countries of Western Europe, as a most difficult Head of State. It is arguable that perpetually contestatory leadership saw the beginnings of a revision of how he was seen in France. Although de Gaulle enjoyed majority support in France for his foreign policy stances, this was never of the kind he enjoyed in his 1958–62 phase, nor was French opinion always in agreement with de Gaulle, for example on nuclear policy. French nuclear weapons developed throughout the 1960s (and well beyond). By 1967, France had a nuclear submarine, and (French-made) fighters capable of carrying nuclear weapons. It was also developing missile capability. The consequences for this modernization were that the Airforce and Navy were favoured, de Gaulle’s own force, the troublesome Army, disfavoured, falling in his presidency from 800,000 to 300,000. He extended his refusal of the two ‘blocs’ by developing good working relations with the USSR, visiting ‘Russia’ in June 1966, once again, however, signing agreements that had little content, even if they momentarily drew the world’s attention. In September 1967, in Poland, he upset his hosts (and the USSR) by urging Poland to be more imaginative, be more like France and see the world as more than just two blocs.19 He made similar speeches in Romania in the following year, in May 1968


in fact, at the moment that his own regime was on the verge of collapse. Efforts of this kind in the past had been crushed by the authorities in Poland – and in Hungary with Soviet troops, so he offered no practical support to dissidence while irritating his orthodox party hosts. The one tangible advantage was to stress the national identity issue, which in fact was advantageous to both dissidence and orthodoxy. He was to commit possibly his greatest diplomatic affront in July 1967 in a speech in Montreal, as the guest of the Canadian Federal government.20 By uttering his expression ‘Vive le Québec libre!’ he seemed to be calling for, not dissociation from the superpowers (though the Americans were not happy with this speech either) but secession for Quebec from Canada, and an implied special kind of relationship with France. Just before and after this (27 November 1967) de Gaulle also made two pronouncements about Israel, the first opposing the 6-Day War, the second coming close to accusations of antisemitism when he referred to Israel (the Jews) as a ‘peuple d’élite, sûr de lui-même et dominateur’.21 De Gaulle’s politics of grandeur, which grew out of his world view, meant a series of ‘grand projets’ such as the Anglo-French supersonic Concorde project, large investment in television and computer technology, again in response to US innovations in these, and even an attempt to ‘take on’ the international financial system by bringing large gold reserves back to France to counter America’s exporting (through dollars) of its own deficit.22 De Gaulle’s rhetorical style at the international level was fashioned by his domestic persona and the conditions of his presidency, which encouraged a particular style and discourse that was lifted to the international level. De Gaulle could not, however, have lifted to the international level his unequivocal successes on the domestic level, given that in the former he was not in a position of great, and familiar, advantage. Yet it is doubtful whether France could have struck such an independent stance under any other political leader at this time. And no other politician’s international persona would have had such domestic resonance and approval. And it was recognized, and often applauded, that a European leader, drawing upon all the discourse, style, verve, historical memory, and intellect that the French possess, could represent perhaps Europe’s most compelling country on the international stage. No Italian, British, German, or other leader could have taken such stances as de Gaulle did. There was also a great deal of European opinion that agreed with him, particularly as the Vietnam War became morally questionable, seemingly endless, and utterly destructive. We shall come back


to this point, but this brings us to what is arguably de Gaulle’s most striking and paradoxical achievement, namely, the impetus he gave to Third World discourse on the international stage. Paradoxical, in that de Gaulle’s whole temperament was of Empire, and of tradition. Yet, the logical outcome of his own views about national self-determination meant that he did speak out against the superpowers’ grip in the name of self-determination of free peoples whether in Europe, Latin America, or South East Asia, and he reflected Western opposition to the war in Vietnam, particularly in his Phnom Penh speech in September 1966, and arguably contributed to the ending of the war by reflecting European public opinion and by creating a climate of opinion among Western leaders. Given France’s own knowledge of South East Asia (the Vietnam War had begun as a French colonial war), France was well placed to offer criticism and advice. The lyricism of some of his Third World, non-alignment rhetoric bordered on liberation philosophy. The context of this was de Gaulle’s hostility towards the United States’ domination of international relations among the Western allies and its dependents and to the superpowers’ ‘cartelizing’ international relations generally – hence his mixed reception in the USSR, Poland and Romania, for example. We have to raise the question, however, whether near-uncritical support for US policy by most of America’s allies was tempered by de Gaulle’s boldness. US policy in Latin America, South East Asia, and elsewhere was indeed highly questionable23 at this time; and a kind of cultural resistance to an aggressive American economic policy in Europe with its far-reaching cultural ramifications in terms of European identity/identities was perhaps welcome. It is also arguable that de Gaulle understood well the nature of European Communism, better than the Americans did, and knew that calls for national selfassertion could take place, and for the better, even in the context of the Cold War. This brings us to a difficult question, for we risk being drawn into de Gaulle’s own mythical reference points. But let us ask it with that proviso: was de Gaulle, with his acute political and historical intelligence, indeed a visionary in world affairs? And although seen at the time as an often unbearably arrogant, self-regarding, and at times bombastic world leader, perhaps in the longer term he was right. It is arguable that his opposition to America’s treating Latin America as its ‘back yard’ foresaw the murderous consequences that would appear in countries like Chile, and contributed in the longer term to the transitions to democracy in Latin America. His advice to Eisenhower and Kennedy not to become embroiled in Vietnam, and his opposition to Lyndon


Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War was arguably a correct view. The policy of a country with a very limited range of nuclear weapons, threatening anyone – in fact the USSR only – with significant and immediate retaliation to attack, arguably acted as a deterrent against aggression towards Western Europe. One assumes de Gaulle’s all out strike, ‘tous azimuts’ policy was believed in the Kremlin. In the post superpower era, should we not see de Gaulle’s encouragement of Poland, of Romania, of Russia even, indeed visionary? Is it not true that his suspicions about the UK’s being too uncritical of American policy were correct, and that his dramatic halting of the trend towards European supra-nationalism in the early 1960s was a recognition of the considerable power and depth of national allegiances? Is it not arguable that he foresaw rather than created the problems faced by a Europe caught between the tensions of national and supra-national allegiances? Having said these things, the essential thing to bear in mind is that the kind of political performances de Gaulle gave were integral to the kind of leadership he exercised, the way he came to power, the political ascendancy he enjoyed at the domestic level and the highly personalized way he exercised his political power not only as the main political actor but also as France’s Head of State. Left opposition One of the fortuitous things for the left in the political rout of 1962 was that, of the non-Gaullist opposition, the main parts left functioning were indeed on the left; and a certain degree of cooperation was imperative. Quite simply, the legislative election two-round system meant that without allies parties could never hope to increase their vote in the second round and win the seat. Alliance with the PCF was a gamble, and success would partly depend upon how the Cold War developed, how détente between the superpowers developed, and how ‘acceptable’ communists in government became for the French as a whole (and arguably for France’s international partners, especially the United States). This realignment of the left, 1962–81, has been written about in hundreds of books. What we wish to emphasize here is how the left began to cooperate after 1962, and what the consequences of this were for the nature of politics in the new Fifth Republic. It is worth noting two things here. First, in neither the SFIO nor the PCF was the Fifth Republic’s advent followed by any real doctrinal reflection. Second, the alliance strategy remained focused on the National Assembly. A very small number of individuals, some of them in political parties (of the left, centre left and centre), or else in think tanks or


political media, saw the possibility of using presidential competition to help get the republic to ‘revert’ to a properly republican one.24 Virtually no one saw beyond this – or into the heart of the Fifth Republic, namely that the key to power was actually the presidency and presidentialism itself. On 19 September 1963, the then centre left Express magazine run by the young modernist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, started to write about a mysterious ‘Monsieur X’, an imagined, ideal left wing candidate who might stand against de Gaulle in the forthcoming presidential election of 1965. This campaign – a brilliant innovation in the mediation of politics – caused enormous national interest. It transpired that the Monsieur X was Gaston Defferre, a leading senior politician in the SFIO and party boss of the Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseilles) federation of the SFIO. This was the first initiative from inside a large political party of responding to the presidency in this way.25 The ‘parliamentary’ thrust in Defferre’s subsequent proposals to domesticate the presidency (reform of the referendum initiatives, and of article 16); these ‘symbolic’ attacks betrayed the party nature of the initiative.26 Defferre (dissociating himself from the PCF) actually did draw support from parts of the centre left (Radicals and MRP) and some think tanks, and went as far as to begin setting up a trans-party Fédération démocrate et socialiste destined to involve several parties and groups. The leader of the SFIO, Guy Mollet, in order to sabotage the initiative, insisted in June 1965 that the FDS be truly socialist and secularist, thus collapsing the project through his frontal attack upon the Christian democrat MRP and other non-socialist support. It was true that Defferre was trying to gather the former regime’s centre left to a new purpose. The problem was that the SFIO was partly travelling in the opposite direction, towards the PCF that Defferre was marking himself off from. The mighty PCF in 1962 had still polled, and would continue to do so throughout the 1960s, around 20 per cent of the electorate, to the SFIO’s 12.5 per cent. The PCF, therefore, had to be part of the solution, even though neither it nor Mollet were interested in the presidential election. Into this void stepped François Mitterrand, not a member of the SFIO, who, by playing to the Mollet/PCF strategy while enhancing – much more than Defferre – the ‘presidentialism’ of his (left wing) candidacy, conflated, or rather, transcended both the Defferre and Mollet strategy to begin a process that would transform the left and French politics itself. A first point to note is that Mitterrand’s was an individual undertaking which neither countered nor threatened the established political


parties. In 1964, Mitterrand was the leader of one or two think tanks and remnants of parties that had fused to form the tiny Convention des institutions républicaines. This would act as his support base, and continue to do so over the years in one form or another. He made contact with the established parties and kept his initiative within the converging trajectory of the PCF and SFIO. His hurriedly organized Fédération de la gauche démocrate et socialiste (FGDS) was a left-centred reprise of Defferre’s idea but without the MRP (it included the SFIO and the Radicals, and his own CIR), and it was accepted by the PCF (and the PSU). In September 1965, he declared his candidacy. There would also be a Centrist candidate, Jean Lecanuet, the leader of the MRP, who declared the following month. The 1965 campaign itself saw television and advertising play a significant role (Lecanuet used an advertising agency and an almost US-style campaign). There were six and a half million television sets, and a great deal of radio debate, particularly on the independent stations, all of which was reported in the press. The country ‘saw’ for the first time opposition candidates countering de Gaulle’s views and his government, the television having been the real domaine reservé of de Gaulle until then. He, on the other hand, announced his candidacy on the eight o’clock evening news as late as 4 November, only four weeks before the election, and was clearly disdainful of the whole process that he had himself invented. It is startling to bear in mind that this was de Gaulle’s first – and last – national election. He did not even use his allocated broadcast time. But the campaign itself changed everything. As Mitterrand, and Lecanuet at the beginning of the campaign, clambered up the opinion polls, de Gaulle’s supporters, almost silent until the last days of the campaign, began campaigning vigorously, and personally, against the opposition candidates. On 30 November, de Gaulle – finally giving in to advice – also made a broadcast stressing his social reforms and his effective government team.27 There was a general assumption that these elections, scheduled for 5 and 19 December, would see de Gaulle elected on the 5th with a vote approaching 70 per cent. 1965 was the first major electoral moment in the Fifth Republic where the unexpected happened, and the public was riveted by developments. By mid-November it was clear from the polls that he had fallen below 50 per cent, i.e. that he would have to go to the run-off. Until this moment, paradoxically, because he was seen as unbeatable, a lot of the interest was in the two other main candidates, Lecanuet and Mitterrand. There was a kind of national curiosity about what other politicians apart from de Gaulle there were. And, unlike de Gaulle, all the other candidates campaigned hard, gaining much


publicity in a France that had been almost exclusively dominated by only one person. The right wing lawyer J.-L. Tixier-Vignancour also stood (as a kind of ‘witness’ to Algérie Française). He went on to gain 5 per cent, but it is interesting to note that even here, and even this early, the fundamentally anti-de Gaulle extreme right was using what had become the Gaullist republic’s central political moment to purpose.28 Mitterrand and Lecanuet’s candidacies were in part a struggle for the future shape of the non-Gaullist opposition. And Mitterrand’s success over Lecanuet in round one (we should bear in mind that Lecanuet was credited in the polls with 20 per cent at some points in the campaign) would have major effects upon the political process. In mid-November, Mitterrand and Lecanuet’s national profile became even more ‘sérieux’ as it was clear that one of them would go on to challenge the General. The fact that there was to be a second ballot electrified the public and the media and the polity. On 5 December, the results were: de Gaulle 44 per cent, Mitterrand 32 per cent, Lecanuet 16 per cent, Tixier-Vignancour 5 per cent, Marcilhacy 1.7 per cent, Barbu 1.1 per cent. One of the results was to trigger de Gaulle’s belated entry into the campaign. He gave three interviews, becoming again as it were, the affable and approachable de Gaulle of the press conference of 19 May 1958. Mitterrand campaigned for the centre ground in round two, appearing more ‘republican’, more of a rally style figure. On 19 December, de Gaulle won with 54.05 per cent of the vote. De Gaulle had won – of course – but Mitterrand had as it were recreated the left in one election. His 45.05 per cent against de Gaulle meant that there was a possible alternative politics to Gaullism. It is true that Mitterrand’s vote was not really the left – all those opposed to de Gaulle had voted for him, much of the extreme right too. But the 1965 elections were fundamental to the embedding of the left into the regime, and therefore of the regime into the wider political culture. Three preliminary points we can make are: first, how dramatic, exciting, and fun these first direct suffrage presidential elections were; second, how even at this early stage, it was the presidential aspect of the republic that was having major effects upon the comportment of the parties, even though some of them ignored this effect; and, third, Mitterrand’s tactic of moving from the left to the centre ‘republican’ ground for round two, became a feature of leadership politics.

The new conditions of the republic Let us look in more detail at what the 1965 presidential election tells us about the role of ‘persona’ in politics. We need to make one thing


clear, however. The near universal view that 1965, forcing de Gaulle to a second ballot, severely damaged his exalted personal image, and caused him to fall from Olympian heights, is to fundamentally misunderstand the Fifth Republic, Gaullism, and de Gaulle’s relation to the French. We shall return to these issues below. Let us stress here, once again, that the essence of the Fifth Republic is not simply the power and prestige of the President but the personal nature of his imagined relationship to his national constituency. And understanding what happened to this will help us understand what happened to the republic. We can agree with the general view, however, that television and a sense of the modern and the new media age, did redefine French politics fundamentally and forever. Many of the features of the campaign remain with the republic and presidential politics 45 years and more later. We can divide our comments on the significance of the 1965 elections into the three categories we used when looking at the 1963–65 period: Gaullism, de Gaulle, and the left. Gaullism and government Let us make four observations. First, the practical, managerial, daily business of government style shown by Pompidou and his government provided Gaullism with another face and leadership style that helped de Gaulle rule unhindered, but also provided future Gaullism with an extra political resource and, eventually, a new leader. Second, we have seen that a precondition of the above meant the relatively total ‘emptying’ of Gaullism of its ideology and ideological enquiry. It nevertheless became the site where Gaullist ‘barons’ resided, and future leaders at a range of levels would begin to emerge, with their own coterie of support, advice, and even devotion. Third, and related to this and to the ideological question, is the fact that such an organization, although apparently ideologically empty, retained the potential to pitch over into an emotional rally form, during de Gaulle’s presidency, particularly around election times, but also after de Gaulle. The rally, a devotional rally of feeling and opinion around an insightful leader, remained embedded deep within the organization. Fourth, as we have seen, the UNR and the government acted as a protective shield, so that in the 1960s de Gaulle could go off to solve the world’s problems because he had a team at home operating in such a way as to allow him to behave as if he did not need them. Let us turn to him then and the consequences of his ‘above-the-fray’ status in the context of the 1965 elections.


De Gaulle We can make four points. First, simply to stress again the point made above, that the condition of his ‘gaullien’ status was a committed team prepared to allow him such scope, although as we saw in 1965, the image of a leader, so Olympian that he is ‘out-of-touch’, can be harmed by the division of labour. Second, being given such scope, ‘character’ and presidential initiative replaced or at least dominated policy elaboration; and de Gaulle’s arguably high handed and self-certain comportment vis-à-vis virtually everyone, but in particular the United States, increased after 1965 rather than diminished. Did he assert himself more subsequently because of or in spite of the 1965 election? Third, it is clear that de Gaulle’s style and style of delivery, often so powerfully advantageous to him, were, in 1965, disadvantages. This is in part the result of their precluding alternatives most of the time. It is difficult for a leader like de Gaulle to have changed a whole regime, offered to the French, against all the odds, the sacred right to elect their leader, and then go on to be a contender for that leadership in an appropriate way. Moving from leader to citizen-candidate29 is a very charged symbolic transition. For de Gaulle it was impossible. The result was that he stood in awkward contrast to his own republic. As regards the accompanying discourse, moreover, it was also clear that the attraction of Jean Lecanuet, for example, was the contrast with de Gaulle’s never-changing intonations of grandeur and of regime crisis. The electorate quite rightly felt that his regime was in fact relatively stable, and this, of course, thanks to him. The discourse of crisis was beginning to sound like empty rhetoric, and de Gaulle’s failure to grasp the evolving ‘mood of the nation’ certainly undermined his claim to X-ray vision. Fourth, we said above that de Gaulle’s style precluded character shifts. Mostly, but not completely. De Gaulle’s ‘persona’ was capable of another public aspect as we have seen: jovial, friendly, knowing, warm hearted – and, given the unsettling rise of Lecanuet and Mitterrand in the opinion polls, de Gaulle shifted into this mode, particularly in the three interviews he gave to Michel Droit between the rounds. In many ways, by ‘humanizing’ himself like this, de Gaulle’s (albeit belated) 1965 election persona strengthened his long term standing rather than weakened it. He arguably became more endeared to the French in that he showed, once again, an aspect to his character long submerged and much liked. We should remember that the discursive intervention that most endeared him to a fearful opinion was the occasion of the press conference of 19 May 1958.30 Did the 1965 election bring de Gaulle down to earth? Arguably, yes (although not


for long); but the main point or points, rather, are that it did him good not harm, and that this interaction of persona and character traits is crucial to an understanding of the Fifth Republic. His popularity in no way meant that the French saw de Gaulle, consistently and intensely, as he saw himself. In this sense, even for de Gaulle – and especially for his republic – 1965 was a great success, even though neither he nor most commentators saw it as such. 1965 is not the twilight of Gaullism but, when understood properly, its triumph. The left François Mitterrand, because he went through to the second round, became henceforth the perceived leader of the left. He, like all the other candidates, moreover, was (as if) a lone individual who had stepped into the presidential arena. Mitterrand indeed was let through by the left precisely because he had no political party (his CIR was really only a small support group); but this notion of a candidate as ‘alone’ would become part of the mythology of the presidential contest, even though strictly speaking it was not true (indeed could not be true given the exigencies of a party system). Mitterrand’s candidacy (and Lecanuet’s by default) demonstrated that the future of French politics would very much involve the political parties but in a novel way that few, especially the big battalions, as yet understood. The 1965 election also saw attempts at an overall modernizing of politics. The candidacy of Defferre from 1963 to 1965 with ‘his’ book (Un nouvel horizon, really it was an election manifesto), his support from think tanks, the campaigns in the media, the personalization, the federating of support somewhat reminiscent of the Gaullist rally, the ‘gadgets’ (e.g. badges, hats) and the photo-opportunities of Lecanuet’s campaign, the developing television rhetorical style (repetitions, mises au point) of Mitterrand; all these pointed to the idea that the ‘renewal’ of opposition to de Gaulle would be in tune with modern politics.31 Yet it would also bring closer to the mainstream and in personalized form older myths and ideas. Mitterrand – although he would go on to be as ‘regal’ as de Gaulle – detonated, by his 1965 challenge, the myth of David v. Goliath, a myth that would inform French politics in a significant way at a range of levels throughout the Fifth Republic. Outsiders, underdogs, loners would begin to join the presidential constellation with significant political consequences. The events of 1965 meant that the legitimacy of political leadership was now crucially related to the presidential system, if not to the presidential election itself. 1965 also began a new kind of politics in that it put


leaders, potential leaders, and the political parties, in a dramatic and exciting relation to the conquest of power, and linked over time presidential to legislative elections. The perceived ‘crises’ these elections took place in further dramatized these linked processes, often dividing France into two warring camps, with the legislative elections themselves becoming highly personalized. 1965, for example, was the beginning of a series of perceived crises that would influence each other for 15 years: the 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, 1974, 1978, and 1981 elections were all shaped and dynamized by the elections that preceded them, and in turn shaped and dynamized the ones following. Finally, 1965 saw the personalization of politics become a generalized phenomenon beyond de Gaulle himself. In this, he really did influence the Fifth Republic without realizing how. He thought election by direct suffrage was necessary to confer (a pale reflection of) his status upon those who came after him. What he did was to generalize his own mythology, and dynamize the whole system, bringing into it a complex and consequential relationship between the persona of political actors and their relationship to discourse, political culture, ‘opinion’, and the electorate, and to the political parties. From our analysis and narrative of 1962 and of 1965 we can make three points relating to leadership. First, various actors at various conjunctures were drawing the Fifth Republic forward in a particular direction. We could say that de Gaulle was becoming the main figure not responding. Second, this was possible because of the arrangement of the institutions and what the presidency let seep into the polity generally as the result of the requirements of presidentialism, the most salient and formative aspect of which was the creation of images of national leadership (i.e. across the nation and of the nation, itself perceived as an entity, as a ‘people’ and as a modern, nationally self-conscious electorate, and a nation-state that now had international status). Third, in ‘real’ politics, the ‘leader’ had to be in a relationship to a political party or group of political parties. ‘In a relationship to’ begs many questions; it does not necessarily mean, for example, being the party leader. As we have seen, Mitterrand’s position in 1965 was conditional upon his not being the leader of any significant political party. His subsequent leadership became possible, partly because of his ‘symbolic’ 1965 leadership. Presidentialism was imposing a range of forms of leadership, and a range of characteristics and conditions of leadership itself. There had been both symbolic and more managerial leaderships throughout French history, but the new emphasis upon leadership itself as more exalted was bringing in a much wider range of possibilities in


terms of style, discourse and rhetoric, image, even age (and to a certain extent, even up to the presidential level, at election time at least, of gender).32 One of the major differences between the Fifth and earlier Republics, however, was the division of labour between the leader as a time serving manager, however intelligent, even wise, and the symbolic nature of new leadership with its emphasis upon visionary leadership. 1965 was one of the most interesting moments in the Fifth Republic’s history for what it tells us about the range of issues we have been looking at: the status of leadership, and how fragile as well as compelling it could be; the role of the parties; and the role of the media. It was the first time that the new Fifth Republic ‘performed’ in all its aspects, in all its presidentialism. The year 1965 was soon to be overtaken in the national memory by 1968. It is arguable, however, that although 1968 was indeed a cultural revolution, 1965 was the more important political moment for how the Fifth Republic developed. We need to add the rider, however, that politically 1968 does have two major effects upon the fortunes of the two main protagonists of 1965: 1968 made de Gaulle’s subsequent fall and Mitterrand’s subsequent rise all the more spectacular, but the seeds of each were sown in 1965. It is true that without 1968, de Gaulle’s fall would have been of less biblical proportions, and Mitterrand’s rise less phoenix-like. But all of these subsequent events were foreshadowed, encoded, foretold almost, in the events of 1965. The 1965 election was also formative in that it began as we have said a related series of elections, elections that often were formative of subsequent elections so that we have a path-dependent series from 1965–81. Even 1968, which can in many ways be seen as outside this series is not. For example, the astounding 1968 Gaullist majority – as we shall see – was based partly on events, the ‘events’, but also upon the perceived consequences of the poor Gaullist voter discipline of the 1967 elections. The momentous departure of de Gaulle from office in 1969, which precipitated new presidential elections was in turn related to his wilful insistence upon a referendum that he had promised in the heat of the ’68 events, had withdrawn and gone instead – on advice – for legislative elections; elections which for a range of reasons we shall see irritated him, in spite of his and his party’s crushing victory.

1965–67 Let us look briefly at the responses of the Gaullists, the centrists, and the left to the 1965 elections. Fourteen months separated the 1965 presidential and 1967 legislative elections. Giscard was dropped from government,


and turned his attention to establishing the relative autonomy of the Independent Republicans from the Gaullists. Of equal importance were his television appearances and a general media treatment of Giscard as the young man to watch. This ‘individuation’ of politics was beginning to spread now, from de Gaulle and the other candidates of 1965, now out beyond these. On 10 January 1967, Giscard made his ‘Oui, mais’ remark at a press conference – ostensibly about the government, but by implication a criticism of de Gaulle too (and a valorization of himself).33 In the centre, Lecanuet, capitalizing upon his 1965 success, forged a new party (February 1966) made up of MRP, what remained of the CNIP, old UDSR, some Radicals and centre left figures. It too was torn between situating itself in relation to the government and creating a wider alliance with the non-communist left. Throughout this period we can see the ideological moving around of a great number of people as the political formations established themselves; and issues such as social reform, the relationship to the communists, secularism, and Europe, would shift members and leaders around as they gravitated towards the new political structures. On the left, Mitterrand managed to keep the FGDS intact and forward looking, and even developed the idea of a ‘shadow cabinet’. This was not a great success, partly because the political parties, particularly the SFIO, still dominated within the Federation, and Mitterrand’s ‘cabinet’ reflected this, giving it a Fourth Republican feel, the problem being also that many of these people were unknown to the public. Further cooperation – always conflictual and liable to break down – between the FGDS and the communists continued. By 1967, Mitterrand, reflecting Pompidou’s Comité d’action pour la Ve (set up in May 1966) had agreed single candidacies between the constituent elements of the FGDS, a reasonably tacit understanding with the small PSU, and désistement agreements drawn up with the PCF. De Gaulle intervened once in the 1967 campaign to support the UNR, but it is arguable that his intervention did neither him nor the party any good – underneath, changes were taking place in people’s attitudes to de Gaulle and to Gaullism. Pompidou ran the Gaullist campaign, and the diminution of overt personalization and references to de Gaulle and more attention to policy was quite striking. In the campaign itself, television, partly because it still showed rather stifled performances by candidates, was less exciting than radio where the debates between Pompidou and Mitterrand (2 February) and Pompidou and Mendès France (27 February) were listened to by millions and widely commentated. On the airwaves, expert spokespersons both for government and opposition were replacing


the old Fourth Republican ‘good character’ local candidate to send to Parliament and represent the local community. The local still mattered, but a national/governmental level was being disseminated, now with Pompidou seen as the main actor, and Mitterrand as the leader of the opposition. As we have seen, other actors were prominent. Mendès France, Giscard, Lecanuet, ‘clashed’ – often in the context of ‘duels’ as we have seen; often even reported duels in the often forgotten National Assembly, between, for example Mendès France and Debré (who replaced Giscard in January 1966 at Finance), or parliamentary duels between Pompidou and Mitterrand. Over and above this, there was a kind of personalized renewal of the political class, with ‘youth’ being brought to bear at the breaking dawn of the new television/media age. Both Lecanuet and Mitterrand promoted young candidates, often those whose allegiance was to them rather than to the party. The Gaullists did this too in many constituencies, the young Jacques Chirac, whose loyalty was to Pompidou rather than to de Gaulle or the UNR, was the best known example. All the parties used the techniques of modern campaigning, in particular the new trend, especially by the Gaullists, of spending large amounts of money on the campaign, and replicating Lecanuet’s US style rallies, so that ‘spectacle’ became the norm, so that, as in 1965, the 1967 election was an attractive occasion, and was lived as a national one. The results saw the Gaullists, semi-detached from de Gaulle, increase their vote even on 1962 (though not, it should be noted, on 1965) to 38.5 per cent. Pompidou’s prestige climbed even further. At the previous legislative election it was noted that no party before the UNR had ever broken through the 30 per cent mark. Now it was approaching 40 per cent. The Communists did well with 22.5 per cent, and the FGDS quite well with 19 per cent. The ‘centre’ fell away, this time forever from countenancing party dominance in the Fifth Republic with a score of 14 per cent, albeit similar to Lecanuet’s 1965 score, but insufficient to ‘weigh’ in the second round, or subsequently to entertain the idea, held until then, of radically influencing the political topography. In round two, one week later, the Centre démocrate took 1,000,000 fewer votes than Lecanuet in 1965, and fewer than the very poor combined showing of the MRP and CNIP in 1962. The centre would go on existing and see a range of leaders other than Lecanuet, Jacques Duhamel, Joseph Fontanet and Michel Durafour, for example, constantly trying to revive the centre. The bi-polarization of 1965, however, was being reaffirmed, and this in the semi-absence of the towering figure of de Gaulle. On the left, the ‘discipline’ that would take the left towards power and office did assert itself. The discipline between the PCF and the FGDS


candidates (who had also brought some PSU under its wing) had the resounding effect of threatening Pompidou’s first round success. If the PCF had allowed a few more exceptions to the désistement rule, i.e. allowing an FGDS through to take on the Gaullist candidate in round two, where the communist led in round one, the left may well have won the election. Many Gaullist voters, so confident after their first round success did not mobilize enough for round two or in round two. Many centrists – though by no means all – were willing or more willing than before to vote for the FGDS in round two, and even, with the FGDS ‘shield’, for the PCF. In the end, Pompidou (and the Giscardians) had 245 seats. The others combined, not a united but an ominous opposition, had 242 (of which 192 were PCF/FGDS). Pompidou had a majority of three. Pompidou had won nevertheless, and almost ‘without’ de Gaulle, itself a new development. The society that this polity governed was in a period of bewildering change. In many ways, in music, lifestyles, attitudes, authority within the family, the ‘place’ of women, France was catching up with its Western counterparts; in other ways – in cinema, political and social thought, the cultural life – it was out ahead. For many, the mid-1960s meant better jobs, better prospects, but the still booming French economy (throughout the 1960s France’s GDP growth rate was second only to Japan’s) was still handing out its rewards unevenly, in terms of gender, social class, profession, age, and region. The troubles of 1963 had shown that not only was this one of the few ways of gaining attention, it could be a successful one. The government did in a more private manner deal with industry and other interest groups, but the relationships were either private deals or public protest.34 The uneven rewards of the economic boom, the massive exodus from the countryside to the towns, the dislocations involved, and the rapidity of change meant that discontent – this was shown by hundreds of opinion polls throughout the decade – was a constant feature of ordinary people’s social life. Dissatisfaction, a sense that things were not right, permeated people’s thinking. Also there had developed, by the mid-1960s, a largely accurate popular view that the Gaullist government and party had become more or less a conservative force representing – through, for example, help to industry but restraint on wages – capital and not labour. The political forces such as: unions, leftist parties, the PCF, became channels of this discontent. The discontent itself structured politics and political relations at this time. And 1968 was around the corner.

3 1968 and its Aftermath

One of the most important things we can say about interpretation of the events of May–June 1968 is that they should not be treated separately from the rest of the period. The ‘events’ of ’68 were a phenomenon of the Fifth Republic, a phenomenon of de Gaulle’s presidency. Let us look at the events and their aftermath from this perspective to see if we can shed light upon their significance, both for Fifth Republic politics in 1968, and for the fortunes and development of leadership politics after. In some ways, May 1968 was the expressive culmination of social and political developments in youth culture over the previous years. Internationally, youth, the baby boomers, booming throughout the Western world, had shared the social influence of both US and European popular and youth culture since the end of World War Two. More recently, anti-Vietnam War protests had been developing across the West’s universities. All over Europe, left wing groups had been springing up, and radical leftism was ‘in the culture’. The summer of 1967 had seen major student unrest in West Berlin; one of the heroes of the left, Rudi Dutscke, was shot in the head (April 1968) and very seriously injured by a member of an extreme right wing group, becoming a ‘martyr’ of protest. A lot of left wing agitation was occurring throughout US and European campuses, particularly the ‘new’ universities, like Nanterre near Paris, which opened in 1964. These universities, none more so than Nanterre, were overcrowded, dull, miles from cafés and shops, with poor student accommodation and were, generally speaking, 1960s concrete monstrosities surrounded by construction sites, and seething with political radicalism. Nanterre had been in a political ferment since November 1967, with demonstrations, sit-ins, and so on, disrupting classes. 67


On 8 January the Minister for Youth, François Missoffe, was opening a swimming pool at the University, when a young left wing student, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, shouted at him that the recent White Paper on Education was rubbish and among other things did not deal with young people’s sexual problems, to which Missoffe replied that CohnBendit might consider jumping in the new pool as a remedy. (To which Cohn-Bendit replied that that was a ‘nazi’ remark). Cohn-Bendit was threatened with suspension and the university students went on strike. Demonstrations on the campus and clashes with the police followed. In the same month, at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris’ Latin Quarter, 400 school students demonstrated in the rue St-Jacques (subsequently one of the main sites of the battles with the CRS in May) in response to the expulsion of one of their classmates.1 Major clashes with the police followed. Demonstrations continued, some of them in the Latin Quarter in February (e.g. 13 February) – turning to significant rioting and violence (e.g. 7 and 21 February), often now joined, organized, and encouraged by left wing activists. A ‘climate’ of discontent among the young, often shared and encouraged by their predominantly young, overworked and undertrained teachers and lecturers, was developing – largely unnoticed by the authorities other than those in education and the police. Protests and demands in the universities and schools were a mixture of local, almost personal issues – accommodation, curriculum, relations between and the segregation of the sexes, conditions of study, employment, and wider issues whether national (capitalism, the regime) or international (capitalism, Vietnam). The unrest in France’s universities spread throughout the country, and in some cases (e.g. Caen) led to running battles with the police. The students’ union, UNEF, highly politicized though not advocating violence, and the SNESup (lecturers) were involved in organizing demonstrations, occupations and sit-ins, and in trying to initiate politically consequential dialogue with government. Through March, these activities continued, particularly in the Sorbonne and at Nanterre. On 22 March in Nanterre the students ‘occupied’ the building, breaking into offices, breaking down doors and so on. It was at this time that the slogans so associated with ’68 (e.g. ‘L’imagination au pouvoir’, ‘prenez vos désirs pour des réalités’, ‘interdit d’interdire’) began to appear on walls, first at the university and then rapidly into the metro, then everywhere, along with the growing presence of an array of left wing groups, and the symbolic renaming of places e.g. at Nanterre, renaming the main lecture theatre the ‘Amphithéâtre Che Guevara’. Nanterre was closed (not to reopen until 1 April, closed again on 2 May,

1968 and its Aftermath 69

reopened 9 May), and the students moved to the centre of Paris to the Sorbonne. At this time, for example on 23 March, much of the agitation was between different groups: extreme-right groups, communists, UNEF trying to mediate and control the escalating violence, and an array of Trotskyists, Maoists and others – soon to be joined by Anarchists and ‘Situationnistes’. Demonstrations and clashes with the police continued throughout the month, partly triggered now by Cohn-Bendit’s arrest on 27 April. Between 2 and 11 May the Prime Minister was on an official visit to Iran and Afghanistan. Demonstrations in Paris were now gathering tens of thousands of demonstrators. On 3 May there were again major riots in the Latin Quarter which continued on and off until the massive explosion of running street battles of 11 May. The following day, the arrest and conviction of four students (to two months imprisonment) led to further demonstrations and rioting. The night of 10–11 May saw widespread rioting and thousands of students (estimates of 20,000) building barricades (up to 60 of them) across the streets of the Latin Quarter, digging up tens of thousands of cobble stones (to use as walls of defence and missiles), and adding to the barricades with cars and trees. The police response was quite brutal; and well reported, chasing students into people’s homes, batoning the students (and everyone else), smashing everything inside homes they entered, and attacking passers by. Such acts created sympathy for the students among the essentially conservative population. The bourgeoisie was witnessing its own children being severely beaten. Pompidou returned from Afghanistan on 11 May, and immediately began to be seen to take control of the situation – freeing students in detention, implying criticism of his own government, addressing Parliament, acting in a conciliatory manner on television and to journalists. On 13 May there was a large demonstration in Paris, estimates vary between 200,000 and 1,000,000,2 with slogans such as ‘Dix ans, ça suffit!’ and ‘bon anniversaire mon général’ (it was the tenth anniversary of the Algiers events). It is from this moment that the wave of strikes began that would, by 20 May, involve 10,000,000 workers and bring France to a standstill. The following day (the 14th), de Gaulle left France on a state visit of four days to Romania. On his return, his attitude was scornful of the students (‘La réforme, oui, la chienlit, non’ – meaning, more or less: yes to reforms but no to this crap). He was somewhat critical of his own government for not having solved the crisis; and he let it be known that he would address the nation on 24 May (we have seen how this


de Gaulle ‘device’ had so successfully been used in, for example, 1958 – but perhaps now this was an early indication of how out of touch he was). In reality, de Gaulle’s dramatic gestures and pronouncements were undoing the painstaking negotiations Pompidou was undertaking. When he did make his broadcast on television and the radio he announced that all the problems that had arisen would be addressed and, it was implied, solved by a referendum he was going to call. The broadcast was generally seen as a flop. In the following days, Pompidou and others managed to persuade him not to call a referendum, but to hold legislative elections. On the evening and night of de Gaulle’s broadcast (24 May) the worst of the Latin Quarter rioting took place. The exploding ‘events’ and de Gaulle’s inaction seemed to be in inverse proportion to one another. Over the following two days (25th–27th) Pompidou (and his young assistants Edouard Balladur and Jacques Chirac) thrashed out the Grenelle Agreements with the unions, largely in an effort – perhaps Pompidou had read his Mao Tse Tung – to separate the workers’ movement from the students (many factories were now occupied as were many universities, and fraternization and debates between workers and students were spreading). The UNEF, PSU and other leaders held a large rally at Charléty on the 27th which Mendès France attended; and there was talk of ‘revolution’ here. Over the next days, it became clear that both he and Mitterrand, through a series of public declarations, were positioning themselves to lead a provisional government of some kind, or stand in a presidential election (Mitterrand) – it was somewhat unclear exactly what they were each proposing. Mendès held a press conference on the 29th. The same day, de Gaulle ‘disappeared’ (between 11am and 6pm). It was rumoured and became known subsequently that he had visited the French military stationed in West Germany. It is from here that his hesitation changed. De Gaulle returned from Germany, and on 30 May called a cabinet meeting, and in the afternoon made a dramatic and highly personalized radio broadcast (in a brief speech he uses ‘I’ and ‘my’ 15 times). The tone was that of some of his 1940s and 1958 crisis broadcasts.3 He dissolved the National Assembly (no referendum) and set new elections for 23 and 30 June. All the military and other dissidents of the 1961 Algiers putsch were released from prison, others pardoned. Over the next days many of them returned to France. De Gaulle was making peace with his most lethal enemies, and as if rallying to himself his old enemies – possibly for a military showdown with the rioters. That evening, almost a million people marched, now in favour of de Gaulle – a


demonstration that surprised de Gaulle himself, and also saw supportive echoes in the provinces. Significantly, it was a ‘rive droite’ presence. The rioting and demonstrations on the Left bank, and the now weeks long ‘permanent revolution’4 in the Odéon, began to dwindle. Between 14 and 16 June the Odéon and the Sorbonne were evacuated by the police. On 7 June, de Gaulle gave an interview (as ever, to Michel Droit) on radio and television. Much of the content on ‘participation’, for example, was similar to his earlier declaration. What was stunningly different was the masterful personalization now of his relation to the events (and therefore to history itself; he talked at length of his own hesitations and reflections and of the bizarre day he went missing).5 De Gaulle was enfolding near personal defeat into, at last, his own success and – soon – that of the regime. In the elections, the Gaullists swept to an unimagined and till then unimaginable absolute majority (even without the Independent Republicans), 300 out of 458 seats. The centrist parties virtually disappeared, and Mitterrand’s FGDS disintegrated. The communists, although they held their 20 per cent of the vote in round one, without a sound alliance with the FGDS, lost 39, over half, of their seats. The FGDS lost 64, the PDM (the latest grouping of the centrists) were down to 32 i.e. almost down to half the RI’s seats. De Gaulle (and Pompidou?) had been plebiscited as he had been in the 1958 and 1962 legislative elections, and yet another crisis moment was transformed into triumph.

Sous les Pavés, la Cinquième République There have been many hundreds if not thousands of analyses of the May ’68 events. Bénéton and Touchard identified eight broad interpretations.6 Let us identify and briefly comment on them. First, 1968 was a revolutionary left wing conspiracy. This was the prevailing Gaullist view in the immediate aftermath. The accusation against the PCF was a false one – even in their own terms the PCF acted as a counterrevolutionary force. The small left wing groups were indeed attempting revolution, but they were very diverse, divided, and unsure as to what they were trying to get to happen. They also latched on to events that were happening anyway. In overall terms they were a symptom as much as a cause. It is arguable that the more romantic and imaginative Anarchists and Situationists were the true political expression of ’68. Second, 1968 was a crisis in the education system – in France as elsewhere. And it is true that there had been a huge increase in student numbers,7 major overcrowding, a rigid pedagogical system with a very


high failure rate, and a concomitant devaluation of degrees at the moment the system was being expanded. We should add that Nanterre was actually quite a tolerant and progressive place. But the French ‘rising’ was one among many, and this generational phenomenon has to be seen in a wider context. Third, the wider social and cultural context itself: 1968 was a generational revolt. It was true that the new generation was that of baby boomers: aware of a now very large generation gap, aspiring to new lifestyles, and to a great extent herded in to these new concrete jungle universities in an inadequate educational system, bored and alienated. Having said this, much of the direct and indirect action was limited to students rather than the whole generation which suggests it was indeed an educational phenomenon or else a class one (the children of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie). Fourth, 1968 was a crisis of civilization. Not only Marcuse but Malraux too thought this was the case, and to the extent that one understands what such a grand expression actually refers to, one can see in ’68 the questioning by the consumer society’s (middle class) children of the consumer society itself. Fifth, 1968 was a new type of social movement, demanding of more democratic decision making and new social relations. One can say that its insurrectionary nature might contradict this view, but certainly new social movements like feminism, ecologism, anti-racism, ‘autogestion’, peace movements and so on multiplied considerably in the 1970s, although many of these in fact predated ’68, and therefore need to be put in context. Sixth, 1968 should be seen in an appropriate way, namely as a traditional social conflict, given the relative economic downturn of 1967, the growth in unemployment and short term jobs. This clearly was a context, and much of the negotiation with the unions treated it in this way. But this does not explain either the insurrectionary, poetic, inspiring character of the ‘spirit’ of ’68, nor indeed its suddenness and intensity, which no one expected. Seventh, 1968 was evidence of the decline in the strength of, or weakness of Gaullism. This is debatable as it arguably misinterprets, and does not explain exactly what Gaullism’s ‘strength’ was. The general view that 1968 or 1965 saw Gaullism in decline is also highly debatable – its vote overall was actually going up all of this time. It does raise the question, that we shall come on to, as to whether Gaullism was now more than de Gaulle. But in this, 1968 can be seen as proof of Gaullism’s strength as much as its weakness. This view also assumes that the ‘events’ replaced the traditional opposition, given the latter’s weakness. If this is the case then one would have to argue that both Gaullism and its opposition/s were in decline, which


may be true but again raises many more questions than Gaullism’s (debatable) weakness. Finally, there is the view that ’68 was the result of a ‘chain of events’, and of decisions taken, and the failure to take decisions, that led to the revolutionary paroxysm. This all may be true, in a sense has to be true, but carries with it the almost Anglo-Saxon empirical danger of not seeing the events in relation to their social context and the structuring of politics that the Fifth Republic had created. It does, however, point to the highly pyramidal nature of the Fifth Republic, and to how individual inaction led to political paralysis. Let us now look at these events from the perspectives we have used throughout our analysis to see the extent to which, rather than an event that explodes within and against the Fifth Republic, it was as much its product as anything else. We do not mean that it was only French (one could even argue that it was German (West Berlin, 1967) and imported into France). Its character as an expression of much of the youth of the West (and Japan and Australasia, and so on) is beyond doubt. Paris ’68, in fact became the quintessential expression of a whole generation world wide. In terms of the Fifth Republic we can say two things to begin with about ’68. First, was its suddenness which gives us a clue to the kind of political character Fifth Republic politics had. If we see and analyse 1968 in the same kind of dramatic discursive and performative terms that we used to analyse 1958 we shall shed new light upon it, and perhaps contribute to a new interpretation of ’68. Second, and related to this, is how highly personalized May 1968 was from a range of perspectives that we shall examine in a moment. 1968 was quintessentially a personalized social movement, the assertion of individualism and of personal and individuated desire for liberation by a generation of young people wanting to ‘do their thing’. The very French specificity of this desire is that it took place politically in a regime that was itself very personalized and – therefore – psychologically in a regime where political conflict could only take the form of Freudian revolt against – the now ageing (he was nearly 80) – father figure. And dominant and domineering father figures inhibit personal expression. The conflict was both literally and metaphorically/psychically a generational struggle, almost a family neurosis. And it is in this context perhaps that we should see the striking youthfulness of 1968. Let us take our two points and look then at how dramatic and how personal the whole of the 1968 events were. In a sense the initial clash between Daniel Cohn-Bendit and François Missoffe at the swimming pool has something about it that is


microcosmic of the near-revolution that followed: a Gaullist minister at a formal occasion, an individual, being heckled by another individual, a politically conscious, disrespectful young man – ‘Dany’ was 23 – he had in fact been at Nanterre for some years failing his sociology exams and not going to lectures. A young man ‘refusing’ the older man’s protocol, and in doing so deploying – at a public ceremony – use of disrespect-as-provocation; 1968 could only ever be total (and therefore aimless) after this. It was a movement that, outside calls to ‘revolution’, made no demands at all except a call for self-realization. The demands that were made – the economic ones, for example, were almost like part of a different set of events in real time as opposed to mythic time. On this, two things: first, when giving press conferences and interviews – filling the discursive space – Cohn-Bendit’s views were quite mundane, for the discursive register of ’68 actually had no place for press conference type discourse; second, Cohn-Bendit’s age was in fact significant in that he was indeed older (in 20 year-olds’ terms) than most students, even graduates, and his impertinence towards Missoffe (a cheekiness captured forever later in the photo depicting him, nose to nose, boldly smirking at a CRS on 6 May outside the Sorbonne) was like a ‘green light’ to mischief from a slightly older student to the half a million slightly younger ones around the country. Another feature of the Missoffe/Cohn-Bendit clash was its subject matter – sex and the young; still by and large a taboo subject in public, outside the sixties generation. The topic discussed therefore was itself an act of intergenerational conflict. To this we need to add that Missoffe’s actually quite witty on the spot reply – of the kind: I can imagine you would have sexual problems young man, why don’t you jump in the new swimming pool and cool off your frustration – was also a generational remark, the kind one can imagine made by a boy’s school teacher, or an NCO in the army. A remark, though not outrageous, quintessentially demonstrating the incomprehension of the older generation. One can sense the ‘non-dit’ of the exchange: that Cohn-Bendit did indeed speak for a generation, though as subsequent remarks by him indicated, a rather male-centric view of sexuality.8 Nevertheless, there is a quality to the ‘non-dit’ of a kind of ‘you don’t understand us – ok, get this…’. A further feature of the Cohn-Bendit/ Missoffe exchange which was to inform all the events (in spite of the street violence?) was its ludic quality. Cohn-Bendit’s provocativeness and his sexual referencing anticipate the (desire for) the celebratory and ludic quality of the May events. It is also true that Cohn-Bendit (his arrest, his expulsion from France, his secret return etc) became the


personalization of the events (this brought centre stage by the media – his photo on the front pages of the press across the world). He was far less a tactician/strategist than other student leaders such as Alain Geismar, Jacques Sauvageot, and Alain Krivine.9 Nevertheless, in CohnBendit the movement had found a ‘face’. In this way we can see that the expression, ‘we are all German Jews’ (he was expelled back to Germany on 22 May),10 is a perfect displacement of a movement, a generation in fact, on to an individual (and back again: he is/we are). 1968, moreover, can be understood in terms of what individuals did and did not do, how they performed – hour by hour, within the institutional configuration of the regime. It has become the received view that many ministers – Missoffe, Peyrefitte, Joxe and others, severely underestimated what they were up against, this reflecting the paralysing pyramidal structure of (French) decision-making. It also reflected the consequences of the Gaullist settlement’s emphasis upon one leader. But it is not clear whether in the early stages both Pompidou and de Gaulle also failed to grasp the scale of the issues. Pompidou did subsequently gain a lot of prestige from his activism, leadership and decision-making, but this only after his return from Afghanistan on 11 May when events were already escalating massively and publicly. One can also wonder why Pompidou – whose professional background was in education – had seen none of this coming. He had been Prime Minister for six years. We could also speculate as to whether Pompidou truly grasped the issues at the time as has been subsequently assumed. The Grenelle ‘Accords’ were arguably a response to CGT-style demands, rather than to the more, in some aspects, idealistically inspired CFDT. And at the time (27 May) these were seen as such and rejected as such. The strike continued and spread in what momentarily at the time was seen as a political failure by Pompidou to solve the problem of the strikes, and gave way to the subsequent de Gaulle initiative that was so reminiscent of his style in earlier moments. We shall come back to this. Here we can say that, overall, Pompidou did manage the crisis and was in control of government, but what is significant is that he was ‘seen’ to be ‘doing’ something. In the classic Fifth Republic way you need a crisis in order to be able to overcome it. De Gaulle’s own ‘failure’ made him seem like everyone else: he missed the significance of ’68 (and de Gaulle’s myth – 1940, 1946 – was built upon his Cassandra knowingness). As Paris exploded, de Gaulle went on a state trip to Romania. On his return, moreover, he was like Pflimlin suggesting constitutional reform as Algiers erupted; and this in the context first of referring to the events as ‘chienlit’, and second by


announcing that he would talk to the nation almost a week later. We should contrast this with the positive use of delay, as he had used so well in May 1958 when, in reply to Mollet’s question on the Friday, he announced he would hold a press conference but not until the following Monday. In 1968, the delay had the opposite effect, that of making de Gaulle – in power – seem irrelevant to the unfolding of what was happening generally. His grandstanding also arguably undid all Pompidou’s efforts and made the situation escalate. And by remaining within his role of guide and philosopher, when he did eventually make his 24 May broadcast it was with the wrong tone, talking at length of what was wrong with the country, of what it needed: reform involving ‘participation’ – itself not without its merits in a less spectacular situation (although Pompidou’s view was that it was crackers) – but involving yet another referendum, but this time – for the first time – in no relationship to the drama unfolding. When de Gaulle did intervene personally, discursively, and performatively – and successfully, it is worth stressing that the whole situation changed. Until 29 May de Gaulle as an actor had either seemed unaware or unconcerned. On 29 May by disappearing he dramatically attracted attention. It became known that he had gone to Germany, and the rumours abounded about his state of mind (from ruthless determination to helpless despair). But the camera was on him (or searching for him) rather than any other actor or group. The following day, with the nation anticipating further confusion and indecision, the performance, the event they witnessed was of dramatic personal determination and a ‘return’ to drama. He dissolved the National Assembly, and maintained the Prime Minister in power. It is also worth noting that on 30 May he broadcast not on television but on radio, catching the drama of his wartime broadcasts. By this time, moreover, sympathy for the students had turned into a mixture of incomprehension as to their continuing motives, and a growing fear of the chaos that might follow de Gaulle’s departure. He also in the broadcast conjured up the spectre of a communist takeover. Again, almost mythically (it had been prepared for days), the Gaullist demonstration of the same evening followed the kind of dramatic sequence that was de Gaulle’s hallmark when he was successful (flight, return, intervention, pronouncement, acclamation). The demonstration (up the Champs-Elysées to the Etoile) was the route of France’s national celebrations (cf. de Gaulle in 1944, and January 1959 – although he went the other way). Because of his comportment and interventions from 29 May, de Gaulle personally retook the political initiative from the rioters.


In very personal terms, the idea that politics had moved away from the established parties and politicians (although Mendès and Mitterrand would probably have felt anything but ‘established’ at the time) was compounded by the mistaken personal interventions of opposition politicians. Both Mendès’ presence at the Charléty meeting and Mitterrand’s call the following day for a new government were not calls to violence, in fact were the opposite, attempts to overcome the crisis peacefully. But both initiatives looked like opportunistic flirting with the streets (which they too had failed to see coming, although some claimed that Mendès’ book La République moderne was a foretelling; this author fails to see how); 11 and both were inadequate and inept, as they were neither clear nor made bold (or even ambivalent) self-confident gestures (the use of ambivalence is perhaps a precise art).12 Like the Gaullists, they were not ‘players’ at this time so were as powerless as they seemed. And both gestures – Mendès at Charléty and Mitterrand’s declarations – echoed their own depiction of de Gaulle’s own comportment of May 1958: trying to come to power on the back of an uprising. In this regime where discourse had been so politically consequential and this country where language and thought had played such a defining role (forever, but especially politically since Dreyfus), 1968 as a discursive event could not be equalled. Throughout the period of May and June, the packed out Odéon and the Sorbonne were the sites of endless discussions of contemporary politics, culture, international relations, political philosophy, and so on; but generally the ‘discourse of 68’ and its imagery with its poetic celebration of language – ‘sous les pavés la plage’; ‘soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible’, ‘la poésie est dans la rue’, and so on,13 along with lampoon, and caricature, of capitalism, but particularly of de Gaulle himself, and its at times carnival and holiday atmosphere was in the true tradition of French politics generally and the Fifth Republic’s conventions of drama and symbolic politics specifically, and would have a major impact on political discourse in the 1970s and 1980s. Just as discourse captured the months of May and June 1968, so too did discourse allow an ‘imagined’ event to appear as a real one. The students, for example, in spite of their rhetoric, were never really in any significant contact with the workers. Much was made of this; but for example, when students, 1,000 strong, marched from the Sorbonne to the striking Renault factory, the workers wouldn’t let them in. It is arguable that there was no revolution in the making. It is true each section of society – students and workers – expressed in May and June the social discontents of their class with the difficulties experienced by


the rapid changes of the 1960s, but the PCF was probably right to see the gauchistes as interlopers in this area. The PCF, however, was no more in tune with the workers at the beginning, and it is true that there was a spontaneity, a suddenness and a ‘Front populaire’ flavour to the early factory occupations and the spread of the strikes into a national event involving 10,000,000 workers, and none of this was anticipated by the PCF or CGT. It is arguable, however, that, from 14 May, as the working classes became involved, the nature of the ’68 events entered a different phase, the ‘social’ phase; different and not dialectically related to the students, and whose two main aspects were best expressed by the two main unions: the CGT pressing for better pay, and the CFDT pressing for less authoritarian industrial relations, and both pressing for better working conditions and job security. Many of the students’ slogans were incomprehensible to working class people (e.g. ‘la révolution est incroyable parce que vraie’). Having said this, the Popular Front aspects of the strikes, and the revolutionary symbolism and Sorelian style revolutionary myth celebrated and maintained in discourse and through images (the tear gas clouds wafting across the cobble stones and over the barricades and past the cafés in the Boulevard St Germain) maintained ’68 as a (potential) revolution in the minds of the acutely historically conscious French. The large (30,000) and politically articulate Charléty meeting evoked respect in the Stalinist hearts of the PCF, only too aware of the role of discourse in politics. We can note here too how discourse was turned against the PCF in the elections themselves (by de Gaulle, Pompidou and others) for the PCF was not really the electoral enemy but the perfect mythical enemy. They were the recipients of a politically very powerful anti-communist rhetoric (the irony being, and de Gaulle/Pompidou’s knowing this, that the PCF and CGT were as against the ‘events’ as the UNR was). Finally, the decisive role of discourse and rhetoric, in 1968 as in 1958, was shown by the example of de Gaulle himself. Through his discursive (and persona) failures in different forms until 30 May, and from then on his dramatic use of rhetoric and the tone of his 30 May speech and highly-charged persona (Had he seen the army? Had he almost gone into exile but returned renewed and celebrated in the Etoile demonstration? Would he fight the students? Had he saved the republic again from chaos? How was he now after weeks of near-revolution in his beloved republic?) – de Gaulle had demonstrated how rhetoric and persona defined the Fifth Republic as a place of drama. In May 1968, the political parties and government were in a position not dissimilar from that of May 1958, but this included the Gaullists


this time, and the reason lies once again more with perceptions than with realities, but perceptions which informed legitimacy and authority; for it was perceived in both cases, largely because of inaction on the part of the government and parties, that the ‘sites’ of politics had gone elsewhere (in 1958 to the Army on one side of government and de Gaulle on the other). Only the PCF and the PSU were ‘actors’ in these events, the former by countering the students while trying to respond and adapt to circumstances, the latter through trying to be part of the events ideologically/discursively while trying to avoid implication in the violent tactics of the gauchistes. We can make two points: first, because these too were now so personalized, the ‘false moves’ or non moves of a Peryrefitte, Mendès, or Mitterrand (or the PCF) discredited the parties themselves. Second, the students’ discourse of provocation, lampoon, and ridicule was, is, a trenchant rhetorical political weapon in that either personally ridiculing or asserting the political irrelevance of the established political parties and movements makes discursive response impossible. The students in 1968 re/activated a rhetorical source of extreme effectiveness in French political life: making fun.14 Such an approach is all the more effective given the continuing hierarchies, paternalism and deferential and stuffy relations that still existed in French society and politics, and were – unfairly, but that is of no consequence – encapsulated for the students in the ‘persona’ of de Gaulle, and in his and all the other political parties. Having said this, we should also stress that no ‘formal’ political interventions – Mitterrand’s calling for a provisional government, the PCF calling for a people’s government (gouvernement populaire), Pompidou or de Gaulle promising reforms, were of any discursive consequence, because much of ’68 was about a mythical and dramatic celebration of youth whose ludic side was about fun, being together and discovering each other, and whose contestatory side was about provoking and denying the authority of law, government, politics, education, the family, religion, moral convention, bosses, and virtually, while the party lasted, everything else. Was there an ideological dimension in 1968 akin to de Gaulle’s ‘vision’ and political programme of 1958?15 In certain ways there was but, as a kind of utopian celebration of youth, it could not actually elaborate a practical programme, even a practical social proposal, in spite of the extreme left’s dreams of revolution. Some of the ideas informing 1968 were about changing attitudes, lifestyles, moral codes and so on, and in that its ‘ideology’ was realized in the aftermath of the events themselves. There was also a general liberal-left outlook


seeking expression in the 1960s. Because of increased education, more leisure and more media coverage, a generalized disapproval of the Vietnam War and even a kind of liberal Third-worldism (against poverty and disease) were part of many people’s thinking at this time. There had also been a dramatic decline in religious practice amongst the young as well as a generalized ‘sexual revolution’. The writings of J.-P. Sartre in particular had had enormous influence upon young people’s attitudes; but in strict political terms, there was little ideological or policy demand, beyond the practical demands of the communists and the ‘autogestionnaire’ slant in CFDT thinking.16 One of the effects of ’68 was to momentarily drain formal politics of its content: nothing would satisfy the demands of most of the young people. In the slogan ‘Be realistic, demand the impossible’ it was the demanding that mattered (interestingly though one should perhaps translate ‘demandez’ as the rather deferential ‘ask’). The final area where 1968 was crucially influential within and upon the Fifth Republic was in the media and in opinion. The ORTF was not the place to get free and fair reporting, but although government controlled it, it could not avoid responding to the coverage the events were getting. Independent radio and other TV channels (in neighbouring countries but which broadcast in France)17 played a large part. Reporters brought the startling (and noisy) events into people’s homes. Public opinion was also startled by the initial heavy handedness of the police – partly because it was indiscriminate – and this had a major effect upon the course of events. Opinion was also aware of events and equally aware that the executive seemed to be less than properly aware of the running nightly battles in the heart of Paris and other cities. Evolving ‘opinion’ was also a significant player by the end of May in that, initially quite sympathetic, it began to turn away from the rioters as fear of social and political breakdown began to take hold, which in turn influenced political events, in part restoring to de Gaulle (and Pompidou) authority to act. In many ways, some of the rather over the top analyses of ’68 as a psychodrama were correct,18 in that a questioning of virtually every social and political institution was taking place in the context of major rioting and the paralysis of not only the education system but of the whole country (transport, utilities, commerce); and in terms of attitudes and expectations and general comportment. In many ways, things were never the same again. The Gaullist landslide in the elections of June was in part the reassertion of a nation that had watched but disapproved of the May events; but it was also a reassertion of ‘ordinary-ness’, for really there was little


else on offer; certainly not from the gauchistes and the students (for whom elections anyway (‘scrutin putain’) were a trick played on idiots, a ‘piège à cons’). The PCF, in spite of the way it was depicted, had offered no credible alternative (in fact, it did not offer even an incredible one); the more idealistic – PSU, CFDT – activists, in spite of their intelligence and imaginativeness, were only claiming a kind of reappraisal of workplace relations, social relations, and industrial practices. The kind of ‘romantic politics’ that had brought de Gaulle to power had gone out of the formal polity, and ’68 was a kind of young people’s romantic politics with no political aim (‘les motions tuent l’émotion’). The next few years, however, would see a range of attempts from the right and the left, as well as their extremes, to bring it back in again. In a range of ways, therefore, 1968 was an ‘event’ of the Fifth Republic itself. Let us make some preliminary remarks. It was, as was said at the time, about ‘roses’ as well as ‘bread’ (and also perhaps roses for some and bread for others), and in this it was an expression of the consumer boom and its children as well as an attack upon the uneven ‘consumer society’ of the post-war years. It started as we have seen as, on the one hand a reaction to the massive and very badly planned boom in higher education provision, and on the other as an almost secondary gripe about student accommodation and access to girls’ dormitories (it was essentially that way round); and yet by the time of the Faure reforms of 1968–69,19 the cultural revolution that was underway dwarfed the educational reforms’ relevance. 1968 was also a French, initially Parisian but soon national, event that united many of the Fifth Republic’s first generation of young adults. It is true that France was not alone in its rebellion. Similar events and comparable cultural changes were taking place elsewhere, across America’s campuses, in (West) Berlin and Amsterdam and London, and across Italy, across the West generally. Eastern Europe too was beginning to experience similar social and cultural changes. But nowhere were the events so well known as in de Gaulle’s Republic. ‘Paris ’68’ lifted to the level of romance and poetry the contesting of a regime and its cultural values. And the notion of toppling the regime was nowhere as acute as it was in France, and this was because of the Fifth Republic’s own political culture. France was still, in education, the family, and industrial relations, an old-fashioned, authoritarian, and sometimes stifling society. And the irony of de Gaulle’s own dramatic view of politics was that now he was the one being characterized as the old and authoritarian brake upon progress and change. And unlike in, say, West


Germany, Italy, and the UK, he was the perfect target for youthful contestation, with his monarchical style, now great age and apparent condescension, insistence upon protocol and highly concentrated power. His regime, like all those with power concentrated into the image of the uncontested leader, was susceptible to the idea that challenges to the leader might lead to overthrow. And if de Gaulle did not take the events seriously when they began, he soon came to believe that indeed he and his regime were about to be overthrown. This did not happen, but ’68 brought to new heights the tendency of ‘opinion’ to express itself. ‘Opinion’ so cherished, possibly even created by de Gaulle, here in its youthful expression had indeed expressed itself but now had turned spectacularly against him. It is also worth pointing out that ’68’ became ‘the paradigm’ for protest in the Fifth Republic – contesting ‘power’ and political authority became endemic in the Fifth Republic. 1968 was also a Fifth Republic event in that, in spite of initial government control of the media, it was a media event – like 1958, like 1965, through television, newsreel, radio, newspapers, magazines, interpersonal exchange, international interest, and a pervasive sense of carnival, it was a national event lived at the level of the whole population, participating in this cathartic moment of cultural change. The three main areas however, which allow us to treat the events of 1968 as best understood as an event of the Fifth Republic are: the way in which ‘opinion’ in 1968 was given particular status by the Fifth Republic, the way in which a ‘direct’ mass electorate in 1968 was created by it, and the way in which personalized leadership was dramatically affected in the Fifth Republic by 1968. Let us examine these.

‘Opinion’ Over and above generational opinion being refashioned by, among other ‘isms’, Maoism, Trotskyism and the influence of Sartre amongst the student population, 1968 was a national opinion-informing event, discussed between friends and within families and in schools, commented, and watched and listened to, on television and radio, by the whole population. It was arguably the first (relatively) pacific ‘revolution’ of this kind. It anticipated in many ways the (would-be-pacific) Prague Spring of the same year and the ‘Velvet revolutions’ of the late 1980s and 1990s in Europe, and elsewhere. In retrospect, a lot of the violence seemed ‘staged’ rather than actual. And for many participants, the apparent violence was secondary to the fun.20 As national spectacle, the May events were partly ‘controlled’ by public empathy – police baton


charges upon the nations’ middle class youth, including females, particularly on the night of 10 May, galvanized opinion. This sympathy was to wane quite quickly and, coupled with the lack of a real project for the revolution itself, contributed – once withdrawn – to the ultimate defeat of the movement. ‘May 68’ was a phenomenon in many ways nourished then contained by the Republic’s new ‘opinion’. 1968 was also part of a paradigmatic generational culture shift which had begun to take place as early as the late 1940s. The modern France de Gaulle had himself helped create turned against him and, in a classic paternal response, he could not understand it.

The unmediated relationship escapes to the streets Through referendums, plebiscitary legislative elections, ‘bains de foule’, a decisive appeal and privileged relationship to a ‘France profonde’, de Gaulle’s personalized relationship with France in a certain kind of way ‘created’ the French. In 1962, the constitutional reform gave this unmediated relationship institutional reality. The 1968 generation’s collective dreams of self-fulfilment represented an alternative France or perhaps a variation of this modern France that had not been properly included (it is arguable that de Gaulle barely knew it existed). It is also in this light that we should see the pro-de Gaulle demonstration of 30 May (and the landslide elections of June) as a truly Fifth Republic response, an echo, of this new institutionalized collective, fashioned by the Fifth Republic. All of these entities are part real, part imagined (some of the demonstrators on 30 May were arguably simply very right wing), but in 1968 they all made up France. The new Fifth Republican electorate and opinion were now made up of parents, trade unionists and the Gaullist voters of the June landslide as well as the new generation of students, revolutionaries, and the millions of less politicized baby boomers joining, participating in, observing, witnessing, being carried along by, enjoying, a cultural revolution.

Personal leadership (and its rejection) We are perhaps moving here from our own culture-orientated perspective on politics into political psychology, but there was something very Freudian and Oedipal in both the causes and motivations for the May events, and in their expression. It is not without significance that the iconography and much of the graffiti (‘la chienlit, c’est lui’) of 1968 was defiantly directed at de Gaulle, and de Gaulle represented as an old


man by the generation of misunderstood baby-boomers. (It is also arguable that for many of the politically active students, the PCF also represented an Oedipal target.) One thinks too of the impish expression on Cohn-Bendit’s face in the photo we mentioned above. The view of France as bloquée coincided perfectly with the pyramidal (or perhaps rather volcanic) perception of the polity, with de Gaulle being blown off the apex by the repressed and vital forces of a newly virile (and nubile) generation. The image of a regime momentarily more reminiscent of the July Monarchy or the Second Empire (both initially very optimistic regimes), susceptible to collapse because of its (personalized) structure, lent the last years (as it turned out, the very last year) of de Gaulle’s presidency, a fin-de-régime quality. Let us turn, however, from the psycho-social to the politicoinstitutional and politico-cultural consequences of the events of 1968 for the Fifth Republic. Before we do, it is perhaps worth prefacing our analysis with the observation that, irony of all the ironies, the Fifth Republic emerged from what turned out to be the end of de Gaulle’s reign even more strengthened; and perhaps the irony of that irony is that so did de Gaulle, or rather his posthumous influence. Let us look at the consequences under seven headings: the immediate consequences; the future mythification of the political process; the effect upon de Gaulle; upon the longer politico-cultural situation; upon the Gaullist party and others; upon the left generally; and upon the futures of individual political leaders. 1) The regime was nearly overthrown, but in fact was not overthrown. The events were reminiscent of earlier revolutions and uprisings. February 1934 was in many people’s memory (although not the students’ memory). But the regime withstood the assault and loss of authority (akin to the Fourth Republic’s loss of authority in 1958). It withstood the assault (though the cultural revolution flooded in from/out to everywhere), but it also withstood the loss of authority. De Gaulle’s authority was severely diminished: in spite of the landslide legislatives of June he had been seen to wobble – and had been mocked; and it is arguable that he never recovered, in fact could not recover, once such lampoon had been so nationally disseminated. 2) In true revolutionary nature, 1968 was a ‘magic moment’. It linked up with the past (Revolutions, June 1936), but as far as the Fifth Republic was concerned, this was not an old tradition but a new one: the introduction into the wider political culture of the Fifth Republic of the myth of ‘the rising’. For the ‘generation of 68’ it became a myth akin to 1934 for the radical right, 1940 for the


Resistance generation, or left activism (particularly 1956–58) against Algeria. And arguably it was a myth more widely adhered to than all of these. In terms of its becoming a mode of political activity, it became generally associated with the university (and school) sector, although not exclusively – farmers, nurses, teachers, and so on carried on this spirit of ‘contestation’ throughout the Fifth Republic. Various attempts at re-enactments of ’68 informed the Fifth Republic, one of the most significant but by no means the only one being December 1986 and the opposition to government education reforms. And in 2002 (between the two rounds of the presidential elections) the defence of the Fifth Republic against Le Pen went along ‘1968’ lines (as did the protests against de Villepin’s CPE in 2006). Although peaceful, the demonstrations and atmosphere in 2002 captured those of ’68.21 For better and worse, education policy itself from 1968 on has been fashioned (and more often than not blocked) by the experience of or appeals to 1968. So the ‘spirit’ lived on in a variety of ways – partly thanks to 1968’s relatively unbloody, indeed ludic, aspects, inspiring the younger generation while continuing to worry subsequent leaders such as Edouard Balladur, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. Few could erase, however, the public perception of the colossus, Charles de Gaulle, misunderstanding, hesitating, fee-fifo-ing, stumbling badly, particularly in the early weeks of the crisis, as he tried to grasp what was happening to his regime. 3) In a republic which through institutional and cultural reconfiguration and influence had become so personalized, the contesting and to a certain extent humiliation of de Gaulle had a series of effects upon the regime. In the first place, the President had been insulted and defied in a near-Oedipal celebration of defiant youth. In a country where both protocol and its negation, lampoon, are so important in political exchanges, the reduction of de Gaulle to the status of ‘silly old fool’ would have a dramatic effect upon his fortunes in the medium term: in the first place, it was clear that alternatives to him were emerging – we shall look at this below – or were at least imaginable; in the second, it was apparent that the party (the UNR) and the party system more generally was still intact, both because of and despite the landslide Gaullist victory. The Gaullist landslide, and the weakness of the democratic left (and the fizzling out of the May movement itself) implied that there was no alternative to parliamentary democracy of some kind. Once the crisis was over, it was more or less business as usual. De Gaulle on the other hand looked shaken, out of touch, and less than infallible.


4) We mentioned the ‘cultural’ influence of the mythology of ’68; there was an even more fundamental change in French attitudes and comportments which all converge in or around 1968, if not in their origin then their crystallization as powerful social forces. For personal relations, attitudes to and of women, community groups, structures of authority, cultural and other institutions, sexuality, including homosexuality, lifestyles, self expression, artistic expression, and so on, for all of these, 1968 was a significant moment. This cultural shift saw ’68 (‘Where were you? What did you do?’) as a new generation’s coming of age. This would have significant effects upon the comportment of the various lefts vis-à-vis each other through the 1970s until the ’68 generation came to power in 1981 (under the leadership of Mitterrand, not of that generation, but as we shall see, who used it as part of his Damascene conversion to socialism). It is also the case that some elements of the extreme right saw 1968 as a moment when neo-fascism or neo-conservatism was given a major boost in France both organizationally and ideologically. Everything had a connection to ’68. 5) The political parties of the right responded supportively to the President, after an initial aimlessness (reflecting government aimlessness) in the opening days and nights of the events, demonstrating the nature and pitfalls of blind dependence. The party did regroup and mobilize well, first in terms of responding to the crisis, second in terms of the 31 May show of support for de Gaulle, and third for the snap legislative elections in which the party swept to an absolute majority in the Assembly in support of the President. This very act nevertheless began the separation of the party from its leader. He disliked the new Assembly majority, his own, for its ‘ultra’ character, and supported one of the few reformers in its ranks, Edgar Faure, who, as Minister of education, was the architect of and presided the ‘Faure’ reforms of 1968 which responded to some of the students’ demands for university reform. The party and de Gaulle were in a complex relationship, and again in almost Freudian manner, were moving away from one another in dressrehearsal for après-de Gaulle (although few had any sense that that moment would come so soon). The Gaullist allies hitherto, the Independent Republicans, led by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, were also to come of age; with the Gaullist landslide, the RI were able (they had been trying for some time, as we saw in the previous chapter) to take their distance from the Gaullists and go, not into opposition, but into a kind of self-reflective period in which the essential stra-


tegic concern was the promotion of their own leader. The election of an ‘ultra’ Gaullist Assembly also saw the replacement of Pompidou as Prime Minister (de Gaulle appointed the loyal and politically unadventurous Maurice Couve de Murville). Georges Pompidou therefore was ejected from the Gaullist star system, such as it was around de Gaulle, into a wider orbit, but one which ultimately was to change the course of Gaullism and of the Fifth Republic. 6) On the left, the effects of 1968 were even more profound and farreaching. We have seen that by 1968, that is after the 1967 legislative elections, the left opposition had a respectable minority presence in the National Assembly, and even a shadow cabinet. The various parties of the left were federated into alliance, and Mitterrand led this loose coalition, itself in loose coalition with the PCF. 1968 shattered the left: the PCF was depicted as revolutionary by the right and by the media. Loathing the extreme left’s adventurism, and losing control of the strike movement in its early stages, it was caught between its revolutionary rhetoric and its unrevolutionary practice; rather than at last appearing respectable, it simply appeared hypocritical at worst, irrelevant at best. This was followed by the crushing of the Prague Spring in August by Warsaw pact troops and the PCF’s support for the Soviet Union’s action. The PCF lost to the party a generation of supporters, members and intellectuals. The SFIO fared little better. It too was caught in the same dilemma of a radical rhetoric and a cautious approach which meant that during the events the socialists bordered on the status of political bystanders. In all ‘revolutionary’ situations there is a polarization of choice; here, caught between the Fifth Republic and the students, the SFIO seemed even less relevant than the PCF. The longer term consequence of 1968 for the left, however, was that over time the spirit of ’68 flowed into the established left, mainly the SFIO but also the PCF. And it provided the left with youth, ideas and activism, and a millenarian quality it had lacked under Molletism, a ‘migration myth’ which was to have positive effects upon the left’s fortunes during the 1970s. 7) In terms of the effects of 1968 upon the political personalities involved, the case of François Mitterrand is a good example. Mitterrand, like de Gaulle, like everyone, was caught in uncomprehending surprise by the May events. And the events did what all leftist violence, other than cold blooded murder, does to good republicans and social liberals: it throws them into confusion. As the TV and press


had shown, the violence of the authorities was severe, but it was nevertheless in defence of the republic, and it was not murderous; the students and strikers might, however, topple the regime. The political compromise with this moral dilemma was the Charléty meeting and Mitterrand’s declarations to the press. Mendès France made the same miscalculation as Mitterrand. The consequence was, or so it seemed, the end of Mitterrand’s career (Mendès’ was already really over). His gesture seemed like mere opportunism (even worse, inconsequential opportunism). Following the ensuing Gaullist landslide in June, the FGDS collapsed. Mitterrand, apart from his small eternal entourage of loyal followers like Georges Dayan, was without a party support base. The ‘new’ socialist party could now, guided again by Mollet, and led by Alain Savary, undertake the reconstitution of non-communist socialism from which Mitterrand could now be excluded. The suddenness, the drama, and the rhetorical quality of ’68, its relationship to the institutions of the Fifth Republic, their reaction to the wider culture, the role of opinion and the role of the personal within it make 1968 a quintessential moment of the Fifth Republic’s evolution.

4 1969–74: Gaullism Without de Gaulle

In April 1969, de Gaulle precipitated his own downfall by bringing in a referendum on two issues, neither of which had constitutional ‘referendum status’.1 More importantly, however, he revitalized, now through separation and rejection, his emotional relationship with the French and, even more importantly still, the wider role played by emotion in French political relationships.

The 1969 referendum De Gaulle had stated during the 1968 events2 that he was going to call a referendum. He was persuaded to call legislative elections instead. It was as if he desired one more referendum, one more unequivocal affirmation of his personal authority and his republic. Desire more than reason explains why the referendum de Gaulle did call in April 1969 was a major, and for him final, political miscalculation, not only in terms of its defeat – the first referendum defeat of this kind in French history3 – but in terms of the subject chosen,4 his analysis of the attitude of the French, and his appraisal of the strength of the opposition. It was a personal miscalculation based upon a misinterpretation of just about everything. The French did not particularly understand the referendum topic, nor care. They would come to care for him enormously, once again, but only after they had rejected him. De Gaulle presented his proposed reform as a kind of final piece of his great Oeuvre. Drawing upon his notion of ‘participation’, a notion that is difficult to identify in concrete reality, de Gaulle proposed a reform of the Senate, and to accompany it a setting up of stronger regional governance. The reforms involved setting up part-elected, part-nominated bodies representing various social, economic and local 89


interests. At one level, such a measure seemed pointless or rather difficult to see following logically as part of the ‘finished’ republic; at another it seemed dangerous for a modern democracy, particularly one as turbulent as France as it would have withdrawn from the Senate its legislative function, turning it into a wise but only advisory body, and leaving the National Assembly (alongside the President) as the only politically consequent institution. In his 9 September 1968 press conference, de Gaulle portrayed his reform initiative as rectifying the ills of May 1968. The French themselves were not particularly interested in the Senate, but creating a unicameral legislature as a response to the 1968 uprising seemed to be evidence of a stratospheric level of personal capriciousness in the presidential republic. Many also saw it as a thinly disguised, irresponsible, and personal attack upon the Senate by de Gaulle because its members had never been his unswerving supporters. After announcing the reform, he then declared that the referendum would take place a full seven and a half months after he introduced the idea. This long period between September 1968 and April 1969 allowed for the near totality of political forces outside Gaullism to coalesce into a ‘no’ to de Gaulle, and give rise to a situation where a France without de Gaulle, a Republic that would not collapse into chaos or a communist takeover, was imaginable – and, once imagined, quite possible. One has to ask whether such a dull referendum topic, which had nevertheless institutional implications, which roused the opposition of the whole political class, and, worse, the indifference of the population, and which had no certainty of success, was not, if not a deliberate daring by de Gaulle of the French to disavow him,5 then at least was a decision – truly illustrative of a regime in which persona plays such a role – driven by emotional demand of some kind. The UNR backed the measure, but even here there was uncertainty in some of the declarations of Prime Minister Couve de Murville. There was muted support from Pompidou (whose status as loyal Gaullist would be enhanced whatever happened). In a few cases there was outright hostility, and, overall, dutiful but lukewarm support from a party as perplexed as everyone, except for diehards like Malraux, whose strong support and style too – like de Gaulle’s – were rapidly appearing to belong to the past. On 3 October, Alain Poher, a centrist, was elected President of the Senate. He stated immediately his, and the Senate’s, opposition to the referendum and the reform. Poher was immediately treated in a lot of the media as an interesting, competent, likeable figure. In the following weeks the debate in the country gained some interest in terms of

1969–74: Gaullism Without de Gaulle 91

whether de Gaulle’s initiative was, in fact, unconstitutional; and whether it was one question (regions), or two (Senate and then regions). There was general media agreement that de Gaulle’s initiative was a personal one with very little support from either the political class or the general population. The unions, the PSU, the PCF, the SFIO, the Radicals, the National Association of Mayors, the Conseil d’Etat who declared the referendum not properly constitutional and clear, the centrists, even some UNR, and then significantly Giscard d’Estaing – whose party was ambivalent, but which agreed upon a free vote of its members, all opposed de Gaulle’s initiative. Poher’s popularity, almost fatherly reassurance while opposing the referendum, rose, and he became a kind of symbolic figurehead of the ‘no’ vote. He seemed to offer a symbolic reassurance in the context of the President’s questionable behaviour. It was as if everyone was protecting de Gaulle’s republic from de Gaulle. Even Pompidou who was de facto the leader of ‘yeses’ contributed to this imagining of a France without de Gaulle by declaring twice (significantly while outside France as if such a declaration inside would have appeared treacherous), once in Rome (17 January), once on Swiss TV (13 February) that he would be a candidate in any future presidential election. And his travels, his being away from government, his reflection (he was writing a book) all contributed to his developing presidential image. The real key to understanding this moment of French political history lies here, in the centrality of the real and symbolic relationship between de Gaulle and Pompidou. 1968 sowed the seeds of leadership renewal. In terms of authority, 1968 saw a symbolic transition from de Gaulle to Pompidou. De Gaulle’s style of leadership had begun to have negative outcomes. From 1967 and the embarrassment, as we have seen, of ‘Vive le Québec libre!’, de Gaulle’s popularity began to slide. 1968 dealt him a hammer blow. His style of leadership, one might argue Gaullism itself, had left a vacuum in a time of crisis. Neither his party nor his government knew what to do when the ‘events’ took place. Throughout May and June 1968, only Pompidou enjoyed growing respect and authority. Until de Gaulle’s dramatic 30 May intervention, Pompidou alone had responded to the crisis and driven government action. His reward, cold dismissal, reasserted the primacy of the (humiliated) President, and the centrality of caprice. 1969 provided Pompidou the ideal occasion to step back into the frame as the successor, because he had been the loyal lieutenant for six years, and perhaps more importantly because he had been rejected. Pompidou was therefore the significant symbolic and


real candidate to succeed de Gaulle. But did he have the ‘vision’, the status, the ascribed character traits to allow him to take de Gaulle’s place? Yes and no, is the answer; and yes and no was to prove to be the successful answer. He had demonstrated loyalty, competence and authority for six years as Prime Minister – an unprecedented term of office in France. He also, like de Gaulle, was an intellectual and a scholar.6 He had proved to be more practical, more sensible, and arguably more far-sighted, and this for years. De Gaulle had often been seen as lacking cool judgement on a range of issues – the latest being the 1969 referendum itself. A very practical reason for Pompidou’s popularity over even de Gaulle’s for many Gaullists was that he had sound economic and financial expertise and was, like them, conservative in a way de Gaulle was not. And the latest initiative of de Gaulle – to embed participation in his republic – was viewed with horror by most significant UDR leaders, including Pompidou (the UNR became the UDR in 1968). So, Pompidou represented several strategically fortuitous elements of leadership at this conjuncture. He was popular in both the party and the country. He did not pretend to de Gaulle’s greatness, and to the extent that anyone could be imagined replacing the President, lack of pretention and competence might be welcome. And he had had his ‘inheritance’ petulantly snatched away from him by the great man himself. In a certain way, the April 1969 referendum was in part a choice between de Gaulle’s Fifth Republic and Pompidou’s, in part a choice of de Gaulle’s republic through Pompidou. Pompidou’s subsequent election was the confirmation of both choices. The official campaign for the referendum, lasting two weeks, began – at last – in mid April (14 April), this time on television. Poher came across as statesmanlike (his opponent, the Prime Minister, Couve de Murville, less certain of himself). Two days before the end of the campaign, Poher again appeared on television adding determination to his personable image. He drew attention to the drama being inflicted by de Gaulle upon himself by stressing that there was no reason for de Gaulle to resign if he were defeated, which constitutionally was true. Poher further stressed that if de Gaulle were to resign, the rule of law and stability would prevail, thereby reassuring while enhancing his own image (the head of the French police federation had said the same only days before, that if de Gaulle resigned, the gendarmerie and police would ensure that the country remained stable). It was looking more and more as if de Gaulle’s petulance, not the dangers of communist takeover or regime collapse, was the true cause of the upheaval and potential instability.


On 10 April in a television interview with Michel Droit, de Gaulle not only affirmed he would step down if the referendum went against him but dramatized the issue further by likening it to all the major decisions that had had to be decided by referendum since 1945. Indifference greeted the lion’s roar. According to the polls, and unlike in referendums generally, neither the ‘yes’ nor the ‘no’ opinion in the country was particularly strong. Indifference, the real enemy of the referendum, prevailed. On 25 April de Gaulle made another broadcast stating the points he had stressed on 10 April. Two days later the ‘non’ vote won by 53.2 per cent to 46.7 per cent with the usual near 20 per cent abstentions.7 In Paris and in most of the large towns, the ‘no’ was even higher than the national average. De Gaulle resigned on 28 April,8 and went to Colombey (and then to Ireland throughout the following presidential campaign). The notion of de Gaulle being ‘gone’ and the republic continuing was now a reality. And he ‘featured’ virtually not at all in the presidential election campaign period that followed, except in the form of photos from a short film of him walking with his wife on an Irish beach as if in exile. Following his resignation he never spoke in public again. His death the following year was like a demonstration to the French of the totality of his devotion to the higher calling, and a stark reminder of what they had lost, had in fact abandoned. De Gaulle had always used referendums as a major political weapon to gain popular legitimacy, and push through his agenda. He had used national elections in this way too, as we have seen. Was April 1969, however, really a miscalculation? In one sense, the obvious sense, of course it was, and a sign that de Gaulle had lost his grip. The past master of referendums would never in 1958 or 1962 have proposed such a nonissue as a major national consultation in order to gain approval. For de Gaulle, the referendum was a method of gaining popular support to act, alongside the paraphernalia of traditional republicanism, but it was also about establishing a mythical relationship with the French and France. The previous referendums took place in perceived ‘crises’ and he had always used this context to make the referendum a personal plebiscite. De Gaulle never used referendums to avoid an immediate political problem9 but to confirm his authority to act. But the real nature of the Fifth Republic – an imagined set of relationships – can best be seen when the leader/follower relationship breaks down, and in this case when devotion is demanded, and refused. The 1969 referendum, like the other ‘moments’ 1962, 1965, 1968, was actually a major consolidation of the Fifth Republic, paradoxically


perhaps the major consolidation in that it revived the myth of rejection and allowed it to become again a major political resource. The referendum of 1969 allows us to see the true role of the referendum not only in de Gaulle’s thought but also now in French politics. The referendum that tells us most about the republic was the least memorable and the worst timed and executed. We can make two substantial points. First, de Gaulle did not need the fundamental legitimation of the people, for, in his view, he was legitimate whether in or out of power. De Gaulle’s legitimation predates his acceptance by the people, and resides in a ‘moment’ of or a place in mythic time. Approval by the people, through acclamation, election or referendum is for de Gaulle a mythical moment of union with the people, but not one in which he unites with them, but when they unite with him.10 De Gaulle did not need their approval to be right, he only needed it in order to act, and practically he could not act against the wishes of the people because he had accepted the historical appropriateness to twentieth century France of republicanism and democracy. But de Gaulle’s ‘enchanted’ France lay elsewhere, in the imagination, in himself and his relationship to it. The French as a nation in his view were to be guided in that they were, whether or not using majoritarian mechanisms, as profoundly capable of weakness and doing the wrong thing, as doing the right. In the contemporary period, the French did the right thing only on the occasions when they celebrated him, or gave him their approval to act, or allowed him – gave him the institutions and scope that allowed him – to act. If they disagreed with him, in fact even such a notion was not in his vocabulary; if they disavowed him, they demonstrated how profoundly wrong they could be. So that when de Gaulle, as ever, made the 1969 referendum a question of confidence, he was not abusing the referendum by threatening to resign if he was not endorsed and ‘weighing’ on the outcome, he was simply reminding the French – for, weak as they were, they needed constant reminding – of the true nature of the relationship between them. This brings us to our second substantial point concerning what such a development – the final rejection of the leader by a fickle people – actually does to the regime. 1969 was like 1962 in that everybody was ranged against him. This time, however, the people went over to the other side, more or less. Although numerically this is true, they rather did nothing much, and in so not doing broke the magical relationship. The referendum of 1969 demonstrated that the Fifth Republic was enacted as an emotional not just a constitutional relationship. This was


certainly the case for de Gaulle. For him, the unmediated relationship between him and the French was an emotional celebration by them of his historical and mythical legitimacy. This also informed other aspects of the relationship. He treated dissolution of the National Assembly and legislative elections in the same way: they were moments when he called the people to him. And the referendum was the essential act in this relationship. It is the act and process of the referendum rather than its subject or outcome that constitutes de Gaulle’s republic. In the referendum – and in fact in the legislative elections – there is only one player (de Gaulle) and one audience (the people). This is why de Gaulle did not know how to act in a presidential election itself; there were other actors contesting his view of how the republic functioned. In 1969, through the personalized intensity of his relationship to the French, de Gaulle demanded their approval. The received view is that the rejection of de Gaulle was part of a routinization of charisma, and demonstrated that France could live without him (it was about to anyway, he would have ended his second term less than three years later at 82). This was and still is the received view. Alongside this, however, it actually revived Gaullism. It ‘enacted’ a rejection of the leader by the people in the mythical relationship, thereby ‘proving’ its existence, and preserving it within the polity, as we shall see. It is now difficult to imagine, but the consequences would have been enormous if de Gaulle had served out his term and retired. The personalization of leadership was enhanced by the rejection of the personal leader. He left office a rejected but mythical character just as he had taken it (as opposed to a silly old fool he had been glimpsed as being for a fleeting moment in 1968). The immediate consequence of this ‘overthrow’ was that the leader was irrelevant (1968) and now promoting irrelevant policies (1969); he had ‘lost it’, as it were. In the longer term, however, it would reinforce the acutely personal nature of the regime, and would preserve de Gaulle in the French imagination and maintain the underlying mythology that informed and structured the republic.

The 1969 presidential election In the first round, Pompidou, with nearly 10 million (43.9 per cent) votes was only 6 per cent short of a round one majority. Poher gained just over 5 million votes (half of Pompidou’s) and Duclos almost 5 million. (Defferre for the SFIO took just over 1,000,000 votes, a mere 5 per cent of the votes cast). Pompidou went on to win easily with a vote of 57.5 per cent (although there was a 30 per cent abstention rate).11


Even in the absence of de Gaulle, persona and personality played a role in the 1969 election. Although Poher maintained his reassuring, fatherly character during the presidential race, a not insubstantial resource, his programme was confused (because he did not really have one) and his support base very brittle. He also implied a return to the Fourth Republic, away from the strong presidency of the Fifth. Pompidou had both a programme and a support base – the UDR especially. Nevertheless, we need to stress that Poher’s personal influence upon the election, and by extension the regime, was substantial in that he ‘fashioned’ in part the persona of Pompidou in the election, and the choices he made. Pompidou was very aware of Poher’s popularity, and it contrasted with his own reputation as less ‘human’, more right wing, and harder in image somewhat. He changed tactic and began appearing more ordinary, and more conciliatory. This ‘opening out’ by Pompidou’s character extended into the period after his election as he widened the Gaullist tent towards the softer political centre. Perhaps not by coincidence, the communist candidate, Jacques Duclos, was also putting forward a friendly, reassuring image. And it went down well with the public. All three of the big candidates were similar in campaign image; all of them therefore reassured the electorate, and therefore reassured de Gaulle’s republic. Two final remarks on this question of personality. First, the PCF’s good election (Duclos – 21.5 per cent) was possible because of the collapse of the PS vote, itself linked to the hopeless image of its leadership at this time. Second, we should note the high profile and highly personalized campaign of Michel Rocard, the PSU candidate who would capitalize heavily upon his public popularity at this election and a subsequent by-election, as he moved back into the mainstream of the Socialist movement (he had as a young man left the SFIO in 1956 over government policy in Algeria), as the personification of the new left, la deuxième gauche, and the main leftist rival to Mitterrand’s leadership over the next two decades.

The Pompidou presidency: 1969–74 There are several periods of Fifth Republic political history that do not attract scholarly attention. There are floods of research on the de Gaulle years and Mitterrand’s first term; a lot on Sarkozy’s; a reasonable amount on Giscard’s presidency; yet there is very little on the Pompidou presidency (or on Mitterrand’s second term, or on Chirac’s second term outside ‘rivalries’ literature). ‘Normalization’ creates indifference. Researchers


and observers began to move away from French politics, only to be brought back again in a hurry by a riveting and unexpected event – by Mitterrand’s unexpected victory in 1981, or his triumphant re-election in 1988, or the left’s win in 1997, or Le Pen’s going through to round two in 2002, or the emergence of a major female candidate in 2006–07. The Pompidou period attracted little interest partly because his victory was expected, and because he had been in one sense running the country since 1962; partly because the Pompidou presidency followed, like the dull day after a carnival, the momentous events of 1968. But the Pompidou period tells us a great deal about Fifth Republic politics. 1968 demonstrated that politics is not just about politics. The ‘site’ of political performance and spectacle moved to another place – ‘the streets’ – even the expression (‘la rue’) is charged with imagery and poetry. The site of politics moved to lyrical discourse and politics as a kind of epiphany that had no plan or direction, and was all the more ‘spectacular’ for that. 1968 also triggered massive social and cultural changes for another decade and more; but its ‘essence’ was its almost magical transcendence of time (‘La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie’). In the true sense of the word, what would have replaced the Fifth Republic if it fell, as so many of its leading politicians feared it would12 – including de Gaulle – was literally inconceivable. De Gaulle’s initiative (and Pompidou’s counsel) in dissolving Parliament and calling new legislative elections were true democratic initiatives that no one could argue with (except the students for whom elections were themselves part of the problem). But the significance of the elections was not that they were democratic, but that they transferred politics back to its acquired institutional framework: a mediatized, personalized and dramatic elective democratic process. But even this is not the ultimate significance of the events of June 1968. The real significance, that the Pompidou presidency would preside, was that the June election initiative put the genie back in the bottle, returning French politics to the controlled drama of politics within a particular institutional configuration – informed by culture, and ‘held’ within a range of parameters. Pompidou’s election to the presidency was the first illustration of this post-1968 Fifth Republic after the aberrant referendum. The Pompidou presidency is of crucial interest to our analysis in that the development, indeed the fate, of the Fifth Republic in the post-de Gaulle period was dependent upon the personal responses and initiatives (and health) of Pompidou himself in the context of the institutional configuration bequeathed by de Gaulle, and the society and culture bequeathed by 1968. Let us look at the Pompidou presidency


from our three perspectives used earlier: Pompidou and the institutions; foreign policy; and the response of the left to the challenges of the renewed Fifth Republic. Pompidou and the institutions The fate of the Fifth Republic could only be really decided, properly tested, after de Gaulle left office. The general view – it is really an incontrovertible fact – is that Pompidou ‘consolidated’ the Fifth Republic.13 We would add to this that he added to the range of leadership styles, contrasting his restrained style with de Gaulle’s, yet carried on the general thrust of Gaullist policies (while mitigating some of the intransigence of de Gaulle’s leadership). Let us concentrate, however, on the underlying meaning of consolidation. Essentially, Pompidou reasserted – although with some difficulty – the primacy of the presidency. In terms of both domestic and foreign policy, he maintained the policies and strategic imperatives of the de Gaulle era, of which he had been one of the main architects. What he also did or rather did not do was return the debate to whether the period 1958–69 had been a deviation or misinterpretation, as it were, of the true spirit, let alone the letter, of the 1958 constitution itself. Pompidou had already reasserted the de Gaulle interpretation in his book (written in his ‘traversée’ period after being sacked), Le noeud gordien.14 Therefore, what the received view – that Pompidou ‘consolidated’ the Fifth Republic – masks is that Pompidou consolidated the continuing ambivalence of meaning informing presidential authority. Pompidou reasserted the role of the personal, that is to say, the continuing role – usually in the name of presidential ascendancy – of characterial interventions, the public projection of the political ‘persona’, personality clashes, and the continual gathering in of presidential authority – continual in the sense that it was continually enacted as part of the phenomenon of presidential ascendancy. In this way, the ‘clash’ between Pompidou and his first Prime Minister, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, is a true expression of the ‘consolidated’ Fifth Republic. Just as Pompidou had been the almost certain President to follow de Gaulle, Chaban had been the almost certain Prime Minister. He had been President of the National Assembly since 1958. He shared Pompidou’s sympathy for an ‘ouverture’ and a kind of pacifying ‘assainissement’ of political life, and enhancement of government and Parliament, in order to ‘normalize’ political relations between government and opposition, centrist opinion, relations between the Assembly and the Senate, and the smooth daily running of politics.


Chaban-Delmas presented his legislative programme to the National Assembly on 16 September 1969. It was called the ‘New Society’ speech, and rapidly became the hallmark of Chaban’s government. Even though the new presidency and government had at one level brought continuity with de Gaulle’s, it was like a response to the changing society, and to the demands of ’68, as well as the, hitherto neglected, leftist aspects of Gaullism (of ‘participation’), and of the leftmoving mores of French society in its evolving social structure and cultural expressions. The New Society speech was therefore like a new beginning, a ‘projet’, and was US-style ‘Democrat’ in its connotation (cf. the ‘New Deal’ of FDR, ‘New Frontier’ of JFK). The speech and the programme promised reforms of industrial policy, bureaucratic log jams, education and training, incomes policy (it introduced the SMIC (minimum wage), updating former incomes policy and generally raising wages), relations between employers and the unions; in a word, it was like a project to ‘free up’ French society from the myriad of blockages and constraints that impeded it.15 It was also informed by a social philosophy, given eloquent space in Chaban’s speech, that was also centre left in social interpretation (Chaban was influenced by a range of centre left advisors, and people who would have called themselves Mendèsists, including the young Simon Nora and Jacques Delors). In terms of policy, public expectation, the defusing and addressing of social tensions, and the image of a new President with an invigorated purposeful government (and continuing economic expansion, and no real opposition), a government chosen in Gaullist presidential style by the new President, and representing all the strands and streams now of Gaullism, the Chaban administration was set for effective and popular government. What could possibly go wrong? The one and only cloud casting any shadow was the fact that the Gaullist majority in the National Assembly was the same ‘ultra’, heavily conservative, right wing majority elected in the 1968 landslide. The factors, however, that would begin to undermine this near-perfect political situation were immediate and were related to its very success, and to the effects of ‘success’ upon the personality politics that were being ‘consolidated’ by the Pompidou presidency. Since 1958, National Assembly discourse and exchange in the Fifth Republic had been severely diminished in its political resonance. This was not the case for Chaban’s ‘New Society’, particularly given the now systemically linked media – radio, television, magazines and newspapers – and the mediatization of politics. The spirit of the new


reformism captured the attention of the national media. Chaban’s ‘New Society’ programme was put to the vote the next day on 17 September and was passed by a staggering 369 to 85 votes. The media had a field day, commenting and generally celebrating this new departure, and the heady popularity of the new Prime Minister. Chaban, moreover, had an attractive public image: he was a former Resistance fighter, was handsome, fit, a jet-setter, telegenic. Pompidou’s (only second) press conference on 22 September seemed a somewhat bland, dull affair where he, the President, commented on the ‘New Society’ of his own Prime Minister. Even authorship of the ‘New Society’ (and therefore symbolically of the new society) was Chaban’s; and it became known – possibly as the result of a mix up – that Pompidou had not even seen the draft of Chaban’s speech. We should also point out that there is only one passing reference to the President in Chaban’s document/speech. In a highly personalized presidential system, a ‘new’ star had been born who was not the President, but his Prime Minister. The play of the ‘personal’ then took on great political significance. At the moment that the President was, through his own downplayed style, consolidating through domestication, de Gaulle’s Elysée, Chaban was stepping forward as a (Gaullist) superstar. When we say that it is here that the personal took on greater significance; in different circumstances, a different polity, institutional configuration or culture, or even different moment, this would all be utterly trivial; but it was Chaban’s style and image that were threatening to Pompidou. It was true that Pompidou was much less ‘lyrical’, more ‘practical’, more conservative than Chaban (and less good looking), but in the context of the potential clash of leadership ‘image’ caused by Chaban’s success, it became rapidly known that Pompidou disapproved of the ‘philosophy’ – abstract philosophical claptrap – underpinning Chaban’s ‘New Society’; that he was irritated by Chaban’s personal choice of a whole range of junior ministers in the new government (the senior ones had been more or less the President’s choice), that the parts of the ‘New Society’ project that involved the ‘ouverture’ of the media itself (until then almost the President’s propaganda outlet) were actually opposed by Pompidou. In a word, presidential disapproval of the Prime Minister was nebulous but immediate. We should also add that Pompidou’s own presidential status was still extremely vulnerable given that de Gaulle was still alive – any comment or attack from de Gaulle (even in the form of the latest volume of his Memoirs) could have devastating effect. Pompidou did in fact delay the publication of the last parts


of de Gaulle’s Memoirs. When they were published (1970), they were not critical of Pompidou, but nor did they confer upon him anything like presidential status. Irrespective of the Memoirs, however, any declaration by de Gaulle – who as we have seen was ‘cool’ if not hostile towards Pompidou from ’68 onwards – would have entered the discursive topography with major symbolic consequence. Almost mercifully for Pompidou, de Gaulle died in November 1970, tying Pompidou closer symbolically to de Gaulle, his predecessor – though not to de Gaulle’s family, some of whom blamed him for de Gaulle’s defeat, even death – but it was a death which, because of its institutional reflection on Pompidou, saw a rise in Pompidou’s popularity. We referred earlier to Pompidou’s Le noeud gordien. In a crucial passage he states that because a President following de Gaulle would lack his charisma16 he would need to be much more involved in all aspects of government policy. This interpretation – probably accurate but no less startling in its personal admissions as well as its perception of presidential authority – is one of the keys to the problems posed by Chaban’s initiatives. The apparently uncontentiously accepted need for presidential supremacy in the consolidated Fifth Republic, and this in the context of Pompidou’s own assumption of what we might call ‘charismatic deficiency’, meant that the legitimacy of his own government and his own Prime Minister’s highly successful debut had to be cut off or intercepted at the moment it began to flower. This is quite an extraordinary development in a polity, and demonstrates the dysfunctional nature of the Fifth Republic’s emphasis upon status and personal image. Such personal suspicion and manoeuvrings heightened dramatically the role and effect of personal advisors and entourages. Much of the sarcasm expressed by Pompidou about the ‘philosophy’ of the ‘New Society’ and the irritation felt about such things as the junior minister appointments were relayed back and forth by presidential advisors and other commentators. A further effect of these, at times, bewildering complexities and palace conspiracies was to, as we shall see, begin to have formative influence upon attitudes and initiatives. The ‘courtiers’ around major political figures began to take on major political significance from this period. In June 1970, at the National Council meeting of the UDR, Chaban was openly criticized by other Gaullists. This had also become associated with the question of who was the real heir to de Gaulle, and it is interesting that at the same meeting, Debré was wildly applauded (Chirac, Pompidou’s protégé was ignored). One also sees at this time


the declarations (and alliances and plots) of a range of Gaullist leaders (and new Pompidoliens), with Messmer, Debré, Joxe, Guichard, and leftist Gaullists like Vallon and Hamon, and all the former general secretaries jostling for political position, often using de Gaulle himself as their reference point. (Anecdotally, it is worth mentioning that it was from this point and for approximately the next decade that there would be the widespread use of ‘things de Gaulle said to me’). In September 1970, Chaban, still Prime Minister, stood for his own Bordeaux parliamentary seat in a by-election (his suppléant, i.e. standin when he became Prime Minister, had died). It was Servan-Schreiber, in a hitherto almost unseen media saturated leadership-image-beautycontest style manner, who stood against him.17 Chaban was triumphantly re-elected in the first round with 63.55 per cent; J.-J. S.-S. gained only 16.6 per cent. This highly publicized confrontation between the two French politicians most in the limelight, each with what might have been called at the time ‘sex appeal’, was not without consequences. In terms of the Fifth Republic, what was emerging was a political persona with a movie-star image. In the autumn of 1971, at the height of his premiership, Chaban’s fame turned to notoriety. Financial scandals implicating him began to break. It appeared that he had paid no taxes for several years in the late 1960s. His tax return was published on the front page of the satirical newspaper Le Canard enchainé in January 1972, which was regarded in elite circles as not only satirical and irreverent but as a very reliable whistle-blower (speculation also suggested the Ministry of Finance (Giscard) in this smear campaign). The effect was very damaging for Chaban and for his party, not because it was evidence of real wrong doing; the nature of any personal misdemeanour was never truly established, but because he had become such a high profile media figure – more dynamic seeming than the now, in fact, ailing, President. We shall examine Pompidou’s EEC (EU) referendum in the next section, but in March 1972, Pompidou called a referendum on EEC enlargement (for the following month). The referendum won (a majority of 68 per cent but on a 60 per cent turn-out, this was only 36 per cent of the eligible electorate), but it was generally seen as both a political stunt and a damp squib by the President. In the wake of this mediocre result, underlining Pompidou’s lack of flair, Chaban on 23 May 1972 made a highly personalized bid to revive the public standing of the government, the President, and, particularly, given the array of factors we have been examining, himself. He relaunched his ‘New Society’ programme in all but name, once again in the National Assembly – and once again with almost identical parliamentary


support (368/96 with 6 abstentions). On 5 July, Pompidou sacked him. We should underline here what this demonstrates about authority, legitimacy, and personalism. Such assertions of supremacy were necessary because they seemed unnecessary: i.e. the overwhelming parliamentary and media majority support for Chaban triggered the refusal of presidential acquiescence in another source of legitimacy and site of growing public popularity. The public were ‘not ready’ for this move, according to polls, increasing further this notion of unrepresentative ‘majesté’ on the part of the President. Nevertheless, in terms of the underlying logic of the republic, it was a reminder of presidential dominion. Pompidou and foreign affairs Through choice or compulsion, Pompidou’s foreign policy stances in great measure followed de Gaulle’s. The rhetoric was less strident, the interventions and image less bombastic – this not itself without significance – but the direction from the 1960s into the 1970s is more or less unbroken, and arguably the same contradictions or weaknesses were carried forward. The first area in which Pompidou carried on de Gaulle’s approach was his ‘pro-Arab’ attitudes and critical attitude towards Israel. This reflected a Realpolitik linked to France’s desire to maintain and enhance good relations with the oil producing states. This was underlined by the dramatic events of 1973 and the Yom Kippur war between Egypt and Israel. France’s attitude also meant association with Colonel Gaddafi, who at this time was seen internationally as something of an international outcast – fanatical and unreliable. France’s association with such a leader and with the Arab states generally contrasted with a much greater pro-Israel sentiment in French public opinion (and Fourth Republic governments), still strong since the 1967 war, in which an independent – and democratic – Israel was seen as a brave and bold, and a pro-Western, tiny nation, surrounded by a huge array of hostile Arab states. It is also debatable whether, even in practical terms, France benefited from such a position, as in 1973, after the Yom Kippur War when the oil producing states, realizing their financial muscle, quadrupled the price of oil, precipitating the West’s economic recession, France suffered just as much as everyone else.18 The second, and main, area where Pompidou carried on de Gaulle’s policy was in France’s relations to the United States and the Soviet Union. The same contradictory and inconsequential approach is apparent. In February 1970, Pompidou made his first state visit to the United


States. His financial attitude certainly made for better relations, although it was clear that France, representing a lot of critical Western opinion, was still a fierce critic of the Vietnam War. This was even more diplomatically fraught for Pompidou than for de Gaulle, given that it was a criticism that was now clearly correct, as the US staggered to find a way out of the Vietnam quagmire. The presidential trip, however, was badly affected by France’s declared policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Pompidou’s visit was dogged by a series of high-profile pro-Israel – and anti-French – demonstrations. The atmosphere became so critical to the visiting head of the French state that his wife returned early to France in anger, and the visit ended in fiasco. Just like de Gaulle’s, Pompidou’s travels continued to symbolically imply that France was able to dialogue as an equal with the superpowers and assert its greater than other Western states’ relative independence from the US. In October of the same year, Pompidou visited Moscow. Like de Gaulle’s Russian trip, the visit was a well noted affair, but, as with de Gaulle, nothing consequential flowed from the trip to France’s advantage. The limitations on France’s ability to truly affect superpower relations any more than other states was underlined. Equally, France’s attitude to West Germany (and reciprocally, West Germany’s attitude) was fashioned overtly by France’s view of the US. De Gaulle had tried as we have seen to pull West Germany away from the US and towards itself; arguably a diplomatic cul-de-sac created by the ‘need’ to ‘stand up to’ US pre-eminence. Pompidou’s diplomatic attitude to West Germany, the same as de Gaulle’s, was informed by an opposite view, namely, that West Germany’s Ostpolitik, being developed by Willy Brandt, suggested a rapprochement with East Germany and the Soviet Union. The USSR/USA issue was to repeat itself in January 1973 with Pompidou again visiting the Soviet Union (Minsk). In June, the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, visited Rambouillet. Again, the same inconclusive significance of such exchanges was apparent. And as a kind of diplomatic balancing act, Pompidou made a surprise visit to President Nixon in Rekyavik on 31 May 1973.19 In September, Pompidou visited Mao Tse Tung’s China on a state visit where, unsurprisingly, he got rhetorical backing for a world not dominated by the two superpowers. This matrix of international activity – US, USSR, Germany, China – was clearly the result of choices made by Fifth Republic France regarding its own desired international status, but ultimately underlined its – nevertheless significant – second rank status, alongside Britain, West Germany, and Italy.


Both at the time and since, the most memorable feature of Pompidou’s ‘foreign’ policy were his initiatives on Europe. Pompidou is best remembered for his bringing the UK, Denmark and Ireland into the EEC. In a sense the symbolic effect of this, in contradistinction to de Gaulle’s breathtaking refusals, refusals that were against the wishes of every other member state, was profound. De Gaulle’s view – that the UK was too pro-American to act truly independently was, and remains, a widely shared view. Nevertheless, the acutely personal expression of the French veto,20 de Gaulle’s own personal veto – and this compounded by a generalized view that de Gaulle felt extremely badly treated by the Allies, particularly the Americans, but also, at crucial moments during and after World War Two, the British too – lent Pompidou’s initiative an emotional quality, and was like a personal gesture of reconciliation. It also transformed the EEC into a major economic actor and set the stage for the enlargements that followed. The reality was arguably not as altruistic as then appeared, and perhaps remains the view now. First, Pompidou’s desire to bring in the UK was in part a counter to the growing dominance of West Germany in the EEC, and its developing policy of Ostpolitik. The media-vehicled personal relationship between Pompidou and the pro-European British premier, Edward Heath, stood in contrast to de Gaulle’s friendliness with Adenauer. The personalization of the Pompidou-Heath relationship stood in real contrast to most of France’s previous and subsequent personal relationships, namely, de Gaulle and Adenauer, Giscard and Schmidt, Mitterrand and Kohl, Chirac and Schroeder, and to a lesser extent Sarkozy and Merkel, that is to say always a Franco-German personalization, except in this case. The second, less than altruistic reason of course, was that although pro-EEC, France was significantly less prointegration, less supra-national than the other EEC states. Bringing in three similarly-minded states, particularly the UK given its comparable economic and political status to France and West Germany, could only push the EEC further along an intergovernmental path. Pompidou’s EEC initiatives shifted quite dramatically perceptions of France, and attributed to Pompidou’s persona a kind of personal rectification or setting the record straight of his own predecessor’s personal capriciousness, occasional vindictiveness and bad judgement. We mentioned above that both at the time and subsequently, Pompidou’s intentions regarding the enlarging of the EEC, were viewed sympathetically. Reaction to his use of the referendum was not so unequivocal. This has significance for our overall interpretation. The April 1972 referendum on enlarging the EEC – it became known as the


referendum on ‘UK entry’ – was Pompidou’s only referendum, and it was a very deliberate ‘other use’ of the referendum in the Fifth Republic. It maintained the, constitutionally debatable, presidential initiative created by de Gaulle, and in that sense maintained the notion of presidential primacy. On the other hand it was about what it said it was about, that is to say, not a plebiscite as de Gaulle’s referendums had been. It was an unemotional referendum. Moreover, it was not injected into the political process in a dramatic moment and to dramatic purpose, as de Gaulle’s referendums (and the ’58, ’62 and ’68 elections) had been. Pompidou, therefore, had used the referendum to non-plebiscitary purpose while maintaining it as a strictly presidential prerogative. Through media opinion and opinion polls, the ‘UK entry’ issue was indeed undramatic as most people were in favour of it, and those for (and even those against) were not passionate about the issue; indeed, they were in favour but not passionate about Europe in general. So, the referendum appeared as a personal initiative, in that it was not ‘necessary’, and was seen by some as related to (re)gaining popularity in terms of the Pompidou-Chaban relationship. The referendum campaign and referendum constituted something of a non-event, and therefore something of a personal setback for Pompidou’s status. He certainly saw it in this way. In Gaullist manner, he made two interventions (on 11 and 21 April) in favour of the referendum. In such (un)dramatic contrast to de Gaulle’s successful interventions, they seemed only to underline the President’s worry not that the campaign was going against him, but – worse still – that it was being ignored. The mediocre result was to have repercussions upon the institutional antagonisms, for as we have seen in the previous section, it was the mediocre referendum – itself devised according to some observers to enhance Pompidou’s status, that triggered Chaban’s initiative to relaunch the ‘New Society’ and enhance his own, his President’s, and his government’s status, which, in turn, triggered Pompidou’s sacking of his Prime Minister. A final point regarding the role of the personal in Pompidou’s France was his illness. To an extent, his presidency as it drew to a premature close, became associated with his now widely known although slightly mysterious fatal illness. And on the international stage this was only too apparent through massive media coverage, at Rekyavik for example, which depicted the President as very different – tired, slow, bloated, hesitant, wrapped up against the cold – from the new President of only four years previously.


On the domestic front too, Pompidou’s last interventions were arguably personal miscalculations, probably due to his very poor state of health. He half promoted a five-year presidential term (although this would act as a precedent justification for a similar move over 25 years later), and his final months were marked by slower economic growth; in fact, this was the prelude to recession and the (very sudden) ending of what were to become known as the ‘30 glorious years’. Unemployment also began to rise quickly to nearly half a million, and France saw the onset of serious ‘stagflation’, low growth but high inflation, growth falling from 6 per cent to 3 per cent between October 1973 and April 1974, and inflation climbing very rapidly in early 1974 to 15.6 per cent. Pompidou had been aware of the approaching recession but, because so ill, appeared to have lost his grip, as this, the most stunning period of growth, appeared to be shuddering to a halt. Pompidou’s popularity began to fall, from an average of around 65 per cent down to 55 per cent, still a reasonable score. Pompidou’s death in April 1974, anticipated for many months, was nevertheless received as a shock by French opinion, and underlined the intimate nature of political leadership in the Fifth Republic. Immediately, moreover, the President was treated as a true Head of State and the country moved into a period of genuine mourning. At the time and subsequently, great emphasis was put upon how Pompidou’s style (there had been no howlers like de Gaulle’s ‘Vive le Québec libre!’ speech) had informed the republic and had contributed to the Republic’s consolidation. Left opposition, 1969–74 Perhaps the most interesting point we can make about the left in 1969 is that there wasn’t one, apart from the communists ironically enough, who had shown – ultimately misleadingly – that they need not be afraid of the presidential elections, and could regain their historic vote (over 20 per cent in 1969) under certain circumstances. Jacques Duclos was a communist of the old guard, hard line and Stalinist. But that is not how he appeared.21 For the general public, his campaign discourse did not come across as the party line; it seemed as if it were him expressing his ideas. He was also relatively well known as a Resistance figure, now middle aged but paternal and reassuring. The second round had, however, no candidate from the left. The lesson for the PCF and for the non-communist left was that an alliance with the socialists remained an imperative. Even in the best circumstances, the PCF would never win the presidency.


From the ruins of 1968 and its aftermath, the non-communist left tried to adapt to the new conditions. The SFIO ‘modernized’ by creating the New Socialist Party (it actually kept the word ‘New’ for a little while). This saw ‘rallying’ to the SFIO some of its dissidents. The UCRG led by Alain Savary joined in May 1969, and later a small group, the UGCS, led by Jean Poperen joined in July. Savary became the new leader. Mollet at last stepped down. He had been leader of the SFIO since 1946. He still had enormous power and influence. The crucial point about the new socialist party was that it maintained the basic structure of the SFIO, a party organized and structured, like most European left parties, around tendances and courants (either ideological or territorial), in a word ‘factions’. These would form alliances to create party majorities. This is important for understanding leftist politics in the 1970s; the history of the PS becomes in great part for that decade a history of party conferences, as we shall see. The second feature of the new party was that, although it remained really the old SFIO, its desire for newness, change, adaptation to the Fifth Republic was genuine, and after 1971 would ‘set off’ a whole series of rhetorical, discursive, and leadership-related changes that would ‘transform’ the party – in fact, driven by factions – into a ‘rally’ that would conquer the Republic. As regards the ‘centre’, in spite of Poher’s good showing at the 1969 elections, it was still subject to all the pressures of the regime itself – constantly ‘reappearing’, but splitting, being ‘robbed’ of its discourse, even raison d’être by the right or left or rival centrists, never identifying and holding on to a dependable durable electorate (the discrepancies between centrist parties and centrist electorates, the latter often now more right wing than the former – certainly at national level – was a recurring problem). If the non-communist left could hold to the course it had set itself with the PCF, even though the ‘alliance’ was often more like cats in a bag than brothers in arms, then the left might gradually build a durable and electable Fifth republican electoral alliance. Most of those involved still thought in terms of party alliances to create working majorities in the National Assembly and the town halls. This was seen as the traditional motor of political activity. In local elections and by-elections at this time, the Gaullists were still doing well, implanting themselves in local politics. In by-elections in October 1969 five ministers and the former Prime Minister stood to regain their seats (having stood down to become ministers). Five were re-elected, but the former Prime Minister, Maurice Couve de Murville was beaten by the left wing PSU leader, Michel Rocard. All elections, all political


activity, was now significantly personalized, and with significant consequences, many of them unforeseen. For many on the left, and especially the PCF, the issue was one of creating a solid left alliance that neither party could renege on; there remained permanent mutual mistrust which was cloaked in leftist rally discourse. For the PCF, a Common Programme of Government was essential to keep the non-communist left in a solid alliance, signed on the dotted line by all parties to it, but which would hold the socialists to radical reform when in government. The role of the Common Programme would become crucial later on but its effects would be fundamentally different from those envisaged by the PCF in the early 1970s. Georges Marchais took over from the ailing Waldeck Rochet (initially as Assistant general secretary) in 1970 at the party’s 19th congress (for the PCF too the 1970s would become a decade of significant and dramatic party conferences). Marchais’ role was to keep the socialists ‘on side’, create talks, agreements, a radicalization of its and the PS’ discourse (it published a document setting out its ‘mission’ Changer de cap in October 1971, as a prelude to the Common Programme), and the drawing up of a Common Programme to be signed when agreed (it was, in 1972). What the new socialist party had to do in response was very odd: it needed to maintain and deepen the alliance, while effecting its own ‘reunification’, bring in enough new (or bring back enough old) blood that would distinguish it from the tired SFIO, while not bringing in too much that it would heed the siren calls of centrism. More importantly, and this was a much more complex affair, it needed to do all this while creating a national leadership style that could rival Gaullism and its allies, while developing a language and image that would enable it to embrace the new media-dominated politics of a presidential regime. The elements for success, therefore, were significantly missing. The first was appropriate leadership. Savary was a respected figure but not even as well known as Defferre, who himself had not been able to lift the party above 5 per cent at the presidential elections. It was clear therefore to a lot of people that in spite of the break up of the FGDS, Mitterrand – who had forced the colossus de Gaulle into a run-off in 1965 – had to be brought into the party. In what capacity was not clear. The second issue was that of language. What ideology, what discourse could ‘lift’ the party to another level without it becoming an ineffective cacophony.22 The result was a discursive interweaving of great complexity, and would involve the old leftist language of the Popular Front which would service the PCF-PS alliance and a marriage


of Mitterrandism (see below) with the deuxième gauche and 1968. The result would be a near millenarian leftist rhetoric that would revive both the left’s and the Fifth Republic’s mythologies, and, of crucial importance to personality politics and crucially misunderstood by so many in the party, would strengthen enormously the fundamental discursive ambivalence of leadership politics within the Fifth Republic. We shall return to this question of language in the next chapter. It is from 1971, and again from 1974 that the interweaving begins in all its complexity, as Mitterrand himself becomes its main exponent (ironic in that the deuxième gauche and 1968 discourses were anti-Mitterrand). At the rhetorical level, the new discourse would let the genie of ’68 back out of the bottle that de Gaulle had so effectively diverted to parliamentary purpose in June 1968, and put it to the parliamentary – and especially presidential – purpose of the left, enabling the left to depict itself (and speak) as a vast personalist rally that went way beyond the confines of formal democratic politics. There were two issues here, two tasks, both concerning Mitterrand. To put it bluntly he had to first become a socialist before becoming a leader, for Mitterrand’s successes to date – 1965–68 – had been built upon the fact that he was neither a socialist nor had a party. Becoming a socialist was seen as the minimum necessary. It would have enormous impact, defeating Giscardianism and Gaullism, transforming socialism, ultimately contributing to the fatal weakening of communism (and arguably later on socialism too), and further influencing the discursive parameters and leadership style of the regime itself. His ‘conversion’ to socialism was transformed over time to its conversion to him, a reversal that would have major consequences. But first he had to be ‘baptized’, and this he effected symbolically in a kind of Damascene conversion that was published in book form in 1969. Ma part de verité, through the development of a Marxian-type economic analysis and a human rights/république sociale discourse, enabled Mitterrand to position himself within, to insert his persona into, the overall developing discursive matrix of the left, as a socialist. His championing since almost the beginning of the Fifth Republic of an alliance with the PCF meant that such a discursive adaptation was seen as going with the grain of the PCF-PS alliance. The second task was to bring him into the party. This was done in part as just one moment of the process of reunification of the ‘new’ PS and all its lost children. But it was also part of a plot. We should note in passing that this perpetual interplay of the party political, the ideological and discursive, and the institutional, means that in the Fifth


Republic, ‘plots’ are a major part of the political process, on the left as on the right. We said earlier that Mitterrand had no party. And many figures had simply joined the new PS as individuals. He did have his own CIR which, by a stretch of the imagination, could be seen as a ‘current’ of left wing opinion, and a welcome addition to the growing rally of a ‘reunited’ French Socialism. Mitterrand’s CIR joined at the Epinaysur-Seine PS conference of 1971. His group was given a 15 per cent share of the factions that would elect the Directing Committee and then the leadership. The other significant players at this moment were the CERES group (with 8.5 per cent) which, because of its intellectual input, radical discourse and well organized leadership (it too would later become a strong personalized faction around Jean-Pierre Chevènement) had been a recruiting sergeant for the socialists in the 1960s. Jean Poperen’s group, which had joined the party with Savary’s group in 1969, had 12 per cent. The other two significant players – and the leaders of ‘the plot’ inside the party – were two leaders thirsting for reform of the SFIO: Gaston Defferre of the Bouches-du-Rhône federation, and the young would-be modernizing social democrat, Pierre Mauroy, leader of the Nord federation. Between them they held 30 per cent. Mollet and Savary held 34 per cent. Socialism was ‘on the move’, so the conference speeches reflected the new dynamic socialism, and Mitterrand’s ‘return’ was hailed by all. His resounding speech was almost revolutionary in its register and tone. When the vote for the Directing Committee and leadership came, Mitterrand’s group plus Defferre’s, plus Mauroy’s, and CERES wrested the leadership from Savary to Mitterrand.23 Mitterrand’s first leadership speech was ‘revolutionary’ in its tone and its reaffirmation of the Union of the Left (a more sober appraisal might be that it was off the wall, but it served its Machiavellian purpose).24 All this became known as the ‘Epinay line’, a line, outlined by Mitterrand, stressing the Union of the left, and therefore the deep desire of the vast majority of PS activists. The Epinay line, however, was really not fundamentally about the Union of the left at all, but about the embracing of a form of exalted leadership, a belief that would express itself as a kind of ‘rally’ around Mitterrand’s presidential-style leadership. In the aftermath of Mitterrand’s taking the leadership of the PS, therefore, four related factors dominated: the factional politics of the PS, the left alliance, the anchoring of discourse to the left (and introducing into it ‘new’ discourse – personalism and deuxième gauche), and


the development of Mitterrand’s leadership image, particularly in terms of the presidential elections scheduled for 1976. In March 1972, the PS put out its own version, as it were, of the PCF’s Changer de cap called Changer la vie, prefaced by Mitterrand. On 26 June 1972, the PCF and PS jointly signed the Common Programme which would act in part as a manifesto and legislative programme for the 1973 elections, in part as a symbolic text committing the united left to a ‘break’ with capitalism.25 In 1972, the Radicals split (once again), this time along the major legislative fault line of the Fifth Republic, with the Left Radicals (MRG), led by Robert Fabre, joining the PCF-PS alliance, thus adding to Mitterrand’s ‘rally’, and mirroring almost the ‘three pillars’ approach (the UDR, the RI and the MRP) of Pompidou’s Gaullists. If the unexpected could be kept at bay, the new left would be ready for the presidential elections of 1976. It, the unexpected, of course, could not.

5 1974–81: The Giscard Years

The 1974 elections In the months preceding Pompidou’s death the impending economic crisis began to take hold within what can be described as growing national pessimism.1 Pompidou’s popularity began to fall; the threetimes reshuffled Messmer government was unpopular and, like with so many polls about governments from this time onwards, seen as drifting, having no grip on affairs etc.2 The gloom was deepened by the growing sense that Pompidou was dying; and on television – often at high profile international meetings he looked extremely sick. As with de Gaulle, Pompidou’s death on 2 April 1974 was received as a shock. Public reaction to the loss of both de Gaulle and Pompidou are illustrations that the Head of State and the public enjoyed an emotional relationship that went beyond the political. Poher as Senate President once again took over as interim President, adding decorum to the situation. The period of national mourning added to the ‘majesty’ of the republic. In major contrast to this, the (here, dysfunctional) role of persona and the individual immediately came into play within the right. The confusion ensued for several days, as there was no ‘procedure’, no convention as to what to do. Into the procedural vacuum several individuals stepped and acted, some to their advantage, and altered the direction of the republic. The most likely inheritor of Gaullism, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, declared his candidacy 48 hours after Pompidou’s death. He did this to forestall rivals, but it damaged his image considerably, making him appear disrespectful in this period of mourning. Several others then put forward their own candidacies, making themselves seem like circling vultures. The Prime Minister, Pierre Messmer 113


suggested himself as a compromise, unifying candidate (and therefore made Chaban seem further divisive). Chaban rejected Messmer’s offer. Edgar Faure dipped his toe in the water. Giscard d’Estaing – his entourage working concertedly behind the scenes – waited until 8 April to declare his candidacy, making him seem respectful and, ironically given that he led only a small party, as the potential rassembleur, the rally-style figure of the right and centre right. On 15 April Jacques Chirac, a relatively minor figure in the Gaullist party, made his ‘Appel des 43’, a coded public call to support Giscard. Some of Chirac’s ‘43’ Gaullist MPs and suppléants, did not really know what they were putting their names to, but it appeared as a small but significant rebellion against Chaban. Behind the scenes, Pompidou’s former advisors, Marie-France Garaud and Pierre Juillet, plotted tirelessly against Chaban (regarding him as far too left wing), guiding and influencing Jacques Chirac (for several years to come). Chaban never recovered. Over and above this, his television and media appearances were unexpectedly dismal (Giscard’s, brilliant – giving him this time the Kennedy, Trudeau-style image). Giscard did perhaps reflect the right at this moment better than Chaban. Rally, trans-class Gaullism had mutated decisively to conservatism under Pompidou (although as a political and discursive resource it would remain). Giscard had worked for a decade with Gaullist governments, and as Finance minister was the architect of France’s 1960s economic prosperity. He was seen as more ‘sound’, economically and financially, than Chaban, yet also reflected youth, modernization, and (some of) the aspirations of changing, post1968 France. Giscard also seemed to be able to effect the reconciliation of the non-Gaullist and Gaullist right and centre: Jean Lecanuet (leading France’s Christian democrats) and Jean-Jacques ServanSchreiber (for the Radicals) moved decisively into Giscard’s orbit during the campaign. Giscard’s first round vote would be double Chaban’s. On the left there was no confusion at all. Mitterrand had taken control of the non-communist left, and symbolically – though he had constantly to be extremely wary of the symbolism – of all of the left. The PCF endorsed his candidacy. Even (most of) the ‘far’ left – the PSU led by Michel Rocard – came out in support of Mitterrand, with Rocard working for him during the campaign. The left was united behind one representative. It is worth stressing however that the left was not quite ready for this campaign coming two years ahead of schedule. All of the candidates distanced themselves from their party support,3 appearing, as in 1965, as ‘free’ agents, developing ‘their own’ ideas, presenting

1974–81: The Giscard Years 115

themselves as ‘characters’ and rounded personalities in their campaign publicity. It is politically consequential that this personal image aspect became dominant, with Giscard minimizing the right wing image of his party, and Mitterrand his association with the Communists, without losing their support. Related to this personal aspect were the opinion polls, for the first time becoming a forceful (and arguably undemocratic) player in the campaign. Giscard’s lead over Chaban was nourished by the polls themselves; ‘nationally’ – even though the leader of a small party – he was portrayed as carrying a potential ‘majority’. The first round results coming after a hard fought, confusing, and nationally riveting campaign, were startling. Chaban’s vote came in at barely 16 per cent. Giscard’s was more than double this at 33 per cent. And Mitterrand’s was 43 per cent – only 2 per cent short of his second round result in 1965, and only 7 per cent short of a majority. The opportunity for the left to win the presidency of the Republic had suddenly materialized. Mitterrand only needed the small ultra-left candidates and some left wing Gaullist support to win. The tally however of the smaller parties, and Chaban, did seem to give Giscard a potentially clear win of perhaps 52 per cent or so. The second round of the campaign therefore became a kind of (personalized) titanic struggle between a changing right and a changing left each trying to gain the centre ground through the depiction of their candidate’s image, character and discourse. The new, and immediately normative, TV debate (10 May) between the two rounds4 therefore became a decisive moment of the campaign, with the two candidates involved in a kind of point-scoring intelligence contest. Giscard arguably came out best, projecting himself (and therefore the right) as compassionate. In a memorable phrase he said Mitterrand and the left did not have ‘le monopole du coeur’. Mitterrand himself certainly thought the TV debate was decisive in Giscard’s favour. It is worth speculating whether the age difference played a role: if Giscard had been ten years older than Mitterrand rather than ten years younger, the image each created might have had different consequences. In contrast to de Gaulle, both youthfulness and paternal image were now leadership resources for presidential image. The 1965 election – and more and more, television – had promoted ‘youth’ as an attractive political resource. Here Giscard’s youth (he was 48, Mitterrand 57), seemed to give him an advantage. Giscard went on to win in round two by a whisker – 50.07 per cent, a less than 350,000 vote lead.5 And the turnout was a huge 87+ per cent. Giscard had won – and the left had almost won. This


even division of France into two would inform the politics of the next seven years, but we can see here how the presidential election itself was not just a reflection of the political forces but a central moment of political realignment, political change, and political participation. The presidential election had become the major moment of the life of the Fifth Republic. On the question of the personalizing of the presidential election, and its relation to the polity, we can make one final remark. From 1974 onwards, political parties and actors began to realize the importance and dynamics of the presidential elections as moments which witnessed significant political change. Their own personalization and the personalization of the political parties, groups and potential constituencies they represented offered (sometimes dramatic) political opportunities. In 1974, for example, Jean-Marie Le Pen stood. He gained only 200,000 votes, but began his, first, federation and then personalization of the extreme right, which was to influence French politics for the next 30 years. 1974 also saw the first ecologist candidate, René Dumont, and the beginnings of a national (and significant regional) growth of Green politics, organized in part – and this sometimes to its disadvantage – around personality. Finally, Arlette Laguiller stood for the Trotskyist Lutte Ouvrière, and began a major personalization (and feminine presence) of far-left politics that with her, ‘Arlette’, and significant others (Krivine, and later Besançenot), would weigh upon far-left politics for 30 years, sometimes almost as significantly as Le Pen did upon the right. Slowing down the ‘Marseillaise’ then speeding it up again As regards Giscard’s becoming President in 1974, let us make five preliminary points. First, Giscard shifted the presidential paradigm one further step, from de Gaulle, to a Gaullist (Pompidou), from a Gaullist to a member of the non-UDR right (Giscard). In both presidential and party political terms, therefore, new sets of opportunities presented themselves as regards domestic and foreign policy initiatives, presidential style, and political alliances and initiatives. What seemed to be happening, was that, without de Gaulle, Gaullism itself was subsiding, and its space was being filled by liberal and liberal-minded modern conservatism. This was Giscard’s view, and that of a great many other people. Second, momentarily, and potentially for the longer term, Giscard had become the leader of the whole right. Significant changes within Gaullism and between Gaullism and ‘Giscardianism’ were anticipated.


Giscard had won by a small margin. This was however a major victory given the revival of the left, and the fact that he was not himself a Gaullist baron. Giscard had won thanks to both Gaullist and centrist support.6 Third, because of the nature of the competition and the nature of French politics itself now, the ‘personal’ was of inordinate significance both ‘on’ and ‘off’ the stage. The ‘rightful heir’, Chaban, had been beaten through a combination of his own personal miscalculations and the highly personalized palace conspiracy against him led by Chirac. The two consequences of this would be that ‘treachery’ would become part of the grammar of this type of politics, bringing decisively into the Fifth Republic artful manoeuvre, personal betrayals and small but concerted conspiracies that would lend a Roman or Florentine flavour to the republic. The second consequence was that Chirac’s ‘reward’ – Giscard made him Prime Minister – propelled him forward, so that, very soon in fact, the centre of political competition in the republic would shift and be between not only liberalism and socialism, but between Giscard and Chirac, and would follow conflictual pathdependent lines that would affect the politics certainly of the next seven years, and arguably of the next 20. Fourth, Giscard’s ‘style’ would be formative, but also problematic. He was seen as a modernizer and more ‘in tune’ with 1970s France than either Pompidou or de Gaulle had been with the 1960s and 70s. Nevertheless, he also had about him, with his name and family pretentions, and now the presidency itself, something unrepublican and monarchical about his persona and style. What is significant is that this phenomenon, which would be simply the subject matter of glossy magazines in other countries (and was in France in magazines like Paris Match), in the French Fifth republican context, this mildly paradoxical issue of mixed style (the modern democratic v. the archaic monarchical) would profoundly influence Giscard’s political decisions and initiatives, and contribute in a dramatic way to the fortunes of the septennate. Finally, Giscard’s election brought the Fifth Republic into its own. Giscard’s undertaking against Chaban in 1974, and his success, his political trajectory and support base, demonstrated for the first time that there were ‘pretenders’ (not ‘dauphins’) and that political trajectory, support, use of and relationship to the media, strategy, and style, and the ability to respond to the unexpected, would now be as crucial as they were becoming widespread. At the beginning of his septennate, Giscard had the rousing and tuneful national anthem, the Marseillaise,7 officially slowed down. This


was an unpopular decision and was later reversed. Slowing down the Marseillaise was analogous to moving from ‘rally’ politics: rousing, unstable, emotional, dynamic, to ordinary, modern politics: reflective, procedural, calm, stately. In a paradoxical way, the young technocratic new President, had a strong streak of monarchism in him, and the office he now held allowed him, almost propelled him, down this road. His new national anthem reflected this. Rather than sounding un-revolutionary, ‘European’, and rational as intended, it sounded more like a death march or slow processional coronation march. And we should not underestimate the political significance of the confusion of conscious intention and effect, for what Giscard had unwittingly done was more offensive than abusing of the constitution; he had taken the nation’s hymn and turned it to personal purpose. This attempt to ‘read’ the new spirit of the times was to miscalculate the emotional content of collective culture. And this contradiction in Giscardianism between the ‘modern’ and the ‘monarchical’ would manifest itself again and again. Giscard himself exhibited throughout his septennate (and beyond – he always comported himself from 1981 onwards like a deposed King awaiting his return to the throne) the duality of the modern democratic and the old fashioned autocratic. This is where the (perpetual) depiction of Giscard as an Orleanist is misplaced.8 This, the received view, misses the duality of Giscardianism (and perhaps that of French politics also). His was not a modernizing monarchy, but a lived contradiction between modernity and archaism. Giscardianism would have itself modern – as Finance minister (i.e. a post concerned above all with the modern) he took the Metro to work (allegedly), could play the accordion (a ‘popular’ musical instrument), had a young ‘modern’ family, and so on, and as President put forward the image of this technocratic happy youngish family man taking over the management of France. His was the first presidential picture in an ordinary lounge suit (rather than tails). Even the blue of the tricolor was lightened to appear less dramatic. He changed the site and overt military character of the 14 July celebrations in order to modernize and de-dramatize them. And in policy terms as we shall see, his reforms reflected this. Yet in fact, Giscard’s personality9 was royalist. In many of his private exchanges he was arrogant and disdainful, and rather secretive – in the first months of his presidency people often had no idea where he was. In his attitude to questions of protocol he was utterly conservative (like de Gaulle, in fact). Many of his close friends (and more shadowy ones) were from a right wing that was extremely reactionary, and although with all the modern glamour of the Paris


Match photo shoot, much of the style he brought back into the political culture was far from republican. Nothing encapsulates this mismatch more than his ‘family visits’; intended as a method of ‘popularizing’ Giscard, they had the opposite effect. Marie-Antoinette would have been more at ease. From January 1975, the President undertook highly publicized visits to dine with ‘ordinary’ French people. These frankly excruciating exchanges illustrate the complexity of political authority in the Fifth Republic: how to reconcile, even express, the interrelationships between presidential authority and its claims to popular legitimacy. This problem of the relationship between executive authority and its legitimation has informed all Fifth Republic politics. One of the things that stands out regarding the (plebiscitary) nature of the presidency is that no referendum took place under Giscard’s ‘reign’. To note this, beyond discussions of whether de Gaulle’s referendums were either constitutional or even democratic, is to see how the referendum served a specific purpose for de Gaulle, which related to a near-intimate conferring of authority by the people. Giscard’s monarchical style came to haunt his presidency towards its close, as the contradiction between a ‘republican’ and a monarchical style became so contested as to make him appear too arrogant and too aloof. The Fifth Republic was now complex beyond even the understanding of its protagonists. Irrespective of Giscard’s own regal style, personality even, his political strategy was to domesticate (and appropriate the legacy of) rally style Gaullism. Pompidou had already begun to do this. Giscard thought he was continuing an irreversible trend. The Giscard ‘plan’ was to lead a new, modern conservatism divested of its rally politics, replacing it with a quiet monarchical style, and weaken the left’s opposition by adopting some of its demands (social reforms now overdue in a post’68 modern democracy – we shall analyse these below), and establish the conditions for an (at least) 14 year presidency, allow the development of a pro-European, centre left opposition, and watch the shrivelling and disappearance of the rally right and the archaic communist left. We shall look in more detail at this strategy as reflecting of an ideology when we look below at Giscard’s own political writings of the time, themselves designed to call into existence this virtual France. The fact that Giscard failed to do it was not in itself a misreading of France and French political culture. In many ways France was and is exactly as Giscard portrayed it: pro-European, modern, democratic, liberal, consumerist, essentially ‘centrist’ in outlook and so on, but the major misreading of his own republic was first, his failure to see that national


responses to his style would be extremely complex; and second, his ignoring of the rally alternative, the myths it draws upon, and the plebiscitary traces within this Republic, particularly when mobilized by personal leaders depicting their political parties as ‘movements’ and as a rally of ideas (rassemblement d’ idées). Bearing these points in mind, let us look at three areas in detail: the legislation and the government activity of the post-1974 period; the creation of the RPR and UDF; and developments on the left. We shall then look at the 1978–81 period. Giscard and his presidency The two most noteworthy immediate features of Giscard’s election were his ‘presence’ (even though at times it was like the ‘absent presence’ of a Monarch), and his championing of a raft of popular social reforms that were in ‘l’air du temps’. Thus he would be the personal advocate of a ‘new’ France that would bring it into line with the modernizing changes being adopted across the western world. The ‘presence’ of Giscard – his deliberate embodiment and presidentialization of his septennate – would remain; the reforming zeal would lessen in the second part of his presidency in the face of major economic problems and political challenges. In the opening months of his presidency, the accentuated presence of his own personality dominated the political scene to the point where he, the successor to the Gaullist and Pompidolian regime – making no reference to his predecessors in his speeches – rapidly became suspect in the eyes of his main political support, the Gaullists. The modernizing President’s reforms dominated the political agenda for the first two years. The voting age was reduced to 18. The heavily politically controlled broadcasting authority, the ORTF, was transformed into a series of smaller organizations, prior to their being given greater freedom, and – opposed at the time by the left – possible privatization. The parliamentary opposition – in both the National Assembly and the Senate (60 deputies or senators) – were given the right to ask the Constitutional Council to advise on the constitutionality of laws. Before, only the President, Prime Minister and Presidents of the two houses could do this. Secret governmental telephone tapping was to be stopped. Political censorship in the cinema was ended. The working week was reduced to 50 hours. For two million workers, the retirement age was reduced to 60. The laws for adoption were reformed. Legislation outlawing discrimination against the disabled was introduced. A lot of the ‘gigantism’ characterizing modern building pro-


grammes was stopped. ‘Ecology’ was introduced into the political agenda – here initially the protection of green spaces. Reforms for political decentralization were introduced, and in the educational system measures to promote equality of educational opportunity were introduced. There were also liberal reforms introduced into the judicial, police, and prison systems. The most headline grabbing reforms, however, those that became synonymous with the first years of Giscard’s presidency, were the drive towards women’s rights (a junior ministry of ‘The Feminine Condition’ was created), and the liberalization of divorce laws, abortion laws and contraception (the latter refundable from the health service and available to minors without parental consent).10 Some of these initiatives gave rise to significant new legislation. Some were more akin to social ideas – on ecology for example – being introduced into the political realm. This situated Giscard’s image as both a bold and careful reformer. We can make two points here, one social, one political. These reforms were ‘in the air’ (largely created in the aftermath of the cultural revolution of 1968). The Mouvement de libération des femmes, and a sister organization campaigning for abortion and contraception reform, and the activities of such (inter)national figures as Simone de Beauvoir, and campaigning ‘family planning’ organizations, meant Giscard was as if responding to generally accepted social demand. (There were estimated to be up to a million illegal abortions per year with all the health risks associated with this). A general demand for ‘individualism’ and private rights (e.g. introducing divorce by consent rather than ‘fault’) also meant that Giscard was seen as a facilitator of the demands of modern life. In the context of a highly personalized regime, the political or politicocultural aspect of these ‘social’ issues was that, paradoxically, the President himself was seen as more monarchical (a good king), while, again paradoxically, shifting from his right wing support base across to the centre and centre left. Many of these reforms, particularly the most prominent like the abortion legislation, were spectacularly opposed by some of his own supporters – a lot of them only passed into law thanks to the parliamentary opposition. Significantly, the Health minister, Simone Veil, one of Giscard’s newly ‘feminized’ government,11 was seen on television, distressed and crying publicly in the National Assembly at the onslaughts of bullying by speakers opposed to her measures. Much of the opposition to Giscard’s reforms came from the Gaullists and indicated that his ‘presidential majority’ was problematic and would not


necessarily ‘follow him’ on his reformist journey; and that the significant opposition to his reforms – from the Church and many Catholics for example – was also a social and cultural fact, and was reflected in the political arena. France was not as thoroughly modern as many would have it. This is not to say that such traditionalism was only on the political right, but it was in the culture, a political resource, and a political problem.12 The most notable feature of Giscard’s presidency was his political persona. He wanted to ‘appease’ political conflicts and de-dramatize politics, bringing to it a non-conflictual rhythm (hence his not using referendums, not dissolving Parliament, and his reluctance to change his ministerial team). He was, nevertheless, an extremely interventionist President himself acting upon events in a way that contradicted his desire to allow events to take their undramatic course. Giscard intervened constantly in government, issuing instructions, writing (public) letters to his Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac, specifying what he wanted achieved; and ‘governed’ moreover through the media with speeches, press conferences, television broadcasts and announcements. Retrospectively, his two presidential predecessors actually appeared surprisingly hands-off vis-à-vis their Prime Ministers and governments. Giscard’s monarchical, presidential presence, moreover, meant that he would enjoy the successes but also have personally ascribed to him the failures of his septennate. And in many ways, economically and financially, 1974 to 1981 was one of the most difficult periods the Fifth Republic had known, before or since, certainly up until 2008. By the end of 1973 the price of oil had quadrupled, contributing to if not actually being the cause of the end of 30 years of economic expansion. As Giscard came to power, a dramatic economic slowdown was taking place. Inflation was running at 15 per cent, and in the course of 1974 and 1975, unemployment, at around 500,000 began to climb very fast.13 And within the new consumer society, where growth had been predominantly domestic, inflation could only be tackled by a reduction in consumption which in turn fuelled unemployment, this latter putting pressure upon state finances and the budget. We shall look at the political crisis of Chirac’s resignation in August 1976, and his replacement by the economist, Raymond Barre, but can say here that by the time and from the moment Barre took over, the dominant, at times the only, policy issue was the economy itself, the reforms of the first two years eclipsed by the aftermath of the oil crisis (to be followed by another in June 1979). In this context, the highly personalized political role of Giscard (and from 1976 his, ironically, would-be


impersonal and a-political new Prime Minister) would be identified with the single issue of the economy. Raymond Barre, ‘France’s best economist’, according to Giscard,14 was appointed Prime Minister on 25 August 1976. Within a month, the ‘Barre Plan’ was presented. The ‘Plan’ was designed to address the economy’s difficulties by attacking inflation, maintaining the strength of the currency and trade, and balancing the state budget. The measures meant pressure on prices, taxes and wages (prices would later be ‘liberated’ ending strict government control in place since 1945). The politics of ‘rigueur’ became almost the only site of discursive debate between the government and its opponents (both within and outside the presidential majority). One of Giscard’s advantages in this was his own, as well as Barre’s, perceived expertise in the area of finance and economics, and the assumed lack of it both on the left and at this time among Chirac’s Gaullists, seen in part between 1974 and 1976 (Chirac’s first premiership) as responsible for the economic situation. The economy was not the most propitious of presidential rhetorical resources. By the end of 1979, the price of oil had again doubled. By 1978, unemployment had reached one and a quarter million. In 1979, a further 150,000 people were added to this figure. By September 1979, Barre’s popularity rating in the polls had fallen to 26 per cent. Giscard’s response to the oil crisis was to dynamize further France’s civil nuclear policy, although this too was a contested policy. There were major successes in the aviation industry; and in December 1979 the Ariane rocket was successfully launched. Moreover, France’s unemployment, although severe (6 per cent), was lower at the end of the decade than the UK’s or West Germany’s. Politically, however, the further personalization of politics that informed the Giscard presidency would significantly inform Giscard’s becoming irrevocably associated with a period of economic recession. Gaullism and Giscardianism The years of Giscard’s presidency were characterized by a duality. On the one hand, France had returned to ‘normal’ politics. The right retained the presidency, but it had moved from Gaullism to a nonGaullist conservatism. Moreover, a generic presidential style was also emerging, although not without difficulty. There was still real difficulty on what precisely was the relationship in the presidency between the political and the ceremonial/ritual, and this had significant effects upon presidential comportment, and therefore potentially upon stability. In one sense, the model for behaviour which has been shared by all


Presidents was monarchical i.e. standing straight and not smiling. Where ceremonial comportment meets politics and its mediatization (not least that of ‘image’), it inflects the nature and direction of the republic. ‘Ceremony’ became much more imbued with significant political effects at both the beginning and the end of Giscard’s presidency. At the beginning, the rituals (the national anthem, the families) demonstrated how Giscard wanted the Fifth Republic to be, but threw into relief fundamental contradictions between the modern and the archaic and the relationship of presidential persona to each of these. At the end, the monarchical style undermined Giscard’s claim to represent the people and the republic, as we shall see. Giscard’s attitude to the presidency’s role within the polity, also continued a trend. A kind of monarchical brooking of no criticism is how we might put it. It was still the case that all government policy was presidential policy and vice versa. His sacking of Servan-Schreiber within two weeks of his being appointed was a first example of this.15 The major miscalculation that Giscard d’Estaing made, however, and that all the barons made too, was not to realize that part of the Fifth Republic’s nature was that it was, as it were, vulnerable to itself; the detonation of a personal rally was always a political resource, and because it always was, its occurrence was as unpredictable as it was likely. And it took place right inside the presidential majority. Brooking no criticism when there is a fronde of over half your parliamentary support – led by your rival for five years of your presidency – can make a monarch look rather foolish. When commentators argue, rightly, that the Giscard-Chirac quarrel was part personal and part political, they have a tendency to stress the first as real but not very significant and the second as essentially related to political cleavages. Our study has demonstrated that the importance of the ‘personal’ within the institutional in the Fifth Republic cannot be overstated. And the Giscard-Chirac antipathy is perhaps the best illustration of how the regime, however dysfunctional as a consequence, is fuelled and driven by such rivalries. Giscard appointed Chirac as his Prime Minister as a ‘reward’ for leading the ‘plot’ to ruin Chaban’s presidential aspirations and therefore facilitate Giscard’s. The gesture by Giscard was logical for two reasons: Chirac’s actions had demonstrated that the two were agreed on the broad essentials of the regime’s development; Gaullism should evolve away from the old heroic rally designed to unite the nation, into a modern centre right post-Pompidolian, conservative party, in tune with the times (significantly ‘feminized’ and a lot less ideological,


for example). The second reason was partly the opposite: that Giscard felt that compared to Chaban and other Gaullist barons, Chirac was personally an insignificant political force and was in no way considered the party’s potential leader. At this time the party had no real leader; as Gaullism evolved, the President himself might become its de facto leader. In fact, the insignificant Chirac would become its leader. To a certain extent, therefore, we can say that circumstances and Giscard himself through miscalculations created Jacques Chirac. Politically, Giscard would probably have kept Chirac as his Prime Minister for a long time as Gaullism evolved towards Giscard’s world view, a view that would modernize politics, bringing into the Giscardian orbit Christian democrats and Radicals (many of whom had been very hostile to Gaullism). Two personality traits of Giscard, given political prominence by the institutional configuration, would work against this quietest movement of party political reconfiguration: arrogance and impatience. Giscard’s personal interventions as we have noted above were constant and often perceived, particularly by the bulk of the Gaullists, as confrontational. Although Chirac was Prime Minister, few Gaullists were in significant government positions. Giscard made minimal reference to the Republic’s Gaullist past. On all important issues – foreign policy, economic policy, social policy – Chirac’s initiatives were non-existent. Everything was credited to and driven by Giscard or ‘his’ ministers like Simone Veil or indeed his right-hand man, Michel Poniatowski, the Interior minister, detested by almost all and scornful of the Gaullists. Gaullist restlessness led to a leadership crisis which saw Chirac – to everyone’s surprise – take the leadership of the party on 17 December 1974. Giscard welcomed this development, seeing it as one more sign that the republic was evolving in his direction, as it were, and that there would be no clash between the Gaullist leader and his Prime Minister as they were now the same person. This was a monumental personal miscalculation. Politically, Giscard’s monarchical style sat oddly with his overall desire to ‘décrisper’ (make more relaxed) French politics and French life. As we have seen, offering to the Assembly and Senate the right to refer legislation to the Constitutional Council was a ‘liberal’ development that was seen by some Gaullists as undermining of the Gaullist settlement which, for them, held the republic together. Giscard also took this relaxing of the republic to almost farcical levels: inviting Malian road sweepers (éboueurs) into the Elysée (they wondering why on earth they were there); and dining once a month as we have seen, ‘invited’ by ‘ordinary’ people into their homes. And others, less painful – being


seen out with his family, visiting prisons, and so on. The bizarre but forceful political effect of these initiatives was to make Giscard appear strangely social democratic in his outlook (anathema to the neoGaullists) and yet even more monarchical than ever. Between 1974 and 1976, Chirac’s relationship with Giscard deteriorated. Chirac, moreover, at this time was being ‘counselled’ (this feature strongly marked Chirac’s entire political career) by two experts in the dark arts, Pierre Juillet and Marie-France Garaud, who had been Pompidou’s advisors. Juillet and Garaud had come to regard Giscard, just as they had Chaban, as holding unacceptably liberal views. His reforms, and also the developing trend of left wing successes (Mitterrand’s vote in the presidential elections, left success in by-elections in 1974, the Cantonal elections scheduled for 1976, then the municipals in 1977, and the legislatives in 1978…) meant that, for them, Giscard was helping to hand the republic over to the right’s enemies. Chirac’s rhetoric and image would radicalize rightwards through the next decade. Giscard’s other policy initiatives, perfectly logical in themselves from a rightist perspective, if not a Gaullist one, confirmed such a view that Gaullism was being dismantled. On nuclear weapons, Giscard – trying to lessen international tension by taking the view that the Gaullist policy of all-out nuclear retaliation (tous azimuts) to (Soviet) attack was outdated (and dangerous), strengthened the Gaullists’ antipathy. For some, moreover, this made nuclear confrontation more rather than less likely, because the policy implied that France might use nuclear weapons in a range of situations rather than in one alone. It was also true that Giscard was seen by many, especially the Gaullists, as an Atlanticist, thus betraying the foundations of Gaullism. On 27 July 1976 Chirac offered his resignation by letter (Giscard delayed the resignation which took place officially on 24 August). No Prime Minister in the Fifth Republic had done this; they ‘served’ until the President saw fit to replace them. Thus began a symbolic re-enactment or revival of Gaullism’s rally politics around its new leader. In November, Chirac stood in a by-election to regain his parliamentary seat and won in the first round. His rhetoric radicalized into an RPF style, intoning the need to defend the state and the country, and envisioning a future revival of France’s fortunes through the struggle of volonté against fatalité, fundamental precepts of de Gaulle’s thought. It was as if Chirac and the Gaullists were outside the Republic (as if the Fifth were the Fourth), even though they were still inside the governing majority, its largest component, in fact. On 5 December


1976 at a ‘rally’ of 60,000 members, the party was transformed into the Rassemblement pour la république (RPR) with Chirac as its new President, thus dragging away from Giscard’s control (and authority) the biggest part of his majority, and reactivating those elements within Gaullism that Giscard had intended to domesticate. The situation became more dramatic when, the following month, in January 1977, Chirac declared himself a candidate for the (new) Mayorship of Paris. This had been Giscard’s innovation, to give Paris a new status, and bring control of the capital under Giscardian influence. The loyal Giscardian, Michel d’Ornano, was the candidate. In the months that followed, Chirac’s party demonstrated that as a campaigning political party, the RPR was peerless. The left’s own major gains in the municipal elections of March 1977 were overshadowed somewhat by Chirac’s triumph in Paris and the humiliation of the President. In one sense, the undermining of the President was an assault upon the Gaullist republic itself (ironically, by a Gaullist). In another sense, it was a clear demonstration of how the Fifth Republic truly functioned, an institutional configuration in which a whole range of unexpected leadership challenges could spring forward, a regime where alternative rallies around exalted leadership figures could form. Giscard had lost two crucial years of planning and action in the reconfiguration of a party system supportive of the President. His response was, from a Giscardian perspective, to counter the new Gaullist rally with something akin to a Giscardian rally. The first task was to provide a doctrinal and discursive base for this. In an innovative move for a sitting President, Giscard published a book, Démocratie française on 11 October 1976. It was the doctrinal opposite of the radicalizing bombastic neo-Gaullism of Chirac. Quietist, conciliatory and ‘modern’ in outlook, it was a kind of celebration of the middle classes (a category notoriously difficult to define, particularly in France). It argued that there was a new majority16 that transcended the old left-right divisions, and that a new type of consensual politics was possible. Giscard’s discursive creation of a new sociological majority was a direct challenge to neo-Gaullism’s divisiveness. In May 1977, Giscard’s Independent Republicans were transformed into a new political party, the Parti républicain (PR) to try and rival the Gaullists and provide a proper party base for the President. In February 1978, the PR and some of the other centrist parties (and individual members) coalesced into the Union pour la démocratie française (UDF), a confederation involving the CDS, the Radicals, and the Giscardian Clubs, Perspectives et réalités,17 but a confederation that aspired to becoming a


‘rally’ around the President (cf. the coincidence of the Union’s name with the title of Giscard’s book). Although the UDF was an attempt to do what Giscard wanted all along, the existence of the now virulent RPR meant that the ‘majority’ was now divided into two hostile and personally expressed camps. Luckily for Giscard, the same kinds of divisions were wrecking the unity of the left’s challenges to the presidential majority. One aspect of the rally politics detonated by Chirac was that the rally leader need not in an initial phase try to appeal beyond a restricted audience. The rally begins as a lone figure perhaps supported by a very small core of devotees. It then triggers parts of the political class (and/or parts of ‘opinion’), and then spreads outwards, ideally, to take power of a party, a faction, a segment of opinion, or the country. What Chirac’s undertaking shows is that hostility and unpopularity may be in inverse proportion to the support from within the rally, so that notoriety becomes a legitimate part of the rally strategy. This is a variation on the rally tactics of de Gaulle, or Mitterrand (Mitterrand too ‘lost’ centre ground initially in order to build up a more solid left, and de Gaulle was extremely unpopular at several moments during the Fourth Republic). It defines itself and becomes known by means of a negative reaction. And it was not only Giscard and his supporters, but significant parts of the Gaullists and of public opinion who now characterized Chiraquisme or Chiraquie as hard core, right wing, brash, unpleasant and against accord and consensus (although at various moments Chirac revived the notion of participation). It is possible therefore that in order to be an ultimately ‘successful’ rally, it must begin almost as a negation of a rally; and that this in certain circumstances or in certain moments, or within certain parts of the political class, is a resource in itself. The image of unpleasantness and its mutability can be seen in other examples, such as Le Pen’s leadership in the 1980s, moving into and then away from hard unpleasantness to a ‘kinder’ image in the 2000s. It recurs in Nicolas Sarkozy’s political trajectory in the mid-2000s. We shall come back to this, but this Wildean idea of it being better to be talked about than not becomes part of the topography. Sometimes the RPR became a kind of unrelenting machine, careering around, provoking unpopularity in order to later be reconciled with a wider public. From the mid-1970s onwards, Chirac stays around the 20 per cent mark in favourable national opinion, using this position to advantage whenever possible, e.g. in 1995 and spectacularly in 2002. In the 1970s the impression of shallowness, of an anti-intellectual and disrespectful anti-Giscard attitude, and even a


recklessness, seemed to constitute a necessary part of Chirac’s initial ‘strategy’ in order to hive off and strengthen as much of Gaullism as he could, and deny the inclusive pretentions of Giscardianism. Chirac’s status outside the RPR was in inverse proportion to his popularity inside. Chirac’s status was negatively affected, however, because, acting as a brash rabble-rouser, he broke from the ‘heroism’ of Gaullism, incurring the wrath of some historic Gaullists. And in the context of an alliance where the leader of the largest party contested the authority, and ultimately the office, of the actual President, the noisy rally politics that dominated the presidential coalition did it great damage. It took the form of a kind of constant brinkmanship on the part of the RPR within the coalition, often using the budget process, particularly for the 1980 budget, as well as occasions such as European elections, to demarcate itself as the obstreperous noisy partner in the coalition (the PCF was doing precisely the same thing at the same time on the left). It was also never truly clear what Chirac’s challenge, what his opposition to Giscard and Giscardianism, actually comprised. This too becomes a feature of this kind of politics: that it becomes believable because it is difficult to grasp, and therefore pushes perceptions and discourse out to wider questions of personality, visions of France, notions of preserving the patrimoine, of unmasking treachery, and so on; and despite the aggressive thrust of Chirac’s image vis-à-vis the President and the government, it is interesting that his speeches were reminiscent in both explicit and underlying themes of traditional Gaullism, even though ‘delivered’ by a new type of Gaullist, as if Chirac at the level of the grammar and vocabulary of Gaullism truly was the representative of the older Gaullist concerns – patrimoine, refus de la fatalité, volonté, the need to arrest the decline of the state and of France, and so on; and that this ‘true’ highly personalized leadership was in a functional relationship to outside unpopularity.18 One of the consequences of this undertaking was indeed the temporary but serious decline of the Gaullist party. It seemed to step over across to the right of the Giscardians, so that it occupied on the right the same position as did the PCF on the left, the former senior partner to a coalition, now perhaps becoming the junior one, radicalizing in tone in order to distinguish itself. On the ‘inside’ were the two more successful and more popular leaders, Giscard on the centre right and Mitterrand on the centre left. This raises the question of whether this going out into further orbit, a little like an echo of the traversée du désert19 actually was intended as a necessary part of its plan, namely,


the defeat of Giscardianism in the 1981 presidential elections; a necessary defeat in order to eventually win the presidency back for Gaullism (which would happen but not for another 14 years). The left The left in the 1970s is a classic example of the interaction of parties, opinion, the media, personalized leadership, and discourse. Mitterrand’s very narrow defeat in the 1974 presidential elections was a disappointment to him, and he thought that his chance for ultimate victory had gone. In fact, the Union of the left, the revival of the PS’s image and discourse, and the leadership of Mitterrand, saw a rally dynamic of vast proportions that carried the party through towards the 1981 elections on a tide of optimism. Mitterrand’s near victory in 1974 made him the undisputed leader of the left. The PS, even though built upon factions, now saw itself as a rally of opinion around his leadership. Wherever he went, Mitterrand was treated by the party itself and by members in a way that no socialist party leader had ever been treated, and as if he were already the President. The Mollet years (1946–69) were as if wiped from the party’s memory, and Mitterrand was treated as a kind of successor to, and almost incarnation of, the socialism of Jean Jaurès and Léon Blum (neither of whom, however, in their lifetimes received the kind of deference Mitterrand received). French socialism was also seen as part of a vast social democratic movement sweeping across Europe (and many joint meetings and shared imagery such as the modernistic ‘rose in the fist’ accentuated this). We said earlier that the history of the party became almost the history of its conferences, and although these were about power and policy (and still featured endless late night negotiations in smoke-filled rooms), their overall function shifted significantly into one of celebration, pageant almost and at times a near-devotional attitude to the leader. This rally style was accompanied by major inflections at the level of discourse and rhetoric. We have already seen that the PS’ rhetoric had become near-revolutionary in tone, much of this to both reassure and counter the PCF in its revolutionary professions of faith. Added to this, however, was the symbolic final reunification of all the left when the near-totality of the deuxième gauche20 joined the PS in 1974. This ‘return’ of (most of) the PSU and other deuxième gauche elements was celebrated at the Assises du Socialisme in 1974. It also saw the highly publicized entry into the PS of Michel Rocard of the PSU, and the injection into PS politics of a future personal rival to Mitterrand’s


leadership. The unification of the non-communist left opened up the rhetoric and symbolism of both the deuxième gauche and even of 1968, to Mitterrand (who privately hated both, seeing them as having ignored or rejected him in the mid-and late 1960s); later it would provide the dissidents in the party and Rocard in particular with a rhetoric that they would try to claim as their own, and propel Rocard forward as successor to Mitterrand. In practice, the existence of a range of factions, often vying for the same rhetorical register, as well as office and position in the party, led to significant factional fighting within the party, and long term personal enmities that would have major effects upon the politics of the Fifth Republic. The rhetoric rolled out in the form of books, pamphlets and declarations, even music.21 Party posters were eye-catching and ‘trendy’ (lots of rainbows and roses). And in a series of by-elections, the PS’ growing popularity was confirmed. Very soon, speculation began that the left would win the 1978 elections, and Mitterrand be nominated Giscard’s Prime Minister – which might lead to Giscard’s resignation and Mitterrand’s election to the presidency. Whatever, the outcome/s it seemed that the PS had at last hit upon a strategy that was creating the conditions for an unstoppable victory. It appeared that ‘le socialisme’ was ‘en marche’, was modern and international, and was beginning to use aspects of its rhetoric that conferred a de Gaulle like quality upon Mitterrand. He in turn responded to this by beginning to behave with the gravitas and majesty of a de Gaulle-like leader within his party, and with only slightly less presidential style outside it. Mitterrand had always been like de Gaulle, a complex character and an intellectual, but it is from this time that Mitterrand’s character is accentuated through the publication of his writings, and the depiction of him as a sage.22 The overall unity of the left was apparently holding firm. And at the level of meetings and joint actions and so on, the two parties gave the impression of a kind of Popular Front celebration.23 The rapprochement between the two parties seemed all the greater because the PCF was going through a phase called ‘Eurocommunism’ which aligned the PCF with other European parties, and implied a dissociation from the Soviet CPSU, and the assertion of autonomy (and pacifism) by media-friendly parties like the Italian PCI and the Spanish PCE to which the PCF likened itself (in truth, incongruously given that it remained one of the least liberal western Communist parties). The PCF abandoned the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ in January 1976.24 The party leader, Georges Marchais, declared this on television, and it was ratified at the PCF’s 22nd congress that year.


The Union of the left remained solid i.e. was perceived by the public as holding firm throughout the mid-1970s, and in the municipal elections of 1977, the left gained a majority of town halls that seemed to prefigure its taking power in the 1978 legislative elections. Of 221 towns of over 30,000, the left had won 155, up from 98, a huge increase. In opinion polls, eight out of ten people thought that the left would win the legislative elections of the following year. The PCF – to its longer term major disadvantage, perhaps even its undoing – did, however, in true Bolshevik tradition, operate two discourses, one supportive of union and the semi-magical, mythical unity of a (re)united left marching arm in arm to power and general happiness; the other, a continuous and critical series of attitudes and pronouncements upon the PS, implying that as always the PS was capable of treachery, and was really a bunch of middle class boys playing at socialism, exalting its leader in a right wing manner beyond what was acceptable to a leftist party. In many ways these criticisms were true, and the contrast of solid but rather dull and old-fashioned leaders and activists in the PCF, and the media-friendly, very Parisian, highly educated and articulate socialist figures, did, in fact, begin to make the PCF look like the guys in charge of the workers on the shop floor, and the PS like Champagne socialists.25 The media was beginning to enhance this effect, in spite of the PCF embracing many of the modernistic aspects of 1970s leftism. A lot of this poor impression was being maintained and enhanced by the rather boorish persona of its leader, Marchais. One of the reasons for the PCF’s schizophrenic discourse at this point was its early recognition – as early as a series of by-elections in the Autumn of 1974 – that the gathering rally around Mitterrand and the PS, to which the PCF had contributed by allowing him to become the symbolic leader of the left, was benefiting the PS but not the PCF. Ascertaining PCF membership figures has always been speculative, but the party claimed in the mid-1970s around 500,000 members (800,000 in 1947).26 This was an impressive membership. It was, however, as if unable to go beyond this, and was becoming second to the socialists, not in members (although PCF numbers were going down and PS numbers going up) but, more importantly, in seats and in votes. The PCF had always and with reason, according to the bald figures, seen itself as the senior partner (with around 20 per cent of the suffrage and much higher membership figures) to the socialists (with a percentage of the suffrage in the low to mid-teens). The presidential and rally aspects of Mitterrand’s leadership were altering the relationship, and it


is arguable that the PCF not only noticed this too late, but then went on to adopt the wrong strategy to counter it. As the Union of the left continued through the 1970s, the PCF became more and more critical of the PS. One illustration was the making public in 1975 of a ‘secret’ report that the PCF leader had apparently made as early as 1972 warning the party about the dangers of the PS.27 The real opportunity to reveal the (eternal) treachery of the socialists came however with the ‘updating’ of the Common Programme. In April 1977, in the aftermath of the municipal elections, the PCF wanted, knowing this would cause enormous difficulty within the PS (and even more so, the MRG), a ‘maximalist’ interpretation of the Common Programme, particularly its nationalization programme, to be endorsed by the PS and MRG. The talks on this ‘actualisation’ (updating) of the programme broke down in September 1977.28 The ultimate effect was the near-sabotaging of the Union of the left, and the dissipation of its lyrical rally quality. This was intended to burst Mitterrand’s bubble and either prevent the left from coming to power in 1978, or if it did, without the triumphalism that seemed to be profiting the PS. From almost certain victory assumed in 1977, the left did not win the 1978 elections. This was in large part because the PCF was undermining Mitterrand even more effectively than Chirac was undermining Giscard. On 27 January 1978, Giscard made a long and very widely reported speech at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs29 which essentially stated two things: that he would not step down as President if the left won, and that he would (have no choice but to) allow the application of the left’s dramatic nationalization programme. Three things flowed from Giscard’s declaration: it made the left’s success less likely by stressing its likelihood and the feared constitutional deadlock it presaged; it enhanced Giscard’s status by stressing his own presidential nature (ironically by suggesting his future presidential powerlessness) – thereby reducing Chirac’s, particularly as he was partly responsible for the right’s disunity; and it conjured up the image of an almost Soviet style – economically catastrophic and politically repressive – take over of power by the left (with Giscard as if withdrawn to Rambouillet in a kind of gaullien silence). In March 1978, the right was re-elected. In round one, the left had gained a higher percentage of the vote than the right, but in round two the right’s vote was mobilized to a maximum, and suspicion of the PCF meant a weaker vote for the PCF where its candidates were in the runoff. In round one, the PS (and MRG) came out as the largest single


party with nearly 25 per cent, the UDF won nearly 22 per cent, the RPR nearly 23 per cent and the PCF nearly 21 per cent.30 In the aftermath of the elections, the PS lost its momentum. Its strategy since 1971 was now seriously compromised – there arguably was no Union of the left. The ‘ligne d’Epinay’ had also meant allegiance to François Mitterrand, but even he seemed, in large part, the victim of the spoil tactics of the PS’ PCF allies. It was at this point that the personalism that surrounded Michel Rocard was given political space, and used strategically against Mitterrand to try and take the leadership. A first point to note is that Rocard was the ‘chou chou’, the darling, of the opinion polls, like Poher in 1969, like Balladur in 1994, and Royal in 2006, a significant political resource in a presidential system – and a much more powerful one than in a non-presidential system. Powerful as we shall see, but not sufficient, as Mitterrand was able to resort to a very old Mollet-style tactic. Rocard had been a ‘personality’ since the Grenoble Colloquium in 1966. By 1974, when he joined the PS he was seen as the highly personalized representative of the deuxième gauche and the ‘spirit’ of 68. In the aftermath of the 1978 election defeat (he was still only 47), he made a widely commented mea culpa on behalf of the party (which enhanced his image and tarnished Mitterrand’s) and the speech seemed spontaneous and sincere (the discovery later that he had rehearsed the speech, interestingly, damaged his reputation – rehearsed spontaneity is seen as personal deceit). At the 1979 Metz party conference he tried with the help of Pierre Mauroy to take the leadership, or at least become the leadership ‘recours’, a sort of leaderin-waiting. Mitterrand had enjoyed a kind of fused, rally style crossfactional support until this point, such was the thrust of the ‘rally’ behind him. Only CERES, the ‘purist’ left wing of the party had remained in internal opposition. Mitterrand maintained his leadership by going into an alliance with CERES (as he had in 1971 to take the party leadership) and forcing Rocard (and Mauroy) into the minority. Mauroy (who had also helped him take the leadership in 1971), Mitterrand would forgive by making him his first Prime Minister. Rocard – although he too would become Mitterrand’s Prime Minister – he would never forgive.

1978–81 After four years of major political activity, Giscard, the true winner of the 1978 election, could look forward to three years of relative calm (no elections, for example, except for European elections in 1979), and


according to most observers up until 1981 itself, probable re-election. The wave carrying Mitterrand and conferring a greater status upon him than upon Giscard had broken too early. To a great extent, like de Gaulle after 1962, Giscard applied himself in particular to a role on the international stage, leaving domestic affairs to a certain extent, in appearance at least, to his Prime Minister. Giscard was highly active in European politics, Africa and the Middle East, and relations with the Soviet Union. Raymond Barre was reappointed Prime Minister after the election, and the new government’s main effort was to address the still formidable economic problems that France faced: unemployment and inflation remained the major issues. Giscard’s emphasis upon his presidential status as an international player reflected his continuing belief that he could ‘preside’ a stable polity – modern, democratic and undramatic – with him at its head. He offered meetings with the leaders of opposition parties, and televised ‘right of reply’ to governmental and presidential announcements. Although these and other reforms were welcomed, there remained something ‘unreal’ about Giscard’s conception of the Fifth Republic. In 1978, the UDF still held only 122 seats to the RPR’s 155. Moreover, the RPR intensified its radicalized discourse, its comportment, and the comportment of its leader – particularly as regards the President – to the point where, short of joining the opposition, the RPR was perceived as an anti-government and anti-President party, with Chirac treated now within his own party as an alternative President, waiting for power and office to be returned to Gaullism. This meant a certain retrenchment of the party and a fall in its popularity that created for Chirac, as we have seen, a pugnacious, brawling image more associated with hard right politicians. This was a polity very different from the one Giscard was portraying. In the run up to the European elections (where political alliances were not necessary because of the voting system), Chirac’s depiction of his own President came close to accusations of treason, and that of himself and his party as a near-crusade to save France from ruin and treachery.31 This was a discourse that would be taken up by the hard right over the following decade. For now it was that of the senior partner in the presidential coalition32 and the capital city’s mayor. Nothing like the quietist, benevolent, monarchical republic Giscard was trying to depict. This tension continued into June 1979 with the (first) European elections taking on the quality and consequences (in France as


elsewhere) of a considerable national political event. The PCF’s and the RPR’s virulent nationalism meant that they came in third (PCF 20.6 per cent) and fourth place (RPR 18 per cent); of the ‘pro-European’ parties, the PS gained nearly 24 per cent, and the UDF (the list was led by Simone Veil) came first with 27.5 per cent.33 This separation of the four parties would continue and be accentuated because the next election – the presidential elections – would also not involve alliances and would personalize the divisions even further. It was clear from the European elections that the electorate had sanctioned Chirac’s orientation – the Gaullists were now the smallest party in terms of vote. Many of its traditional electorate had voted for the UDF, and the UDF itself was growing. It claimed a respectable membership of around a quarter of a million (all its component elements included). It remained however a federation that lacked the mobilizing power of the RPR. Moreover, Chirac, although he at last abandoned his rottweiler advisors, Marie-France Garaud and Pierre Juillet, continued his unrelenting anti-Giscard public stances, depicting himself – and being treated by his party – as a rousing radical rally leader whose mission was to block the rise of the left by thwarting the plans of a treacherous President. The result could only be to allow the left in, because although Giscard’s own party support was rising, his fractious ally meant his ability to rally enough support around his presidential persona in 1981 was in peril. In the run up to the 1981 elections, the difficulties of the economy continued (and would continue for another 15 years). Unemployment was up to one and a half million and inflation at 14 per cent. The fact of the presidential elections now personalizing all political activity meant that questions of ‘character’ (i.e. in the two American (presidential) senses of ‘integrity’ and ‘mettle’) would inform politics inordinately. And there was a series of scandals. Most of them, like most scandals in France, were inconclusive and not directly linked to the President. In October 1979, the Employment minister, Robert Boulin, committed suicide after the beginnings of a property scandal involving him broke in the press. In the context of a highly personalized regime, and the monarchical style of the President, such issues lent a ‘fin de règne’ quality to the presidency.34 This was also a time of terrorist attacks. One in particular, a bomb blast in rue Copernic in Paris, a Jewish quarter, in October 1980, really shook public opinion, creating a sense of grave national unease (the attackers were not caught until nearly 30 years later). The main scandal that was to undermine Giscard personally was the never-quite-understood ‘Diamonds Affair’. In October 1979, Giscard


was accused in Le Canard Enchaîné of having, in 1973 when Finance minister, accepted diamonds worth millions of francs from the selfstyled ‘Emperor’, former Central African dictator, Jean Bokassa. The problem for Giscard was twofold and was related to the issue of personal character traits. The first was that his own monarchically aloof response to the accusations never properly answered his critics, and this – in the context of a President who was known to be very attracted to the exotic aspects of Africa – seemed to suggest that he was indeed guilty of something. The second was the idea, seriously undermining of his pretentions to great leadership status (and all this cultivated by his possession of a seemingly noble name, and a certain monarchical extravagance in his culinary and other tastes), of personal association with Bokassa, a former private in the French Army, who had taken power through a military coup. He had also been a ruthless dictator; and while his country was in abject poverty he had had himself treated with Napoleonic deference and pomp. Dressed for state occasions in gold and jewels, looking like a fairy fallen from a Christmas tree, the lampoon through association, of Giscard himself could not have been more undermining of Giscard’s claims to presidential leadership. These issues, high unemployment, a hostile Chirac, the possession on the left of at least one (Rocard was another) leader of presidential status, his tarnished image, all contributed to Giscard’s losing the few thousand votes in 1981 that would lose him the presidency, and leave him trying for more than a decade to get it back again, further adversely influencing the politics of a right divided by leadership politics itself.

6 1981–88: From the République Sociale to the République Française

It was often said at the time, both in ordinary conversation and in the media, that François Mitterrand did not win the 1981 presidential election, Giscard lost it. In one sense, this was true. There had been no feeling in the months before the election of the left storming the gates of power with its champion at its head; until the last few weeks before the election it seemed Giscard would win again. Mitterrand had between 1978 and 1981 lost his rally image because of the acrimonious rift with the communists in 1977, the half-hearted and ultimately unsuccessful (gains but no majority) 1978 legislative elections, and most importantly, the contest with Rocard between 1978 and 1979–80 in which Mitterrand took on the old image of a Fourth Republican politician hanging on to his power through calculated manoeuvring against the challenge of the ‘forces vives’ to which the young and popular Rocard laid claim. Such was the demystification of the left – its ‘gathering of forces’ image had lasted from 1971 to 1977 – that even up until the end of 1980 newspaper editorials both in France and abroad, and media comments generally, considered Giscard’s re-election most likely. On his side was, as we have seen, a new Giscardian political party, a ‘contained’ Gaullist party, and an inferior rival in the impulsive Chirac. However, it was clear from the shifts in the electoral geography that the left was near-majoritarian, that the divisions within the right were considerable, and that the question of personal image did play a role negatively, for both Mitterrand and Giscard. Giscard faced the electorate with a disadvantage, related to difficult to quantify aspects of character. The first was the ‘Diamonds Affair’ which we have looked at.1 The second was linked to it, portraying Giscard as possessing a kind of regal disdain for criticism, like a bad king ignoring his subjects. 138

1981–88: From the République Sociale to the République Française 139

Many observers have described the French presidency as an elected monarchy.2 This writer does not agree with this interpretation; seeing it as too restrictive and with little explanatory value. It is clear from our analysis that the images of leadership displayed by French presidentialism are much more complex and wide-ranging than such a term implies, and real mistakes of interpretation (by both observers and political actors) are made because of this intellectual shortcut. Nevertheless, in Giscard’s case, one can say that a ‘monarchical’ component not only existed, but – and herein lies the danger – was tolerated by the French, and is even expected. France is possibly the most protocolstrict and formally deferential of western democracies. The problem here is that the mythology surrounding monarchism, in France especially, is multiple and quite contradictory. The monarchical style is recognized and accepted in certain circumstances (de Gaulle and later Mitterrand drew upon this when President). French culture also carries a very strong element of antipathy for the monarch, particularly one who becomes screened off from his people, perhaps by his court or his vanity, and (à la Louis XVI) has lost the true meaning of kingship and its relation to the nation/the people.3 This is how Giscard was being increasingly portrayed in the months leading up to the presidential election. And the actual character of the man played its part in this, even at the level of his aristocratic style, and family, and title. And his relative complacency about the election compounded these impressions. In this way, Giscard could be seen as having been, and was depicted as having been, ‘toppled’ in May 1981, and the long and lingering historical connotations of defeating a republican right which was attracted to a monarchist tradition added to this sense. The irony was that Mitterrand would out-king them all. Mitterrand’s own fortunes in 1981 were helped by a factor, perceived at the time by him and by others as a major setback, but which was a blessing disguised as a curse, namely, the consequences of the actions by the PCF. Through its calculated sabotaging of the Union of the left in 1977 in order to slow down the unequal distribution of left popularity, and by allowing the Union of the left to become a ‘mere’ electoral alliance devoid of the spirit which had so invigorated the left in the 1970s, the communists inadvertently freed up a swathe of centrist opinion for the left. This situation demonstrated that Mitterrand was neither in real alliance with nor subject to control by the PCF. By ruining Mitterrand’s own strategy, namely, the explicit part of the ‘Epinay line’, the PCF set the scene for the Epinay line to mean only allegiance to Mitterrand, particularly if he were to win in 1981. This


‘tactic’ of Mitterrand’s, if tactic it was, meant that he could ‘faire sauter le verrou’ of the PCF factor. By ‘solving’ the PCF problem – i.e. the PS seemed unable to gain power either with the PCF or without it, Mitterrand was credited with performing a political miracle. The communists themselves, trapped by the Fifth Republic’s institutions and culture, helped perform the miracle by which they would tumble from being the strongest single party in French politics, to being well on the road to marginalization.

The 1981 elections We shall not go into detail here on the election campaign or an analysis of the breakdown of the votes. These studies abound.4 What we shall do here is look at the 1981 elections from the point of view of the role of the personalization of politics and its effects. Rocard in the wider opinion polls, throughout 1979 and 1980, was ahead of Mitterrand, often well ahead. In October 1980 – having already conceded defeat at the Metz party conference – Rocard made a half hearted declaration of candidacy, but stressed he would not stand if Mitterrand stood. Mitterrand declared he would stand in January 1981, was endorsed by the party (24 January), and put forward his ‘110 propositions’. He ignored the indigestible Projet socialiste that the CERES leader, J.-P. Chevènement, had drawn up as the party’s programme – as a prize for having helped Mitterrand at the Metz conference. Chirac declared on 3 February, and Giscard, last, on 2 March, two months before the election. Giscard’s rather dry, calm approach to the election reflected his own contradictions – he wanted to be a ‘citizencandidate’, but also wanted to portray the de facto calm and dignity of his conception of his presidential self. His and most others’ views were that this calm king-yet-quiet-citizen approach would see him reelected. There was an assumption that he would have little competition. In fact, there were three Gaullist candidates (Michel Debré and Marie-France Garaud as well as Chirac), and five left candidates – six if one includes Brice Lalonde, an ecologist, and all of them attacking Giscard’s ‘bilan’ quite vocally and effectively. Giscard more or less excluded Raymond Barre from the campaign, but in the public’s mind, he – to date, the most unpopular of Prime Ministers – was strongly associated with the President. Giscard gave the impression of a kind of cognitive dissonance: the leader who could not hear the cacophony of criticism around him because he wished, almost needed, not to.


As regards the four principal candidates, in March, Marchais and Chirac, the two disruptive and critical ‘allies’ of, respectively, Mitterrand and Giscard, were on an equal 17 per cent in the polls, but Giscard, from a high of around 40 in 1980, and Mitterrand, from a low of around 20 were beginning to converge towards the mid-20s (in 1974, Giscard’s first round score was almost 33 per cent). His poll was falling as Mitterrand’s was rising. On the first round on 26 April, Marchais’ score was just over 15 per cent, to date the worst communist result since the 1930s. The conjuncture of a weakening party with an unpopular candidate was severely damaging in the longer term for the PCF. And to go into power in such a weak position would prove to be doubly damaging. It was, however, a very healthy and welcome 15 per cent for Mitterrand in round two. It is clear that both the personality of Marchais, brash, rather uncouth, both menacing and ordinary, was extremely ill-suited to presidential politics; and the often abruptly changing party line (now in the full glare of the media) was equally disadvantageous. An election at this level of media scrutiny and on this scale was extremely difficult for the party to ‘control’ to its advantage, as it was very capable of doing at local level given its organizing and mobilizing capacity. Much of the traditional communist electorate, for a range of reasons, from their attitude to Marchais, and to Mitterrand, to left unity, and to disapproval of some of the USSR’s policies, and also out of a new sense of electoral pragmatism, voted for Mitterrand, even in round one. Marchais could not therefore do other than call for support for Mitterrand in round two. His own personal attitude was in danger of being engulfed by the surge of support for Mitterrand. His insistence upon a real PCF presence and programme also no longer acted as a vote loser for Mitterrand given that he now had full communist support without any communist ‘threat’. In round one Giscard obtained just over 28 per cent, Chirac 18 per cent and Mitterrand just short of 26 per cent. Mitterrand had the second round support of all the left candidates, plus for all intents and purposes, Lalonde’s. Chirac gave reluctant support to Giscard, Garaud gave none. At the level of personal image and support, the beginning of the second round saw a movement of wider support for Mitterrand, as the implications of what was happening began to take hold. Giscard’s support, particularly as he could not properly rely on the mighty RPR machine, began to lose momentum even more. By lowering the voting age and helping to ‘feminize’ society and the political culture, Giscard had helped create a generation that would


vote in majority for the left. A proportion of the Gaullists also went to Mitterrand; and more on the right abstained. Such a complex structure of intention and attitude saw Mitterrand win the presidential election. On 10 May Mitterrand won with almost 52 per cent, and became the Fifth Republic’s first left wing President. In the five weeks between Mitterrand’s election and the elections to the National Assembly, French politics recaptured its rally aspect. The 14 and 21 June 1981 legislative elections demonstrate that the ‘rally’ is like an underground stream that can surface quite suddenly. On the eve of the presidential election Mitterrand was not seen as a potential winner, only Giscard as a potential loser. The rally around the victorious figure of Mitterrand began to emerge within hours of his election. The rally was a hybrid: a rassemblement d’idées around socialism’s dreams and mythologies, as well as a rally around the now exalted persona of Mitterrand, and the sense of dramatic change and an exciting new departure. The sense of socialism itself rising up to embrace power began to take hold. The transformatory discourse of socialism, well in evidence in the early 1970s but which had begun to ring hollow, reappeared in intense form, retrospectively depicting the previous legislative elections of ’67 – not ’68 – ’73 and ’78 (and the municipals of ’77), as well as the presidential elections of ’65 and ’74, as a mighty gathering of forces, and conferring upon the current elections a sense of historic triumph that was now far more than just electoral. The June elections propelled the PS into government with an absolute majority. Between the presidential and legislative elections, with his (solitary – watched by millions) visit to the Panthéon, a single red rose in his hand, Mitterrand’s persona as the near-mythical bringer of socialism took on breathtaking proportions, a personal ‘appropriation’ of socialism that would have very significant long term consequences. In the PS, there was competence and independence of action and simultaneously utter dependence upon the leader. The presidential election and the dissolution of Parliament transformed the arrival of the left in power into a personalist rally of vast proportions. In terms of the institutions and the personalities, four features are striking. The first was that Mitterrand was immediately seen as an appropriate President, and his party appeared to be ready to govern. For many, the most remarkable feature of 1981 was Mitterrand’s arrival in power. But the most dynamic event in terms of how the Fifth Republic operated optimally – and in institutional terms, the event whose effect was most durable upon the way the Fifth Republic institutions functioned and endured – was the parliamentary dissolution


itself. The dissolution dramatically increased one of the features of the Fifth Republic: its presidentialism, in the sense that legislative success was seen as – and was – an emotional, as well as constitutionally mechanical, rally of the ‘peuple de gauche’ behind the new hero.5 The second feature of the election of François Mitterrand, was that the PS was much more powerful than it would have been if it had entered in relative partnership with the PCF. By the same token, Mitterrand’s authority over the whole left was dramatically increased. The PCF was subordinated to Mitterrand now in a way it would never have been had the 1977–81 disagreements not taken place; but this was also true of the PS itself, which, also having in part rebelled against the leader (at the Metz conference), was now more subordinate than if it had not done so. The third feature was the cultural effects of the left’s victory upon the institutional configuration and consequentially upon political discourse and rhetoric. As regards the arrival of the left in power, it was not simply that the left’s discourse had a strong rhetorical element (and one which was itself complex in its use of its Marxian, insurrectionary, social democratic, but also millenarian aspects in order to enhance the individual leader of a collectively inspired organization), but that the effects of this rhetoric would have strong and both immediate and long term effects upon the institutions of the Fifth Republic. The left had won the battle and had all the good songs. For two years socialist rhetoric flooded through all aspects of political life, submerging what had been the growing ‘sensible’ character of Giscardian discourse, replacing it with a lyricism that was surpassing of even the strong rhetoric of original Gaullism. This actually enabled the ‘architect’ of this triumphant socialism to avoid high rhetoric himself and adopt, while his myriad interpreters went over the top, a quietist but emotionally charged rhetoric which would also alter French socialism as a discourse fundamentally. The end result was that the Fifth Republic as a regime was strengthened and ‘widened’, as leftist triumphalism became part of the republic’s discourse, its rally rhetoric, its heroic presidentialism, its drama and almost revolutionary nature re-dynamized, while the quiet pronouncements of the President took on a zen-like omniscience. The fourth feature was that the PS’ perceived appropriateness for government, and Mitterrand’s for the presidency, the PS’ distinction from the right that had governed for 20 years, its programme and its discourse, all meant that the left in power did not just consolidate the regime, but changed it, propelling the configured institutions forward,


and encouraging the discursive and rhetorical to further inform the institutional development of the regime. One of the most lasting yet least tangible consequences of this type of victory was that 1981 did feel like, for many people, the cultural victory of 1968’s thirst for a more open, friendly, modern, just, equal society. The subsequent U-turn, in policy terms, of 1982 and of 1983, the devaluations and ‘pauses’ (reminiscent of the catastrophic Popular Front), are usually seen as a return to normalcy, a return after two years of madness to an economically restraining and realistic policy i.e. picking up where Giscard d’Estaing and Barre left off. This is true, and, to the extent that it is inevitable that an elected government in a modern capitalist democracy cannot easily behave any other way, in this it is not interesting at all. What is interesting is not that it returned to normalcy but why there was a year and more of ‘folly’. The ending of the left’s ‘lyrical illusions’ by 1983–84 saw not only a change in policy, but more significantly a change in and of discourse towards managerialism and economic modernization; but the surge of enthusiasm in 1981 changed social attitudes durably. The economic failure, however, would also durably amplify resentment in the following years.6 The immediate ‘problem’, as it were, that had lowered Giscard’s popularity, had dominated the campaign, and had been in part responsible for bringing the left to power, was unemployment and other problems related to the economy. This would have enormous significance for the new government, and its response would inflict serious damage upon the economy and society and upon the left in France. Unemployment, or rather its elimination, became the principal organizing theme of the immediate election period, for both the PS and the PCF; and the simplistic solutions, borne of huge expectation, would very rapidly make the situation even worse. Given the tide of enthusiasm the left came in on, the expectations created by its rhetoric meant it had little choice (and great inclination, and this included Mitterrand) but to hurl all its millenarian notions at the problems that the Barre government had been wrestling with for years. As soon as the socialists took power in 1981, the minimum wage was raised by 10 per cent, pensions by 20 per cent, and family allowances by 25 per cent. In December, housing benefit was raised by 25 per cent. A vast programme of job creation began, alongside a reduction in working hours. These immediate reforms were to be paid for by higher taxes on higher incomes, but this would not come on stream immediately (and they subsequently proved utterly inadequate). The state would pay in the interim. The result, even before the costs of national-


ization, was massive overspending by government, a dramatic increase in consumption, an influx of foreign goods, and because French industry could not respond to such sudden demand, rising unemployment and recession. By October, the franc had been devalued 3 per cent (with the Deutschmark revalued 5.5 per cent). By November, Finance minister Delors who had always been against such spending, called for a ‘pause’. The reforms of structure would also be very costly (although as we shall see in the long term actually advantageous to French capitalism). It looked like expropriation, but there was government compensation to the tune of 43 billion francs. Bringing firms under state control did not create any effective opposition as such. Besides, it was a very French ‘étatiste’ idea, not just a socialist one. Nine large industrial groups (who had themselves been merging for over a decade) were nationalized, seven of them 100 per cent. Between them they owned thousands of firms, employed hundreds of thousands of people, and were all brought under state control. Alongside this, nearly all the banks were nationalized too, so that very rapidly the state had alongside its already nationalized industries, the near totality of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, steel, electricity, the I.T. industry, and construction, and banking.7 While these reforms were being put through, the economy went from stagnation into recession in the course of 1982. Unemployment climbed past two million. From this period, in inverse proportion to left gains after 1974, from by-election to by-election and then in the municipal elections, with a spectacular re-election for Chirac in the Paris municipals of 1983, the right began to revive and make gains. By September 1983, Prime Minister Mauroy’s popularity rating was down to 26 per cent. He had gone from most to least popular Prime Minister. After the massive demonstrations against educational reforms in June 1984, Mauroy’s embattled government was replaced. The new government headed by the 38 year-old Mitterrand protégé, Laurent Fabius, which lasted until the legislative elections of 1986, was not very different in membership from the previous one, but was symbolic of major change in the socialists. Fabius promoted a new type of socialism: ‘modern’, liberal and economically orientated. With the replacing of the mix of old-style town hall socialism of Mauroy (and the absence now of the four communist ministers who had resigned in 1984) and of the rousing almost insurrectionary language of 1981, Fabius was able to tap into those parts of socialist discourse that leaned towards themes of modernization and rationalization. This discursive


approach (which rivalled, in fact, Rocardianism) would come to dominate the PS in the years to come. 1984 also saw the real beginning of Fabius’ personal quest to become in the long term the main leader of the PS and eventually President of the republic. From October 1984, Fabius began monthly TV broadcasts, explaining (à la Mendès) his government’s policies. Over his premiership, quite startlingly for the Fifth Republic, his increasing popularity in the polls began to cross Mitterrand’s falling popularity (down at one point to 26 per cent, echoing that of Barre and Mauroy). In actual economic performance, the changes were not to come for a long time, although a fall in oil prices helped in the immediate term. But the repair necessary to the economy would inevitably mean social strife. Restructuring the already ailing nationalized – and only recently restructured – firms and industries (and they had been ailing before nationalization too) meant large-scale redundancies. Fabius’ administration faced a great deal of unrest (often backed and encouraged by the PCF, now as good as in opposition), as well as still rising unemployment. His two year government would not save the socialists from significant defeat in 1986 but it did have the real, almost un-measurable, effect of shifting the perception of socialism from archaic to modern for future use, as it were. It also demonstrated that the near catastrophic mis-management of the economy would be the single most important issue the left would have to avoid in the future. Fabius’ premiership was the first significant demonstration of this. Fabius’ own image was strong, although dented slightly in the runup to the 1986 elections because he and Jospin, the party leader, began to squabble over PS leadership of the campaign. The whole government, indeed the left itself, was also no longer able to claim the kind of pure moral mantle in politics it had always assumed when the Rainbow Warrior scandal broke in July 1985 and elements within government and the secret services were revealed as being as shadowy and complicit as those of previous governments and regimes.8

The 1986 election As the legislature approached its term, the President was still unable to ameliorate his low personal popularity, in spite of changing his government. His new government and Prime Minister had also been unable to stem the tide of the right’s newfound popularity, although the new Prime Minister was relatively popular; a new kind of socialism, a new discourse, had seriously taken hold within the party and govern-


ment. As the election approached, only the government, not the President, could be sanctioned by the electorate. The President could, and would, be ‘punished’ by the electorate, however, almost in a personal way by humiliating him with a right wing government. This aspect of Fifth republic politics had never presented itself before, although it could have happened to de Gaulle in 1967, to Pompidou in 1973 and to Giscard in 1978. In 1986, however, it was a certainty. The question, therefore, was not whether Mitterrand could ‘win’, but how he would respond, how he would comport himself, when his government was thrown out of office. One further possibility was that an overwhelming rightwing landslide might indeed force him from office, ending the Mitterrand era. The next question therefore was, was there any way to minimize the landslide? In the Fifth Republic, it is arguable that the electoral system was the great stabilizer of the regime – more perhaps than the presidency itself, forcing the parties to organize into two overall blocs or around two poles. Occasionally – as in 1968 or 1981 (or 1993) – the system allowed, by a few percentage point gains in round one, overwhelming landslides in round two. Backed by Mitterrand, the government (Pierre Joxe was Interior minister) introduced proportional representation. It was thinly justified because it had, in fact, appeared in Mitterrand’s 110 propositions of 1981. One of the effects of proportional representation is to free the parties from alliances with one another. The opposite happened with the mainstream right. The UDF and RPR decided not to allow organizational strife to break out, and united essentially around the proposition of the reversal of the election change and the denationalization of all that the socialists had done. At the individual level, however, candidates for the 1988 presidential elections began to manoeuvre. A period of tension began between Giscard and Chirac, the former constantly, but ultimately unsuccessfully, trying to (re)impose his leadership upon the right. This period also saw his other former Prime Minister – who had no real organizational powerbase – begin to stake out his own claim to presidential status, for Barre’s star had ridden high in the mid-1980s given that the left seemed, after all, to be applying his policies. The role of Cassandra can be a strong political resource, other things being equal. We say other things being equal for it is often the case that the Cassandras are outsiders without a strong party support base. In mid1985, Barre was seen by public opinion as the favourite to win the 1988 presidential elections. The problem with this is that it is a fragile popularity if it does not enjoy the support of a political party. 1988 was beginning to impose itself even before 1986. There was the


Jospin-Fabius rivalry over leadership of the 1986 election campaign, but Rocard too began his once again hopeful attempt to stand. He resigned from government in April 1985 over the change to PR, depicting himself as a social democrat who was nevertheless a staunch supporter of the Fifth Republic. The most noted effect and most analysed of the changes to proportional representation in 1986 was the electoral opportunity offered to the Front national and Jean-Marie Le Pen. From the European elections (they had ten seats) the FN had been moving from its insignificant scores through to a persistent 10 per cent and more in opinion polls, a figure that would become the basis of Le Pen’s presidential aspirations (in 1988, 1995 and most spectacularly in 2002).9 For the moment, this would inevitably mean the FN’s entry into the National Assembly in 1986 (they gained 35 deputies with 9.72 per cent of the vote). The mainstream right might have had to face the dilemma of whether to work with them in the Assembly. The combined left gained over 42.5 per cent of the votes, and seats, the right 44.6 per cent, that is 288 seats, an absolute majority of just two seats.10 Chirac came into power with almost a ‘hard right’ image and agenda, and with the boorish and rather frightening Interior minister, Charles Pasqua, these two slightly mitigated by the more reassuring unofficial deputy Prime Minister, and the only Ministre d’Etat, Edouard Balladur. On the left, the communists continued their collapse (they now only had the same number of deputies, 35, as the FN). The socialists gained just over 30 per cent, well down on 1981, but a significant percentage in a PR system. They remained the largest group in the National Assembly. And the party’s electoral base was now a more ‘positive’ one – with a more even spread throughout the country, throughout the social classes, and across gender lines. Socialism itself however was for the moment in disarray in terms of policies, direction, leadership, potential leadership, and strategy.11

1986–88 The two-year period between 1986 and 1988, that is to say the long anticipated crisis caused by the critical asymmetry of the two electoral cycles (it had been expected by many to occur in 1978) between legislative and presidential power, did not just, simply and paradoxically, strengthen the regime once again, but transformed it. In one sense, the democratic sense, the defeat of the left, and the sanctioning of an extremely unpopular President according to the opinion polls, was in


theory the assertion of parliamentary ascendancy over personalized rule. The scenario which developed was the opposite: a democratic leader acting as a bulwark against a rather frightening right wing. The right came to power in a kind of swaggering Bonapartist way, the President gradually becoming the guardian of a gentler, more inclusive Fifth Republican democracy. Several of the new government’s initial actions were designed to affront, humiliate and hopefully hound from office the weakened President. Mitterrand responded by wrapping himself in the constitution, conferring an immediate ‘republican’ legitimacy upon himself. He gradually extended such to the nation as a whole, ‘inventing’ as it were another, simultaneous, nation to the one which had just, in all but constitution, ‘overturned’ him; and he moved in harmony with these ‘imagined’ elements between 1986 and 1988 until the ‘real’ France caught up with him. His ability to treat the National Assembly as the wreckers rather than the people’s valiant champions was one of the strongest examples of the ‘use’ and function of symbolic politics, and an illustration of the miscalculation – in symbolic terms – of his opponents, in particular Chirac and Charles Pasqua. Mitterrand’s comportment after the election of 1986 was politically exemplary in that he projected his role as strictly in accordance with the constitution (which it was but that is irrelevant). The constitution became the ‘Constitution’ and himself therefore a republican champion.12 This is one of the fundamental French myths, the obligation to identify the patrimony, cherish it and pass it on to the new generations. It is not just a republican myth but a Gaullist one too. After 1986, Mitterrand acted as an ‘arbiter’, drawing upon the ambiguity of the notion of the President as ‘arbitre’. He pushed the sense of the term in the opposite direction to de Gaulle’s use, namely that being the arbiter meant he could act personally to defend France (de Gaulle); being the arbiter meant he could intervene personally to protect the republic (Mitterrand). By using the – very limited – constitutional powers at his disposal, Mitterrand blocked and slowed down government initiatives where he could. In practical terms, his action was pointless, in symbolic terms, the impression he gave of trying to protect the French against a band of bullies was of enormous significance.13 The effect was to undermine the authority of his opponents as it implied they were careless of the Republic-as-patrimony. We should note the irony of this, the socialist Mitterrand defending the Fifth Republic against the Gaullists, Mitterrand the author of the most outspoken attack upon the Fifth Republic.14


In policy terms, the real conflict between the right and the left (the new government and the President) was the question of privatizations. The conflict was constitutional and, much more importantly, personal. In the guise of a constitutional wrangle, France witnessed between 1986 and 1988 a series of moves between the President and his adversaries in which he outwitted them all, storming back to power two years after having been utterly unpopular and almost having been forced to resign. Chirac profited from a stronger image on important issues like security and law and order. Nevertheless, his rather burlesque efforts to assert himself in protocol and foreign affairs always made him look of lesser stature than Mitterrand. His impatient manner made him seem impetuous, his language could not equal the literary, almost wise, and philosophical register Mitterrand now used. Mitterrand had to be careful not to be too meddling in government affairs. The overall trend was one of Mitterrand’s inexorable rise in popularity, and Chirac’s inexorable decline. The issue of political leadership had become one almost exclusively of ‘character’. In 1987, Lionel Jospin, the First secretary of the PS, had been instructed to prepare for a further Mitterrand bid for the presidency; and the media, coaxed by presidential advisors and encouraged by the response of public attitudes, began to depict Mitterrand as a kind of father of the nation (or uncle, ‘Tonton’), the beloved leader who unified the nation (‘La France unie’ would be his election slogan), and brought into being a kind of adoring ‘Génération Mitterrand’. Perhaps for the first time in the Fifth Republic, politics was being truly driven by opinion polls, the parties – all of them – less and less able to impose themselves as national vectors of opinion (this would become more and more the case in the years that followed), beyond acting as cheerleaders. Mitterrand’s popularity now meant that, on the left, the former ‘darling of the polls’ Rocard could only, once again, say he would run if Mitterrand did not. And his position was complicated further by the fact that, according to the polls in 1987–88, he might beat Chirac but would lose to Raymond Barre if they faced each other in a run-off. The 72-year old Mitterrand (he was also ill, suffering from/in remission from cancer but this was not widely known; he had actually been diagnosed in 1981), arguably at the end of his career, had become France’s most popular politician, and took his place alongside de Gaulle as one of France’s most eminent figures. Mitterrand did not declare his candidacy until 22 March, four weeks before the election, the other candidates having spent weeks if not


months arguing only with each other. Mitterrand was thus able to maintain a kind of presidential serenity as he cruised back to power. He wrote a Lettre à tous les Français (published in 25 newspapers and widely circulated as a free-standing document; it was a long document of policy propositions, philosophical musings, and personal comments). The French seemed to quite like the idea. Unlike with political manifestos and other election material, millions of them actually read it. With his party, Mitterrand was quite reassuring, declaring to them at each of his rallies that they knew he was still a socialist; but the rallies had become little more than hail to the chief events, with Charles Trenet singing ‘Douce France’ replacing more strident socialist tunes. In truth, Mitterrand had already emotionally split from ‘his’ party – and it, painfully, confusedly, frustrated by its own impotence, with him or without him, was beginning to split from him, in spite of the wild celebrations that anticipated their return to power (once again on his coat-tails). The problem with Barre’s campaign was twofold; and this too was now – and would remain – a feature of the Fifth Republic: the centrist candidate always generated sympathy (a yearning for a non-partisan politics has real texture within the political culture), but when a campaign gets underway a left/right split forces the candidates to adopt more left/right partisan positions. Second, Barre was not the leader of the UDF and although he had support, he lacked authority and could not call on the campaigning team active at all levels of the polity that supported Chirac. Therefore, although Chirac’s first round vote remained at his usual 20 per cent, Barre’s fell from an impressive mid-20s in the polls to 18.5 per cent on the night (third place). For the PCF, the combination of social change and the pressure of the personalized and de-ideologized institutions continued its relentless crush (although in the legislative elections it did slightly, and temporarily, better). Georges Marchais, now seen as both irrelevant and unpopular, did not dare stand as he had in 1981. A fall guy was found in the stolid, solid, and irrelevant figure of the leader of the PCF parliamentary group, André Lajoinie, who went on to gain a mere 6.76 per cent of the vote. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, the French communist party was in terminal decline. The party was in so little control of its political environment now that it could not even stop a dissident former high-ranking member of the party, Pierre Juquin, from himself standing (and in fact their combined total corresponded to the higher PCF vote at the legislative elections).


Juquin gained 2.10 per cent. The less than 7 per cent for André Lajoinie demonstrated beyond doubt that the French communist party was finished as a major player in politics. The far left party’s humiliation was compounded by the far right’s success. Le Pen’s vote was an astounding 14.38 per cent, an event that would inform French politics for the foreseeable future. He was close to Barre’s result, a mainstream candidate, an ominous sign.15 We should stress here two aspects of the 1988 presidential elections, epitomized by the two weeks between the two rounds: dramatization and personalization. The two weeks saw both ‘actors’, in particular Chirac, treating the political stage in a truly theatrical way, in fact to the detriment of his own image, as it allowed Mitterrand to quietly outperform him as it were. The campaign was highly personalized anyway because of the two year long clashes between the two main candidates. By the start of round two the character traits of the two men had crystallized around Chirac as hard and combative and Mitterrand as wise and statesmanlike.16 Mitterrand’s vote in round two, two weeks later on 8 May, marked a striking 8 per cent difference between himself and Jacques Chirac (54 per cent to 46 per cent). The scattered vote of round one possibly had a significant effect upon round two. Partisan allegiances were weakening, and Mitterrand’s success can only be explained by a significant vote from not only the left, but the ecologists, the centre, and the FN. Mitterrand’s vote went well beyond that of the left. It is arguable that Mitterrand himself failed to grasp the significance of this in the aftermath of his triumph. There was a contradiction in Mitterrand’s success. If he were now the unifier, the rassembleur of the nation, as if above politics, how could he now descend into the arena as the leader of the socialists in a legislative election? And he did neither, or rather both: he did call for and campaign for the PS, but half heartedly; and on two occasions suggested that he hoped the PS did not win too well (it didn’t). He wanted his party to be the party and government of ‘ouverture’. The problem with this is that there was not – outside a few individuals – a strong party political ‘centre’ that was available to the left. Mitterrand was doubly estranged from his party given that the post-Jospin leadership had gone to Pierre Mauroy rather than to Laurent Fabius, Mitterrand’s own choice. The result was confusion everywhere on the noncommunist left. Mitterrand appointed Michel Rocard, as the Prime Minister of ‘ouverture’, and although Rocard was still popular in the country, it was an ill-kept secret that Mitterrand held his younger rival in contempt.


The overall abstention rate for the ensuing legislative elections was an unheard of (in any of the Republics) 34 per cent.17 The right (led, in fact, by Giscard) again buried its differences and campaigned under one banner without ‘primaries’ so that the UDF and RPR were not pitted against each other in round one (the Chirac government had restored the single constituency two round system). On the extreme right, the FN, at just under 10 per cent could not fight in round two, the system was organized against it – it gained one seat. The PCF was now down to 27 seats. The PS and its immediate allies gained 276 seats, 12 seats short of an overall majority (the mainstream right gained 271 seats).18 Mitterrand made appeals to the centre – which sent confusion through his own party. The ambivalences and ambiguities that had come together to carry Mitterrand back triumphantly to power had created a series of confused strategies and dispositions and turned Mitterrand’s triumph into something much more equivocal. Personalized politics would play an even more consequential role within the institutional and political set up, leading to a by and large failed second septennate, which, on Mitterrand’s triumphant re-election, had seemed so full of promise.

7 1988–2002: The Long Decade of Vindictiveness, Miscalculations, Defeat, Farce, Good Luck, Good Government, and Catastrophe. The Presidency Right or Wrong

If we take the period 1988 to 2002 as a whole – Mitterrand’s second term and Chirac’s first term – we see two septennates, one of the left and one of the right, and an almost symmetrical pattern suggestive of the problems of presidentialism. In each case there was an initial thrust of intense enthusiasm, then legislatures that followed on but seemed non-correspondent with the enthusiasm of the presidential election. The legislatures (at least Rocard, Cresson, Bérégovoy, Juppé) brought bathos to government after the excitement of the presidentials. Both septennates also ushered in, before the end of their terms, cohabitations in the wake of enormous presidential unpopularity (1993; 1997); and the governments ushered in (Balladur; Jospin) were enthusiastically received, in inverse proportion to presidential popularity. Both Prime Ministers were expected to win the following presidential election (Balladur, 1995; Jospin, 2002), but both were dramatically cast aside in round one. The single factor shaping these dysfunctional developments in the context of the anticipated (1993, 1995, 2002) and unanticipated (1997) electoral calendar were the actions, the miscalculations, of the Presidents themselves. Mitterrand’s personal ill-feeling towards Michel Rocard and personal miscalculation in appointing Edith Cresson had inordinate political effects. Chirac’s personal miscalculation in 1997 almost brought the presidency into ridicule. This period therefore illustrates in its complexity the propensity for individual presidential initiative to cause the regime to function very badly. Added to this is the continuing role of drama in the process, pitching drama against process. Drama itself was also beginning to 154

1988–2002: The Long Decade 155

blend with ‘headline grabbing’ and with personal clashes. The rollercoaster socialist governments of the 1988–93 period were dramatic through the miscalculations of the President. The same was true in 1997. The drama created by Cresson’s premiership in 1991 was consequential for the socialists and probably unnecessary. The clash between Chirac and Balladur between 1993 and 1995 was also both consequential and unnecessary. The resumption of nuclear testing by Chirac in 1995 was very consequential for France’s diplomatic relations especially, and was quite unnecessary. All of the ‘unnecessaries’ were related to avoidable personal decisions. Given the centrality of the characters of the Presidents and their decision-making, the ‘unnecessary’ had become by 1988 and beyond as likely as it was consequential.

1988–93: System dysfunction and occasional chaos Rocard The 1988–93 period is one that is scarcely written about, rather like the period 1969–74. There was a great deal of press coverage, particularly given that in quick succession there were three unhappy Prime Ministers, but scholarly coverage is limited. There are periods in the Fifth Republic that are more easily ‘understood’ and therefore interesting. The ‘classic’ periods (1958–69; 1981–88; 1997–2002) stand out and are followed by lulls in scholarly attention. The 1988–93 period however is one of the most revealing; and this because the regime becomes dysfunctional. Let us examine why. The 1993–95 period was equally dysfunctional, although in this case was much written about. Leadership rivalries, however acrimonious and detrimental (to party, to government etc) usually drive the Fifth Republic on depending upon circumstances, the conjuncture, leadership initiatives, and performance. In some circumstances – 1988–93 being an extremely good example – the scope given to leadership initiative also gives scope for true misjudgements, major mis-calculations, bad decisions, and the undermining of the dynamic of leadership politics. In Mitterrand’s second term, presidential supremacy is used and abused to the significant detriment of the Republic’s fashioned system. The Mitterrand/Rocard relationship was not simply a leader/lieutenant one like all non-’cohabitationist’ executives before and since, but a (potential) reconciliation of competing ‘presidentialisms’ and a symbolic recognition of the ‘new’ left by the ‘old’ left. The nearest model for such a relationship was king/dauphin, and something akin to this had been given to be expected: essentially, Rocard would


respect Mitterrand’s supremacy. Rocard would be accorded dauphinlike status by the President1 and would be given scope to act ‘presidentially’ within his government. Initially, these necessary conditions were maintained, the latter point conveyed by Rocard’s open letter to his government2 and his ‘personalist’ asserting of his authority (e.g. sacking his Health minister within days (7 July), reminiscent of Giscard with Servan-Schreiber).3 Such a presidential style was perhaps necessary for Rocard but was fragile (cf. Chaban-Delmas). The ‘Rocard method’ of government, which we shall look at below, contrasted with this initial leadership persona, style and image, and the inconsistencies between the assertion of authority and the drive for consensual decision-making was itself partly responsible for Rocard’s relative failure to overcome political obstacles on his way to leadership ascendancy. The relationship between Rocard’s governmental style and approach on the one hand and his desired leadership image on the other was never resolved, particularly in the context of growing realization of the President’s disdain for his Prime Minister’s leadership qualities. Essentially, the ‘Rocard method’ of policy negotiation was rather like that of Tony Blair in Northern Ireland a decade or so later, that is to say, to maintain antagonistic actors as interlocutors, relentlessly, against the odds, moving into a labyrinth of compromise and negotiation until a settlement or solution was found. Rocard’s major success in this was to find a working solution to the strife in the overseas territory of New Caledonia, a seemingly intractable situation. It is debatable whether this method of negotiation, dialogue, and compromise was successful in any other domain. Rocard had long emphasized the role of ‘civil society’ and ‘les forces vives’ and the need to include these better in the political process, and transcend France’s perpetual confrontations.4 Rocard’s approach was explicitly a call for a new kind of politics, and implicitly a criticism of previous leadership styles, and the presentation of his own. In practice, in the context of French politics and society, it is arguable whether Rocard’s approach and ‘method’ had anything other than a negative impact. Opening negotiations as a process rather than as an adversarial series of negotiating positions that would arrive at an outcome was alien to French socio-political relations. Talking in order to say that there was, for example, no money on the table, was arguably strategically inappropriate in the French context. It was as if Rocard were introducing overnight a version of a West German ‘co-gestion’ model into a French framework in order to de-dramatize politics. It is difficult to identify cause and effect in this area, but Rocard’s premiership saw, even in


French terms, a major escalation of (almost incessant) strikes, marches, demonstrations, near-riots, heavy police actions, and so on. It was as if the Rocard method provoked or encouraged hostility, the opposite of what it was claiming to do. Throughout 1989 and 1990, one profession after another rebelled, and many of these were public sector strikes that strongly affected services (e.g. transport, health). As well as the huge public sector, there were strikes in the automobile industry, television, radio, the banking sector, prisons, Air France, shipbuilding, the post office, the Metro and RER, agriculture, haulage. The doctors went on strike. In 1988, there was a highly publicized nurses’ strike. In 1990 there were highly publicized demonstrations by further education students. These latter two saw the President sympathize with the strikers, as he had during cohabitation with Jacques Chirac, further undermining Rocard’s position. And the government’s response was ultimately not the Rocardian one, but the classic French governmental response of a refusal to give in followed by concession or surrender depending upon the success of the strikes and demonstrations. By the autumn of 1990, Rocard’s popularity began seriously to fall. Our focus here is not on the economy, but here too Rocardian government did not bring a competence or style that was essentially any different from other governments. And much of Rocard’s ‘image’ was based upon the notion that he, economically expert and a modernizer, stood in contrast to the ‘old’ left’s economic incompetence. His economic reputation, therefore, began as a political resource that – like Giscard’s – lost capital as the economic revival failed to appear. The economy in the period of Rocard’s premiership did not do particularly well, nor particularly badly. There was a certain economic revival initially, although GDP growth fell over the three years from around 4 per cent to around 3 per cent then to around 2 per cent. Some industries – the automobile industry for example – saw very strong performances, partly due to world demand. Inflation remained stable, prices too. Unemployment hovered around 10 per cent throughout. The point to note is that Rocardianism, a kind of Third Way before its time, did not bring a new politics, a new prosperity, or a new relationship between politics and civil society. Moreover, the often very uninteresting legislative programme (e.g. a great deal of parliamentary time taken up with relatively inconsequential reform of TV and radio) was often mired in sterile debate, and the bolder initiatives – the RMI, a programme to help and train the unemployed, the CSG, a tax to try to cope with the pensions crisis, and the ISF, a super-tax on very high incomes – really produced very little in the way of revenue.


At the electoral level, the general trend continued – high abstention, a weakening of support for the mainstream parties, and a growing support for the growing number of ‘anti-system’ parties.5 It was as if the de-dramatization of politics that Rocard sought actually de-politicized society in terms of its traditional political activity, but the result was a continuing politicization of the social, so that political de-alignment and disengagement were accompanied by protest and a tendency towards political extremism, particularly on the right. At this time, half the electorate voted (in Cantonal and European elections, for example, with abstention often between 30 per cent and 50 per cent) for parties that were not PS, UDF, or RPR. All the political parties at this time were also trying to cope with the consequences of the leadership politics of the Fifth Republic. At times, throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, internal party leadership competition was a cacophony. The PS was locked into a (pre) postMitterrand leadership struggle, and whoever won (Fabius or Jospin, in fact neither did really at this point) would be anti-Rocard. The RPR was also in a (very premature but quite understandable) post-Chirac leadership struggle with something akin to factions appearing in the once monolithic party. Both the right (Pasqua) and the left (Séguin) of the party were trying (again ultimately unsuccessfully but setting off a series of reactions that would go on for 15 years or so) to use rally politics (and a rather unholy alliance between themselves) to oust the Alain Juppé (i.e. Chirac’s) party leadership. And in the most monolithic of them all, the PCF, dissidence was rife, even though this never contributed to a reversal or the party’s misfortunes. On the extreme right, the FN went from strength to strength,6 profiting from both the problems of unemployment, but especially from the rising temperature of debates around immigration, Islam and racism. The ‘headscarf affair’7 triggered major debate but inconsequential government action. Even Rocard went on TV in December 19898 to say that France could not just go on accepting immigrants. Such assertions rather lost him his gentler image without really strengthening his would-be tougher image. In December 1989, the FN had a spectacular success at a by-election, winning the seat, further evidence that the Rocard government had no better solutions to the political and social problems confronting France, problems that were now teeming into a now highly mediatized public political space. Corruption was the final issue tarnishing the image of government. Rocard himself was never involved or implicated in any wrong doing, but his party was, his ministers (mainly strong Mitterrandists) were.


The scandals ranged from illegal channelling of money to help party funds, to insider share dealing, corruption for personal profit, and false accounting. These scandals, paradoxically because they were often well covered up, seemed endless. It was also the case that from this time the new, younger cohorts of French magistrates were going about their business with the vigour of investigative reporters (and investigative reporting – never very strong in France – was also seeing a revival). Irrespective of Rocard’s integrity, such a string of scandals, some as we have said involving his own ministers, made him – like his President – seem part of the wider malaise.9 Cresson In such a situation, the Gulf War of 1991, in which France took part, politically came as a relief. The beginnings of international conflicts usually see an executive’s popularity rise. For Rocard, however, although his popularity rose, the advantage was really all Mitterrand’s as he took sole control of this aspect of foreign policy. At the end of the war (the events ran from January to May), as politics was returning to normal, Mitterrand sacked his Prime Minister on 15 May 1991, and appointed Edith Cresson the same day. To say that Rocard was sacked without ceremony, in a rather undignified manner is doubtless true. What is significant for us is that such cursory disrespect is a characteristic of Fifth Republic presidential leadership. Whether it is always advantageous to the user is debatable, for only momentarily did it halt Mitterrand’s unstoppable slide into unpopularity, and was further evidence of the disadvantages of power concentrated into a single persona when misjudgement and vindictiveness are allowed such play to not even Machiavellian purpose. Edith Cresson’s appointment was greeted initially with puzzlement and then rapidly with hostility from the media, all of the opposition, almost all her own party, and then the public. Within one month, her popularity ratings were so low it made the system of measuring popularity inappropriate. She became, almost instantly, France’s least popular Prime Minister. More significantly, she began to drag Mitterrand’s popularity down with her until he too had his lowest ratings ever. He added to her isolation by quite rapidly distancing himself from her, having realized his mistake. The 1992 regional and cantonal election results were an early indication of the government party’s collapsing popularity.10 In terms of Cresson’s own image, it became almost immediately ‘unreadable’. She was a Mitterrandist (although without a real base in


the party), the first female Prime Minister, an attractive woman, and yet she came across as very ‘unfeminine’, voicing very crass, stupid views – near racist comments about the Japanese (‘ants’), homophobic comments about the British (from an interview given four years before, but given wide publicity), allegedly cruel comments about sending illegal immigrants back in ‘charters’ (echoing the hard-right Charles Pasqua’s comments when Interior minister – and even connoting ideas of ‘déportation’ – a taboo notion in France), and speaking generally in a way that was considered inappropriate if not indeed rather ‘common’. The huge potential capital of such an innovation, a woman as Prime Minister, was squandered within days. Her policies (a strong emphasis upon ‘delocalizing’ significant parts of the public service including L’ENA) caused great opposition from lobbies without achieving much (she had only two years in office at most). The economy was also performing badly at this time. GDP growth had been around 4 per cent under Rocard. In 1991, GDP was 0.6 per cent, in 1992 barely above 1 per cent, and in 1993 it was again below 1 per cent.11 Unemployment too continued to rise, and passed the 3 million mark. Businesses were going bankrupt at an alarming rate, and the RMI training allowance and social security spending generally were enormous and acted solely as unemployment benefit rather than supporting ‘insertion’ (training). Social unrest was high and widely reported: nurses, dockers, lorry drivers, farmers, in turn held huge demonstrations in Paris and elsewhere, and a growing sense of ‘insecurity’ was widespread and was linked to a growing animosity to immigrants and the whole issue of how the government was tackling the issue of immigration. The right (and hard right) exploited the issue, leaving the government to try to outbid the right in toughness. The Cresson premiership offers insights into the nature of French political leadership because she threw into relief three aspects that hitherto had been less noticeable: party, gender, and protocol. Her appointment was perhaps the first in the Fifth Republic where hostility from inside the party was so intense. No Prime Minister since 1958 had faced such vociferous opposition from within their own party. Both in the party and in her government, Cresson was surrounded by not simply rivals but enemies. And unlike Rocard she had no courant of her own in the party. Several of the party bosses, the éléphants12 had hoped to be nominated Prime Minister, and her nomination infuriated these first and second rank leaders within an already very internally divided party. Both in terms of leaders and ideology, the party was in a struggle to survive in the painful twilight of


Mitterrand’s presidency and beyond it. Cresson was, moreover, surrounded by Mitterrandists who were closer to him than she was, and as her, and his, popularity kept falling, she lost, almost immediately, even his support. Mitterrand had made a bold appointment. It rapidly became evident it was a major misjudgement. The second aspect of interest to us is the question of gender.13 Leadership in the Fifth Republic until this moment, with the exceptions of a few presidential candidates and a handful of women ministers, had been almost exclusively male at national level. Much of the hostility to Cresson seemed to have a very sexist edge to it as if in a world of men she had no place.14 Two things are thrown into relief by her premiership. First, the mythology around Fifth Republic leadership in France is chivalric and male. This means that the public ‘mediation’ of a female will be problematic in that no ‘language’ had been established. Second, and this point is related to the first, Cresson’s own image as a woman was mediated, was managed, extremely badly. The brusque and aggressive ‘Thatcher’ style that had been currency in the UK for a decade did not seem to fit well in French political culture;15 perhaps the nearest mythical female authority archetype – perhaps a throw back to France’s Catholic past – was a kind of Madonna figure. Cresson, however, perhaps in an effort at virility, came across as the antithesis of such a female figure: her image within days of taking office was that of someone who was abrasive, racist, homophobic and uncaring. We shall return to this issue of female image and the mythologies informing it when we examine Royal’s presidential candidacy in 2007, but can note here the apparent role of stereotypes and of perceived negative and positive ‘female’ character traits. This brings us to the third aspect that the Cresson premiership highlights, and that is the role and function, in French political culture more than in any comparable country, of formality, protocol and convention. The important role of protocol in France can go unnoticed, that is until it is broken. And Cresson broke it. It is also true that the media’s role in developing her negative persona was relentless. Cresson’s ‘unfeminine’ and especially casual tone was completely unknown in French political society. Of the Stock Exchange she said ‘J’en ai rien à cirer’ which is close to ‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s’, and the expression became indelibly and negatively associated with her. Her inappropriate tone revealed a requisite register of political language that she – the first woman Prime Minister – failed to observe. The appointment itself suggested the misuse of Mitterrand’s personal powers. The sacking of Rocard suggested a vindictiveness that had


over-informed the President’s judgement, the appointment of Cresson a caprice. And these perceived misjudgments coincided with a series of other miscalculations on his part, throwing into even higher relief problems of his ‘character’. Throughout his presidency, in foreign policy, Mitterrand, like his predecessors, had stature. In his second septennate especially his European policy lent him the status of a visionary. From 1989, however, a series of misjudgements – over the unification of Germany, developments in the collapsing Soviet Union, in Yugoslavia, and later Rwanda, all seemed to coalesce into the impression that Mitterrand was losing his grip (his hidden illness from cancer was also becoming more obvious and known in the public domain). In 1992, Mitterrand miscalculated again. Certain of a large majority in favour of the Maastricht Treaty he called a referendum, and on 20 September he won his referendum but by less than one per cent (with a score of 50.81 per cent). Without Chirac and Giscard’s support he would have lost, so that even the symbolic presidential majority he wanted to affirm had dissipated. Before the end of his second term, Mitterrand had also to face public consternation at the idea that his connections to the Vichy regime had been much stronger than had been assumed.16 The appointment of Cresson demonstrated how fragile and how complex presidential decision making was within an institutional configuration that encouraged personalized initiatives. Bérégovoy After 11 months in office, for the sole reason of her unpopularity, she was replaced on 2 April 1992 by her Finance minister, Pierre Bérégovoy, whose task it was to act as the last stand ‘dernier carré’ in an attempt to save the governing party from electoral disaster in 1993. The problem for Bérégovoy was that it was already too late to stem the tide. The Cresson premiership coincided with and accentuated what had become a factor of the Fifth Republic (under de Gaulle, Giscard and later at the end of Chirac’s second term), a very negative sense of a ‘fin de règne’. The political climate was still mired in a series of ‘affairs’ and scandals, most of them financial scandals involving illegal party funding but also individual profiteering. Most involved the party in government, the PS, and one involved Bérégovoy’s own personal loan to purchase a Paris apartment. Nothing could bring comfort to the last months of the socialist government as it faced a right wing electoral landslide in the 1993 legislative elections. By the standards of any French elections, March 1993 was a crushing defeat for the outgoing government. Out of 577 seats, the socialists


had won only 64. The communists were now down to 24. The left had fewer than a hundred seats. The UDF had 207 and the RPR 242. Many leading socialists lost their seats, including, very significantly in terms of future developments, Rocard and Jospin. Even the viability of the party at a national level was in question. Mitterrand was still in office, paralysing the party and hindering its reprise. In terms of its first round vote in 1993, the left overall had gained 31 per cent of the vote which was not perhaps as dramatic as it might have feared, but the right had 44 per cent and in round two, 57 per cent.17 Given the French system whereby round two has an amplifying effect, the right demonstrated that it could dominate the regime once again. The right had not had this kind of dominance since 1968. Such a majority also meant the near-certain prospect of gaining the presidency. Over the next two years, the fortunes of the left and right seemed to play themselves out without reference to one another, but with leadership rivalries dominating all developments.

1993–95: Balladur. Almost President On the left, Jospin withdrew from political life, and Rocard took the leadership of the PS from Fabius, triggering another internal leadership struggle that would help neither of them. The party suffered another blow on 1 May 1993 when the ex-Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy, suffering from severe depression, shot himself in the head and died.18 In the European elections of 1994, the PS did so badly (14 per cent) that Rocard’s leadership was ruined (as were, forever, his presidential hopes). The PS leadership was taken by a relative unknown, Henri Emmanuelli, a Mitterrandist from the left of the party. At the 1994 Liévin conference, there was un appel by many in the party, a call to the one remaining potential PS leader, Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission, to stand for President. He was completely out of kilter, personally, ideologically, temperamentally with the now ineffective left-leaning PS.19 The party, now linked symbolically, discursively and organizationally to the presidentialism of the Fifth Republic, seemed to have no direction or purpose at all, and possibly no candidate for the 1995 elections. From 1971 onwards, the party had turned its ‘party purpose’ to ‘rally purpose’ around a rally leader. Now it did not have either. On the right, one of the strangest effects of the leadership element in the Fifth Republic’s configuration was about to unfold. In parenthesis, chance played a significant role. The UDF also lacked a clear leader.


Giscard, still not stepping aside for younger leaders such as François Léotard, had a paralysing effect upon the UDF similar to the effect Mitterrand had on the PS. And the UDF was, in 1993, the junior partner to the RPR. This meant that the initiative (role of Prime Minister and membership of government) fell in 1993 as in 1986 to the Gaullists. However, Chirac did not take the premiership. Given subsequent developments it is impossible now to establish whether this was a brilliant or foolish move. For a while in 1994 and 1995, it seemed to have been a mistake of monumental proportions. This reminds us of the crucial role that individual judgements and perceptions had on the republic. Chirac, judging that the premiership attracted unpopularity (and it is true that no sitting Prime Minister has to date won the presidency, and only two Presidents have been Prime Ministers in the Fifth Republic), decided to put forward his former deputy Prime Minister and advisor, Edouard Balladur, as Prime Minister. Chirac was also wary of the humiliations Mitterrand (1986–88) and Giscard (1974–76) had subjected him to, although this aspect would probably not have come into play given Mitterrand’s failing health and the fact that he would not stand again. Chirac, moreover, calculated that Balladur, competent, ‘prime ministerial’, but without a power base in the party (in fact, he seemed more of a UDF style politician, a fact which would take on great significance) seemed the perfect substitute for Chirac while he prepared for the presidency, and undertook to develop a presidential image and stature. But the presidential rivalry would not develop between President and opposition Prime Minister, nor between left and right, nor between Mitterrand and Chirac, but astonishingly between Chirac and Balladur, whose popularity as Prime Minister propelled him into standing for the presidency against Chirac. Throughout 1994, it seemed that they would be the two run-off candidates, both members of the same party, while the PS would face something close to meltdown. Balladur’s government was a ‘balanced’ centre right government with major Gaullist figures (e.g. Pasqua, Juppé – the young Nicolas Sarkozy had his first ministerial post as Budget minister) as well as centrists and UDF figures like Veil, Méhaignerie, Léotard and Bayrou. Balladur began his premiership boldly and decisively, and immediately established that he was not under Chirac’s influence. Not only was Balladur popular, his high popularity was maintained throughout his premiership (over 60 per cent positive ratings). The economy was still in difficulties, in France as elsewhere, although France would lag behind, say, the UK in its recovery, with unemployment still high (12 per cent


and rising throughout 1994), a factor that would play heavily in the presidential election. The government continued with its 1986 privatization programme. The fortunes of the government, however, would revolve almost exclusively around the persona of the Prime Minister. Popular in the polls, Balladur eventually declared his candidacy for the presidency, triggering the division of the right, and a power struggle between himself and Chirac.20 Of this compelling clash we should note here five points, all related to Balladur’s persona. First, Balladur’s popularity in opinion polls was high and was sustained. He was seen as a competent figure, in relative harmony with the President and bringing a certain centrist, almost Giscardian feel to politics, in contrast to Chirac’s impatient hyperactive style when Prime Minister in 1986. We should add, however, that public popularity has enormous, although often elusive, political effects; it informs people’s fortunes, and can be media driven or led, but can evaporate at crucial moments of an electoral process, and is also often in a critical relation to party political organization. Rocard’s political life was dominated by this interaction. We should also note that Balladur’s style was undramatic and patrician, and it was as if his popularity was based upon this. Second, Balladur’s persona, part real, part invented and sustained by the media, was quite novel in contemporary French politics. He was something of a dandy, somewhat precious (it was rumoured he addressed his wife as ‘vous’), with a certain aristocratic ‘English’ style of dress – of shoes, shirts and suits reminiscent of Savile Row. His speech was also quite archaic and ‘plummy’. His aloof and somewhat sanctimonious image was sustained and amplified by his depiction in Plantu’s cartoons in Le Monde. And in comedy sketches his appearance and voice were imitated and exaggerated as in the now highly popular nightly prime time ‘Bébête Show’. In all of these, Balladur was depicted as a king or cardinal, often being carried in a sedan chair by footmen. This meant he would enter the election campaign itself as a kind of exaggerated Giscard figure: aristocratic, Louis XVI-ish, monied, and aloof. Third, Balladur’s premiership developed a reputation for weakness. The line between appearing to search for compromise and consensus and appearing weak is an unclear one. Balladur clearly wanted to give the impression – reminiscent of the Rocard style – of listening, negotiating and compromising. His own ‘method’, like many before and since in Fifth Republic politics, gradually took on the image of a Prime Minister fearful of another ’68. In French politics, the kind of confrontational street politics by a range of interest groups that had taken


permanent hold in the 1980s continued. Air France workers, followed by students, followed by fishermen, staged highly publicized and often dramatic confrontational demonstrations in 1993 and 1994. Balladur’s method – after the initial period of possible negotiation – was essentially to capitulate to the demands of any protest that seemed as if it might escalate. As we have said, this form of politics had become endemic in French politics, but the personal image of Balladur had added to it the idea of the ‘cardinal’, frightened and panicked by ‘the mob’. Not a good image to have on the eve of a presidential bid. Fourth, although not implicated in scandal himself, towards the very end of his premiership three of his ministers became embroiled in financial scandals, one of which, involving Alain Carignon, was very serious (he had apparently made nearly two million pounds corruptly; he received a three year prison sentence); but the three together appeared – once again, but now on the right rather than the left – to suggest that the whole political class was corrupt, and that Balladur’s team was no exception. The overall effect upon Balladur’s image was to lend a range of qualities to his political persona on the eve of his battle with Chirac: distant and aristocratic; unconcerned about the poor and weak (unemployment was still rising, and his hard line Interior minister, Charles Pasqua, associated Balladur further with the notion of heartlessness); possibly treacherous – ready to betray Chirac – underneath his patrician image; and secretly fearful of ‘the crowd’ like an ancien régime monarch. These qualities surrounded Balladur at the moment he threw his hat into the ring. He had a major boost to his image when he and Pasqua more than successfully handled an airplane hostage crisis on Christmas day 1994, but this did not feed into his public persona as it might have done when the campaign began. It was as if the persona of Balladur as a man of drama and action simply would not graft onto his political image. Chirac’s campaign, quite startlingly organized around the opposites of Balladur’s image: left wing (yes!), crusading, caring, populist, healing, reforming, threw Balladur’s into high, almost comic, relief. As the campaign opened, Balladur, clearly uncomfortable as a campaigner amongst the people, stagnated in the polls and then went down past Chirac’s rising star. Crucially, and this is our fifth point, Chirac had the party machine behind him, Balladur only a small team (including Nicolas Sarkozy) and fragile public opinion, and could not counter Chirac’s newfound populist rally image and barnstorming depiction of politics as drama. Balladur became de facto the UDF’s candidate: in 1988, 1995 (and 2002 and 2007) the ‘UDF’ candidate was beaten in round one by the Gaullist candidate.


The two year period of Balladur’s premiership is interesting to us for what it demonstrates about the curiously powerful role personal relations and character can play. Balladur was ‘not supposed to’ run for the presidency. And he did because he thought – thanks to his unexpected popularity ratings – he could win. No Prime Minister before him had maintained such high opinion poll ratings for so long. His premiership was in some ways, on privatizations and immigration/nationality, a reprise of the 1986 government. He had, however, given it a more consensual feel. He seemed to get on with Mitterrand in a way Chirac had been unable to. The period of two years was arguably not enough for any real economic benefits from government initiatives to pay off. The economy (on a prediction of 2.6 per cent growth) actually went into negative growth, –0.08 per cent in 1993, and unemployment kept rising. It was falling by the end of 1994 – although France was also by this time well into the debate over ‘exclusion’, that is, not only the unemployed but a growing ‘underclass’. Chirac had been campaigning since the beginning of November 1994 on a notion, novel for the right, of ‘la fracture sociale’ and how to heal it. From the opening of the campaign Balladur’s public image stalled and, losing its stature, immediately appeared inadequate to the presidency. The duel between Chirac and Balladur demonstrated both the space offered to personal politics as well as its virulence and its unpredictability within the Fifth Republic. Once the public had got used to the reality of the Chirac-Balladur conflict, it seemed an almost allowable luxury to have two mainstream right candidates fighting for the crown. With the sudden surge in popularity of a possible Delors candidacy, the perilous nature of such rivalry emerged. Delors became a possible winner, with only Balladur being seen to be able to possibly beat him. Suddenly the pressure on one of the two to ‘stand down’ (even before official declarations of candidacy) increased dramatically. Chirac’s fortunes were saved by Delors himself who declared his non-candidacy on 11 December 1994. Regarding the serendipitous effects of personalization, Jospin’s sudden reappearance on the political scene (he declared his own candidacy on 4 January 1995 in the aftermath of Delors’ declaration) helped Chirac, but also revived the PS, and overnight let it become once again a national level party with presidential prospects. Jospin was less popular than Delors, but he was much more appropriate for the party: at national level, he could represent all the factions in the PS. He, unlike Delors, was truly a party man. He took the party’s nomination against the implausible Mitterrandist candidate, Henri Emmannuelli, and went


on to challenge Chirac. Delors’ deciding not to run meant Balladur’s crucial presidential raison d’être on the right was gone. Sarkozy had said on 4 December that Balladur was the only candidate who could beat Delors. Without him a classic left/right dual between the left led by the PS and the right led by the RPR became possible once again. Jospin asserted his ‘new’ leadership of the revived left by coming first in round one with 23.03 per cent of the vote. Chirac was second with 20.48 per cent. Balladur, with 18.58 per cent, was out of the race. Le Pen gained a resounding 15 per cent. The TV debate between the run-off candidates was uneventful. On 7 May Chirac was elected by 52.64 per cent of the vote.21 Jospin went on to lead the left; Chirac led a very divided right, even though it held a huge parliamentary majority from the legislative elections of 1993. One of the ‘losers’, now treated as a scheming fallen traitor, and fighting for his political life, was the ex-Budget minister, Nicolas Sarkozy.

1995–97: Balladur out, Chirac in; Jospin up, Chirac down: Politics as farce Jospin had not been seen as likely to win the 1995 election. His campaign (like the 2002 campaign where he was expected to win) was uninspiring and lacklustre (the sparks had been created by the BalladurChirac clash), but his seeming austerity and integrity did make him – and therefore the left with him – credible once again, and back in the mainstream of the Fifth Republic. The party had once again a potential President governing a presidential party. The question would be whether his party leadership style could be translated on to a presidential level. Here is a demonstration of how a credible leader might transform a party’s fortunes. In the aftermath of the election, Jospin indeed began to project the image of the man who had truly saved, united and rebuilt the party, and made it ready for government. Moving away from politics in 1993 suddenly made 1993–95 seem like a symbolic traversée du désert that further enhanced Jospin’s symbolic status as the wise leader returning to save the left. The left however had not won the election, and legislative elections were not called in the wake of Chirac’s win, given that the right had such a crushing majority. Chirac appointed his close lieutenant, Alain Juppé, as Prime Minister. Juppé was also seen as a possible successor to Chirac’s presidential leadership at some point in the future, so the Chirac camp seemed, once again, in control, with the cowed Balladurians having no choice but to offer support to the extent they


were allowed to. Having said this, and even though Chirac had formally led the Gaullists in 1993, this Assembly was not really ‘his’. Like Giscard in 1974, the President led an Assembly that did not act as a legitimating ‘rally’ to personal leadership because it predated his election. The thrust of social conflict was carried into the post-election period in part because of the now near-permanent confrontational nature of French politics. Railway workers, teachers, hospital staff, bank staff, hauliers, one after another in the autumn of 1995, led massive social protests. The thrust was maintained because the platform that Chirac had stood on in the campaign itself and the rhetoric he had used was one of the need to repair a ‘social fracture’. Such a bold and leftist discourse was thrown into relief, almost into disbelief, by the character of the government appointed. Juppé’s image was that of the cold, socially indifferent, mandarin technocrat unheeding of the calls for social change. His response and, generally speaking, policies (on tax, budget cuts, balance of payments) were designed to get the economy into better shape with all the short term sacrifices this would entail. These were the policies of a straightforward right wing conservative government. Unemployment continued to rise, now to an all time high (12.5 per cent), so that the aftermath of Chirac’s election saw a kind of ‘third round’ of the presidential elections in the form of major demonstrations against the government. The left was able to associate itself with these while the PS, now under Jospin’s leadership, began to recover its confidence. Chirac’s popularity fell along with Juppé’s because of the starkly contrasting image of Chirac as candidate and Chirac as President. The ‘social fracture’ (a discursive invention irrespective of whether it reflected a reality) seemed to be unhealed. The idea therefore that Chirac’s new government was a cynical betrayal of presidential promises was widespread. The rhetoric had been empty. The image of a kind of indifferent harshness was further reinforced by the highly unpopular resumption of nuclear testing. Subsequently in an unrelated incident in the summer of 1996 some very rough treatment was meted out (and highly publicized in the media) to a group of homeless ‘sans papiers’ taking refuge in a church. In a very short time, the idea of a wise, returning Chirac, renewed and transformed by his own traversée du désert, was squandered. The campaign against Juppé (and Chirac) was also pressed within the governing majority, and in exactly the terms engaged by the strikers and the left: the need for compassion, the lack of social vision, the cold


technocratic nature of the governing ethos, and so on. And at a very personal level, another ‘scandal’ about the fractional rent paid by Juppé on his Paris flat created a sensation and the collapse of his popularity. A short-lived but ultimately quite significant series of oppositions took place within the right itself, further fragmenting it in terms of personalities, ideology and discourse. The government had UDF support but this was lukewarm, and the Balladurians were in disgrace, so that as the government’s unpopularity grew, these elements (some of them ministers): Léotard, Millon, but also Giscard, began to make public comments on the narrowness of vision and inappropriate style of President and Prime Minister. The biggest threat, and clearest evidence that the ‘social’ vision of the 1995 presidential campaign had been betrayed, was the vocal opposition of the populist leftist Gaullist, Philippe Séguin. He also embodied (and recreated in national discourse) an earlier, half-forgotten (pre-Chirac) Gaullism of social inclusion. He was even supported in this by another pre-Chirac Gaullist, the right wing Charles Pasqua. All of these criticisms, with Séguin using his presidency of the National Assembly almost as a counter pole of vocal opposition to the government, encouraged still further the idea that the Juppé government was completely out of touch and lacking integrity, and that he, Séguin, embodied the spirit of inclusive Gaullism, recently revived rhetorically by Chirac himself. In this difficult situation for an embattled government (ironic, given its parliamentary majority), Chirac (and Juppé, and Chirac’s chef de cabinet, Dominique de Villepin, and Chirac’s influential daughter, Claude) made a monumental political miscalculation. Feeling that the majority no longer offered authority and legitimacy to the government and President, Chirac – only two years into his term – decided to call early legislative elections. The miscalculation was even greater in that it was seen as a cynical move to legitimate government in order to push through further austerity measures, this time to prepare France for joining the new European currency. Chirac was seen as lacking political integrity first through what he said, and now through what he did. The calculation was that the right’s majority was so great it would be returned with a policy-legitimating, albeit reduced, majority. The elections were called suddenly in April 1997 with only a month’s notice. The 1997 dissolution was not caprice, but was a clear illustration that the scope for personal misjudgements of great consequence had become integral to the regime. A further feature of this period as regards the image of the President was that, since his election, Chirac had not made a single speech that was impressive or captured the public’s


imagination or the public mood or the spirit of his own 1995 discourse. The result of this gathering of negative features was the wiping out of the right’s huge majority. It lost 220 of its 477 seats, and the election of a left wing coalition headed by the now still austere-seeming but moral and competent leader, Jospin. The left won 42 per cent of the vote, the right only 31 per cent (with the far right gaining an unprecedented legislative 16 per cent). The President was humiliated, and Jospin’s reputation (and Séguin’s as another potential presidential rival; he took the leadership of the RPR) and potential presidential image enhanced dramatically.22

1997–2002: The eternal cohabitation. Good government, and catastrophe The outcome and consequences of the 1997 legislative elections demonstrated political miscalculation on an almost comical scale, and threw into relief the constitutional strangeness of the republic itself. The previous two cohabitations were politically aberrant but were of only two years duration, and could therefore be seen and lived as a kind of temporary ‘conjuncture’. In 1997, the Fifth Republic faced for the first time, the almost nonsensical situation of a five-year left wing legislature under a right wing President, and this simply because the latter had personally miscalculated. Another reason Chirac had dissolved the Assembly was his utter conviction that the PS was all at sea and that Jospin had no real political leadership skills. The humiliation that accompanied this near-farcical situation was all Chirac’s. For Chirac, as for Mitterrand between 1986 and 1988, the way forward in terms of retrieving his authority was discursive and symbolic. This was in part provided for him by the fact that no one now in the Fifth Republic, outside the extreme left (and even they played the game), contested the authority of the presidential office itself, even though no precise definition of what this actually was could be elaborated by anyone. A lame duck President was, therefore, possible because there was consensus on the legitimacy of the office itself. Throughout the legislature, Chirac used all the presidential occasions he could to counter Jospin’s claims to leadership and the government’s success.23 His main platform was the 14 July interview (instituted by Mitterrand) in which he would criticize and undermine his government over, for example, its inadequacies concerning taxation policy, the ‘windfall’ taxes of 1999, the five-year presidency, or towards the end of the


legislature, Jospin’s Trotskyist past, and so on.24 Chirac would generally criticize the government on all of its policies, the 35 hour week in particular, seen as the highly controversial centrepiece of government policy. The overall attempt – we say attempt because, for many, Chirac’s criticisms were empty given that he had created this situation – was to depict himself as vigilant and far-seeing, and his own government as lacking in foresight and lacking in effort. Many of his declarations were of the kind to urge the government to do more and increase their efforts. Chirac also had the further presidential advantage of events like the successful Football World Cup of 1998 and Euro 2000, which France won, to great national acclaim, and a range of high profile international meetings and talks, for example to the German Bundestag in June 2000, and the reaction to 9/11 (2001) in which French solidarity with the US was officially expressed by Chirac alone as the legitimate and only ‘national’ voice at international level. In this domain, Jospin’s own efforts, like Chirac’s as Prime Minister under Mitterrand, were never particularly successful, and sometimes were diplomatic disasters like his being pelted with stones, and putting himself in serious danger, by a crowd in Palestine after a contentious speech on Middle East politics. Each leader made attempts to lift his status, Jospin in part by insisting upon his busy prime ministerial commitments, and Chirac acting as if he were not responsible for the situation he found himself in. All the actors still behaved, however, as if the presidency remained, or should remain, the centrepiece of the regime, even though it was sometimes a major contributor to the regime’s dysfunction. By the time the 2002 elections approached it is probably true to say that Jacques Chirac had regained – more or less – the electoral potential he had always had in the run up to a presidential election (1981, 1988, 1995…): give or take one or two percentage points, around 20 per cent. Like Mitterrand in 1986, he had accepted his punishment as it were, been forgiven, and regained some of his popularity. The left came into power, suddenly and relatively unprepared. Under the circumstances, Jospin’s leadership in the sense of managing a coalition government was startlingly better than had been anticipated. It was true that the essential ingredient of this – his unquestioned leadership of the PS – had been assured since his score in 1995 (and in 1994 a PS rout had been predicted). This was now crowned by the left’s 1997 win. The PS entered the 1997 National Assembly with 254 seats, 35 seats short of a majority. The majority was achieved with the support of several political parties: the PS was joined by the PCF, the


Green Party, Chevènement’s Citizens’ Movement, the Left Radicals and several left-leaning independents. Together they constituted the ‘plural left’. Such a coalition would be difficult to maintain throughout a whole legislature. It was partly due to Jospin’s surprisingly good managerial skills that the coalition endured more or less intact until 2002. One of the prices to pay for this, however, was that concessions, wheeling and dealing, negotiations, compromises, and so on had to be undertaken in order to keep the coalition intact.25 The effect of this was to hold Jospin’s own image within a managerial status, and restrict his presidential aspirations to a kind of solid, competent claim. And from 2000 Jospin’s government began to lose its collegial character. It was as if the 2002 election campaign itself would decide the question of Jospin’s presidential potential.26 From May 2000, two crucial and related developments took place: the reversal of the order of the presidential and legislative elections, and the alignment of the presidential and legislative term by making the presidency a five year term like the legislature, so that in theory they would occur at the same time. Reversing the timing of legislative and presidential elections would reassert presidential influence and most probably give to whoever won, a sound majority in the Assembly, thus reasserting presidential dominion, diminished since 1988. The second would, it was argued, rationalize the republic and hopefully rid the republic of its ‘cohabitations’ and weak Presidents. Each of the measures, the second an artful Giscardian move to counter the regime’s Gaullism, had, for those who supported them and those who opposed them (Jospin supported both, Chirac opposed both), the opposite effects from those intended: Jospin hoped to profit, and lost, Chirac feared to lose, and won. A further misjudgement was Jospin’s repeating Chirac’s misjudgement of 1997. By 2001, Jospin’s disdain for Chirac, who seemed to some corrupt, amoral, and ethically and strategically bankrupt, would prove disastrous, for he displaced his own view onto the national level, assuming the French would do nothing other than cast the President aside. Everyone had miscalculated, especially regarding the outcome of round one of the presidential election of 2002.27

2002: Jospin snatches defeat from the jaws of certain victory We should draw attention to two things about the 2002 presidential election campaign, for these throw into high relief the unpredictable


nature of French politics and the role of chance. The first is that this election, the most attention-drawing (both nationally and internationally) in round two, perhaps even more so than 1981, was, until the evening of the first round, barely on anyone’s radar, even at the national level. There was very little interest in the campaign. Apathy was demonstrated by the abstention rate, but equally by the almost complete lack of public and media interest; until, that is, the political earthquake of Le Pen’s vote, itself in part the result of a generalized apathy and political abstention by the electorate at large. Jospin’s achievements had been legion, not least his apparent competence, particularly at his presiding a difficult coalition for a whole legislative term, and being the Prime Minister of possibly the most effective left wing government France had seen. He had also presided the introduction of the (albeit controversial) 35 hour week, initiatives on youth employment, privatizations, a decisive fall in unemployment (the bane of all governments for over 20 years), better economic growth, record tax returns, improvements to the health insurance scheme, and legislation on ‘parité’ (equal gender representation), the PACS (civil partnerships open to both homosexual and heterosexual couples), and the restriction of the unpopular ‘cumul des mandats’ to reduce the number of jobs (councillor, mayor, MP and so on) a politician could hold at one time. Few governments, especially leftist ones, could claim such competence. Jospin and the 2002 campaign Like Jospin in 2002, Balladur in 1995 had been seen as the favourite, but unlike Balladur, Jospin had the powerful socialist party behind him. In a word, there had never been, since Pompidou, a Prime Minister (and certainly not a leftist Prime Minister) more successful, and now better placed and ‘positioned’ than he. Not since 1969 had a candidate had such a clear run at the presidency. His rival, Chirac, was seen by many as having achieved nothing. We need to ask therefore what were the factors that led to the collapse in Jospin’s fortunes. We can identify four linked factors, and they each centre on character and persona. It is true that policy convergence and familiarity had brought the two men together in the public’s eyes. But Chirac had in the weeks before the campaign, largely through the public relations efforts of his daughter Claude, taken on once again some of the ‘battling Jack’ aspects of his former persona. And campaigning from a position of perceived weakness has often been a major strategic advantage to candidates in the Fifth Republic. He also stressed, from January onwards,


again and again, the Le Pen-like theme of ‘sécurité’ (law and order) and Jospin’s government’s failure to address the problem, thus dividing them from one another, and depicting Jospin as a traditional leftist, unconcerned with the law and order worries of the ordinary citizen. Second, Jospin seemed as if he no longer controlled the plural left. The plethora of left candidates was simply a political reflection of the state of the parties, but it seemed as if they were standing because he was not qualified alone to stand against the right. From April to June it was a ‘complex mix of disenchantment, demobilization and protest’28 but a mix that reflected badly on the left’s candidate. These candidates and their electorates would all have supported Jospin in round two, but in round one they wanted to stress their own part of the left and gain ascendancy over the other parts of the plural left; they did this by stressing the failure of the mainstream left candidate to capture their aspirations. In all, there were eight candidates standing for the left. Jospin’s persona as a rallying figure at election time was flawed (there had been only four candidates in 1995). Third, there were real errors of judgment by Jospin. There was the prematurely centrist statement that his presidential programme was not a socialist one.29 He also seemed quite strikingly tired throughout his campaign (this, in fact, through over-activity). And Chirac stayed quite relaxed yet lively during the campaign proper. This was compounded when Jospin miscalculated terribly by referring to Chirac as too old and worn out, which the media transformed into an unacceptable and ageist personal attack, while it drew further attention to the fact that Jospin actually seemed sullen and exhausted and Chirac not at all. Fourth, Jospin seemed aloof, and not particularly likeable. Even here Chirac’s friendly rogue-ishness contrasted with Jospin’s apparent coldness, an image of almost un-Frenchness. Whatever the public thought of Chirac – and he gained only his usual 20 per cent – Jospin inspired no enthusiasm, and enough of a lack of it to trigger, by French standards, a huge abstention rate (along with spoiled ballot papers, over 30 per cent), enough to allow the ‘third man’, Le Pen, a man who inspired public feeling in inverse proportion to Jospin, to overtake him, creating a first-round humiliation that the French presidential elections had never before seen. Even Balladur’s result in 1995, and Barre’s in 1988, and Chaban’s in 1974 were less of a personal defeat than Jospin’s (and Defferre had never been a front runner in 1969).30 The image in 2002 was not of the defeat of the left after five successful years but the personal defeat of Jospin for being of inadequately presidential stature.31


The republic saved – by presidentialism 2002 marked a moment of drama of a kind that has occurred many times since 1958 and which seemed to question, even threaten, the republic, and in the end reasserted it. Chirac’s Soviet-style second round vote demonstrated a profound republican commitment by the French.32 Chirac (helped by a relentless barrage of anti-Le Pen media opprobrium, and the almost complete mobilization of the left in Chirac’s favour) crushed Le Pen with 82 per cent of the vote. Chirac refused to debate with Le Pen between rounds one and two; and Le Pen’s round two campaign never took off. In the period after his victory, Chirac had a political ‘magic moment’, as it were, to address and respond to this suddenly acquired political capital. The vote was not about him though, nor, ironically in a presidential election, about a person, but about republicanism itself.

The left, lost again On the left, in spite of the heady commitment to the republic in round two, in the aftermath of the 2002 ‘events’ there was complete disarray.33 The case of Lionel Jospin demonstrated – in defeat rather than in victory – the extent to which the republic had become organized (or in the post-Jospin period, disorganized) around persona and around persons. And Jospin’s elimination in round one was clearly experienced by him as a personal trauma. The highly competent and successful Prime Minister of five years was as if swiped away. Jospin’s stunned and stunning exit from politics meant that he might make a come back in the Fifth Republican manner. It was however extremely unlikely such a return would be successful because of the nature of his style and cool relationship to his constituencies and potential constituencies, and because of the overwhelming nature of his humiliation. His defeat seemed less cruel than pathetic; and there was a strong sense that Jospin’s character and comportment had themselves helped create a situation which meant his support in round one of 2002, or at any other time, was lukewarm, shallow, fragile.34 The major consequence for the left of Jospin’s defeat was organizational but had significant symbolic and practical consequences. On both the right and left, throughout the history of the Fifth Republic, the ‘heroic’ President and the workaday Prime Minister have informed all leadership relations in the polity, not just those of President and Prime Minister. Because of the nature of symbolic leadership in the


Fifth Republic, it has become a prerequisite that ‘pretenders’ to as well as occupants of the presidential throne, are seconded by a nonthreatening administrative leader who makes no claim to exceptional status. This occurred as early as the young UNR where – through the sidelining of Jacques Soustelle – leadership remained in the administrative service of providing rally support to no leader other than de Gaulle. When Jospin became Prime Minister in 1997 he was replaced as First secretary of the PS by the loyal, down-to-earth, hard-working and rather jolly François Hollande, who was to act as a loyal servant to Jospin as Prime Minister and to keep the party ready for his bid for the presidency (Jospin had himself been Mitterrand’s loyal hard-working First secretary). In the aftermath of 2002, Hollande became, incongruously, the leader of the mainstream left. His position, moreover, was strengthened by the rivalries that re-emerged after Jospin’s departure; he protected ‘the machine’ from the several minoritarian and divisive leadership contenders: Fabius, Lang, Strauss-Kahn, along with later contenders, like Aubry, Dray, Mélenchon, Montebourg, Delanoë and others who might be seen as manoeuvring to take the leadership of the party. Throughout the subsequent period, therefore, Hollande led the party, year after year, as a kind of permanent caretaker leader, acceptable to all as a guarantee of party unity. This meant that the PS, never a serious party of government in this guise, faced a decade or more of stagnation or decline. Royal’s stunning emergence as the party’s and the media’s candidate can in part be understood in the context of Hollande’s pedestrian leadership after the 2002 disaster. We shall look at this in the next chapter.

Beyond neo-Gaullism The first main consequence of the re-election of Chirac was a kind of take-over of the whole right by the Gaullists. Led by the former Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, the party firmly back under the control of Chirac’s supporters, the Gaullists created a new party, the UMP, that would (in theory) incorporate all of the mainstream right. It is true that in many ways it did federate the UDF and RPR into one mass party. Although there had appeared to be two main mainstream rights with separate and organized ‘sensibilities’, these were now minimally different, and yet had created debilitating rivalries, particularly as regards presidential contenders: the Chaban-Giscard, Giscard-Chirac, ChiracBarre, even Balladur-Chirac confrontations had been partly created and certainly sustained by the division of the right. Nevertheless, partly


because it was a more powerful party machine with an activist base, this was a predominantly Gaullist undertaking. One of the UDF’s leaders, François Bayrou, refused to go along with the merger and maintained the UDF, in a much reduced capacity, on the political map, and would go on to stand against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. The second consequence for the right was related to Chirac’s own standing. Given the highly-charged emotional re-election of the President, it is worth speculating whether the relative failures of his second term (his second quinquennat term was largely seen, rather like the previous five years as regards his own successes, as a non-event35); were largely related to the discrepancy between Chirac’s own character and political leanings, and the potentially national rally status he might have enjoyed. It is also arguable that Chirac’s second term was rather like Mitterrand’s and perhaps even de Gaulle’s; there seems to be a dynamic lost in the second term (even though this might not apply in terms of legislation actually passed) that contrasts with the more vigorous nature of the first term. Chirac began his new presidency in a politically unassailable position. His ‘gesture’ to the middle ground was the nomination as Prime Minister of the, formerly UDF now UMP, centrist, Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Raffarin was a significant choice in that he did represent the centrist, non-Gaullist part of the governing majority. Indeed Raffarin’s image was reminiscent of that other earlier right represented by Antoine Pinay, Alain Poher, and Raymond Barre. The true conflict, the real power struggle, however, was taking place elsewhere, between two of the right’s main figures, Dominique de Villepin and Nicolas Sarkozy. Chirac’s second term was essentially the two – and largely separate – stories of Sarkozy’s bid for the leadership of the right and Royal’s bid for the leadership of the left.

8 The Presidential Election of 2007

In this chapter, we shall concentrate our analysis on Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, and look in particular at how they used the opportunities provided by the Fifth Republic’s institutions and culture, its ‘settlement’; and how these created the conditions of their leadership ‘performance’. We need also to bear in mind the gender factor, for Royal’s presence: the first major female contender for the presidency throws into relief in a startling way many of the unspoken, implicit characteristics of the presidential settlement.1 In the case of Royal, because her gender and the mediation of ‘the feminine’ in her candidacy, both by the media and by her, was central to her campaign, we shall concentrate upon this aspect. Sarkozy dramatically downplayed her gender (her opponents in the PS strategically should have followed this example). As a woman she raises different and often new aspects to analysis. We therefore need to be aware of not only her role as a woman in politics, but also the representation of her as a female ‘character’ and feminine persona in the political realm, and the wider political and cultural responses to gender.

Ségolène Royal Let us look then at Ségolène Royal’s political trajectory; her ‘persona’; and the campaign itself. The trajectory Marie-Ségolène Royal was from a military, provincial, old-fashioned and, in her teens, after the separation of her parents, a church-mouse poor family. She was educated at Sciences-Po and the ENA. Something of a loner, and a very hardworking student, she became part of the 179


group of friends around her jovial and popular fellow student, François Hollande. She became his girlfriend and subsequently partner for over 20 years, having four children with him. After ENA, they both entered the civil service. Hollande, on the suggestion of a senior colleague at the Cour des comptes, Jean Rosewald, went to work with Jacques Attali, Mitterrand’s private advisor. Royal joined him, and both worked for Mitterrand’s 1981 campaign. Hollande later went on to work for the new socialist government’s spokesperson, Max Gallo, and Royal for Mitterrand’s team. She worked on social questions, to which she added the environment. Mitterrand noticed her and was impressed by her knowledge of ‘women’s issues’ and her skill at organizing a dossier. In 1983, she became an official advisor (chargée de mission) and worked, along with many others, for the President. In the den of vipers, she was unpopular with many people, seen as a newcomer and without legitimacy in the President’s entourage. He found her intriguing, amusing, and efficient. Her relative freedom enabled her, with Hollande, to become involved in a series of often semi-secret initiatives (not always successful) on behalf of Mitterrand. Hollande, in particular, was involved in the behind the scenes setting up of SOS-Racisme (where the couple became friends with Julien Dray in particular). It was Hollande who introduced Bernard Tapie into Mitterrand’s circle.2 The Mitterrand years In 1988, Royal made a last-minute appeal to Mitterrand for a constituency for the legislative elections. She impressed him even more by winning the seat, in Deux-Sèvres. There clearly was ‘something about her’. As an MP, she avoided parliamentary debate and took up ‘causes’, often attention-catching ones that would catch the public’s – and the media’s – interest: getting rid of summertime time, opposing the legalization of brothels, opposing TV programmes considered bad for children. Her style in TV interviews was quite dramatic. She attracted attention, and she conflated left wing and very traditional ideas invariably related to children, family, the environment, lifestyle, and social issues. All of these aspects would be revived two decades later. In 1992, in the last stand ‘dernier carré’ 11-month government of Pierre Bérégovoy, Royal was made Minister for the environment (which, incidentally, meant that Hollande would not be made a minister). As a minister, Royal became even more aware of the media and of her status as a woman in politics. Like Sarkozy, she cultivated the image of someone involved in frantic activity, and in causes. When a minister, and heavily pregnant with her fourth child, Flora, and working more or less

The Presidential Election of 2007 181

right up until giving birth (even involving a trip to Brazil in May), she made use of the media to emphasize here identity as a working mother. She was photographed with her new-born daughter for Paris Match. Such a gesture was seen by many as a demonstration of the new kind of woman who could reconcile motherhood and career, by others (including her feminist colleagues) as distasteful self-promotion and publicity-seeking. This dual image would accompany her, in shifting proportions, throughout her career, and would play a decisive role in her presidential campaign. As a minister, she appeared to ‘get things done’, and got two environmental laws on to the statute book, along with a number of other measures in the dying months of the Bérégovoy government. In March 1993, only 54 Socialist MPs survived the right wing electoral landslide. Not only was Royal re-elected, she was returned to the National Assembly with an even larger majority than in 1988, the only PS MP to increase their first round vote.3 Returned to Parliament, she was among a much reduced number of big names. Rocard, Jospin and Hollande amongst others, had lost their seats. And in a much reduced PS landscape, Royal gained a wider reputation as an unorthodox, outspoken politician on a range of issues. Royal’s political career was informed by various factors, including her own determination and competence, but also – like Sarkozy – bravado. She seized all opportunities for promotion and self-promotion that were available, and exploited exhaustively the issues associated with a new generation of ‘liberated’ post-’68 women: issues which, paradoxically, defined them as women: family issues, morality, children, equal rights, the environment, sexuality, social policy, and so on. She also pushed her image as a committed and successful working mother. One of the characteristic features of the Fifth Republic was that of patronage in the context of ‘good fortune’. Royal’s political relationship with Hollande, then, more importantly, Attali, then Mitterrand, and later others such as Claude Allègre, all afforded fast-track opportunities. Her status as a successful MP and then minister also brought her fame and success beyond that of her party, and her drive meant that, as women were sought to fill crucial posts (and there were few of them), she was there and available with growing knowledge and experience in a field dominated by men. Once again, this would inform her later successes, and some of her failures. We should also note her relative distance from the party. Although a Mitterrandian, she was not really in anyone’s inner circle in the PS, and she was very much on the outer edge of the presidential circle. She did not have, for example, strong association with or


influence within a PS courant. This absence of the ‘discipline’ of a party faction would also become enormously significant later on. In the barren PS years between 1993 and 1995, Royal maintained her distance from the party machine, while her partner Hollande became a significant player within it. She nevertheless spoke out on virtually all issues – ignoring the allocation of roles within the PS parliamentary group – much, once again, to the exasperation of many of her colleagues. In March 1994, she played a highly publicized role in supporting Turkish MPs, particularly women MPs, facing imprisonment for standing up against their government. She flew to Ankara and spent the night with MPs in a besieged Parliament. In 1994, with a great deal of behind-the-scenes activity from Hollande and his associates, many in the party, including Royal, worked for a Delors candidacy in the presidential elections. This never happened, yet the incident is revealing of the party, the regime, and Royal’s subsequent comportment; the Delors ‘moment’, where even the far-left of the party were prepared to rally to him if he came forward, showed that the whole of the PS would follow any credible leader who might win them the presidency. It was also a demonstration that an ‘outsider’ without a personal faction but with a political base or reputation of some kind could gain the party’s support. Royal herself had even considered running for the PS’ presidential candidacy at this time, to the amusement and incredulity of some. She criticized both the outgoing and incoming leaders (Emmanuelli and Jospin); a criticism that would damage her subsequent prospects of high office. The Jospin years Jospin’s credible presidential challenge to Chirac in 1995 earned him the leadership of the party and, therefore, in the wake of Chirac’s dissolution of the National Assembly in 1997, the premiership. Jospin made Hollande his spokesperson in 1995 and First secretary in 1997 when he became Prime Minister. Hollande’s holding the highest party office was not actively used by Royal either at this time nor later in her presidential bid (Hollande in fact hoped to run himself), but it did Royal no harm by keeping her close to the centres of power when she needed this. She was able to use a direct line to Hollande, or occasionally through Hollande to Jospin. Jospin, however, like all of the PS ‘elephants’, had little consideration for Royal. He eventually offered her a post as Junior minister for schools. She had been a full minister under Bérégovoy. It was only with the protective patronage of Jospin’s close ally, Claude Allègre, Minister for education, that she got this job.


Allègre’s ministry was beset with its own problems, and in March 2000 he resigned. Royal was moved sideways, not upwards, and became Junior minister for the family. We should note also the perceived lack of team spirit and many individual initiatives, many of which contributed to Allègre’s isolation and eventual resignation. She also acrimoniously lost several of her close collaborators in the period 1997–99,4 much as she had when Minister for the environment in 1992–93, and as she would as President of Poitou-Charentes after 2004, and indeed as presidential candidate in 2007. Royal again applied herself to her new junior post with intensity, again gaining media coverage; Le Monde called hers the ‘Ministry of the one o’clock news, and family and women’s magazines’.5 Royal was seen publicly as a kind of Minister-mother; speaking out about and introducing legislation related to social issues such as the treatment of paedophiles, the reform of school reports, against schoolgirls wearing ‘thongs’, the promotion of the morning after pill, paternity leave, and so on. These headline-grabbing issues thrust her into public view, but there was a risk they would ‘hold’ her later in the symbolic category of someone who could not/did not ‘aspire’ to the higher more visionary affairs of state. Jospin’s animosity, and the fact that he restricted her to junior posts concerned with social and family policy in his 1997–2002 government would have long term effects. As a junior minister, she maintained the pattern of activity she had developed strongly in 1992: personal association with high-profile policy issues; thorough knowledge (usually) of the dossier; followed by a media announcement; the dramatic and frantic (over)working of her team; a showdown ‘bras de fer’ with any opposition; and, finally, a highly mediatized and noisily triumphant outcome, if successful, or as low a profile as possible, if not. Her invasion of others’ space and her ‘activism’ meant that she often ‘upstaged’ with her proposals senior female colleagues such as Élisabeth Guigou and Martine Aubry, incurring their long term disapproval and eventually acute animosity, and more significantly in terms of her persona, a question mark over her feminist credentials. In the 2004 regional elections, Royal became, in a relative PS landslide, the only female President of a Regional Council, Poitou-Charentes, having crushed the Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s team, and taken the region, against all expectations, for the left. Her reputation as a female giant-slayer6 (and with her own meticulous attention to the media) was enhanced even further. When she became President of the Poitou-Charentes regional council in 2004 she again lost personal


support, as she was considered by some who worked closely with her as aggressive and difficult. Having said this, her adversaries in 2007 in the battle for the presidential nomination underestimated – because of her reputation – the support networks and devoted collaborators she did have. From the local to the virtual From this moment, ‘Présidente’ Royal used her local base as a springboard to national prominence. She used essentially the same method she had always used: media visibility, grand gestures, hyperactivity. To these, however, as we shall see below, she added the ‘construction’ of an enormously successful political persona. From the 2004 campaign onwards, she developed concertedly the idea of listening to the ‘people’: the local people, the citizens, and those opposed to big businesses, those without a strong voice, and being with them, being among them. In the regional campaign itself, she had used not only constant dialogue with the media but also a high profile low profile, as it were, a kind of meet-the-people approach more concerned with ‘her’ people than with la politique polticienne. As a high profile politician with a strong local base, she began to appear favourably in the polls at national level. From this developing listening-tribune style, she transposed all of the discourse, symbolism, mythology and most importantly, her own image, from local politics onto national politics via the internet. From here her own website, Désirs d’avenir was born, set up in December 2005 by Benoît Thielin (see below). She became the darling of the media, especially the mushrooming ‘women’s lifestyle’ magazines, and of the polls, the polls and the media from then on dynamically interacting. In January 2006, she visited Chile to meet and support the soon-to-be-elected first female, and socialist, President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, and was treated by the army of journalists accompanying her as Bachelet’s French socialist counterpart. Jack Lang made the same trip a fortnight later – accompanied by not a single press photographer. In late September 2005, in Le Monde then in Paris Match, she made it clear she was interested in running for the presidency (her internet bloggers had long been encouraging her to do so). Throughout 2006, her opinion poll ratings soared. In April, on television, she said she would ‘probably’ be a candidate, and on 29 September she declared herself a candidate for the nomination. In November 2006, in a party with over 80,000 new members, she took the nomination with a stunning firstround absolute majority (60.65 per cent) leaving her two rivals miles


behind (Dominique Strauss-Kahn took 20.69 per cent, and Laurent Fabius 18.66 per cent). Ségolène Royal and ‘Ségolène’ The persona of ‘Ségolène Royal’ emerged dramatically into the public’s consciousness in the course of 2005 and 2006. Her characteristics were all positive. At the end of 2005–06, as she began to become a household name, she was seen as – and probably in this order – first, a pretty woman, extremely attractive for her age (early 50s); second, an intelligent, cultivated woman; and third a socialist with strong feminist views and strong ‘un-socialistic’, ‘conservative’ views on social issues such as children’s exposure to television violence, teenage sexuality, family values and so on. Her disarmingly lovely smile became almost a trademark,7 and as she began to rocket in the polls and dominate the media, France faced with enthusiasm the novelty and possibility of this intelligent and sexy woman (a picture of her in a blue bikini and baseball cap on the beach in the summer of 2006 circulated widely) becoming France’s first woman President.8 Royal thus joined and began to transcend the evolving series of First Lady stereotypes that France had known: the intelligent, Catholic Yvonne de Gaulle, the Socialite Claude Pompidou, the Jackie Kennedylike Anne Aymone Giscard d’Estaing, the campaigning and feminist Danielle Mitterrand, the intelligent, honest (long suffering) and politically-minded Bernadette Chirac; and the range of other well-known women figures: Huguette Bouchardeau, Marie-France Garaud, Françoise Giroud, Simone Veil, Dominique Voynet, Arlette Laguiller and others, as well as Royal’s until then, more famous contemporaries, Élisabeth Guigou and Martine Aubry. Royal’s candidacy posited a kind of natural or cultural progression in French culture with the idea that she, as a woman President, a First Lady of a new type, represented this evolution in French political culture. We should also bear in mind that the post Royal was aspiring to was not the premiership, but the French presidency which combined political power with all the symbolism of a (personified) state, so that the womanly and smiling Ségolène triggered in the national imagination all the myths surrounding Marianne, i.e. France as a personified woman. This image began to blend with its opposite, the image she had had hitherto as a down-to-earth, intelligent working mother who bought her clothes from Galeries Lafayette.9 And as a politically active and intelligent woman, Royal was able to combine these several qualities to become ‘un ensemble de signes que l’on appelait Ségolène’.10 As she


became more well-known, it is not an exaggeration to say that 2005–06 saw the media saturation of the Ségolène phenomenon (at many times and for long periods only she and Sarkozy captured national attention). Further qualities, therefore, were added to the composite of the intelligent, feminist mother. The myth of the woman – in a man’s world – who, through determination, would ‘overcome’ would serve her well, and was real enough. Added to this now was, at times, a near-Madonna style image of ‘Ségolène’, beaming, open armed to her followers. From virtual to presidential It was from her ‘outside’ position as President of Poitou-Charentes that Royal fashioned the image that would storm the party’s presidential nomination process. She began to develop a kind of frank-speaking, attentive, listening, neighbourhood-sensitive image, bringing in the ‘voice’ of local people and picking up artfully on the ‘ras-le-bol’ attitudes as expressed in the Euro referendum, and in opinion polls. In 2005, she enhanced her physical personal image. Her slightly jutting canines were levelled, and her clothes became more mainstream and modern. Her appearance became more professional looking, moving away from her earlier tendency to be somewhat hippy with leggings and braided long hair. Her hair as well as her skirts got shorter, and she often wore smart, stylish suits, and, in particular a (symbolic?) white jacket. On 16 October 2005 she said ‘il faut redonner un désir d’avenir à la France’11 and the site Désirs d’avenir was born as a kind of symbolic rallying ‘response’ to her. It acted as a kind of virtual site for discussion, and a gathering of ideas around her persona. Although Royal had herself supported the ‘oui’ vote for the 2005 referendum on Europe, she had realized that many ‘nonistes’ used the internet.12 In a few weeks there had been 200,000 hits; and 6,000 policy proposals had been made to Désirs d’avenir by its users. She went on to develop an interactive book. 950 local committees were later created, with her team acting as the guardians of her ideas, and as her spokespersons interpreting her ‘thought’. The notion of a vast rally was being created in response to a ‘desire’ she had seen, or sensed. Désirs d’avenir was France’s first internet rally. The quality of the site and its ideas were rather mediocre. But this was not important. Désirs started setting up regional committees throughout France. In November 2005, Jack Lang had introduced the idea of an online 20€ subscription to the PS (in part to launch his own source of support within the party). This acted as a massive stimulus to Royal’s fortunes. By the time of the election of the party’s candidate, the


party’s membership was up by tens of thousands. Many of these joined in response not to Lang, nor the PS itself, but to Désirs d’avenir and Royal. In September 2006, the ‘virtual’ rally held its first real rally, a celebration of devotion to Royal. She responded, treating supporters as disciples and presenting herself as a ‘chosen’, almost mystical leader, asking her people to ‘carry her’, to give her strength to help her scale the mountain, for without them she could do nothing, with them she could vincit omnia, and so on.13 In all of these meetings, she controlled the way she entered a room and went up onto the stage, how the microphones and other acoustics and the lighting were organized. She often talked to her audience without a script or with very discreet teleprompts, and walked freely around the stage with a wireless microphone, even reaching out and touching members of her audience, like a rock star at a concert. She became for many of her followers an ‘Evita’ figure. What an irony that several of the party bosses had assumed they had an insignificant minor rival in Royal. And from late 2005, the party’s main contenders for leadership, unaware themselves of how the party (the republic, in fact) truly functioned, began to make a series of fundamental mistakes that carried Royal and her new Madonna-like persona almost effortlessly to massive victory within the party. Instead of attacking her in terms of competence, a series of remarks attributed to (although denied by) several of the ‘elephants’ began to circulate (e.g. who will look after the children? – Fabius; this isn’t a beauty contest – Lang or Mélenchon, it was not clear: all of which she published on her site). These sexist remarks made Royal appear as a victim, and vindicated her own female and feminist struggle. In similar vein, the French commentator and political columnist, Alain Duhamel, published a book in 2006 on the 15 pretenders to the throne, and missed her out.14 To Royal’s ‘missionary’ rally was added a kind of sympathy rally. Her self-depiction as a victim in a macho world seemed even more vindicated, and she came across as much younger and more modern, and feminine, than the old sexist fools she was challenging. One author referred to ‘la façon rayonnante dont elle pétrifie les caciques du parti’.15 There was a religious, tele-evangelist, element to Royal’s candidacy. By the time of the nomination competition, Royal had effected what Lambron calls an ‘Epinay télématique’.16 She had, it seemed, come from nowhere, seen and conquered. The campaign Royal’s victory in the PS primary election against the two main contenders, Fabius and Strauss-Kahn, was stunning. She had a first round


clear majority of nearly 60.7 per cent. The other contenders and would-be contenders, such as Hollande himself, had all needed each other to try to block Royal’s ascent.17 As a result, they appeared as a clique of male plotters, outdated and out of touch, desperately trying to stop the unstoppable, ever-smiling Royal. The Royal case is a very striking demonstration of how, in certain circumstances, one can ‘take’ the party without having a faction. Having no faction actually helped, in that it generated a kind of trans-factional rally that surged foward and gathered around her. The explanations for her defeat, however, are the same as the reasons for her earlier success. They relate to party, but even more importantly lie in the persona of Ségolène Royal and her fortunes after her election to the presidential candidacy on 16 November 2006. Royal’s response to the vanquished was a disdainful one. She had been their victim, and as a result was very cool towards them, ignoring them and later criticizing them during her campaign.18 There was not only her personal hostility to her opponents, there was a kind of logic to her moving on from the party to the notion of a wider rally. Associating with Fabius and others might have seemed like a non-rallying ‘compromise’ with the ‘old guard’, the factions she had so affected to disdain. This, however, was seen by Sarkozy as Royal’s first big mistake,19 for without the incorporation of the party and the party machine into her campaign, she had no truly sound national organization, Désirs d’avenir having, by now, local committees but none with any real national campaign organization knowledge upon which to rely. Her team was not at all experienced in something like a presidential election, and as her campaign team moved into her HQ in the Boulevard St Germain in January 2007, it had no organizational structure to cope, for example, with the thousands of requests for appearances, interviews, meetings, and candidate responses. These just piled up in cupboards.20 Soon telephone calls were not being answered, and no one could get through to the people running the campaign, such as Julien Dray. Within a month, the campaign was in hopeless disorganization. The party itself, with Hollande still First secretary was offered no part in the campaign. For support, she turned incongruously to the PS dissident, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a dreadful choice in that, although he had a certain reputation as a kind of leftist Gaullist, he had no power base anymore or constituency in the wider public, and was seen by many in the party as responsible for the 2002 PS catastrophe.21 Royal also compensated for Chevènement with a strange campaign association with his opposite, as it were, the ‘new left’ philosopher, highly


intelligent (and equally prima donna) Bernard-Henri Lévy. He offered a wider social and intellectual kudos, and helped create the image of her as the wise woman taking wiser and private philosophical advice, but arguably no extra votes. The new fragility and uncertainties of Royal’s position were translated into a directionless campaign. What is of enormous interest in terms of our analysis, in terms of the mythologies surrounding women, and the stereotypes of women in the social and political sphere, is that most of her former advantages combined with the negative aspects of her campaign and turned them all into liabilities: her silences, her failing to ‘engage’, her looks, her inexperience, her ‘gaffes’, her lyrical tones, her association with ‘women’s’ issues, as well as not really having the backing of her political party, her disregard for her PS colleagues, and her perceived inability to work collaboratively, all began to make her appear as an isolated woman, perhaps out of her depth; and all this against the juggernaut UMP carrying Sarkozy forward. In both foreign policy and economic issues, Royal stumbled badly at the beginning of her campaign. In order to give herself status and lift her persona to another level, she visited Lebanon and Israel, and later China. None of these visits added to her presidential image. In China, she seemed unaware of criticism of China’s human rights record, and seemed to make up words (‘bravitude’ for example). The press, hitherto indulgent, began to turn on her, highlighting her policy incompetencies – over Turkey and the EU, over nuclear energy, Quebec, over how many nuclear submarines France possessed, over economic policy generally; and when her much delayed ‘100 propositions’ campaign manifesto was presented to the public in mid-February, it was met with indifference. In terms of the campaign itself, Hollande, speaking on behalf of the party, talked of tax rises, which she countered. The squabbling within her entourage was now becoming publicly apparent. Montebourg, an advisor, criticized Hollande (17 January 2007, making the very personal remark on television that her only real problem was him), and she had to suspend Montebourg from her campaign. Another advisor, Eric Besson, left her camp and in a stunning media coup joined Sarkozy, and, stressing Royal’s incompetence, published a damning book (a bestseller, selling 130,000 copies) in the middle of the campaign. Royal’s ‘campagne romanesque’22 was in danger of turning into farce. She began to appear as an inappropriate candidate without a real programme, and now with a faltering personal image. She was evasive about her own personal fortune, seeming suddenly like other politicians (and yet not as competent). Her career and image as a ‘women’s’ minister began to


appear inadequate, and in interviews she became more and more defensive and ineffective. One of Sarkozy’s first acts as a candidate in January 2007 was to set up a team that would identify and highlight every mistake she made, and persuade his most media-friendly UMP deputies to publicly criticize her, correction upon correction of her policy mistakes. As the two main candidates began to campaign, Royal gave the impression of avoiding Sarkozy just as she had avoided her rivals within the party. Moreover, Sarkozy’s own Achilles’ heel – an intemperate personality – was brought under strict control. He even instructed his own campaign team never to be aggressive towards her, and certainly not ‘as a woman’. In the TV debate between Sarkozy and Royal, between the two rounds, Royal also lacked the ‘statistics at one’s fingertips’ approach, appearing still without traction. She came across as more aggressive than he, in an attempt to counter her developing image as a ‘weak woman’. This was a deliberate approach on her part, but had the effect of compounding the confusion of her persona and character overall and coming too late in the campaign to alter significantly public perceptions of her. It is probable that one of her greatest failings was her reluctance until this point to counter attack, to assert herself publicly, and so on. This would, of course, have altered the whole persona. Between rounds one and two, her own party almost rebelled against her as she tried to negotiate with the centrist candidate, François Bayrou, who had gained over 18 per cent of the vote.23 She knew she needed these votes if she was to win; but now with the clear hostility of the PS barons towards her, Bayrou’s unwillingness to cooperate, and Sarkozy’s image of confidence, she looked a lonely and vulnerable figure. She treated defeat as a kind of triumph of ‘her’ people which also looked rather pathetic, particularly as she lost to Sarkozy with 46.94 per cent to his 53.06 per cent: not a stunning defeat, but not the kind of whisker of defeat like Mitterrand’s in 1974. Ségolène Royal is of enormous interest within the study of leadership politics in the Fifth Republic. We shall return to this in our conclusion. Here we can say that her detonation of a rally – Désirs d’avenir – on the margins of the party, as if ‘on the edge’ between politics and the people, is both a classic and a novel illustration of the springs of leadership politics. And like other Presidents and candidates in the republic – de Gaulle, Mitterrand, Le Pen, for example, she generated great emotional allegiance. Conquering the party ‘as if’ an outsider was also a classic feature of Fifth Republic politics. In her case we also need to


stress how her gender and some of the myths surrounding it carried her up almost irresistibly to the party’s candidacy; and how gender and other myths surrounding it almost irresistibly carried her down to defeat.

Nicolas Sarkozy Like Ségolène Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy had been in the public eye for more than a decade. In his ‘camp’, the mainstream right, Sarkozy had been a significant although maverick player for two decades and more, and in active politics for three. He had seemed to triumph and fail in equal measure, so that his political trajectory seemed to constitute a personal ‘adventure’ played out in the media. Like a Thatcher, a Giscard, or a Le Pen, his received or perceived character was well known (although not necessarily accurate, and this would become crucial as the election approached): impetuous, intelligent, unpredictable, tireless, temperamental, a friend of the rich and famous, extremely provocative, and sometimes very aggressive, perceived by some as a dangerous right winger, by some even as a danger to democracy; possibly, moreover, the only mainstream right politician since de Gaulle truly popular amongst working class people, egocentric, driven, and entertaining. The sixth President of the French Fifth Republic, seemingly so distant from the republic’s founder, reveals – like Royal – the ‘mechanics’, or the ‘grammar’ of the Fifth Republic. Let us divide our analysis once again into trajectory, persona, and campaign. We shall analytically narrate his political trajectory, bearing in mind our criteria of culture and institutions; identify and analyse the perceived ‘character’ Sarkozy, in particular the interrelationship of Sarkozy and the media; and narrate the ‘emergence’ (and triumph) of the candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 election campaign itself. The trajectory In many ways, the trajectory captures the man. Sarkozy grew up, for the most part, in Neuilly, a well-to-do Parisian suburb North West of Paris (just beyond the Arc de Triomphe and Palais des Congrès). His origins were modest – the son of a Hungarian immigrant, a businessman – and he was brought up with his two older brothers, largely by his mother alone. He was arguably too young (in May ’68 he was 13) to have major political views in the late 60s although his older siblings were ‘mobilized’ by ’68 but on the right,


against the Russian crushing of the Prague Spring rather than by the leftist millenarianism of May. Neuilly’s favourite son Unlike so many on the right in French politics, and indeed on the left, he started, in the brief ‘Chaban’ period in the early 1970s, as a very ordinary but highly active Gaullist militant: helping to organize halls for speakers, canvassing, bill sticking, and so on. It is interesting that he was drawn to Gaullism rather than the fast-developing Giscardianism of the early/mid-1970s, preferring the adrenalin of the rallies and noisy Gaullist populist crowds to the more mandarin, regal accents of the Giscardians.24 In this period (he became a local councillor in 1977, aged 22), his tireless activism saw him always ‘involved’, always pushing forward, seizing every opportunity, and always taking risks to propel himself forward and upwards. At this early stage, Sarkozy was learning the tools of the trade in a way few other French politicians have: writing speeches, meeting the Gaullist barons, being actively involved as the UDR moved through the Pompidou and Chaban periods to Chiraquism, ‘working’ a hall, working with like-minded young activists, organizing big rallies. It is also interesting to note the strange feature of French politics, epitomized by Sarkozy: the need, in the republic of apparent ‘lone’ heroes, for parrains, godfathers, connections and pistons of one kind or another. With Sarkozy, the relationships first with Peretti, Mayor of Neuilly, then Tomasini, then Pasqua, then Chirac, then Balladur, were sometimes almost Oedipal in their intensity, dependence and later conflict. Institutionally, it is clear that from the post-de Gaulle period of the Fifth Republic, a patron-like indulgence becomes the norm. With the death of the mayor, Achille Peretti, in 1983, and considering that Pasqua (a very controversial figure for a posh place like Neuilly) might not gather the support necessary for an electoral majority, Sarkozy with the discreet support of the then general secretary of the party, René Tomasini, gathered a conspiratorial entourage that would stay with him for the next 25 years, and made a successful bid for the mayoralty at the age of 28. Using his Neuilly base which he ‘worked’ brilliantly, le petit Nicolas, as he was known to his indulgent constituents, could always rely upon it as a personal as well as partisan fiefdom. He became MP for Hauts-de-Seine which includes Neuilly in 1988 (age 33). In the municipal elections of 1989 he was voted mayor with 75 per cent of the vote in the first round.25


Sarkozy was supportive of his local ‘boss’, the new Interior minister, Charles Pasqua, rallying support for him in 1986 when Pasqua’s political judgement had been seriously questioned over the death of Malik Oussekine.26 He was rewarded with a brief chargé de mission post by Pasqua. It is at this time too that Sarkozy began a long and highly personal, collaborative relationship with Jacques Chirac’s daughter, Claude, who gradually became Chirac’s principal strategist. Sarkozy was also involved with her in helping organize the mega pop concerts (loosely associated with the new rightist government) of figures like Johnny Hallyday and Madonna. And against the national trend (like Royal in 1993), Sarkozy was elected to the National Assembly in the wake of Chirac and the right’s defeat in the presidential and legislative elections of 1988. As early as 1988, major Gaullist politicians of both the populist and conservative wings, such as Pasqua and Balladur, were beginning to regard Chirac as a liability. Such a perspective meant that a re-aligning and a matrix of new allegiances began. Sarkozy, with unabashed opportunism, began to move towards Balladur. With Balladur, the relationship was a strong mutual-admiration-society, and very fatherand-son-ish. From the early 1990s, the media too began to notice Sarkozy – and he responded to journalists very positively, nurturing his personal relationships with them; he was always ‘available for comment’, and receptive to them, gradually becoming a major media character within the political right. Sarkozy would draw upon both the party and the media to propel his political life forward. Balladur’s favourite son Following the serious defeat of the left in the 1993 legislative elections, after the Rocard, Cresson, and Bérégovoy governments, Sarkozy became Budget minister in Balladur’s government, his first very high profile appointment. Sarkozy was still only 38. As a minister, he became better known. In terms of his perceived skills, he, like Giscard, could talk at length and authoritatively in the National Assembly without notes, and was seen as very competent (whether he was is debatable, some27 seeing his period at the Budget as having the function of spending wildly in order to get Balladur elected to the presidency in 1995). There are moments in Sarkozy’s political career where the multiple allegiances become one (and ‘the one’ becomes the betrayal of others), and he acted with all the risks involved. This too should be noted, that one of the features of Sarkozy was his willingness to risk being at the


centre of things, always placing large bets rather than watching and waiting. He made a fateful and politically almost fatal decision. In the spring of 1993, Balladur’s opinion poll popularity began to rocket and it would remain high throughout his premiership. As late as December 1994, it was universally assumed that Balladur would be the next President (with Sarkozy in a major ministerial post). With Chirac’s victory in 1995, the Balladurians were cast into the wilderness. And Sarkozy was seen as the worst of the Judases. On the nightly satirical TV puppet program Les guignols de l’info, Sarkozy the betrayer was portrayed as a mini-Satan. He was now notorious, and worse, seen as having badly miscalculated. Having said this, Sarkozy still possessed his Neuilly base, and soon the need within the RPR to effect a reconciliation to counter the suddenly victorious left in 1997 would draw him back into favour. Return from the wilderness In 1997, Sarkozy took the leadership of the party in a bizarre alliance with Séguin. Sarkozy became the first unofficial, then, in January 1998, the official number two of the party. Chirac ‘forgave’ the impetuous young Judas. They had not in fact met for nearly five years, since 1993.28 Moreover, from this period, the temperamental Pasqua began his journey outwards from the RPR in a quixotic attempt to revivify Gaullism along quasi-RPF lines. And Séguin, angry at the lack of recognition for his support for Chirac in 1995, also started to behave erratically in a manner that would lead to his relative eclipse from French political life (and Juppé was still ‘out’ because of the 1997 debacle). By spring 1999, Sarkozy was General secretary of the Gaullist party. Sarkozy’s lifelong attitude to the party characterized his approach (and would again when he retook the presidency of the new UMP in November 2004). Unlike Juppé, for example – in fact unlike anyone apart from Chirac and Pasqua – Sarkozy enjoyed a dynamic rapport with the activists, and thrilled to the large enthusiastic rallies. Activists who had whistled and booed him for his betrayal, now looked to him once again. The still declining fortunes of the right, however, were reflected in the poor 12.82 per cent the RPR gained at the 1999 European elections. Sarkozy had thrown himself into this campaign. His failure meant his resignation as General secretary. Once again Sarkozy seemed to fall from a great height to near political oblivion. During this period of yet another personal defeat, Sarkozy did two things – wrote and published biographies, books, articles, personal reflections, and philosophy, and books of ideas, and journalism (most of which


was actually very readable and interesting, which is unusual for a practising politician29); and he mended fences with former enemies. He maintained his friendship with Balladur but also renewed his friendship with Bernadette Chirac. Sarkozy and ‘Sarko’ Three major moments marked the ‘creation’ of Sarkozy’s public persona before the 2000s: his role in the Neuilly school hostage crisis, his relationship with Edouard Balladur, and his marriage. Sarkozy the hero On 13 May 1993, a man styling himself as the ‘Human Bomb’ with explosives tied to him and wires trailing from him, took 21 children and their teacher hostage in a primary school in Neuilly. The Mayor, and recently appointed Budget minister, Sarkozy, led the negotiations with the hostage taker. Arguably more dangerous than a rational terrorist, ‘Human Bomb’ was deranged. Sarkozy, with the cameras of the world upon him, showed great courage: entering the school alone, negotiating with ‘Human Bomb’, stepping through the potentially lethal wiring system in semi-darkness, bringing out children one by one, as halting negotiations developed. Seven times he entered the school, bringing out children. The stand-off lasted two days. In the end, marksmen shot the hostage-taker dead. Sarkozy, like the hero in now-familiar hostage films, tired, brave, with distressed children in his arms, became a national hero. Whatever subsequent appraisals of his character, this very real courage and assumption of public duty were henceforth constituent parts of his public persona. Sarkozy the minister The second element of Sarkozy’s public image was his appointment as Budget minister. This in itself was an interesting choice as it allowed Sarkozy to learn about all the other ministries while gaining a reputation in economics (of which he knew little), a prerequisite in contemporary politics for the public persona of major political figures. It was at this time that Sarkozy became a truly nationally known figure (he entered the Figaro ‘Baromètre’ in May 1993), and although until then had worked under the wing of the RPR leader Chirac, it was as Balladur’s activist and mercurial protégé that Sarkozy came to national prominence. This is when the ‘Sarko show’ truly began. He also had new national prominence as the government’s spokesperson, an early and astute indication of his understanding of national politics:


as spokesperson he was constantly on television and in contact with journalists. As Balladur’s star began to rise between 1993 and 1995, Sarkozy became the Prime Minister’s strongest public supporter (with the prospect of becoming possibly the new President’s Prime Minister). Sarkozy, therefore, epitomized political opportunism of the highest order in the abandoning of a loser and the backing of a winner. Balladur, of course, did not win. Chirac won. Sarkozy’s fall, therefore, was all the more dramatic for his having been so prominently involved. The persona of Sarkozy – ambitious and impetuous – took on an Icarus-like quality. Sarkozy’s public persona therefore was colourful and dramatic. He had demonstrated the courage of a hero in the Neuilly hostage crisis, but had – through vanity and ambition – crashed out of politics into possible oblivion. Sarkozy the lover The third element of Sarkozy’s progression towards becoming a household name was his publicly-lived private life, specifically, his marriage to Cécilia Albeniz a beautiful half Spanish, half Romanian ‘socialite’ (though slightly bohemian), mother of two.30 Here we begin to see a real conflation of public and private, and his own formative and active role in that change. The Nicolas and Cécilia (she became known very quickly in the popular press simply by her first name) ‘couple’ entered public life as a kind of ‘celebrity couple’ when he became Budget minister. She became heavily involved in his public life, had an office at the ministry (where she intervened/interfered in a great many issues). She was flamboyant and he, though powerful, was as if emotionally dependent upon and publicly enamoured of her. This sought-after celebrity was given a further twist when it became public knowledge that, at the time of Sarkozy and Cécilia’s affair at the end of the 1980s, they were not only each married (with two children), she was the wife of one of the best-known faces in French public life, the popular broadcaster, Jacques Martin (who had been married to Cécilia by the Mayor of Neuilly, Nicolas Sarkozy…). Sarkozy’s life acquired a kind of glossy tabloid celebrity, tinged with the same kind of either ruthless or impetuous quality that characterized his public life. The gossip column status of their ‘couple’ did not harm Sarkozy’s political career; in fact it gave it a wider media status, and this at a time when public interest in certain public figures was beginning to increase because of the growth of popular glossy magazines. Sarkozy’s passion for Cécilia was admired,


and added humanity to the tougher, public side of his character. It did, however, later on, inform the public fate of Sarkozy’s persona in a potentially negative and certainly unpredictable way; for his seemingly total emotional involvement with Cécilia meant that, when their relationship first faltered, he seemed lost. A week before the 29 May 2005 referendum on the EU constitution, all the newspapers headlined not the referendum but the apparent split between the Sarkozys. Sarkozy’s behaviour in the aftermath of the split, so heartbroken, he uncharacteristically cancelled TV appearances, propelled his image from human to potentially unstable. Crucially, during the presidential campaign of 2007, their revived marriage once more began to disintegrate. The image of Sarkozy was therefore a mixture of many traits, but the underlying principle was that he triggered great public and media attention; and all three – the Neuilly hostage crisis, Balladur’s election defeat, and his high-profile marriage, were major media events. At this time, Sarkozy was coming to be seen by many in the media and the wider public as a likeable character, eternally friendly (when he wasn’t screaming in anger and vilifying someone…), highly personal and emotional in his relationships, loveable in his inconstancy, on a highly publicized roller-coaster of a political career, and infinitely more entertaining than most. He remained, however, a highly provocative figure, perhaps unsuitable for the highest office. Since the early 90s, with all his fortunes and misfortunes, and his volatile character, the question on people’s minds therefore was, would he make it? Or would he autodestruct? From 2002, Sarkozy as a media ‘character’ came almost to dominate daily life. From 2005 he was joined in this by Royal. From the moment of his appointment as Interior minister in 2002, Sarkozy became the most ‘activist’ minister the Fifth Republic had seen, becoming involved in a series of highly mediatized events. On the first night of his appointment, when he visited a run down council estate to ‘see for himself’, one of the vans with him was hit by a brick. The police – and the public – loved this unusual ‘hands on’ approach. He was repeating his high profile media presence of almost ten years previously, but now with an even higher profile ‘law and order’ role, and with a ‘Sarko’s back’ type bravura. From the period of the major defeat at the European elections in 1999, Sarkozy set up a team, almost a ‘commando’ team,31 which acted as planners, liaising with, relating to, measuring, and pre-empting the media and the wider polity, analysing opinion polls, commissioning polls, focus groups, developing slogans, press releases, and generally attempting to ‘mediate’ the character of Sarkozy himself, anticipating


and even creating public opinion, and turning their candidate into the ‘representative’ of French ‘opinion’. On highly popular television programmes such as 100 minutes pour convaincre (e.g. 12 November 2003, the programme where he said he dreamt of being President ‘not just while shaving’, and the same programme again (3 March 2005) where he said he would run for President even if Chirac ran again), Sarkozy – as Royal would also – sent the viewing figures into the, by French standards for this kind of programme, very high five million plus. From 2002 onwards, as a public performer in articles and books, and press conferences (of a very presidential type), TV appearances, public speaking, and acute attention to and indulgence of the press, Sarkozy dominated French politics. ‘Ainsi se forge une image’.32 He dominated the media also in great part because he appeared, through his dynamism and presence, to be the only French politician bringing forward ideas; the only one listening, the only one offering solutions. Like Ségolène, Sarkozy’s opinions were never confined to his ministerial brief. It is true that many of the voters were frightened by the hard aspects to Sarkozy’s image33 so that notoriety accompanied his fame. This was the as if ‘final’ version of Sarkozy; all we have stressed before, but tough, perhaps too tough for presidential office. Following Sarkozy’s election to the leadership of the UMP in November 2004, the UMP membership almost tripled to 330,000 (we saw a similar phenomenon in the PS in 2005–06). The party’s ‘rally’ tradition and media image34 had been revived, but had now shifted its allegiance from Chirac to ‘Sarko’.35 In plebiscitary manner, Sarkozy proposed to the UMP membership a ‘one person, one vote’ system for the selection of the presidential candidate. Sarkozy also excelled in the staging of these huge rally events. This time, he used a publicity agency whose chairman, Richard Altias, was involved in the staging of the event. Cécilia was too. She and Altias soon became more than friends. Sarkozy’s private life became once again of major media interest on the threshold of the election campaign. In May 2005, Cécilia and Sarkozy separated. What the public glimpsed was someone with an almost adolescent emotional dependence upon Cécilia and an equally adolescent, only half-hidden display of ‘hurt’. This strangely ‘humanizing’ development was fused with the other aspects of Sarkozy’s image and ‘character’ with still two years to go before the 2007 election: driven, attention-seeking, hard line, prone to temper tantrums, yet affable, a loyal friend, and helplessly in love – Sarkozy and his love life became even more the stuff of the ‘la presse


people’ (the French equivalents of OK Magazine, Hello etc).36 Sarkozy seemed to express a whole range of exaggerated human qualities: all of the above, plus a kind of fearlessness, a vanity, a need for recognition by father figures and beautiful women. And he displayed paradoxical qualities: distance and familiarity; loyalty and ruthlessness; flamboyancy and modesty; action and reflection; cynicism and honesty. There seemed to be a strange accumulation37 of images of the man, human in many respects but offering a virile toughness to the French. The diminutive but pugnacious Sarkozy was poised to beat any man. His adversary was to be a woman. The virile, competitive, right wing male versus the intelligent and attractive left wing female was to create a very new phenomenon, in part because of the characters of the two protagonists, in part because of their gender, and in part because of their ideas. This was the first ‘sexed’ presidential election France had ever seen. The campaign Before the campaign, Royal appeared unstoppable, and was ahead of Sarkozy in the polls. The potential, however, was unrealized because of the zigzags in her campaign, its insufficient and ‘pointilliste’ approach, the ambivalence and weaknesses of her programme, the way the media turned on her, and her own increasingly faulty delivery and campaign comportment. Sarkozy’s campaign was the opposite: vigorous, wellrun, well-planned, decisive and highly active, and with significantly less media hostility in the closing stages of the campaign. One of his potential problems – that he would be too vigorous and appear overvirile and ‘agité’ against the wiser woman – did not materialize, partly because Royal’s campaign was so weak. This weakness allowed him to do two related things: first, be less strident and more thoughtful and appear less ‘virile’ and therefore less like the Sarkozy people feared, while appearing more effective than she. Second, it enabled him to add further complexity to his ‘character’, going beyond his right wing image and some of the connotations of a darker, more sinister side, and encroaching upon Royal’s (and Bayrou’s) discursive and symbolic territory. This was partly due to his speech writer and advisor Henri Guaino who helped nuance his character. The fortune and fate of each of the two characters, ‘Ségo’ and ‘Sarko’, would now determine the outcome of the election. Guaino’s nuancing of Sarkozy’s character involved two things: dealing with how the male Sarkozy behaved vis-à-vis the female Royal, and the taming of Sarkozy’s character. Sarkozy had a reputation for


outbursts of anger, frightening those around him, calling people ‘crétins’ or ‘cons’, and threatening physical violence in the boorish manner of ‘je te casserai la gueule!’, and so on. He also had a reputation for lacking reflection, and was seen as always stressed. He had mitigated this through some of his more reflective writings. But this wild style, which had helped him develop his dynamic reputation, was in danger of making him seem inappropriate as a President. A female candidate might be the most dangerous candidate Sarkozy could face. The huge UMP rally of 14 January 2007 launched the campaign. So adoring of Sarkozy was the rally that some felt it might be counterproductive. He was voted for by 98 per cent of the party (on a 69 per cent turnout). Just three days previously at a press conference, he had seemed too fiery, too driven. The speech at the 14 January rally transformed everything, and set the tone for Sarkozy’s campaign. Sarkozy gave a highly personalized speech, but not a strident one. He spoke of himself – ‘J’ai changé’ – and of history, of the traditional Gaullists (and his adversaries), but also of many historical figures: Zola, Hugo, St Louis, Voltaire, Pascal … He was evoking a certain idea of France, but not just of the right. He spoke even of the left’s heroes, Jaurès and Blum, and of Georges Mandel. The (beckoning) office of President – like Prince Hal, like Thomas Beckett – was as if imposing a confessional aspect upon him, perhaps even transforming the persona, as if conferring the wisdom of kingship.38 From the following morning, he began to climb dramatically in the polls. And as the ‘rally’ grew, many centrists, and the ‘social’ Gaullists, began to declare their support. A week earlier (9 January), Juppé, who had for a long time been thought to be the main Gaullist candidate, gave him his support. Chirac and de Villepin never really did so, but by now this simply made them seem irrelevant. By defending himself against the excesses of his own character, Sarkozy was making sure he did not come across as a bully, as threatening, particularly to a gentle woman, and that he was ready for kingship. The fact that Royal was not truly Madonna-like was irrelevant. The fact that she became much less so as her campaign faltered, allowing Sarkozy to appear more ‘quietly’ confident (and arguably in a ‘male’ though not strident way), was very relevant.39 Royal herself began quite early in the campaign to come up against many stereotypical female negatives – uncertain, capricious, slightly scatterbrained yet controlling, and perhaps, too, not so nice, and also given to temper outbursts. As Sarkozy’s perceived character began to turn ‘nice’, her own appeared to be going in the opposite direction. This alteration of


an apparently fixed public persona is an extremely dynamic element in leadership politics, particularly at such moments as a presidential election. By the beginning of 2007, with the defeat of all rivals on the right and the left, the now highly mediatized pair, Sarkozy and Royal, were the two main candidates. Bayrou, the UDF, centrist candidate, entered this privileged space and made a good showing for a month or so, for two reasons. First, although Sarkozy, and later Royal, were avidly courted by the media, there was a danger that the campaign was losing momentum and interest: ‘on sait tout de leur enfance, de leur adolescence, de leurs douleurs, de leur histoire familiale. Un petit vent de lassitude souffle sur la France’.40 France was perhaps at last beginning to tire of the media saturation of the two rivals. Also there was no dissident socialist Chevènement, or Radical (and female) Christiane Taubira41 to threaten her (as these had threatened Jospin in 2002), and no major Le Pen threat (although he stood) to Sarkozy. Not only did Sarkozy ‘steal’ some of Le Pen’s discourse, Le Pen’s 2002 ‘success’ ensured his 2007 failure. Bayrou presented himself as the simple, gentleman-farmer, straightforward – not ‘Parisian’ like the other two, a ‘social’ centrist, Catholic, drawing upon a significant resource in the culture. He was also good on television, appearing as the non-elite candidate. The second reason Bayrou could step into the limelight was that the two main candidates, aware of the volatility of their very novel positions, actually avoided each other: if Sarkozy appeared patronizing or sexist, it might irrevocably affect him (though he managed not to); if Royal seemed inadequate to the task (which in fact through ‘avoidance’ she did), she would falter; so for a large part of the campaign each tried to project themselves upon the public, but did not confront the other. And, for a time, Bayrou – whose electorate would be crucial to Royal in round two – became ‘relevant’. Bayrou also swept up much of the support that Royal was losing because of her poor campaign. As we have seen, from Royal’s trip to China at the beginning of January 2007 onwards, her own campaign began to go seriously wrong in terms of the public deployment of her persona. By 18 January, she had fallen ten points in the polls since November 2006. ‘Gaffes, maladresse sur la justice chinoise, rumeurs sur son patrimoine, cacophonie sur les impôts, dissensions internes sur sa stratégie, incartade d’un de ses porte-parole’.42 And so it went on, her mistakes and the media’s seizing upon them (much more than upon Sarkozy’s mistakes), made her look incompetent, with the result that Sarkozy looked supremely competent. Although at various points Sarkozy himself (in


his characteristically hot-tempered outbursts) criticized his team and was reported as flying into his adolescent rages, his campaign was infinitely better organized than the often inert Royal campaign. We have mentioned Guaino’s ‘makeover’ of Sarkozy, pushing him to the left of what was ‘expected’ of him (to the consternation of some on the right; he later went even further by ‘dropping’ such names as Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Bernard Kouchner). This knocked Royal further off balance. Also, in the campaign itself, Sarkozy’s speeches, based upon a market research team (working with him since early 2006), were those that the public/s wanted to hear (e.g. he declared himself to be in favour of Sunday opening because it had been found that majority opinion was in favour). We say public/s as Sarkozy’s speeches were as if ‘made to measure’ for his discrete audiences: for farmers, a speech for farmers, for the police, a speech for the police, and so on. Sarkozy directed nearly all his speeches at specific user-groups (he made just one or two ‘rousing’ speeches; e.g. Bercy, 29 April), which now stood in contrast to what was beginning to appear as Royal’s Désir d’avenir grandstanding. There were no major ‘themes’ to 2007 as there had been in 1995 (fracture sociale) and 2002 (sécurité) and most earlier presidential campaigns. This had the advantage of allowing Sarkozy to appear calm and undramatic, but it also meant that the election was even more ‘about the candidates’ – and his low-key speeches were about policy, so that his speeches were not just ‘policy speeches’ but his ‘considered’ views on policy. Conversely, Sarkozy had clearly given the impression to his party, particularly the new and younger members who had joined in droves after he took the leadership, that this was now a party buzzing with ideas, that there was a rally of opinion behind him, and that this was the as if destined meeting of a man with a rising tide of support. And with the presidential election, the moment of destiny had arrived. Royal had done exactly the same with her supporters, but not with the party as a whole. Sarkozy, moreover, as others before him (e.g. Rocard, with less success) had a real straight talking ‘parler vrai’ – itself a rhetorical style and resource, but no less ‘down-to-earth’ for that. Sarkozy’s discourse and style seemed, therefore, both practical and much more than that. The ‘parler vrai’ image of Sarkozy was reinforced by his TV appearances. On ‘J’ai une question à vous poser’ (TF1 5 February 2007), eight million people watched – and he gave the impression of ‘knowing his dossiers’, a failing of Royal’s at this crucial time that threw his own image of competence into higher relief. On the same programme on 19 February, Royal exceeded his viewing figures (nine


million), and acquitted herself well (her poll rating rose by 2 per cent), but the general view was being firmly established: he was competent and could control his ‘unpresidential’ attributes, she was much less competent, and arguably not presidential.43 The TV appearances of each of them (and of Bayrou) sent the polls into large fluctuations, so that the campaign itself saw a series of what we might call judged performances. In terms of his perceived character, Sarkozy had rarely been associated with scandal in any corrupt way. The Canard revealed (27 February) Sarkozy’s getting at a knock-down price, from the Town Hall’s favourite property developer, the purchase of and decoration/extensions to his Ile de la Jatte home in Neuilly. Such revelations (now almost a regular aspect of presidential campaigns) were potentially damaging, particularly as the whole campaign was based upon character. We can make two brief points. First, the allegations were responded to with a clear ‘let’s wait and see’ approach, so that nothing concrete would happen before the election. Second, Sarkozy was seen as the kind of man (close to money and power for 30 years) who might be involved in such an affair, and therefore, paradoxically, the allegation had less clout; much less clout than the revelation of Royal’s grosse fortune,44 and where, in fact, Sarkozy seemed to display a greater openness (and she had been in the super-tax bracket for two years – Sarkozy for one…). It is possible she had been libelled in the press (Depêche du Midi), but her ratings fell. Sarkozy’s did not. Sarkozy, because he had repositioned himself as much more ‘human’ and accessible, and because he seemed to exude a ‘parler vrai’, presented a character who was not corrupt, or prey to temptation, and was straightforward and approachable. These developing traits, in the context of his now being the favourite to win, meant that the presidential campaign was becoming in part a referendum on Sarkozy rather than a duel between the two of them.45 One month before the polls, a staggering 40 per cent of the public were still undecided. On the question of persona, the Royal team was trying to transform the formerly radiant and Madonna-like image of Royal into a more serious presidential one. The result was to project her image as simply a rather glum, almost unhappy woman. This difficulty of development in image change suggested that she was locked into a view of her that was informed strongly by stereotypes. He also, mid-March, dwarfed her ‘presidential status’ rating by 52 per cent to 18 per cent (with Bayrou at 21 per cent). In the weeks before the first round, it seemed that when Sarkozy made mistakes or stumbled his ratings were not seriously affected. The Canard revelations, a flurry of


uncertainty about the Sarkozy-Cécilia relationship in March–April, an edition of Marianne with a long article on whether Sarkozy was a danger to democracy (suggesting he was) which sold a staggering 400,000 copies, a brief storm of ‘blog’ activity suggesting he was going to withdraw from the race for a series of reasons; none of these issues had a serious effect.46 The left/right divide between the two candidates was emphasized by each towards the end of the campaign in order to try to make Bayrou seem irrelevant.47 It worked, and probably improved Royal’s ratings more than Sarkozy’s. On the eve of the debate, the only real danger for Sarkozy was his confrontational reputation. The over-virile Sarkozy entered round one with something close to a calm presidential image. Any virile brutality towards Royal would trigger a lot of sympathy for her, but in its absence, she entered the first round seemingly rather lost. In the last week of the campaign she cancelled several interviews. The turnout for round one was 84 per cent. Sarkozy polled 31 per cent. He had federated the right. She too with 26 per cent had more or less federated the left. In the two weeks that ensued, Sarkozy maintained his equilibrium – and his left-leaning style.48 The only thing that could alter Royal’s declining position was for her to perform outstandingly in the TV debate before voting in round two. Just as the turnout for round one had demonstrated, public interest remained high; 20 million people watched the debate. The debate was almost exclusively a question of the success of the characters of the two candidates, and revolved around the potential weakness of each. Royal had to demonstrate that she was ‘presidential’ through knowledge; Sarkozy that he was ‘presidential’ through poise. Most commentators suggested that any display of temper or sexism could lose Sarkozy the presidency. What happened was an inversion of characters. He presented himself as polite and serene, she as fiery and a fighter. We can see in her a kind of incongruity of mixing character traits to create effects, while his apparent calm was ‘comprehensible’ on the eve of his taking the highest office. The TV debate was neither a great success nor a great failure for either candidate. The lengthy and close-up display of character made both candidates tend towards caution, particularly Sarkozy. Royal did not, however, excel on policy or dossier knowledge. Her Madonna image, powerful though ultimately limiting, had given way in the previous week to that of a more ordinary woman. Sarkozy corrected her at one point for her heated temper; she was pleased to be able to display a more fiery side. But ultimately this relatively intimate display of the candidates became an appraisal of who


seemed the most competent politician. And Sarkozy did seem to fulfil that role best. In the run-off round, Sarkozy won by quite a big margin of 53.06 per cent against 46.94 per cent for Royal. Although the most ‘macho’ of all France’s Presidents had won, France could very well have chosen a woman.49

Conclusion

Our study has demonstrated the inordinately significant role of ‘performance’, that is to say the acts, the rhetoric, the projection of the image of individual political actors within a culturally and mythically informed configuration of institutions. These acts and performances are constitutive of the republic itself. The republic ‘is’ what people ‘do’ and how they do it. And by ‘people’ we mean politically significant individuals performing within the spaces created for them by the Fifth Republic. These individuals have a consequent political persona, part real, part imagined. The persona performs within and in relation to the institutions and on a culturally, institutionally and circumstantially defined scale of drama, spectacle and ritual. This has major political effects, often realigning the institutions themselves and their direction. It is the performance and the fortunes of the political persona and its relationship to its contexts and audiences that determine the political process. More than this, because of the bringing of a dramatic individual to the heart of the republic in a dramatic situation in 1958, and his establishing of active personal prerogative, individual acts affect and change as well as constitute the regime. The examples of this are legion. A most dramatic example was de Gaulle’s ‘Françaises, Français, aidezmoi’ television and radio appeal to the French public for help in defeating the military coup attempt against the new regime in 1961. The gesture and the words themselves, ‘help me!’, triggered a response that defeated the coup.1 The word was literally mightier than the sword. A less dramatic example, equally intriguing, is how Sarkozy’s ‘J’ai changé’ assertion at the beginning of his campaign for the presidency in 2007, transformed perceptions of him, and conferred upon him the one quality he had been searching for: by admitting, by publicly 206

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performing his confessional assertion of his humanity, he became présidentiable. Both the de Gaulle and Sarkozy examples here demonstrate the role and importance of audience. The Fifth Republic invites its audience/s to participate in a variety of ways. It is here that ‘opinion’ becomes a major player. Opinion polls conducted and published by IPSOS, SOFRES and Sondages characterize, give character to, opinion by means of the extrapolation to the national level of a sample of respondents to questions who express views on a range of topics. Our own characterizations suggest that a more difficult to quantify but more participative role is played by opinion, or a range of opinions, and that opinion, like persona, is both ‘real’ and imagined (and this imagined quality plays a role at the discursive level and by extension at the political level). Opinion may only express itself through simply being an audience, or through the ballot, and here the aggregate of opinions becomes ‘opinion’. What is important is that it is shaped by, created by and responds to discursive phenomena such as a direct address from political actors. The way in which it responds or the reasons it does so within a range on a scale of intensity will be fashioned by a range of indirect and contextual culturally, discursively and circumstantially defined influences. The Fifth Republic brings opinion very close to the stage if not onto it, where personality politics interacts with it in a dynamic way. It is also the case that a further aspect, less reliable than scholarly interpretation, has undoubtedly come to have real effects within the polity, namely hearsay. Many assumed characteristics of individual leaders cannot even be used in political analysis because evidence for them is lacking. The sexual lives of French Presidents, the intimate relationships between certain politicians, or between certain politicians and certain journalists; all of these are hearsay, yet they have political consequences. And in as much as many of the French believe a range of things about many of the political figures we have been analysing, their views affect the way politicians are perceived and, therefore, have consequent effects upon political persona, and upon the way persona is interpolated in the public sphere.2 A further point to add here is that hearsay is in part now almost mainstream. A great many of the studies today on political actors, many of which we have used in this analysis, are of a different kind from, for example, Sciences Po’s well-documented studies. But they are no less influential for that. At one level, they are testimony to a thriving polity, an active and thoughtful reading public, and the speed and immediacy of publication reflects an acute interest in politics by the French. But we have to stress that many


studies today of, say, Sarkozy or Royal have no footnotes, few references and so on, and yet often make very bold claims. They are themselves often strongly informed by hearsay. They are usually written moreover by a Parisian elite – often very good journalists – who know one another, often know their subjects personally, and write, as journalists often do, without quoting sources and so on. One has therefore to be careful, but this literature is now as important in informing us and influencing the political climate and creating persuasive images of political leaders as more scholarly works. A final point to make on the role of hearsay is that because it usually involves sexual or private or financial or legally questionable issues, it is compelling; but it is also compelling because it is hearsay, that is to say, it has a strange ‘confirmed’ quality because it is unverified, but circulating. Our shared knowledge and the symbolic status of alleged liaisons, for example, between Sarkozy and others, or Royal and others, even during the 2007 election campaign, seem to confer a reality upon them. They cannot help but have impact upon perceptions of the political actors involved. As regards the sexual/gender dimension of the Sarkozy/Royal confrontation, Royal’s political image was significantly affected by her gender and her attractiveness. By definition, the widely circulated photo of Royal in a bikini affected perceptions of her. Her gender, in mainstream leadership politics, was novel enough to alter the focus of the public’s attention, and indeed our own attention, so that analysis must focus more upon her image ‘as a woman’ in order to properly understand her significance and effect. On Sarkozy and Royal we can make a further comment related to gender and persona. It is generally the case that ‘image correction’ of a candidate is seen as a dangerous thing to do. Sarkozy’s case, however, triggering myths of the return of the prodigal son, or Prince Hal’s selfennobling preparation for kingship, modifies this view. Change in character can be truly advantageous. Related to this, is the fact that a similar development did not help, did not seem to take place successfully, in Royal’s case. Sarkozy’s persona mediated federated traits, often contradictory ones. This did not happen in Royal’s case as the campaign unfolded, even though she had ‘fused’ successfully in 2005–06 the Madonna and the working professional woman images. Was this inability to nuance her persona related to her being a woman? Does the projection of complexity of character present more of a challenge for women? Or was media reporting based upon misogynistic stereotypes? Or was the movement of his persona from ‘tough’ to ‘tender’,

Conclusion 209

and hers from tender to tough the central issue? And why did his mistakes and errors draw less attention than hers? What is the relationship here between performance and context? This brings us to a point of great interest, that is, the question of the medium of transmission of political persona. First the radio, newsreel, and print press, then television and publicity agencies, and latterly (from the mid-2000s) the internet have played a major role in the mediation of political persona in both language and image. It is possible, moreover, that the web, almost unused in the 2002 election,3 and the rise in the 2000s of celebrity culture,4 has seen the division between public and private begin to break down, as well as the definitions of these begin to change. It is possible this has created a paradigm shift in the mediation of leadership. The Sarkozy presidency (2007–12) is a particularly acute expression of a new public-private mediation of leadership persona. We should stress, however, that the underlying factor, whether it is the radio or the internet, is the entry of the individual into the paradigm in a dramatic way. Sarkozy’s behaviour has significant effects because of the way de Gaulle brought performance and a form of individualism into the heart of the republic. De Gaulle created a performative space that all his successors have filled in a particular way. The founding emphasis upon drama in the context of the media has meant that drama has come in many forms. Since 1958, drama has been necessary for leadership to perform: it is true that ‘calmer’ forms of leadership have been attempted, but drama – the sense that time is speeded up, something fateful is about to happen, and personal intervention is an imperative – has appeared and reappeared on the political stage again and again since 1958. There is good drama, and bad drama, successful and not so. There have been successful and very unsuccessful attempts to use and exploit drama, or even, sometimes, create it in reality or, failing that, in discourse or projected image. Categorizing what is real drama and what is not is probably impossible. There is, however, a dramatic ‘sensibility’ in the French polity, and this has a range of implications for the performance of individuals. Algeria, Petit-Clamart, the 1962 parliamentary dissolution, the mis en ballotage of 1965, the events of 1968, are all events which display themselves dramatically and to which de Gaulle responded or tried to respond.5 The 1986–88 period, the dramatic appointment of Cresson in 1991 and its alarming consequences, Chirac’s offering drama and interventionism (‘la fracture sociale’) to Balladur’s calm competence, Chirac’s assertive resumption of nuclear testing, the fateful decision to dissolve


Parliament in 1997, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s triumph in round one of the 2002 election, and so on; each of these is an event, sometimes ‘created’, but always with significant consequences for a range of actors and for politics generally. And events such as these recur inordinately in French politics. Moreover, for a series of reasons: a multi-party system, a long tradition of dramatic politics, an acute national political sensitivity, an asymmetrical presidential and legislative cycle (at least until 2002), acute political rivalries, and a very personalized political system; one of the most predictable elements of the Fifth Republic from 1958 to the present has been its unpredictability. This role of the ‘unexpected’, of fortuna, also means that personal interventions, responses, failures to respond, and so on characterize political activity, so that political trajectories, political careers become a kind of adventure, for better or worse. The political careers of Mitterrand, Chirac, Jospin, Le Pen, Royal, Sarkozy, and more than all others de Gaulle, have been political careers peppered with triumph and despair, and these latter make political life an ‘adventure’, and reinforce its personal aspects.6 What this means in French political life is a great deal of volatility; and the creation of long standing loyalties as well as enmities. We can say, in a sense, that de Gaulle invented the presidency and gave it a particular set of characteristics in 1958 (e.g. chivalric, redemptive, dramatic, focused on him), and after 1958 gave it a further set of characteristics (e.g. controversial, in a dramatic tension with the parties, authoritative, and prone to the unexpected). The main characteristic however that arose from these additions was the ability to add characteristics, and characteristics that range from visions to vindictiveness, from philosophizing to caprice. This he bequeathed to his successors, and each of them has added formative and consequent characteristics and qualities. One can identify, therefore, a generic presidential style, yet it is one which has evolved and accrued qualities as it has done so. The focus upon individuals and their central role reveals and mobilizes myths informing the French polity. The myth de Gaulle brought to the heart of the polity was chivalric – the hero with a devotional attitude to the (feminine) national entity who, through trial, courage and fortitude saves the beloved country and triumphs. He then serves as consort and protector. The arrival in 2007 of a mainstream woman candidate not only threw this myth into high relief, it also saw the entry into the political culture of a set of myths about women or woman, some of them advantageous, some contrasting with the virile

Conclusion 211

nature of the underlying myth, but all consequent within this singular republic. Royal’s candidacy was also an object lesson in how a woman attempted to inhabit a space hitherto inhabited almost exclusively by men, using mythologies created by men, demystifying and domesticating some while mobilizing and being mobilized, and perhaps overcome, by others. De Gaulle clearly brought from the edge to the centre of the polity the chivalric myth. He also brought in myths that are related to Europe’s Christian heritage. Perhaps these are there all the time in Western polities. It is the case that the Western polity itself has, in part, a Christian foundation; notions of justice, fairness, reward, community, rights and duties have their roots in Christian thought as much as in Enlightenment thought; and allegiance to de Gaulle had a strong devotional element to it. And in French politics generally one can talk not only of support, but of allegiance, and sometimes not only of allegiance, but of devotion. And the compagnons de la première heure, in fact, for each of our leaders, are true disciples. There was the David v. Goliath aspect to the 1965 election, and the Madonna connotations of a woman candidate in a Western democracy, and the deployment of the idea of ‘kingship’ as sacred; clearly all have religious connotations, and real political effects. We should also bear in mind how Sarkozy’s move from bête noire to présidentiable had the strong flavour of the return of the prodigal son, and a very strong flavour of the confessional. There is a matrix of myths and mythologies triggered by the image, comportment, or discourse of political leaders. De Gaulle personalized the presidency further by bringing to it and its highly publicized role his mistakes and foibles as well as his strengths. He would not himself have admitted that he made mistakes, but high profile mistakes humanized the role, giving it further depth. His ‘Montreal’ mistake, his all too human failings of judgement in 1968, his foolish referendum in 1969, and his highly personal and emotional resignation gave further psychological depth to his persona. De Gaulle added ‘folly’ to the list of presidential characteristics (and perhaps tolerance and forgiveness of folly to the attributes of ‘opinion’). The resignation itself, as we have seen, stressed, in its momentary negation, the emotional bond between the character of the President and his audience, the French, giving it a new lease of life. These character traits thus became part of the presidency. Part generic, part individual, the character and persona of the Presidents have defined, consolidated, and sometimes threatened the presidency. De Gaulle’s arrogant personality always, but also his, Pompidou’s, Giscard’s, and


Mitterrand’s sometimes cavalier dismissal of their Prime Ministers, was in part the assertion of the ascendancy of the office itself, in part impetuous caprice. And these ‘characters’ – plus all the hearsay that has accompanied them – have shaped the regime and its direction. In Sarkozy’s case, in the run up to his 2007 election, there was hesitation over his ‘eligibility’ in terms of the volatile aspect of his character. We have seen the myriad mistakes made when the personal is given such scope. We have noted how the play of the personal can take on startling aspects. Mitterrand’s treatment of Michel Rocard by dismissing him unceremoniously in 1991 had major consequences. His appointment of Cresson made the overall situation dramatically worse, and doubtless contributed to the right’s electoral landslide in 1993. Chirac, by unnecessarily dissolving Parliament in 1997 and ushering in five years of ‘cohabitation’ with the left, brought ridicule upon the presidency. There is a Homeric quality to the Fifth Republic in which the gods give rein to their pettiness and their passions, and which contrasts continually with an Aristotelian concern with process and harmony – the aim of good government. Misjudgements by people of people, moreover, have had major political effects. Giscard’s underestimating Chirac in 1974 had enormous consequences, as did Jospin’s underestimating him in 2002. Fabius and Strauss-Kahn’s failing to grasp what Royal was doing on the margins of the PS’s power structures cost them their candidacies for the presidency in 2007 and altered the PS fundamentally. In a polity where individuals have such salience, judgement and misjudgement have major consequences. And such are more likely given that a further feature of presidential stature, from de Gaulle onwards, right up to Royal and Sarkozy, is that they freely or of necessity claim to be an authority on just about everything – and as candidates are expected to be. One feature of the presidency that we have underlined throughout our analysis is its ambivalence, none more so than its conflation of the political and the ceremonial and the significant consequences of this. In much of the literature on 1958 and its aftermath, great emphasis is put on the mixing of the roles of Head of Government (or government’s most significant and powerful actor) and Head of State. And the conclusions are, normally, that de Gaulle used (and abused) the second to further his aims concerning the first, that he used his symbolic status as a pretext to intervene in the political. Our analysis has demonstrated that the real key to the Fifth Republic and its originality is to see things the other way round, namely that the real Gaullist settlement was the

Conclusion 213

politicizing and mobilization of the ceremonial, ritual and symbolic. The Gaullist settlement is not the politicizing of the presidential, but the ‘presidentializing’ of the political. The Presidents of the Fifth Republic, the presidency itself, and the presidential elections have been popular in terms of both approval and celebrity. In one sense, this is what truly distinguished the Fifth Republic from the Fourth, and led to the successful establishment and continuing ascendancy of the presidency and of the regime generally: people liked it, and were attentive to the life and times of its leaders and would-be leaders. Following the personalized life and times of Presidents and aspirants to the presidency is fun: and this in contrast to the Fourth Republic where not only did people have no faith in their politicians, they barely knew who they were. This trivial detail is of enormous consequence. Political leaders, particularly the Presidents, have been maintained in and by the public’s consciousness and the media for 50 years. This is in large part because of the personalization of leadership. And of course media coverage has extended exponentially, and personalization lends itself enormously to this. De Gaulle’s presidency filled the newspapers and magazines – was usually front page news – for ten years. And incidents like the Petit-Clamart assassination attempt made him a true media star: his only apparent remark after the fusillade – ‘they don’t know how to shoot’ demonstrating his wit and his courage.7 De Gaulle also had a monopoly on the broadcast media (his justification was that his enemies ran the print media). Publicity agencies, television, and Paris Match have kept all the Presidents in the public view; and the elections to the presidency have invariably been the most popular political moment in the life of the republic (the first round of 2002 being the fateful exception). We need to stress, however, that the new millennium brought a new dimension to the presidency and to politics generally, which has altered politics qualitatively. All of the Presidents in the second half of the twentieth century both reflected changes within the culture, in their affiliations, their policies and in their style and comportment, and also informed and inflected change – Pompidou brought the presidency more down to earth, Giscard made it modern, Mitterrand made it no longer the domain of the right, Chirac made it less pompous. With Sarkozy, however, a sea change has occurred. The celebrity culture of the 2000s, the explosion of ‘la presse people’ and politicians’ – particularly Sarkozy’s – reaction to it have brought popular culture, reality TV, and the invasion of the ‘public’ by the ‘private’ into the presidency, and vice versa.8 Sarkozy’s private life and relationships are narrated public


knowledge. The presidency has therefore become, in part, a part of the ‘reality’ media. This does not mean this will always remain the case. It does mean the presidency has entered a qualitatively new phase that will see major evolutions in the image, rhetoric, and style of leaders and contenders for leadership.

Notes Introduction 1 In 1947, de Gaulle founded his own political party, the ‘Rally of the French People’. It was initially successful electorally and gained an estimated one million members; but its popularity faded, and he eventually closed it down in 1953.

Chapter 1 Politics

1958: The Gaullist Settlement and French

1 For a detailed discussion of the growth and influence of the press, radio and television, see J.K. Chalaby (2002) The de Gaulle Presidency and the Media (Basingstoke: Palgrave). 2 Opinion is usually taken to mean opinion as measured through opinion polling and often brought together in annual appraisals such as SOFRES’ L’Etat de l’opinion published yearly (Paris: Seuil), in SOFRES and IFOP polls and the quarterly publication Sondages: Revue française de l’opinion publique (Paris: Chancelier), or in the Figaro Baromètre devoted to the popularity of politicians. It is clear that we use the term much more widely to refer to the views, perceived views, imaginings (and forgettings) of individuals aggregated by polling organizations as well as other collective political or social actors. See J. Charlot (ed.) (1971) Les Français et de Gaulle (Paris: Plon). See also, G. Dupeux, A. Girard and J. Stoetzel (1960) ‘Une enquête par sondage auprès des électeurs’, Association française de science politique, Le référendum de septembre et les élections de novembre 1958 (Paris: Presses de la FNSP), pp.119–193. 3 We do not wish to choose one definition of culture out of the hundreds of definitions and approaches. We shall use the term here to designate the formative and shared ensemble of traditions, attitudes, values, symbols, memories and dispositions that inform a national community. For a discussion of the topic and its application, see J. Gaffney and E. Kolinsky (eds) (1991) Political Culture in France and Germany (London: Routledge). 4 See J. Gaffney and D. Holmes (eds) (2007) Stardom in Postwar France (Oxford: Berghahn); H. Mendras with Alistair Cole (1991) Social Change in Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), an earlier version of which was published as H. Mendras (1988) La seconde révolution française, 1965–1984 (Paris: Gallimard); M. Larkin (1997) France since the Popular Front (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.176–222. 5 C. de Gaulle (1954, 1956, 1959, 1970, 1971) Mémoires de Guerre and Mémoires d’Espoir (Paris: Plon). 6 The range of literature on Algeria and on the creation of the Fifth Republic is vast. Among the most interesting are W.G. Andrews (1962) French Politics 215

216 Notes

7

8 9 10

11

12

13 14

15

16

and Algeria (New York: Appleton); P. Viansson-Ponté (1970–71) Histoire de la république gaullienne I (Paris: Fayard); P.M. Williams and M. Harrison (1960) De Gaulle’s Republic (London: Longmans); J. Charlot (1983) Le Gaullisme d’opposition, 1946–1958 (Paris: Fayard); J. Touchard, ‘La fin de la IVe République’, Revue française de science politique, 8, 4, December 1958, pp.917–218; S. Bromberger and M. Bromberger (1959) Les treize complots du 13 mai (Paris: Fayard); Sirius (H. Beuve-Méry) (1958) Le suicide de la IV e république (Paris: Le Cerf); J. Ferniot (1965) De Gaulle et le 13 mai (Paris: Plon); J. Lacouture (1985) De Gaulle 2. Le politique (Paris: Seuil); J.-C. Maitrot and J.-D. Sicault (1969) Les conférences de presse du général de Gaulle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France); A. Siegfried (1958) De la IVe à la Ve république (Paris: Grasset); J. Touchard (1969) Le gaullisme (Paris: Seuil); P.M. Williams (1970) Wars, Plots and Scandals in Post-War France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); C. Nick (1998) Résurrection (Paris: Fayard); L. Terrenoire (1964) De Gaulle et l’Algérie (Paris: Fayard); R. Salan (1974) Mémoires, vol. 4, L’Algérie, de Gaulle et moi (Paris: Presses de la cité); B. Tricot (1972) Les sentiers de la paix: Algérie, 1958–1962 (Paris: Plon); P.-M. de la Gorce (1963) La France et son armée (Paris: Fayard). On the new constitution, including – already – a 20-page bibliography, see the entire issue of Revue française de science politique, 9, 1, March 1959. On 6 February 1934 a demonstration by far-right groups led to a riot in the Place de la Concorde, just over the river from the National Assembly. For many at the time and since this incident – in which 16 died and thousands were injured – was seen as a moment when the Third Republic was almost overthrown. For a partisan but very interesting study see J. Valette (2008) Le 13 mai du général Salan (Sceaux: L’Esprit du livre). In J. Lacouture (1985) De Gaulle 2. Le politique (Paris: Seuil), p.468. ‘Assumer’ is an interesting word in French. It means ‘take’ or ‘take on’ in a constitutional sense but also implies both the taking responsibility for something and the taking on of a mantle. Also, taking on personally the attributes of the republic is to symbolically conflate ‘la chose publique’, the res publica, and an individual. This is very unusual. One has a sense that in spite of his being a major player in 1958, Mollet had no idea of the symbolic consequences of his actions, in particular his creating the conditions of de Gaulle’s performance. See R. Rémond (1983) 1958: Le retour de de Gaulle (Brussels: Complexe), p.81. In 1958, the daily print run for newspapers nationally was about eleven and a half million; J.K. Chalaby (2002) The de Gaulle Presidency and the Media (Basingstoke: Palgrave), p.9. See C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), pp.4–10. For a compelling discussion of de Gaulle’s sense of his burden but also on the relationship between this reconciliatory aspect of his character and humour, see R. Gary (2000) Ode à l’homme qui fut la France (Paris: Gallimard). See J. Lacouture (1985) De Gaulle: Le politique (Paris: Seuil), pp.476–477. For good general coverage of the period see pp.447–489, and P. Viansson-Ponté (1970–71) Histoire de la république gaullienne (Paris: Fayard), pp.19–60. The government looked remarkably similar in its political make up to his government of 1944. See J.-J. Becker (1988) Histoire politique de la France depuis 1945 (Paris: Armand Colin), p.77.

Notes 217 17 See S. Berstein (1989) La France de l’expansion (Paris: Seuil), pp.145–150. See also D. Borne (1990) Histoire de la société française depuis 1945 (Paris: Armand Colin). 18 R. Rémond (1983) 1958: Le retour de de Gaulle (Brussels: Complexe), p.77; and S. Berstein and P. Milza (1991) Histoire de la France au XXe siècle, 1945–1958 (Brussels: Complexe), p.302. 19 In January 1958, opinion polls suggested that he would never return to power. S. Berstein and P. Milza (1991) Histoire de la France au XXe siècle, 1945–1958 (Brussels: Complexe), p.298. We should add that his not being expected to return meant that his return was all the more dramatic. 20 The international media became less indulgent towards de Gaulle once he took office. 21 P.M. Williams (1970) French Politicians and Elections, 1951–1969 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p.69. 22 C. de Gaulle (1999) Le Fil de l’epée (Paris: Plon), pp.180–185. 23 For a persuasive explanation for and justification of de Gaulle’s haughtiness, see R. Gary (2000) Ode à l’homme qui fut la France (Paris: Gallimard), pp.18–44 (first published in Life Magazine, December 1958). 24 See inter alia J. Charlot (ed.) (1971) Les Français et de Gaulle (Paris: Plon). 25 For two extremely interesting discussions of de Gaulle’s relationship to France’s political culture see B. Gaïti (1998) De Gaulle, prophète de la cinquième république (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po), and N. Tenzer (1998) La face cachée du gaullisme (Paris: Hachette). 26 For an interesting discussion of this see W.G. Andrews (1982) Presidential Government in Gaullist France (Albany: Suny Press). For a succinct account of the constitution’s elaboration see R. Rémond (1983) 1958: Le retour de de Gaulle (Brussels: Complexe), pp.119–126. See also, G. Mollet (1962) 13 mai 1958–13 mai 1962 (Paris: Plon), pp.17–31, and G. Mollet (1973) 15 ans après. La constitution de 1958 (Paris: Albin Michel). 27 See J.-J. Becker (1988) Histoire politique de la France depuis 1945 (Paris: Armand Colin), p.81. 28 Association française de science politique (1960) Le référendum de septembre et les élections de novembre 1958 (Paris: Presses de le fondation nationale des sciences politiques), p.128. 29 R. Rémond (1983) 1958: Le retour de de Gaulle (Brussels: Complexe), pp.131–133. 30 For two definitive discussions of the notion of the rally (rassemblement) in politics see B.D. Graham (1993) Representation and Party Politics (Oxford: Blackwell), pp.69–111; and C. Fieschi (2004) Fascism, Populism and the French Fifth Republic. In the Shadow of Democracy (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp.75–97. For us, the essential quality of the rally in practice is that it holds itself in opposition to the ‘ordinary’ political party. It is more than anything else a way of imagining politics and political organization as a dynamic, emotional, and transcendent political movement that comes into being (often as the result of a ‘call’ or ‘appel’) in order to transform or renovate politics or conquer power or give voice to the people. It sees itself as a kind of pure, unmediated movement. It often sees itself as organized around ideas (un rassemblement d’idées); in practice, it is usually organized around an individual. It is imbued with a kind of myth of

218 Notes original essence or migration. Given its often personalist nature, it sees itself as responding to an exceptional person, and as necessary to lifting that person to power. In this it is almost Homeric (charisma and glory) rather than Aristotelian (harmony and process), and is arguably both a form of ‘pure’ democracy – free individuals engaged in an unmediated political relationship, and an anti-democratic political form of unquestioning heroworship. 31 Although it was not just the ‘forward looking’ who suffered. Not only Mendésisme but Poujadisme too was wiped out by the tide of Gaullist support. 32 J. Chapsal and A. Lancelot (1975) La vie politique en France depuis 1940 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), p.348. For a thorough analysis of both the September referendum and the November elections, see, Association française de science politique (1960) Le référendum de septembre et les élections de novembre 1958 (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques). 33 See S. Berstein (1989) La France de l’expansion (Paris: Seuil), p.41.

Chapter 2 1958–68: The Consolidation and Evolution of the Fifth Republic 1 Georges Vedel and Maurice Duverger were academics but made significant contributions to the climate of opinion not only in their teaching and books but particularly through highly influential newspaper articles, particularly in Le Monde. 2 It is not fair to say that Jacques Soustelle represented within Gaullism the far right. In fact, the opposite is arguably true. The complexity of his character and ideas reflect the complexity of post-war French politics. See J. Soustelle (1962) L’Espérance trahie (Paris: Alma). See also L. Hamon, preface by R. Capitant (1958) De Gaulle dans la république (Paris: Plon); also R. Capitant (1971) Ecrits politiques 1960–1970 (Paris: Flammarion); J. Debû-Bridel (1970) De Gaulle contestataire (Paris: Plon). 3 Between 1958 and 1962 as de Gaulle moved towards acceding to Algerian independence, his 1958 support (pieds noirs and army) began to turn against him. In April 1961, elements within the army attempted a putsch. It failed partly because of de Gaulle’s masterful television and radio broadcast (23 April 1961) calling upon the bulk of the army and the people’s support; C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), pp.306–308. We should also stress that de Gaulle’s good fortune was partly dependent upon the strategically problematic relationship between the Algiers population and the Army, each ill adapted to knowing how to work with the other particularly in crisis moments. Algerian independence became official in July 1962. 4 Press conference in the Elysée Palace, 15 May 1962. See C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages Tome 3, Avec le renouveau (Paris: Plon), pp.401–417. 5 J. Lacouture (1986) De Gaulle, Le souverain (Paris: Seuil), pp.274–279. JeanMarie Bastien-Thiry, a disenchanted Gaullist, had made several assassination attempts. On the evening of 22 August 1962 12 men, including Bastien-Thiry, in four vehicles and armed with machine guns and machine pistols, opened fire on de Gaulle’s car. Approximately 200 bullets were fired. At least 14 hit the car but no-one in de Gaulle’s car was hurt.

Notes 219 6 It was the Senate, with Gaston Monnerville as its very popular President, that articulated the hostility to de Gaulle’s intentions. The Senate’s critical view of de Gaulle through the 1960s doubtless influenced his 1969 referendum proposal. 7 See S. Berstein (1989) La France de l’expansion (Paris: Seuil), p.113. 8 For a thorough analysis of the referendum and the elections see F. Goguel (ed.) (1965) Le référendum d’octobre et les élections de novembre 1962 (Paris: Armand Colin). 9 An indication of the situation regarding Gaullist implantation are the results of the partial (one-third new) 1962 Senate elections. The Gaullists has 32 seats, the Independent Republicans (in fact former CNIP for the most part) 65, and the SFIO 52, out of 274 seats up for election. 10 See J. Charlot (1970) Le phénomène gaulliste (Paris: Fayard). Charlot’s view, developed from Otto Kircheimer, has become the received view of political scholarship; see O. Kircheimer (1966) ‘The Transformation of West European Party Systems’ in J. LaPalombara and M. Weiner (eds) Political Parties and Political Development (New Jersey: Princeton), pp.177–200. 11 ‘L’Etat-UDR’ was a term coined by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber in 1971. 12 See inter alia, R. Faligot and J. Guisnel (2007) Histoire secrète de la Ve république (Paris: La Découverte). 13 Larkin argues that de Gaulle took over all policy between 1962–66, only gradually letting domestic politics slip towards Pompidou’s control. See M. Larkin (1997) France since the Popular Front (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p.283. 14 P.G. Cerny (1980) The Politics of Grandeur (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 15 S. Berstein (1989) La France de l’expansion (Paris: Seuil), pp.220–263. 16 For an overview of de Gaulle’s foreign policy see O. Bange (1999) The EEC Crisis of 1963: Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict (Basingstoke: Palgrave); P.G. Cerny (1980) The Politics of Grandeur: Ideological Aspects of de Gaulle’s Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); C. Cogan (1994) Oldest Allies, Guarded Friends: The United States and France since 1940 (Westport: Praeger); C. Cogan (1997) Forced to Choose: France, the Atlantic Alliance and NATO (London: Praeger); S. Hoffmann (1994) The Foreign Policy of Charles de Gaulle (Princeton: Princeton University Press); D.S. White (1979) Black Africa and de Gaulle, from the French Empire to Independence (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press); A. Grosser (1965) La politique extérieure de la Ve république (Paris: Seuil); G. Gozard (1976) De Gaulle face à l’Europe (Paris: Plon); R. Paxton and N. Wahl (eds) (1994) De Gaulle and the United States: A Centennial Reappraisal (Providence: Berg). 17 In May 1960 a US spy plane, the U2, was shot down by the Soviets. The incident caused enormous diplomatic embarrassment to the Americans and overshadowed the East-West summit being held in Paris. The embarrassment was even greater for the Americans as the Soviets captured Gary Powers alive, and the U2 spy plane almost intact. 18 See N. Beloff (1963) The General Says No (Harmondsworth: Penguin), esp. pp.113–172. 19 See C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), pp.221–234. 20 C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), pp.206–207.

220 Notes 21 See P. Viansson-Ponté (1970–71) Histoire de la république gaullienne (Paris: Fayard), pp.376–379. The irony is that he may actually have meant it as a compliment. 22 With the 1968 crisis, this attempt on France’s part to challenge American dominance fizzled out. 23 One might, however, say the same of French policy in Africa. See inter alia, F.-X. Vershave (2005) De la Françafrique à la Mafiafrique (Paris: Broché); see also J. Foccart and P. Gaillard (1995 and 1997) Foccart parle, vols 1 and 2 (Paris: Broché). 24 Leftist ideas were developing outside the two main left political parties, but again with no real idea of the left’s adapting to presidentialism itself. In 1960, the PSU was formed, and throughout the decade it churned out ideas (it also enjoyed a real forum in the pages of the Nouvel Observateur magazine), helping to create, in contradistinction to the established left, la deuxième gauche – made up of young intellectuals, the new CFDT trade union, the students union, UNEF, a range of political clubs and think tanks, in particular the (somewhat elitist) Club Jean Moulin, and Citoyens 60 (leftist Catholic), of which the young Jacques Delors was a founding member. We said above no real doctrinal renewal took place within the parties. Generally speaking that was true although we can say here that a small doctrinal group, CERES, was set up in the SFIO in 1964, and Pierre Mauroy of the Nord federation set up a Research group involving socialist students concerned with researching ideas around the theme of making the SFIO a modern social democratic party. And in the Stalinist PCF, with the death of Thorez in 1964, there was a more liberal mood emerging. 25 When we say ‘inside a party’ we need to stress that the SFIO leadership did not approve and would undermine the initiative. 26 G. Defferre (1965) Un nouvel horizon (Paris: Gallimard). 27 See CEVIPOF (1970) L’élection présidentielle des 5 et 19 décembre 1965 (Paris: Armand Colin). 28 Towards the end of his political career, Le Pen expressed the view – his one political regret – that if he had stood first in 1965 instead of 1974, the history of the far right, and himself, and therefore the republic, would have been different. One can only wonder. See Libération.fr., 19 March 2007. 29 This was also the case for Giscard in 1981, Mitterrand in 1988, and Chirac in 2002. 30 It was also known that in spite of his lofty public comportment, de Gaulle also had a highly developed sense of humour. See M. Jullian (ed.) (2000) De Gaulle, traits d’esprit (Paris: Le Cherche Midi); Éditions Michel Lafon (2005) Le meilleur du général de Gaulle (Neuilly-sur-Seine: Éditions Michel Lafon). 31 The Gaullists in the 1967 legislative elections used the same publicity agency, Services et méthodes, that Jean Lecanuet had used in 1965. 32 The first woman presidential candidate was the Trotskyst, Arlette Laguiller, in 1974. There have been women candidates in all the presidential elections since, with the first woman going through to the run off in 2007. In the 2002 elections, Christiane Taubira, from French Guiana, was the first black presidential candidate. 33 See (1968) L’année politique 1967 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.2–3. Essentially ‘Oui, mais…’ meant yes I support the government but

Notes 221 not totally. Giscard also criticized the ‘solitary exercise of power’ after de Gaulle’s ‘Vive le Québec libre!’ speech, see (1968) L’année politique 1967 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), p.58. 34 The miners’ strike of March–April 1963 was the most prominent of developing social conflicts at this time. This long – 39 days – strike was a conflict that aroused a great deal of national, and international, sympathy for the miners, and saw a significant drop in de Gaulle’s popularity.

Chapter 3

1968 and its Aftermath

1 (1969) L’année politique 1968 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.13–14. One of the reasons school students were involved was because the government had introduced legislation on selective university entry. The involvement of schools meant the police were fighting extremely young people on many occasions. 2 (1969) L’année politique 1968 (Paris: PUF), p.37. 3 For the full text see C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), pp.292–293. For a lively description of the events around this time and the attitudes of de Gaulle and Pompidou, particularly towards each other, see J. Lacouture (1986) De Gaulle, Volume 3, Le souverain (Paris: Seuil), pp.714–731. 4 The Marxian (Trotskyist) notion of ‘permanent revolution’ was a forlorn hope among leftist activists; but this was in part a revolution in ideas and attitudes; and this discursive, cultural revolution should not be underestimated in terms of its longer term influence. 5 (1969) L’année politique 1968 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.46–47. For the full text of the programme see C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), pp.321–338 (Livre de Poche edition, 1974). 6 See P. Bénéton and J. Touchard ‘Les interprétations de la crise de mai–juin 1968’ in Revue française de science politique, 20, 3, June 1970, pp.503–544. 7 From 200,000 to 500,000 since 1960. 8 Asked by one journalist in a lull in the fighting what a revolutionary should do, Cohn-Bendit’s reply was that he should go home and make love to his girlfriend. The women’s movement was clearly imperative given that your own leaders assumed that only men were revolutionaries. Young women were, in fact, very active in the demonstrations and the rioting; see P. Seale and M. McConville (1968) French Revolution 1968 (Harmondsworth: Penguin), p.73. 9 And as such was utterly despised as insignificant by the PCF and CGT. 10 He had German nationality; his family being wartime Jewish refugees. He had been partly brought up in France. The irony of ‘Dany’ as the ‘face’ of the ’68 Revolution was that in reality, after the first week or so in May, he played quite a minor role in the events. 11 P. Mendès France (1962) La république moderne (Paris: Gallimard). 12 The text of declarations by Mitterrand and by Mèndes France on, respectively, 28 and 29 May are published in L’année politique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.380–381. A comparative analysis of the ‘performance’ of de Gaulle in 1958 and those of Mèndes and Mitterrand in 1968 would be an

222 Notes

13 14

15 16

17

18

19 20

21

extremely interesting exercise in terms of the relation between performance and image on the one hand and institutions and culture on the other. See inter alia J. Besançon (1997) Les murs ont la parole (Paris: Tchou); B. Lambert (1997) Défense d’interdire (Paris: Méréal). One graffiti: ‘Il a mis trois semaines pour annoncer en cinq minutes ce qu’il allait entreprendre dans un mois ce qu’il n’avait pas réussi à faire en dix ans.’ And cartoons of him – usually in profile – képi, large nose, were everywhere. See inter alia J. Baynac et al. (2008) Mai 68, Le Débat (Paris: Gallimard). We should also note here that ’68 was a seminal moment for the far-right too, both in activist and intellectual terms. Subsequently significant Giscardian figures such as Alain Madelin had been founding members of far right organizations, such as Occident. The French State Channel, the ORTF, also went on strike. When reporting did take place many of the broadcasters, camera crew etc, were very sympathetic to the students and striking workers. See M. Larkin (1997) France since the Popular Front (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.317–330. For an interesting, more strident view than mine, arguing for example that the violence of ’68 was subsequently downplayed, see K. Ross (2002) May ’68 and its Afterlives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). See (1969) L’année politique, 1968 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.64–65, 71–74. There were many injuries in 1968 on both sides but startlingly few deaths, perhaps five or six throughout the country, several of these tragic accidents rather than the result of deliberate attacks. Four of these took place towards the end of the events in mid-June and added to the climate of opinion that the authorities now needed to put a stop to the riots. If the Army had been brought in there would doubtless have been many more casualties. One of ‘68’s most famous slogans ‘Elections, piège à cons’ was transformed in 2002 into ‘abstentionnisme, piège à cons’.

Chapter 4

1969–74: Gaullism Without de Gaulle

1 Strictly speaking the first part of de Gaulle’s proposal would amend article 72 of the constitution and therefore technically was a referendum issue, but had nothing of the drama of all his other referendums. 2 For example, in his ineffective 24 May 1968 broadcast and in his televised discussion with Michel Droit on 7 June. 3 To date, the only other defeat had been that of 5 May 1946, the referendum on the first constitutional proposal for what became the Fourth Republic; and in fact the ’46 referendum had had no champion. De Gaulle’s referendums characterized the dramatic 1958–62 period. In the aftermath of the 1968 drama, both the topic and the timing of de Gaulle’s initiative were misguided. 4 The 1969 reform envisaged a reform of the regions: three-fifths of the membership nominated by elected officials and two-fifths by professional organizations, chambers of commerce, trade unions and so on (and with the local prefects as their executive). More contentiously, the second chamber,

Notes 223

5 6

7

8 9

10 11 12

13 14

15 16 17

18 19

20

the Senate, would see similar reform. Just over half its members would be elected indirectly (by MPs, local councillors etc) and the rest nominated by economic, social and cultural organizations. Most contentiously, the Senate would become a consultative body, no longer really part of Parliament. Clearly, such reform met with enormous hostility from the Senate especially, and from many at local level, and perhaps more damningly, general indifference on the part of the national population. This was – more or less – Malraux’s view. See A. Malraux (1971) Les chênes qu’on abat… (Paris: Gallimard). See S. Rials (1977) Les idées politiques du Président Georges Pompidou (Paris: Presses universitaires de France). See also, S. Berstein and J.-P. Rioux (1995) La France de l’expansion 2 (Paris: Seuil), pp.26–30. For a good brief discussion, see J. Chapsal and A. Lancelot (1975) La vie politique en France depuis 1940 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.600–605. For a more thorough analysis, see F. Bon ‘Le référendum d’avril et l’élection présidentielle de juin 1969’, Revue française de science politique, 20, 2, April 1970, pp.205–328. ‘Je cesse d’exercer mes fonctions de Président de la République. Cette décision prend effet aujourd’hui à midi.’ Others have: Pompidou (on Europe), Rocard (on Nouvelle-Calédonie), Mitterrand (on Europe), Chirac (on Europe), and Harold Wilson (…on Europe). All used referendums to distance themselves from decisions rather than to embrace them, as de Gaulle did. Hence the significance of ‘la légitimité nationale que j’incarne depuis vingt ans’. Declaration of 29 January 1960. Revue française de science politique, 20, 2, April, 1970, pp.205–282. At various times in May and June 1968 many of the actors, including Pompidou and de Gaulle, thought the regime was about to collapse. See, inter alia, A. Frerejean (2007) C’était Georges Pompidou (Paris: Fayard), pp.230–231. See, inter alia, S. Berstein and J.-P. Rioux (1995) La France de l’expansion 2 (Paris: Seuil), pp.127–130. G. Pompidou (1974) Le noeud gordien (Paris: Plon). (It was published posthumously but knowledge of its ideas was widespread). See in particular pp.57–71. The essential point about Le noeud gordien is that it is the personal restatement of de Gaulle’s view on the institutions and comportment of the President by his main lieutenant and imminent successor. Cf. M. Crozier (1970) La société bloquée (Paris: Seuil). G. Pompidou (1974) Le noeud gordien (Paris: Plon), pp.61–64. Servan-Schreiber was an already sitting MP (Nancy) when he decided to run against Chaban. J.-J. Servan-Schreiber was an extremely high profile politician, so that the clash became a major media event. J.-J. Becker (1998) Crises et alternances 1974–1995 (Paris: Seuil), p.12. This two-day visit (where Pompidou was clearly very unwell) once again underscored both France’s hostility to the US at one level (the US should not mix military and commercial negotiations) and dependency at another (the US military presence in Europe remained as important as ever). N. Beloff (1963) The General Says No (Harmondsworth: Penguin).

224 Notes 21 J. Chapsal and A. Lancelot (1975) La vie politique en France depuis 1940 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), p.614. 22 See J. Gaffney (1989) The French Left and the Fifth Republic (Basingstoke: Macmillan), Ch. 6. 23 D.S. Bell and B. Criddle (1988) The French Socialist Party (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp.62–70. 24 F. Mitterrand (1977) Politique 1 (Paris: Fayard), p.532. 25 S. Berstein and J.-P. Rioux (2000) The Pompidou Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp.73–74.

Chapter 5

1974–81: The Giscard Years

1 J.-J. Becker (1998) Crises et alternances 1974–1995 (Paris: Seuil), p.12. 2 (1975) L’année politique 1974 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.24–25. 3 J. Chapsal and A. Lancelot (1975) La vie politique en France depuis 1940 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), p.648. 4 The TV debate was not held in 2002 between Chirac and Le Pen because of Chirac’s refusal. 5 See (1975) L’année politique 1974 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.36–55. 6 By the same token, Mitterrand became, momentarily, and potentially in the longer term, the sole leader of the left, again because of the presidential competition (although he – like Chirac after 1988 – thought his time and chance had come and gone). 7 It was first slowed down for the 11 November commemorations in 1974. For Giscard’s own comment on this event see V. Giscard d’Estaing (1988) Le pouvoir et la vie (Paris: Compagnie 12), pp.318–323. See also D. Francfort (2007) ‘La Marseillaise de Serge Gainsbourg’, Vingtième siècle, 1, 93, pp.27–35. 8 See, inter alia, R. Rémond (1982) Les droites en France (Paris: Aubier Montaigne), pp.294–304. 9 Giscard was often mocked for his aristocratic pretentions as well as his manner. It is widely believed that his father and uncle convinced the authorities in 1922 that a Jean-Baptiste d’Estaing, an admiral who had fought with Lafayette in the American War of Independence, was a distant relative. The derision is greater in that in all the republics such attempts have been the common effort of many social climbers and pretentious parvenus. 10 For an exhaustive list see J.-J. Becker (1998) Crises et alternances 1974–1995 (Paris: Seuil), p.35. For a complete list of his reforms see S. Berstein and J.-F. Sirinelli (eds) (2007) Les années Giscard. Les réformes de société (Paris: Armand Colin), pp.285–289. 11 The other famous name was Françoise Giroud who became junior Minister for women. From this period, women becoming ministers was – if not commonplace – then perceived as perfectly normal, although for some years they were mainly restricted to policy areas such as Health, Education, Social Affairs, and the Environment.

Notes 225 12 Much of the political elite including Giscard were ready to abolish the death penalty, but the conservatism that still informed the polity meant that abolition would not occur until Mitterrand came to power. 13 In the summer of 1975 it was around one million – nearly double the figure of summer 1974. It is also worth remembering that because of the structure of the pre-war French economy and society, since the 1930s, unlike the UK and Germany, France had never known mass unemployment. 14 (1977) L’année politique 1976 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), p.113. 15 ‘J.-J. S.-S.’ was appointed on 28 May 1974 as Minister for reforms and sacked on 9 June for opposing VGE’s nuclear policy. It was the case, however, that Giscard was not himself as hostile to Servan-Schreiber as Chirac and the Gaullists were, but this was not perceived at the time. 16 V. Giscard d’Estaing (1976) Démocratie française (Paris: Fayard). It was republished in January 1978 in Livre de poche, with over one million copies printed, and was translated into 15 languages. In a subsequent book (1984) Deux Français sur trois (Paris: Flammarion), he underlined this view, that there was a kind of Giscardian majority in the nation itself. 17 Giscard had transformed a very small coalition of CNIP and independent MPs into the Républicains Indépendants in the early Fifth Republic. In May 1977, the RI became the Parti républicain. In February 1978, it, the Clubs Perspectives et réalités (founded in 1965), the CDS, the Radical Party, and the tiny Mouvement démocrate socialiste de France (and there was also individual membership) entered into a would-be party, that was really a federation of groups, the Union pour la démocratie française (UDF). There was also the group, Jeunes Giscardiens, set up in the hope that a new generation of the young, middle class, and intelligent would become the cheerleaders of a trendy new Giscardian era. 18 Chirac’s speeches were always published in pamphlet form by the party. For an analysis of a Chirac speech see J. Gaffney (1991) ‘Language and Politics: The Case of Neo-Gaullism’ in J. Gaffney and E. Kolinsky (eds) (1991) Political Culture in France and Germany (London: Routledge), pp.91–129. See also J. Chirac (1978) La lueur de l’espérance (Paris: Table Ronde); (1978) Discours pour la France à l’heure du choix (Paris: Stock). Both were published at this crucial moment of the development of Chirac as a Gaullist rally leader. For a critical appraisal of Chirac’s thought through an analysis of his discourse, see Y. Michaud (2004) Chirac dans le texte (Paris: Stock). 19 Most presidential contenders have tried to convey the idea that they, like the republic’s founder, have undergone their own ‘desert crossing’. 20 The notion of a ‘first’ and ‘second’ left is an attempt to capture the myriad strains within the left. The ‘first’ is usually seen as the traditional SFIO and the socialists in Parliament and the local councils. The ‘second’ left is younger, the 1960s generation by and large, and comprises the smaller leftist parties (e.g. the PSU), some trade unions, think tanks and those trying to ‘rethink’ modern socialism, beyond both Marxism on the one hand, and Gas and Water socialism on the other. This characterization has some grounding in reality, but it is much more helpful to see these two lefts as rhetorical resources. 21 Composers such as Mikis Theodorakis who wrote music for the PS, e.g. ‘Changer la vie’: L’Hymne du PS (Congrès de Nantes, 1977), and singer-

226 Notes

22 23

24 25 26 27 28

29

30

31 32 33 34

songwriters like Georges Moustaki became associated with the French left at this moment of its evolution. This association of celebrities with political parties and candidates is a feature of French politics, particularly at presidential elections. See, inter alia, F. Mitterrand (1975) La paille et le grain (Paris: Flammarion) and (1978) L’abeille et l’architecte (Paris: Flammarion). The Popular Front of 1936, arguably a political failure, had become quite quickly on the left a ‘mythical’ moment akin to the heroic and tragic Commune of 1871. The PS behaved as if its conquest of power would be akin to a new Popular Front. It was as if the socialist-led governments of the 1940s and 1950s had never existed. The British Communists had abandoned the term in 1948. The reality, particularly as regards the PCF and its long intellectual tradition and thorough-going auto-didacticism, was more nuanced than this. See D.S. Bell and B. Criddle (1994) The French Communist Party in the Fifth Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp.211–214. See D.S. Bell and B. Criddle (1988) The French Socialist Party (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp.89–90. Parti Communiste Français and Parti Socialiste (1972) Programme commun de gouvernement (Paris: Éditions sociales); Parti Communiste Français (1978) Programme commun de gouvernement actualisé (Paris: Éditions sociales). For a good account of this period and the PS/PCF clash over the Common Programme, see R.W. Johnson (1981) The Long March of the French Left (London: Macmillan), pp.167–189. It was difficult for the electorate to be certain, therefore, whether, as the left went into the 1978 elections, there was or was not a Common Programme that was going to be applied. For the full text of the speech (published also in full in many daily newspapers), see V. Giscard d’Estaing (1988) Le pouvoir et la vie (Paris: Compagnie 12), pp.391–401. See (1979) L’année politique 1978 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.29–56. All electoral results pp.485–560. See also Le Monde (1978) Les élections législatives de mars 1978 (Paris: Dossiers et documents). See Chirac’s Appel de Cochin in V. Giscard d’Estaing (2006) Le pouvoir et la vie, 3 (Paris: Compagnie 12), pp.593–596 (Livre de poche edition). Giscard’s RPR ministers were more ‘Giscardien’ than ‘Chiraquien’. See J.-J. Becker (1998) Crises et alternances 1974–1995 (Paris: Seuil), p.163. See also (1980) L’année politique 1979 (Paris: Éditions du grand siècle), pp.65–66. For an account by Giscard himself of Boulin’s suicide, and of the murder of his friend Jean de Broglie, see V. Giscard d’Estaing (1991) Le pouvoir et la vie, 2 (Paris: Compagnie 12), pp.247–274.

Chapter 6 1981–88: From the République Sociale to the République Française 1 There were also hearsay rumours concerning Giscard’s sexual conduct; but also rumours of thoughtless excess, such as sending a French Mirage fighter plane back across the world to collect a hunting rifle he had forgotten on a trip. We shall discuss the role of hearsay in our conclusion.

Notes 227 2 See M. Duverger (1974) La monarchie républicaine ou comment les démocraties se donnent des rois (Paris: Robert Laffont). Duverger’s ideas were developed further, by himself and others, and probe notions of une monarchie républicaine (a term used first by Michel Debré in 1944), and la monarchie élue. See M. Duverger (1978) Echec au roi (Paris: Albin Michel). For a critique/appraisal of this, see H. Bahro, B.H. Bayerlein and E. Veser ‘Semi-Presidential Government Revisited’, European Journal of Political Research, 34, 2, October 1998, pp.201–224. See also R. Elgie (ed.) (1999) Semi-Presidentialism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 3 Such mythology has a contagious quality and can spread to others, the classic case being the (unjustified and misogynistic) opprobrium directed at Marie-Antoinette during the Revolution – an opprobrium that only began to be properly addressed two centuries later. See, inter alia, Carolly Erickson (2000) To the Scaffold. The Life of Marie-Antoinette (London: Robson). For us, the mythologies informing misogyny are as valuable to analysis as those informing monarchism. 4 The Fondation nationale des sciences politiques has always put out exhaustive analyses after each presidential and legislative election. There have been countless books, articles, and journal special issues devoted to the 1981 elections. See in particular A. Lancelot (ed.) (1986) 1981, les élections de l’alternance (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques). See also, Revue française de science politique, 31, 5–6, October–December 1981, pp.951–1037. 5 If the left had won – with the PCF – in 1978, and Mitterrand had been the first socialist Prime Minister rather than the first President in 1981, French political history would have been very different. 6 See P.-A. Muet (1985) ‘Economic Management and the International Environment’ in H. Machin and V. Wright (eds) Economic Policy and PolicyMaking Under the Mitterrand Presidency, 1981–1984 (London: Frances Pinter), pp.70–95. See also A.G. Delion and M. Durupty (1983) Les nationalisations de 1982 (Paris: Economica). 7 See H. Machin and V. Wright (eds) (1985) Economic Policy and Policy-Making Under the Mitterrand Presidency, 1981–1984 (London: Frances Pinter); E. Cohen (1986) ‘Les socialistes et l’économie: de l’âge des mythes au déminage’ in E. Dupoirier and G. Grunberg (eds) Mars 1986: La drôle de défaite de la gauche (Paris: Presses universitaires de France). 8 The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was in Auckland to protest against French nuclear testing. One member of the crew was killed by the second of two blasts – probably because he returned to the damaged ship to retrieve his cameras, unaware a second blast was about to take place. It emerged soon after that this terrorist outrage had been perpetrated by the French secret service. 9 There had also been a spectacular winning of control of the city council in Dreux (in north west France) at the 1983 municipal elections. 10 For all the results see (1987) L’année politique 1986 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), pp.187–210. 11 For analyses of the state of French socialism at this time see J. Gaffney (1988) ‘French Socialism and the Fifth Republic’, West European Politics, 11, 3, pp.42–56; J. Gaffney (1994) ‘From the République sociale to the République

228 Notes

12

13

14 15 16

17 18

Française’ in G. Raymond (ed.), France During the Socialist Years (Aldershot: Dartmouth), pp.3–31. This mythological ‘use’ of individuals protecting in their persona either France or the Republic has a long tradition in French political culture, de Gaulle in 1940 being the classic example, but one thinks too of the valiant and quixotic Sébastien de Cassalta, deputy Mayor of Bastia, carried protesting from the town hall by ‘paras’ with the tricolor round his shoulders shouting ‘Vive la république’, arguably the only – but memorable – resister to the 1958 coup in Corsica. For a discussion of how Mitterrand’s highly public opposition (in particular, using his 14 July interviews) – but which observed all constitutional propriety – to oppose Chirac’s use of ‘ordonnances’, his putting Chirac in his place in terms of diplomatic hierarchy, his opposition to privatization, to devaluation, and to reducing the ‘acquis sociaux’, receiving and sympathizing with striking train drivers, and so on, see F.-O. Giesbert (1990) Le président (Paris: Seuil), pp.332–349 (Points actuels edition); see also F.-O. Giesbert (1996) François Mitterrand: une vie (Paris: Seuil), pp.503–508. F. Mitterrand (1964) Le coup d’état permanent (Paris: Plon). For the results, see J. Gaffney (ed.) (1989) The French Presidential Elections of 1988 (Aldershot: Dartmouth), p.3. Chirac’s use of the media in round two of the elections was an unprecedented use of headline grabbing. See J. Gaffney (ed.) (1989) The French Presidential Elections of 1988 (Aldershot: Dartmouth), pp.20–27. See (1989) L’année politique 1988 (Paris: Éditions du moniteur), pp.63–66. See J. Gaffney (1989) ‘Presidentialism and the Fifth Republic’ in J. Gaffney (ed.), The French Presidential Elections of 1988 (Aldershot: Dartmouth), pp.28–31.

Chapter 7 1988–2002: The Long Decade of Vindictiveness, Miscalculations, Defeat, Farce, Good Luck, Good Government, and Catastrophe. The Presidency Right or Wrong 1 Mitterrand and Rocard had a highly publicized ‘private’ meeting in between the two rounds of the presidential elections on 19 April near Montpellier, photographed happily out walking together as if reconciliation and forward planning were already taking place in anticipation of the return of the left to power and office. 2 Journal Officiel, 26 May, 1988. 3 Professor Léon Schwarzenberg was sacked after one week for perceived inappropriate remarks on AIDS and on drug addicts. 4 See M. Rocard (1979) Parler vrai (Paris: Seuil) for a good example of Rocardian ideas and the way they and his view of politics were expressed. For an analysis of Rocardian discourse itself see J. Gaffney (1989) The French Left and the Fifth Republic: The Discourses of Communism and Socialism in Contemporary France (Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp.154–175. The consensual deliberative Rocard method was elaborated in his 1987 Le coeur à l’ouvrage (Paris: Odile Jacob). See also ‘Faire’ (1979) Qu’est-ce que la social-démocratie?

Notes 229

5

6

7

8 9

10 11 12

13

14

15

16 17

(Paris: Seuil). After Rocard, virtually all Prime Ministers had a ‘method’ ascribed to them. For a discussion of political de-alignment and re-alignment in the 1980s and 1990s see C. Fieschi (1997) ‘The Other Candidates: Voynet, Le Pen, de Villiers and Cheminade’ in J. Gaffney and L. Milne (eds) French Presidentialism and the Election of 1995 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.135–164. It lies outside the scope of this study, which concentrates upon the main leaders, to analyse in any detail the political significance of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front national. The crucial fact concerning Le Pen, however, from our perspective, is that – irrespective of European populism or fascism generally – he is a product of the Fifth Republic, its institutions, culture, and discourse. For two excellent analyses of Le Pen, the first from a more theoretical, the second a more historical perspective, see C. Fieschi (2004) Fascism, Populism and the French Fifth Republic: In the Shadow of Democracy (Manchester: Manchester University Press), and J.G. Shields (2007) The Extreme Right in France (London: Routledge). See J.-J. Becker (1998) Crises et alternances 1974–1995 (Paris: Seuil), pp.510–512. For a theoretical analysis of the ‘headscarf affair’/s and its relation to republicanism, see C. Laborde (2008) Critical Republicanism. The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 3 December 1989, 7 SUR 7, TF1: La France ‘ne pouvait pas héberger toute la misère du monde’. See J. Lacouture (1998) Mitterrand, une histoire de Français, 2 (Paris: Seuil), pp.351–358, 365–370. See also, D. Robert (1997) Pendant les ‘affaires’ les affaires continùent… (Paris: Stock). See also Y. Mény (1992) La corruption de la République (Paris: Fayard). See Le Monde (1992) La France dans ses régions. Les élections régionales du 22 Mars, 1992 (Paris: Dossiers et documents). J.-J. Becker (1998) Crises et alternances (Paris: Seuil), p.575. The Elephants are the party grandees, usually courant leaders. Over the years Defferre, Mauroy, Fabius, Rocard, Jospin, Lang, Chevènement, Dumas, Strauss-Kahn, Delanoë, and Aubry have constituted the bulk of them. See L. Wilcox (1996) ‘Edith Cresson: Victim of Her Own Image’ in H. Drake and J. Gaffney (eds) The Language of Political Leadership in Contemporary France (Aldershot: Dartmouth), pp.79–106. See also E. Schemla (1993) Edith Cresson: La femme piégée (Paris: Flammarion). She had worked for Mitterrand from as early as the 1965 presidential election. She had also held ministerial office throughout the left’s holding office after 1981 (Agriculture, Overseas Trade, Industrial Redeployment, and European Affairs). The nearest type to this was the formidable Marie-France Garaud, a hardline Chirac advisor in the 1970s and a presidential candidate in 1981. The highest profile, and very popular, female politician in France had been Giscard’s Health minister, Simone Veil, who was the opposite of this. See P. Péan (1994) Une jeunesse française: François Mitterrand 1934–1937 (Paris: Fayard). P. Perrineau and C. Ysmal (eds) (1993) Le vote sanction: Les élections législatives des 21 et 28 mars 1993 (Paris: Département d’études politiques du Figaro and Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques).

230 Notes 18 C. Villeneuve (1993) Les liaisons dangereuses de Pierre Bérégovoy (Paris: Plon). 19 See J. Gaffney (1996) ‘Socialism and Presidentialism: The Socialist Party Conference at Liévin, November 1994’, Keele European Research Centre, Research Paper 1. 20 See J. Gaffney (1997) ‘The Mainstream Right: Chirac and Balladur’ in J. Gaffney and L. Milne (eds), French Presidentialism and the Election of 1995 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.99–116. See also, inter alia, N. Domenach and M. Szafran (1994) De si bons amis (Paris: Plon); C. Nay (1994) Le dauphin et le régent (Paris: Grasset). 21 See D.B. Goldey (1997) ‘Analysis of the Election Results’ in J. Gaffney and L. Milne (eds), French Presidentialism and the Election of 1995 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.55–84. For another interesting appraisal of the 1995 election see R. Elgie (ed.) (1996) Electing the French President (London: Macmillan). 22 For an analysis of the 1997 elections see, P. Perrineau and C. Ysmal (eds) (1998) Le vote surprise: Les élections législatives des 25 mai et 1er juin 1997 (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques). 23 See D.S. Bell (2004) ‘Presidential Competition: Prime Minister Against President in “Cohabitation”’ in J. Gaffney (ed.) The French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.16–33. 24 It transpired in June 2001 that Jospin had been an active Trotskyist before joining the PS. In terms of his ‘character’ and image however, his biggest mistake was initially denying it (he said it was his brother!). 25 Another (unforeseen) price, of course, was that every party to the coalition would field a candidate in 2002. 26 New, more transparent, and more generous state funding of political parties from 1988, then from the early 1990s onwards (1990, 1993, 1995) also meant that the nature of leadership patronage – particularly now of ‘satellite’ parties like the MDC, Greens and Left Radicals and their own sense of greater independence – was changing significantly, altering the status of the rally leader. This new state funding of political parties reduced the powers of patronage of the large parties, made the smaller ones more confident and more likely; and in so doing reduced the percentage score necessary to, for example, go through to round two in an election. This had strange effects. It helped Le Pen go through to round two of the 2002 presidential elections. If, however, he had had the votes of his rival Bruno Mégret and a fraction of the votes of Jean Saint-Josse, he would have come first in round one of the presidential election. See B. Dolez (1995) ‘Financement de la vie politique: les lois anti-corruption de 1995’, Regards sur l’actualité, 211, pp.31–41; J.-L. Parodi (1997) ‘Proportionalisation périodique, cohabitation, atomization partisane: un triple défi pour le régime semi-présidentiel de la Cinquième République’, Revue française de science politique, 47, 3–4, pp.292–312. 27 It had always been generally assumed that Chirac had run the Mayorship of Paris (1977–95) as a personal fiefdom. On 21 September 2000 a huge scandal broke, and grew and grew, when Le Monde published (posthumous) details of a video made by a former fundraiser for the RPR. It became clear that unaccounted, and unaccounted for, millions of francs flowed through the Paris Town Hall, a lot of it seemingly literally stuffed into Jacques Chirac’s pockets. Two years later he was democratically re-elected President

Notes 231

28 29

30

31

32 33 34 35

with a score that would have made Stalin blush. See J.-P. Thiollet (2002) Les dessous d’une présidence (Paris: Anagramme). For a clear analysis and account of Chirac and the vexed question of his complicity in financial irregularities of Paris Town Hall see R. Bacqué (2002) Chirac ou le démon du pouvoir (Paris: Albin Michel). A. Knapp (2004) Parties and the Party System in France (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p.339. See B. Clift (2004) ‘Lionel Jospin’s Campaign and the Socialist Left: The “Earthquake” and its Aftershocks’ in J. Gaffney (ed.) The French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.149–168. See C. Ysmal (2004) ‘The Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2002: An Analysis of the Results’ in J. Gaffney (ed.) The French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.57–82. See B. Clift (2004) ‘Lionel Jospin’s Campaign and the Socialist Left: The “Earthquake” and its Aftershocks’ in J. Gaffney (ed.) The French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.149–168. ‘Elections: Piège à cons’, had been replaced with ‘Abstensionnisme: Piège à cons’. One has no doubt they grasped the irony. See D. Pingaud (2002) L’impossible défaite (Paris: Seuil). Several of the post-2002 critiques were personal, e.g. M.-N. Lienemann (2002) Ma part d’inventaire (Paris: Ramsay). The one event that counters this view, and which enhanced Chirac’s personal status dramatically for a while, was his bold opposition and standing up to the US over the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Chapter 8

The Presidential Election of 2007

1 There is a growing literature in this area, see, inter alia, A. Phillips (1991) Engendering Democracy (Cambridge: Polity); R.L. Ramsay (2003) French Women in Politics (Oxford: Berghahn Books); J. Butler and J.W. Scott (eds) (1992) Feminists Theorize the Political (London: Routledge). A characteristic of this literature is its persuasive blend of perspectives in order to ‘capture’ its subject: cultural, anthropological, rhetorical-discursive, mythological, and political. For a recent and thoroughgoing analysis of this new feminist approach, see L.J. Shepherd (2008) Gender, Violence and Security (London: Zed Books). For an interesting analysis with reference to both Cresson and Royal, see S. Perry (2005) ‘Gender Difference in French Political Communication: From Handicap to Asset?’, Modern and Contemporary France, 13, 3, pp.337–352. 2 See C. Amar and D. Hassoux (2005) Ségolène et François: Biographie d’un couple (Paris: Privé), pp.41–82 ; M.-E. Malouines and C. Meeus (2006) La Madone et le Culbuto (Paris: Fayard), pp.91–130. 3 C. Amar and D. Hassoux (2005) Ségolène et François: Biographie d’un couple (Paris: Privé), p.104. For other good studies of Royal, see, inter alia, C. Courcol and T. Masure (2007) Ségolène Royal, les coulisses d’une défaite (Paris: L’Archipel); M.-E. Malouines and C. Meeus (2006) La Madone et le culbuto (Paris: Fayard); C. Lévy (2006) L’une enchante, l’autre pas (Paris: Calmann-Lévy); A. Mascret and A.-L. Jeanvoine (2007) Ce qu’on ne vous a pas dit sur Ségolène Royal, Nicolas

232 Notes

4 5

6

7

8 9

10 11 12 13

Sarkozy… (Paris: Litté), pp.27–54; V. Noir (2007) Putsch au PS (Paris: Denoël); G. Ottenheimer (2007) Le sacre de Nicolas (Paris: Seuil). Two interesting though idiosyncratic studies are, R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel); M. Lambron (2006) Mignonne, allons voir (Paris: Grasset). R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), p.46. C. Amar and D. Hassoux (2005) Ségolène et François: Biographie d’un couple (Paris: Privé), p.137. We should note the date of this publication. The huge popularity of 2006 makes us tend to forget that Royal as a possible contender for the presidency, and a popular figure in the opinion polls, goes back to 2004–05. Occasionally, at local events, her triumphalist, rather inappropriate comportment, essentially behaving like a ‘national’ politician within local politics presaged her subsequent style. According to Malouines and Meeus, she showed ‘la même quiétude inébranlable que les madones de Raphaël’, M.-E. Malouines and C. Meeus (2006) La Madone et le culbuto (Paris: Fayard), p.9. The ‘lad mag’ FHM had included her in its list of the world’s sexiest women in the autumn of 2006 (Guardian 12 January 2007). A quite astonishing – and compelling – ‘mythological’ and psychosexual treatment of her and her place in French political culture is M. Lambron (2006) Mignonne, allons voir (Paris: Grasset). M. Lambron (2006) Mignonne, allons voir (Paris: Grasset), p.21. R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), p.89. R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), pp.77–78. This lyrical and emotional dimension to Royal’s rhetoric would increase even further after she gained the party’s presidential nomination. Some of Royal’s language and style is very surprising. The emphasis in all her speeches upon herself – what she (‘je’) sees, wants, desires – is overwhelming, as is the religious, mystical, and rhetorical interrelationship between ‘je’ and ‘vous’. It is also clear that at her, by PS standards, vast meetings, the audiences adored her. She also characterized herself as needing ‘your’ help, and as an individual – often as a female victim – who had calumny heaped on her but did not care, who was attacked but would go on, etc (e.g. her New Year’s Wishes on her website, January 2007). The sentimentality of some of her more lyrical utterances were on the borderline between emotional and comic, e.g. Villepente 12 February 2007: ‘J’ai entendu vos appels, vos craintes, vos détresses, vos révoltes, mais aussi vos attentes, vos désirs et vos espérances’; ‘Avec moi, plus jamais la politique ne se fera sans vous’ (said twice in a row); ‘Et moi, je ne peux pas, je ne peux pas ne pas m’associer à ce cri, le relayer, lui prêter ma voix et ma volonté’. For those who liked this kind of thing – and many of the Désirs d’avenir followers were ‘her’ people, rather than the party’s, and often new to politics, and desiring of political change – her style was enormously appreciated. For some even more lyrical examples (although we have to point out, no sources are given), see R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), pp.57–60.

Notes 233 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21

22 23 24

25

26

27 28 29

30

A. Duhamel (2006) Les prétendants 2007 (Paris: Plon). M. Lambron (2006) Mignonne, allons voir (Paris: Grasset), p.10. M. Lambron (2006) Mignonne, allons voir (Paris: Grasset), p.11. It is Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s contention that Hollande and Royal had plotted her candidacy for years; see J.-L. Mélenchon (2007) En quête de gauche (Paris: Balland), pp.109–178. This author is not convinced. E.g. on Radio 15 April 2007, see R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), p.49. R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), p.39. R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), pp.146–148. In the last week of February there was a rallying to her of her main party rivals, Jospin, Fabius and Strauss-Kahn. This was a very ‘cool’ rallying, by them and by her, and was without any follow through. R. Bacqué and A. Chemin (2007) La femme fatale (Paris: Albin Michel), p.9. C. Courcol and T. Masure (2007) Ségolène Royal, les coulisses d’une défaite (Paris: L’Archipel), p.249. See P. Ariès (2005) Misère du sarkozysme (Mesnil-sur-l’Estrée: Paragon/Vs); F. Charpier (2006) Nicolas Sarkozy (Paris: Presses de la cité); J.-P. Friedman (2005) Dans la peau de Sarko (Paris: Éditions Michalon); C. Gambotti (2007) Sarkozy: La métamorphose 1999–2007 (Toulouse: Éditions Privat); J.L. Hees (2007) Sarkozy Président! (Paris: Éditions du Rocher); B. Jeudy and L. Vigogne (2007) Nicolas Sarkozy: De Neuilly à l’Élysée (Paris: L’Archipel); C. Nay (2007) Un pouvoir nommé désir (Paris: Grasset); G. Ottenheimer (1994) Les deux Nicolas (Paris: Plon); G. Ottenheimer (2007) Le sacre de Nicolas (Paris: Seuil); A. Mantoux (2003) Nicolas Sarkozy: L’instinct du pouvoir (Paris: Éditions Générales First); P. Reinhard (2005) Chirac, Sarkozy: Mortelle randonnée (Paris: Éditions Générales First); V. Noir (2005) Nicolas Sarkozy ou le destin de Brutus (Paris: Denoël). For a study of Sarkozy’s campaign from a personal psychological perspective, see Y. Reza (2007) L’aube le soir ou la nuit (Paris: Flammarion). As with Royal, most studies of Sarkozy are either pro or anti. In 1995, his vote went down to 60 per cent given the hostility of Chirac supporters. In 2001 he was re-elected Mayor with 77 per cent. He was an MP from 1988, and from 1986–88 Vice President of the Hauts-de-Seine Regional Council, and in 2004 its President. Malik Oussekine, a student, was beaten savagely by police at 1 a.m. at the end of a demonstration in the Latin Quarter (6 December 1986), and died of his injuries. See, inter alia, V. Noir (2005) Nicolas Sarkozy ou le destin de Brutus (Paris: Denoël), p.153. C. Nay (2007) Un pouvoir nommé désir (Paris: Grasset), pp.262–263. For one of his books, on Georges Mandel, he was accused of plagiarism, see V. Noir (2005) Nicolas Sarkozy ou le destin de Brutus (Paris: Denoël), pp.194–204. Carla Bruni was like an arguably even more ‘successful sequel’ to Cécilia. His relationship with Bruni, a singer and socialite, began after

234 Notes

31 32

33

34

35

36

37 38

39

his relationship with Cécilia finally ended, at the beginning of his presidency in 2007. V. Noir (2005) Nicolas Sarkozy ou le destin de Brutus (Paris: Denoël), p.184. C. Nay (2007) Un pouvoir nommé désir (Paris: Grasset), p.304. It is worth stressing, moreover, that unlike so many practising politicians’ writings, Sarkozy’s are very readable pieces; (2001) Libre (Paris: Laffont) and (2006) Témoignage (Paris: XO). In the 2005 riots in the run-down suburbs of Paris (Clichy, Aulnay, Argenteuil) and elsewhere, Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, referred to the rioters as racaille (scum) and said those areas should be cleaned out with highpressure hoses (Kärcher). It is without a doubt that the strategic reason for this and other opinions on immigration, identity and so on, was that Sarkozy’s longer term – and successful – aim was to steal a significant swathe of Le Pen’s electorate. Nb: Noir’s remark: ‘L’ancien maire de Neuilly a placé les journalistes au centre de sa stratégie de conquête du pouvoir’, V. Noir (2005) Nicolas Sarkozy ou le destin de Brutus (Paris: Denoël), p.81. Sarkozy’s first opponent within his own camp was Chirac, but by 2005 Chirac was seen as being unable to stop him. Alain Juppé made a comeback in 2002 but a legal entanglement ruled him out as a possible presidential candidate. The Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin was ruled out as a presidential hopeful in May 2005 after the defeat of the referendum on the European constitution (the PS also backed it which put an end to François Hollande’s chances of gaining the PS candidacy). The referendum defeat also ruled out the possibility of Chirac standing again to block Sarkozy. The last person put in Sarkozy’s path was Chirac’s protégé, Dominique de Villepin. He was made Prime Minister in May 2005 in an effort to raise his profile to that of a présidentiable. However, first the catastrophic CPE, to help employers hire and fire more easily, triggered unremitting demonstrations and riots through the spring of 2006, and then de Villepin’s most probable involvement in the smear campaign against Sarkozy, the ‘Clearstream Affair’ which accused Sarkozy of money laundering, and was rapidly seen to be without foundation, ruined de Villepin’s hopes of blocking Sarkozy’s road to the presidency. There was even a thinly disguised novel published by Valérie Domain (2006) Entre le coeur et la raison (Paris: Fayard). There had also been a TV drama depicting a female French President. See J.-P. Friedman (2005) Dans la peau de Sarko (Paris: Éditions Michalon), p.48. One of the features of Sarkozy’s speeches is that in spite of a universal awareness today of speechwriters (Guaino had also been involved in Chirac’s 1995 campaign), he sounds – unlike his predecessor Chirac – as if he is the speech’s author. For some over the top references to Royal as a near-magical female see G. Ottenheimer (2007) Le sacre de Nicolas (Paris: Seuil), pp.31–35, and the whole of M. Lambron (2006) Mignonne, allons voir… (Paris: Grasset), a strange but very interesting book on Ségolène’s possible function in the collective and particularly male psyche. Lambron subsequently published a similar book on Sarkozy.

Notes 235 40 41 42 43

44 45 46

47

48

49

G. Ottenheimer (2007) Le sacre de Nicolas (Paris: Seuil), p.81. Taubira stood for the Radicals in 2002 but supported Royal in 2007. G. Ottenheimer (2007) Le sacre de Nicolas (Paris: Seuil), p.138. In terms of how this view was established, newspaper reporting of these two broadcasts made heavier weather of her errors than of his, and yet their errors were roughly equal. I am indebted to Rainbow Murray for this insight. We shall come back to this crucial issue in our conclusion. See C. Courcol and T. Masure (2007) Ségolène Royal, les coulisses d’une défaite (Paris: L’Archipel), pp.187–188. G. Ottenheimer (2007) Le sacre de Nicolas (Paris: Seuil), p.239. There was a website Tout sauf Sarkozy.com, which tried to act as a critical forum, but the real effect was simply the creation of the phrase ‘Tout sauf Sarkozy’ that discursively brought together opponents from right across the spectrum. It is doubtful this rhetorical phenomenon had any political effect apart from valorizing him further. Sarkozy for example made a very long, emotional, very personal, and highly rhetorical speech at Bercy (29 April 2007) one week before the vote. In it, he depicted himself as the representative of the opponents of the children of 1968, quite a strong rightist emphasis given that ‘1968’ had acquired by 2007 a popular mythical status. See articles by G. Grunberg, P. Perrineau, F. Matonti and W. Miles on the 2007 presidential elections, French Politics, Culture and Society, 25, 3, Winter 2007, pp.62–122. We should stress that Sarkozy’s macho image was countered by the fact that he was short and quite small framed, was a teetotaler, and had shown himself to be a highly emotional lover (cf. Cécilia). One needs to nuance his image with the idea of a certain popular indulgence for the image. We shall return to this interesting phenomenon in the conclusion.

Conclusion 1 C. de Gaulle (1970) Discours et messages (Paris: Plon), 23 April 1961, pp.306–308. 2 See, inter alia, C. Deloire and C. Dubois (2006) Sexus politicus (Paris: Albin Michel); C. Clerc (2006) Tigres et tigresses: Histoire intime des couples présidentiels sous la Ve République (Paris: Plon); P. Girard (1999) Ces Don Juan qui nous gouvernent (Paris: Éditions 1). 3 For a discussion of this see, H. Footitt, ‘In Search of Lost Women: Alternative Political Maps in the Presidential Election of 2002’ in J. Gaffney (ed.) The French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp.222–237. 4 ‘Loft Story’, the French ‘Big Brother’, began in April 2001 on M6. It was an immediate success with viewing figures of over five million. 5 An illustrative contrast of attempts to manage a drama is de Gaulle’s use of silence in 1958 and 1968. Out of power, his three-day silence before his press conference of 19 May 1958 offered him great advantage. In 1968, in power, his six-day silence almost caused his regime to fall. Drama and fortuna constitute a compelling yet dangerous context for performance.

236 Notes 6 The irony is that most Fifth Republic politicians are invariably civil servants or lawyers with careers that are as if held open for them. This idea of a rollercoaster career barely exists in UK politics, for example. Peter Mandelson is perhaps a rare contemporary example. 7 ‘Ils ne savent pas tirer’. Front page Paris Match, 1 September 1962. 8 This also coincided (2007) with the ending of the seven-year term and the installation of the presidential (and legislative) five-year term, a development that brings the presidency even closer to daily public policy elaboration. A further point to make is that more characters than ever are also joining this ‘club’ of présidentiables, given that scores in the high teens are now all it takes in certain circumstances, cf. 2002, to go through to round two of the presidential election.

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Index Adenauer, Konrad, German Chancellor, 51 Africa, 49; ‘Diamonds Affair’, 136–7, 138 Algeria (May 1958 Algiers putsch), 1–2, 10, 11–21, 22–6, 27, 28, 29; and May 1968 Paris riots, comparison, 76, 77, 78–80; referendum (1962) and elections, 37, 39–40, 40, 41, 46–7; release and pardoning of prisoners, 70 Algérie Française, 13, 22, 34, 35, 37, 39, 46, 58 ambiguity and ambivalence, 26, 212–13 Arab–Israeli conflict, 53, 103, 104, 172 aviation industry; Ariane rocket launch, 123; UK–French Concorde project, 53 Balladur, Edouard (Prime Minister): early career of Sarkozy, 164, 168, 192, 193–4, 196; financial scandals, 166; persona, 165, 166; presidential candidacy, 163–8; previous roles, 70, 148 Barre, Raymond (Prime Minister): appointment, 122; ‘Barre Plan’, 123; elections (1981), 140, 144; presidential candidacy (1986–88), 147, 150, 151, 152; re-appointment, 135 Bayrou, François, 178, 190, 201, 203, 204 Bérégovoy, Pierre, 162–3, 163, 181–2 Bidault, Georges, 13, 18 Bokassa, Jean, 137 Boulin, Robert, 136 Brezhnev, Leonid, 104 Canada, de Gaulle’s visit to, 53 Le Canard Enchainé, 102, 136–7, 203–4

Centre national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP), 35, 36, 39, 41, 44, 64 CERES group, 111, 134, 140 CGT see Confédération générale du travail Chaban-Delmas, Jacques (Prime Minister): Bordeaux elections (1970), 102; and media, 99–100, 102, 114; ‘New Society’, 99–100, 102–3, 106; persona, 102, 103; President of the National Assembly (1958–69), 98; presidential candidacy (1974), 113–14, 115, 117, 124–5; sacked by Pompidou, 103, 106 character see persona Charléty rally (1968), 70, 77, 78, 88 Chevènement, Jean-Pierre, 111, 188–9 China, 51, 104, 189, 201 Chirac, Jacques: and career of Sarkozy, 193, 194, 200; early career, 70, 114; election (1981), 140, 141; election and campaign (1986–88), 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152; Maastricht Treaty referendum, 162; Mayorship of Paris candidacy (1977), 127; persona, 150, 152, 175; presidency, 170–1, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178; President of RPR, 126–7, 128–9, 133, 135, 136; presidential candidacy (1993–95), 164, 165, 166, 167–8; as Prime Minister, 117, 122, 123, 124–5, 126; rally strategy, 128–9; re-election (1983), 145; security and law and order, 150 CNIP see Centre national des indépendants et paysans ‘co-gestion’ model of socio-political relations, 156–7 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel, 68, 69, 73–5, 84

252

Index 253 communists see Parti communiste français (PCF) Concorde project, 53 Confédération générale du travail (CGT), 15, 78 constitution (1958), 29–33, 49; reform proposal (1962), 41–2 constitution (1986), 149 Constitutional Council, 120 corruption see financial scandals Corsica, military invasion and occupation (1958), 19, 22 Coty, René, President of the Fourth Republic, 21, 24, 35 Couve de Murville, Maurice (Prime Minister), 90, 93, 108 Cresson, Edith (Prime Minister): appointment, 159, 161–2; gender issue, 161; party issue, 160–1; persona/image, 159–60, 161; protocol, 161 Cuban missile crisis, 50 culture, 7, 27; youth (1960s), 67 de Gaulle, Charles, 1–5; Algiers government, 13, 15–16, 26; appointed Prime Minister (June 1958), 21; assassination attempts, 41, 42; constitution, 29–33, 41–2, 49; Corsica, military invasion and occupation (1958), 19, 22; death (1970), 93, 101, 113; elected President (1958), 35; election (1965), 57–9, 60–3; election (1965), responses to, 63–6; and Europe (EEC/EU), 40–1, 52, 54, 55; foreign policy/international relations, 47–55; left opposition, 55–8, 61–3; May 68 events, 69–71, 75–6, 81–2, 83–4, 85; persona, 2, 3–4, 26–7, 32, 53–4, 58–9, 60–1, 62, 76–7, 79; personalized leadership, 6, 24–6, 95; Presidents of Assembly and Senate (1958), 21; press conferences/releases (May 1958), 15, 16–18, 19–20, 24–5; proposed ‘participation’ reforms, 89–90; publication of Memoirs delayed

by Pompidou, 101; rally strategy, 128; referendum and elections (1962), 40–5, 62; resignation (1969), 93; return to power, 11, 14–15; social stability, economic expansion and opinion, 27–8; unity and legitimacy, 22–3; as war hero/liberator/reformer, 17; see also Fifth Republic; Gaullism; Union pour la nouvelle république (UNR) de Villepin, Dominique, 178, 200 Debré, Michel, 30, 40, 45, 65, 101; appointed Prime Minister, 36 Defferre, Gaston, 32–3, 35, 57, 61; Express magazine ‘Monsieur X’ campaign (1963), 56; left opposition (1969–74), 109, 111; presidential election (1969), 95 Delors, Jacques, 163, 167–8, 182 ‘Diamonds Affair’, 136–7, 138 discourse/rhetoric: Algiers events and new republic, 19–20, 22, 23, 24–5, 27; element of Fifth Republic, 7–8; left, 110, 131, 143–4; May 68 events, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79; Sarkozy, 202 drama/persona: elements of Fifth Republic, 9–10, 205–6, 209–10; May 68 events, 73, 74, 77 Droit, Michel, 60, 71, 93 Duclos, Jacques, 95, 96, 107 Dumont, René, 116 economic expansion and social stability, 27–8 economy: (1960s), 48, 66, 114; (1970s), 107, 113, 122, 136; 1976 ‘Barre Plan’, 123; (1980s), 144–5, 146, 157; (1990s), 160, 164–5 education system: as explanation of May 68 events, 71–2; reforms, 86, 121, 145 elections see legislative elections; specific leaders and parties Emmanuelli, Henri, 163, 167–8 emotional relationship, President–public, 89, 113 Empire, 49, 54

254 Index ‘Epinay line’, 111, 134, 139–40 Europe (EEC/EU), 40–1, 52, 54, 55; elections, 135–6, 148, 163, 197–8; Maastricht Treaty referendum, 162; UK entry/enlargement referendum, 52, 102, 105–6 Express magazine ‘Monsieur X’ campaign (1963), 56 Fabius, Laurent, 145–6, 147–8, 163, 187, 188 Faure, Edgar, 86, 114 Fédération de la gauche démocrate et socialiste (FGDS), 57, 64, 65–6, 71, 88 ‘feminized’ government, 121 ‘feminized’ society, 141–2 Fifth Republic: birth, 11–21; characteristics, 29–36; consolidation and evolution (1958–68), 37–66; elements, 4–5, 6–10, 205–7, 209–10, 211–12; Pompidou presidency, 97–112 passim; understanding, 21–9, 206–14; vs Fourth Republic, 7, 10, 28–9, 31, 35–6, 47–8, 213; see also May–June 1968 events financial scandals, 158–9, 162, 166, 170, 203; ‘Diamonds Affair’, 136–7, 138 FN see Front national (FN) foreign policy/international relations, 103–6, 135, 162, 172, 189, 201; de Gaulle, 47–55; Fourth Republic vs Fifth Republic, 10; see also Europe (EEC/EU) Franco–German Treaty (1963), 51 Frey, Roger, 34, 43 Front national (FN), 148, 153, 158; see also Le Pen, Jean-Marie Gaddafi, Colonel, 103 Garaud, Marie-France, 114, 126, 136, 141 Gaullism, 45–7, 59; and Giscardianism, 116–17, 123–30; weakness of, as explanation of May 68 events, 72–3; see also de Gaulle, Charles; Fifth Republic

gender issue, 161, 179, 187, 210–11 generational revolt (May 68 events), 72, 73, 74, 83–4, 86 Germany/West Germany, 70, 76, 104, 105; Franco–German Treaty (1963), 51; West Berlin student unrest (1967), 67 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry: early career, 41, 44, 63–4, 86, 91; foreign policy/international relations, 135; and Gaullism, 116–17, 123–30; and left, 130–4; Maastricht Treaty referendum, 162; ‘Marseillaise’ national anthem, 117–18; and media, 64, 115, 136–7; modernization, 120–2; persona/style, 117, 118–19, 122–3, 125–6; presidency (1974–81), 116–37; presidential elections (1974), 113–20; presidential elections (1981), 138, 140, 141, 153; presidential elections (1988), 147; and UDF, 164, 170; Verdun-sur-le-Doubs speech, 133 Green politics/party, 116, 121, 172–3 Grenelle Agreements, 70, 75 Guaino, Henri, 199–200, 202 Gulf War (1991), 159 hearsay, role of, 207–8 Heath, Edward, 105 Hollande, François, 177, 180, 181, 182, 188, 189 image see persona immigration, 158, 160, 167 Independent Republicans, 43, 63–4, 86–7, 127–8; Parti républicain (PR), 127–8 industrial relations, strikes and demonstrations, 156–7, 160, 166 institutions: element of Fifth Republic, 8; Mitterrand presidency, 143–4, 145; Pompidou presidency, 98–103; reform referendum (1969), 89–95

Index 255 intergenerational conflict see generational revolt (May 68 events) international relations see foreign policy/international relations internet rally, 186–7 Israel, 53, 103, 104, 172 Jospin, Lionel, 150, 163, 168, 171, 172; appointment as Prime Minister (1997), 177; persona, 168–9, 175, 176; presidency and career of Royal, 182–4; presidential candidacy and campaign (2002), 173–5, 176; PS party leadership rivalry, election (1986), 146, 147–8 Juillet, Pierre, 114, 126, 136 Juppé, Alain, 168–70, 200 Kennedy, J.F., 51, 54–5; and wife, visit to France (1961), 50 Krushchev, Nikita, visit to Paris (1960), 50 Laguiller, Arlette, 116 Latin America, 54 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 116, 128, 152, 174, 175, 176, 201; see also Front national (FN) Lecanuet, Jean, 57–8, 60, 61, 64, 65, 114 left: 1962 and aftermath, 55–8; discourse/rhetoric, 110, 131, 143–4; elections (1980s), 141–4, 146–8, 148; Giscard presidency, 130–4; Jospin’s defeat (2002), 176–7; and May 68 events, 67–9, 71, 87; new conditions of the republic, 61–3; Pompidou presidency, 107–12; see also specific parties legislative elections: (1950s), 34, 35, 43, 71; (1960s), 55, 62, 63, 65, 70, 71, 83, 86, 87, 89, 95, 97; (1970s), 132, 138; (1980s), 142, 145–6, 151, 152, 153, 180, 193; (1990s), 170, 171, 173, 193

legitimacy: political and mythical, 10–11, 18–19, 21, 23–4, 28–9, 94–5, 210–11; and unity, 22–3, 94 Lycée Condorcet, Paris, 68 Malraux, André, 30, 31–2, 34, 43, 72, 90 Marchais, Georges, 109, 131, 141, 151 ‘Marseillaise’ anthem, 117–18 Mauroy, Pierre, 111, 134; as Prime Minister, 145 May 1958 see Algeria (May 1958 Algiers putsch) May–June 1968 events, 67–71, 97; consequences of, 83–8; explanations of, 71–82; leadership issues, 83–8, 91–2; opinion, 80, 82–3 media, 6–7, 213–14; Algiers coup and new republic, 14, 15, 16–18, 19–20, 24–5; Chaban-Delmas, 99–100, 102, 114; de Gaulle interviews (1960s), 71, 76, 93; election campaigns (1960s), 57, 59, 64–5; Giscard, 64, 115, 136–7; May 68 events, 71, 76, 80, 90; Pompidou, 100; referendum campaign (1962), 92–3; reorganization of ORTF, 120; Royal, 180–1, 183, 184, 185–6, 189; Royal/Sarkozy debate, 190, 202–3, 204–5; Sarkozy, 197, 198, 203–4, 209, 210 Mendès France, Pierre, 18, 35, 39, 64, 65; Charléty rally (1968), 70, 77, 88 Messmer, Pierre (Prime Minister), 113–14 Middle East, 53, 103, 104, 172 Missoffe, François, 68, 73–5 Mitterrand, François: Constitution, 149; early career, 18, 35, 56–8, 60, 61, 63, 64–5, 77, 79; elections (1974), 114, 115; Giscard presidency, 129, 130–1, 132–3, 134, 135; May 68 events, 88–9; persona, 131, 152, 162;

256 Index Mitterrand, François: Constitution – continued Pompidou presidency, 109–12; presidency and career of Rocard, 152, 155–9, 161–2; presidency and career of Royal, 180–2; presidency and elections (1981), 138–46, 180; presidential candidacy and re-election (1986–88), 146–8, 150–1, 152, 153; rally strategy, 128, 130, 134 modernization, 120–2, 145–6 Mollet, Guy, 56, 88, 111; and new republic, 13, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24, 30, 32–3, 39 Mouvement des radicaux de gauche (MRG), 112, 133 Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP), 33, 34–5, 36, 39–40, 57; resignations, 41, 52 Nanterre University, Paris, 67–9, 72, 73–4 National Assembly: dissolutions, 42, 70, 76, 142–3; FN, 148, 152; and Senate, 89–91 nationalization/privatization, 145, 150, 165 NATO, 50 ‘New Society’, 99–100, 102–3, 106 Nixon, Richard, 104 Le noeud gordien (Pompidou), 98, 101 nuclear weapons, 50–1, 52, 126; testing, 155, 169 Odéon, Paris, 71, 77 opinion: Algiers, 13–14; Chirac rally strategy, 128; death of Pompidou, 107; element of Fifth Republic, 6–8, 9, 207; May 68 events, 80, 82–3; social stability and economic expansion, 27–8 Parti communiste français (PCF): de Gaulle presidency, 34–5, 38–9, 40, 43–4, 55, 56, 57; dissidence, 158; elections (1981), 139–40, 141, 146; ‘Eurocommunism’, 131; and FGDS, election (1967), 65–6;

Giscard presidency, 132, 133, 133–4, 136; legislative elections, 153; May 68 events, 71, 77–8, 79, 81, 87; and PS, 109–10, 112, 114, 133, 143, 172–3 Parti républicain (PR), 127–8 Parti socialiste (PS), 111–12, 133–4, 136, 142, 143–4, 146, 150, 152, 158, 164, 168, 171, 172–3, 177, 181–2; European elections (1994), 163; legislative elections, 153; and PCF, 109–10, 112, 114, 133, 143, 172–3; and PSU, 130–1, 132, 133 Parti socialiste unifé (PSU), 39, 70, 79, 81; presidential election (1969), 96; and PS, 130–1, 132, 133; referendum, 91 Pasqua, Charles, 148, 149, 160, 170, 193 patrimony, 149 PCF see Parti communiste français persona: Balladur, 165, 166; Chaban, 102, 103; Chirac, 150, 152, 175; Cresson, 159–60, 161; de Gaulle, 2, 3–4, 26–7, 32, 53–4, 58–9, 60–1, 62, 76–7, 79; election (1969), 96; election (1974), 114–15, 116, 117; element of Fifth Republic, 4–5, 6–8, 211–12; Giscard, 117, 118–19, 122–3, 125–6; Jospin, 168–9, 175, 176; Juppé, 169; Mitterrand, 131, 152, 162; Pompidou, 98, 100, 101, 103, 105, 113; Royal, 180–1, 184, 185–6, 187, 189–90, 208–9; Sarkozy, 191, 195–201; see also drama/persona personalized leadership: de Gaulle, 6, 24–6, 95; element of Fifth Republic, 8; vs parliamentary ascendancy, 148–9 Pflimlin, Pierre, 11, 12, 15, 21, 30 Pinay, Antoine, 18, 19, 21, 36, 41, 178 Poher, Alain, 90–1, 93, 96, 113 political parties: constitution, 32–3; element of Fifth Republic, 9 ‘politics of grandeur’, 48, 53

Index 257 Pompidou, Georges: election campaign (1967), 64–5, 66; illness and death, 106, 107, 113; and May 68 events, 69, 70, 75, 76; persona, 98, 100, 101, 103, 105, 113; presidency (1969–74), 96–112; presidential election (1969), 95, 96; press conference (1969), 100; as Prime Minister, 41–2, 45, 46, 59, 87; referendum (1962), 90, 91; referendum on EEC/EU enlargement (1972), 102 presidentialism, 143, 154, 163, 176; Fifth Republic, 31, 39, 55–6, 61–3 press conferences/releases: de Gaulle, 15, 16–18, 19–20, 24–5, 90; Pompidou, 100 proportional representation, 147, 148 PS see Parti socialiste PSU see Parti socialiste unifé Radicals, 32, 35, 91, 112, 127 Rainbow Warrior scandal (1985), 146 rally strategy, 128, 130, 134, 142; internet, 186–7 Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF), 25, 33, 46, 47, 126, 194 Rassemblement pour la république (RPR), 128, 129, 133–4, 135, 158, 168; election (1993), 163; and UDF, 147, 153, 177 referendums, 33–4, 41–2; and elections (1962), 40–5, 62; institutional reform (1969), 89–95; see also Europe (EEC/EU) Reynaud, Paul, 30, 45 rhetoric see discourse/rhetoric Rocard, Michel, 114, 140, 147–8, 150, 154, 165; early career, 39; Giscard presidency, 130–1, 134; leadership of PS, 163; Pompidou presidency, 96, 108; as Prime Minister, 152, 155–9, 161–2 Royal, Ségolène, 178, 179, 199, 200–2; career trajectory, 179–85; election campaign, 187–91; persona/media image, 180–1, 183, 184, 185–7, 189–90, 208–9;

Sarkozy debate, 190, 202–3, 204–5 RPF see Rassemblement du peuple français RPR see Rassemblement pour la république Salan, Raoul, 12–13, 14, 19–20, 22, 24 Sarkozy, Cécilia (née Albeniz), 196–7, 198, 203–4 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 178, 189, 190; Balladur government, 164, 168, 192, 193–4, 196; career trajectory, 191–5; financial scandals, 203; persona/media image, 191, 195–201, 203–4, 209, 210; presidential election campaign (2007), 199–205; Royal debate, 190, 202–3, 204–5 Section française de l’internationale ouvrière (SFIO), 16, 32–3, 39, 40, 43–4, 55, 56, 57, 64, 87; modernization (New Socialist Party), 108, 109; referendum, 91 Séguin, Philippe, 170, 171, 194 Senate, 89–91 d social movement, May 68 events as, 72 social stability and economic expansion, 27–8 socialists, 20, 21, 26, 34–5, 39; see also left; Parti socialiste (PS); Parti socialiste unifé (PSU); Section française de l’internationale ouvrière (SFIO) societal change, 21–2; element of Fifth Republic, 9 Sorbonne, Paris, 68–9, 71, 77 Soustelle, Jacques, 18, 34, 38 terrorism: 9/11 reaction, 172; ‘Human Bomb’, Neuilly, 195; Paris, 136 U2 spy scandal, 50 Union démocratique du travail (UDT), 38, 43 Union des démocrates pour la république (UDR), 47, 92, 96, 101, 147

258 Index Union pour la démocratie française (UDF), 133–4, 135, 136, 163–4, 170; confederation, 127–8; election (1993), 163; and RPR, 153, 177 Union pour la nouvelle république (UNR), 33–4, 35, 37–8, 43, 60, 90, 92, 177; CNIP coalition, 39; election (1967), 65; identity and ideology, 46–7; referendum, 91 United Kingdom (UK): Concorde project, 53; entry into EU, 52, 102, 105–6; Suez crisis (1956), 50; and US, 55 United States (US), 49–50, 55; 9/11 reaction, 172; and EU, 52; and Franco–German relations, 51; Pompidou visit, 103–4; USSR relations, 50–1, 52–3, 54–5 unity, 27, 30, 32; and legitimacy, 22–3, 94

USSR, 141; de Gaulle visits and relations with, 52–3; Pompidou visit (1973), 104; US relations, 50–1, 52–3, 54–5 Vallon, Louis, 38 Veil, Simone, 121, 125, 136, 164 Vietnam War, 53–4, 54–5, 67, 80, 104 vision/envisioning, element of Fifth Republic, 8 voting age, 120, 141–2 West Germany see Germany/West Germany women’s issues, 121, 180, 181, 183 worker–student relationship, 70, 77–8 Yom Kippur War (1973), 103 youth culture (1960s), 67

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