The French Elections
What is next?
What can be more disappointing than seeing a place you love is so scared and closing its “windows” with metal boards?
This is the situation in France today.
The tension momentum has been building up for the past for weeks, but it didn’t start few weeks ago. The identity crisis has been here for a while.
And now France is expecting the results of its parliamentary elections in an hours .
No one has the Crystal ball but society has reached an extreme polarization status . Contributed to this many factors amongst a President who made several irresponsible declarations that contributed to social divide.
Macron who came to rule though a party with no concrete ideology other than divide and rule. A textbook of a colonial mentality that is the result of Industrial Revolution. With his banking background his targets were liberal socialism , open markets , support the interests of the elites (Particularly the business elite) while ensuring certain social solidarity services stay in place as not to disturb the majority too much.
Quite a reasonable balance for many . And it was so indeed to a certain degree, until certain things happened . A couple of events that were totally managed by his administration (i would argue to a lack of social sensibility) . Things ranging from response to a police killing a young man with north African origins to passing several laws regardless of parliament approval, without forgetting to mention war in Ukraine and his firing declarations against Russia that were never met with any serious actions. Then his amical position towards china and Saudi Arabia Israel and but NOT Palestine.
Meanwhile, both of his opponents took these failures as great opportunities to increase their popularity. The discussion here would be long , as it needs a comprehensive analysis and this is not the right moment to do this work .
I only wanted to focus in this part on Macron governing as he was supposed to take more responsibility as a president and protect the Republic social fabric.
But the questions about the right and left wings are important and need to be addressed to provide a full picture of the political ecosystem in France in2024 .
For example : why “ethnic nationalism” is gaining more popularity in france recently ? Is it true that this is coming from economic pressures ? Or are there educational crisis in France? And the left , did they really went too far in promoting the Palestinian flag? How much the Palestinian case was instrumentalized and how much the Gaza human crisis were politicized ? And why did left opt to the same strategies of the far right and even the center , i.e., appealing to fear ? In fact, what does employing an appeal to fear communication strategies by the three political groups (right, center , left) say about the situation of France and French citizens . How much is this similar to the public communication strategies that have been employed in the past 10 years in France , notament , COVID & counter terrorism?
From individual to collective
Then we can also not dismiss the psycho-political considerations. Questions such as :
Why France is withdrawing ? And is there a link between the absence of confrontation among friends and social polarization that has finally exploded the way we saw it in the past weeks? Can we keep friends while having totally opposite political opinions ? Or is this question wrongly placed altogether ? Wouldn’t it be more helpful to ask : What happened to make us live in a France where values have become sharply divided and shared values (which are a mandatory requirement for social cohesion) have been so marginalized? In fact, how much globalizing in the American way has “hurt” France just as it hurt other mediterranean states.?
Prediction:
The questions are many and it is impossible to answer them neither by one person nor in limited space and time and this is exactly why i predict the following :
There will be no absolute majority winning today, no party will get the card to rule unquestionably .
At least this is what i wish , this is what i hope and this is what i pray for France today . With no absolute majority. all political groups will be forced to talk to each other . Yes they will shout and yes they will accuse each other of being not cooperative but eventually they will be forced to work together . Because people will want that .
Next:
Our next move will not be to block the far right or to pray in bed or in the toilletes that the leftists will win . Our priorities will not be -after one hour- to blame Macron. If we have been reminded by the past weeks events that citizenship is also a collective, proactive, progressive practice, and if we are truly not occupied with our inflated egos, we may want to consider working to build the social fabric . Finding the common points. Addressing the fears of everyone and combine empathy with actionable plans .
Vivre la France et surtout vivre par son peuple, les Français et les Françaises. Tous les Français et toutes les Françaises.