Natalie Nougayrède - France’s identity crisis: ‘People just don’t know what to think any more’
The quiet, lovely
medieval towns and soft, rolling hills covered with orchards and vineyards of
south-west France are
an unlikely setting for a citizens’ uprising. Yet just days before the
presidential election, conversations with the inhabitants of this once leftwing
region, stretching from the city of Toulouse to the rural settings of the
Tarn-et-Garonne, offer a glimpse into France’s mood of rage and confusion.
Popular resentment, fears and frustrations set the stage for a major political
upheaval, almost 60 years after De Gaulle founded the country’s Fifth Republic.
France is a republican
quasi-monarchy. Its institutions are centred on the president. But what is at
stake in this vote isn’t just the choice of a personality, nor only an economic
or political programme. The very essence of France’s democracy hangs in the
balance, as well as the survival of the 60-year-old European project. Much of
what is at work resembles the trends that produced Brexit in Britain and Trump
in the US – not least the disgruntlement of those who feel they have lost out
to globalisation. But there are also specific, distinct elements of a
collective French identity crisis.
In the town of
Moissac, a doctor in her 50s describes the mood this way: “We are experiencing
a huge evolution, and it might well become a revolution. It would only take a
spark.” “People are fed up and disorientated,” says a shopkeeper in Montauban,
a town 30 miles north of Toulouse. “Many don’t yet know how they’ll vote, but
be sure they will want to kick some bums. Things can’t go on like this”.
The French are
notorious for complaining, and for their divisiveness. “How is it possible to
govern a country that produces 246 varieties of cheese?” De Gaulle once asked.
Brooding is a national sport. Surveys have shown the French are more
pessimistic than Iraqis or Afghans . It’s hard to square this with the living
standards of the world’s fifth largest economy, a country of high social
protection and well-developed infrastructure, which has known 70 years of
peace. But these are difficult, mind-boggling times. If comments from people in
France’s south-west are anything to go by, then populist, extremist and even
conspiratorial views are likely to define much of what will happen on Sunday
and beyond… read more
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/22/france-elections-2017-le-pen-fillon-macron