Eighteen months ahead of the next presidential election in France, two months ahead of regional ones, in which the Socialist Party anticipates a rout, with one or two wins by the right-wing National Front, voters are starting to think loudly.

Their findings are so percussive that Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ government has been resorting to double talk. Industrial activity is not back and unemployment is growing; public accounts are not balanced; insecurity has been increasing despite newly-hired civil servants; and taxes have never reached such high levels before. People are finding it increasingly unbearable to go on listening to distorted facts. The declining opinion polls of Valls confirms that unpopular French President Francois Hollande is dragging his prime minister down with him.

The poor showing of Hollande’s three-and-a-half-year tenure mainly comes from persistent unemployment. Fighting it would have required more freedom, less tax and genuine reforms, all three items missing in the socialist governments which succeeded. Needed actions have been well-identified for years: cleaning-up the work code and bypassing the foolish 35-hour working week; slashing public spending through reorganising local territories; reviewing the civil servant statute while upgrading sovereign services; putting the fiscal policy flat and acknowledging that 10 per cent of the fiscal population cannot pay upto 70 per cent of the income tax, without revolting sooner or later.

Instead, Hollande amused the gallery with shallow reforms over gay weddings, the gender issue introduced at school and other gimmicks (the latter ones being cancelling bi-lingual classes and traditional school marking), not to mention functional mistakes that are no longer noticed: a €900 million (Dh3.7 billion) flat loss after giving-up the so-called ‘eco-tax’ system (supposed to be levied on truck drivers, to favour transportation by train); another €2 billion loss from the missed sale of the Mistral ships to Russia (finally bought back by Egypt for one billion with Saudi money), which wiped out tax evasion recoveries.

In a recent TV debate, former prime minister Francois Fillon, who is bouncing back in the presidential race with a most thoughtful programme, pointed out how Valls, a prisoner of old-fashioned socialist taboos, would not be able to initiate anything serious during the remaining 18 months of Hollande’s tenure. “Another lost occasion for France”, he said, “which needs to reform seriously”; but also an additional worrying element for Europe.

Serious threats are not to be missed. Assuming the Greek government complies with its undertakings, the UK threat to leave the Union remains, and uncertainties related to Labour’s newly-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn; the Catalonia independence issue and the massive arrival of refugees, whose hazardous management showed a despairing Europe. The difficulty of the French government in anticipating this and putting in place practical solutions (other than offering €1,000 to refugees!), was compensated by the preference of refugees to settle in countries other than France.

One conclusion is that whatever refers to Europe is now firmly in German hands. The so-called ‘Merkel-Hollande’ couple has become a solitary union, with a German chancellor deciding alone — and threatening whoever opposes her; and a French President being no more than a counter-weight — when not flatly submitting.

A domestic failure and poor European findings used to be partly mitigated by some results abroad, among them a less chaotic situation in Mali and hopefully soon, a more decisive approach against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in Syria, now that French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius and his neo-con team has been overruled by Hollande’s Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le-Driant, in the wake of the Iranian nuclear agreement.

Yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s clear strategy, as evidenced at the UN General Assembly opening session, contrasts with the hesitation of a pathetic president who always seems to be ‘one war late’. We are left to wonder what place will finally be left for France in the forthcoming coalition.

To know that Hollande’s foreign affairs advisor met secretly once a month with French activist Bernard Henri-Levy, who made him famous during former French president Sarkozy’s rule for promoting bombings in Libya, is not at all comforting.

The situation that will prevail in 18 months remains to be seen. Should unemployment slightly decrease, Hollande will be in the race. Assuming National Front leader Marine Le Pen comes first in the first round, the fight will thus occur between Hollande and the conservative candidate who wins the ‘primaries’. Sarkozy, former French prime minister Alain Juppe and Fillon are the three main contenders.

Sarkozy, as experience shows, is just the same as before, and apart from fanatic hardcore supporters, many French say they do not want him anymore. Juppe is methodically losing ground — some say he will not run until the end. As for Fillon, notably with the help of a much talked-about book, Faire (To Do) published last week, he surely is one of the most prepared — but Sarkozy knows best how to win internal elections.

A fervent hope is that France keeps enough of its undisputed strengths when it returns to inspire Europe again.

 

Luc Debieuvre is a French essayist and a lecturer at IRIS (Institut de Relations Internationales et Strategiques) and the “FACO” Law University of Paris