Going to the polls in Paris

Two days ago, Denis (my companion) received in the mail his official voter's packet. Inside were the 4-page leaflets summarizing the platforms of the fifteen presidential candidates, along with 15 pieces of paper about the size of a small index card, each with the name of a different candidate very simply printed on it. Hold on--don't throw those out! They're not junk mail; those, in fact, are the French ballots.

The French electoral process is quite a bit different from our own. In a theme I'll just mention now, but return to in a later postcard, the French adore diversity--in everything. That includes, of course, presidential elections. So, if you happen to be a French citizen, you have not two--but fifteen bona fide candidates to choose from.

In round one, that is. This Sunday is only the first pass for the presidential elections. The two candidates garnering the most votes will then be pitted against each other in the final runoff which follows two or three weeks from now.

The balloting process itself is quite different here from in the U.S. When Denis first explained to me the significance of those 15 slips of paper, each with a candidate's name on it, my first reaction was to snort in incredulity at how archaic and old-fashioned the French are. But then I quickly remembered, as Denis helpfully pointed out, that the French populace has never been forced to endure the mayhem of the last U.S. presidential election.

In brief, you take the slip bearing the name of your chosen candidate to the polls, you register, your name is marked off the arrondissement list, you are given a plain envelope into which you insert your discreetly folded choice, and you drop it in a locked box. Humans count the votes, of course.

What are the big issues? Well, much more in France than in the U.S., it depends on which "side" you're on. But the availability of employment and its flip side--the right to work and to employ--rates high one way or another with just about everyone. The leftist part of the government has managed to put into place the (in)famous 35-hour workweek as a "solution" to unemployment. That's right--unless you're self-employed, you only have the right to work 35 hours a week. Because of the astronomical level of social benefits that French law accords the salaried employee, the cost of hiring additional people to take on the hours lost in the 35-hour law is crippling. The result--businesses are dropping like flies, unable to meet the costs of hiring enough people to keep running. Meanwhile, the unemployed receive such a generouus government stipend that they refuse work at the lower end of the pay scale because it's more profitable to remain unemployed. As you can see, this is a downwards spiral, and the source of the main schism between the "right" and the "left".

Also a big issue is public safety and security. France has been plagued recently by a horrifying rash of violence--especially among marginaliwed young males--which they hitherto considered the province of American society. You can perhaps also imagine that this issue is not unrelated to the one above.

In fact, the French electoral process is a lot more direct and--so it seems to me--thus more democratic than our own. Whether or not you agree with that statement, if you lived here as I do, I'm sure you'd agree it's more amusing.

Now for the fun part--telling you about the candidates. We'll get the worst over with first by starting at the extreme right with la honte de la France (the shame of France), Jean-Marie Le Pen. His slogan? "France and the French first." That translates not at all liberally into a sort of neo-fascism. LePen is an unapologetic racist; he is against participation in the European Union, and he wants to ban all immigration to France. In his photo, he looks like a vicious slave-owner on the verge of beating someone up. Enough said about him. He obviously is not the candidate for me.

Just slightly to LePen's left shoulder is Bruno Mégret. The guignols--the famous political satire marionettes on television--spoof him as being of miniscule stature and always appearing in the company of his wife, who always has her hand placed protectively on his shoulder. Mégret is really just LePen in sheep's clothing. He presents a slightly more civilized mien, but his agenda is just as vicious. His slogan: "Let's restore France to it's proper place." He's against: immigration, taxes, "lack of order," unemployment, and "inversion of values." He's received plenty of media attention lately because of his blatantly racist television ads. In one, he enters a room where a group of French citizens of Arab extraction are listening to Arab music. He strides over to the radio like a miniature Superman and changes the dial to a French station. (Thus restoring France to it's proper place--get it?)

Next in the right-to-left spectrum is Christine Boutin. She is a motherly-looking, buxom woman. She has a lofty sounding but very vague 4-point platform that distills down to the equivalent of a rather banal version of "family values." There is nothing offensive in her stance on issues; she can only be accused of being insubstantive and vague. Her slogan: Dare to have a family.

Now we're starting to move into a sort of gray zone between right and center. Here we have Jean Saint-Josse, the (drumroll...) hunters' candidate. Yes, you heard right. He's the champion of hunters' rights. There's one in almost every French election, and actually, those devoted to la chasse are a rather formidable constituency in France. The French, being passionate eaters, are passionate hunters, and the right to hunt has been a hot topic since long before France became a republic. It all goes back to those kings and dukes forbidding the poor common folk to hunt on their land (which was most of France). The fervor of the hunters is why French tourists in the U.S. are always astounded at our abundant suburban squirrels and rabbits. Anyway, Saint-Josse has a blurry platform, in which he tries to cloak his overriding interest--hunters' rights--in lofty principles, such as "respect and validation of tradition." His slogan: "The France of differences." (???...)

Okay, we're finally out of the farther reaches of the right and heading into the right side of center. Here, first and most obviously, you have current president Jacques Chirac. In personality, Chirac reminds me just a bit of Ronald Reagan. While he certainly would be a Republican in the U.S., he's pretty mild-mannered and bland. After all, he's had to "cohabit" with leftist Lionel Jospin as Prime Minister for his entire term. To his credit, one of the points of his platform is to "liberate" the strengths of work and innovation. This translates as, he is against the sort of stupid bureaucratic solutions--such as the 35-hour work week to diminish unemployment--which make France such a difficult country to do business in. Poor Mr. Chirac; he has suffered from the merciless mockery of the guignols who refer to him as "Superliar." A series of billboard ads (which equally harpooned his opponent, Jospin) showed his smiling face with the caption "Change your life without changing your opinions." (It's much snappier in French: "Changez lq vie sans changer l'avis."His slogan: |"France in the large view; France, together."

Next, Jean Pierre Chevènement. He used to be on the left, but now he's avowedly on the right. For that reason, he rates kind of low on most people's credibility meter. But this radical transformation may well be explained by an out-of-body experience. Several years ago, when undergoing anesthesia for a routine gall bladder operqtion, Mr. Chevènement went into anaphylactic shock. After technically dying, he was put on life support systems, and after a month in a coma, he began to recover. Perhaps it was at this point that, suffering from death-induced amnesia, he was reborn as a Rightist. What we don't know is whether his coma is to blame for the vagueness of his platform. He makes a lot of hay out of not being in anyone's pocket, but like almost all the candidates, he is for agricultural price supports, which you'd better be if you want the vote of the huge and emotional agricultural constituency. His slogan: "The Republic--the strength of France."

Nearer still to the center, but just a tiny bit to the right, we have Alain Madelin. He's sort of the Al Gore of French politics--a bit too serious and intellectual for most people. But of all the candidates, he probably (according to the concensus in this household) has the most thoughtful platform. His platform is well-reasoned, very specific, and full of bullet points. His first point: "liberation" of work, meaning removing the deadening bureaucratic supports for nonproduction. His slogan: "To at last bring about change in France" (in literal translantion, to at last make France "budge" or move).

Next, Corinne LePage, an ecologist or "green" candidate. She has a well-reasoned, balanced program, mixing a general politics that is slightly to the right with her strongly pro-ecology views. She is pleasant and serious, calling for development of a sense of public responsibility for the environment. Her slogan: "The environment--c'est la vie."

Okay, I know this is long, but hang in there. We have now arrived at dead center with François Bayrou. We know he is at the center because that's all he ever says when interviewed: "Je suis au centre." Of course, the guignols make huge fun of this. Where is the center? Well, in the middle. You get the idea. Mr. Bayrou has wanted to be president ever since he was a child. And his ratings in the opinion polls shot up 2% recently when he caught a kid in the act of pickpocketing him and turned around and slapped him. In view of the recent rash of youth violence that's been horrifying the country, this was a good move.

To the left of center again on an ecologist prong is Noêl Mamère, the official candidate of the Green Party (Les Verts). A carefully cultivated look-alike to George Brassens, the best loved singer-songwriter that this country has ever known, his platform is much more monomanical than Ms. LePage's. He gives little serious thought to a balanced program, and when you read his agenda, you are hard put to locate its substance. Rather, everything is seen through green-colored glasses. His slogan: "Feet on the earth."

Strongly to the Left is the other Big Contender (along with incumbent Chirac), Lionel Jospin. The current prime minister, his cohabitation with pro-business Chirac has pretty much paralyzed progress during their joint reign. The guignols mock him for his unceasingly dour expression (during this campaign, he's been making a big effort to smile). He's an exemplar of the classic French Left, boiling over with social programs requiring ever higher taxes on the earning portion of the population, who already give up around 60% of their income. For instance, he is for the state's guaranteeing a habitation to everyone, meaning that the government will pay your rent for you. Also, he wants to forgive the debts of debtor nations. His slogan: "Preside differently for a more just France."

Next, Christiane Taubira, the candidate of the Radical Left Party. From the French Antilles, has a platform full of lofty phrases but no substance that I can discover, such as "we need new institutions to cope in a new world." Her slogan: "Confidence! For a republic that respects you."

The candidate of the Communist Party, Robert Hue, has to be the guignols' favorite for the simple fact that he is the spitting image of the kitsch garden gnome statues that decorate many small French home landscapes. Short, chubby, and balding, with a fringe of white hair and a beard, he's a dead ringer for a nain de jardin, or garden 'dwarf'. For being so long, his slogan communicates amazingly little: "That the Left be truly the Left; for you; for France; for a more humane world."

I don't know how you can get more to the Left than the "true Left" of Hue. Nevertheless, we have the popular "postman" candidate who is "100% to the Left" Can't get any farther over than that, can you? The postman is just that--a postman, a group that in France is well-known for their dour Trotskyite views. But in this case, Trotskyism wears a fresh face, as Olivier Besancenot is only 27 years old. Here we have a young hothead, full of classic slogans and not much else. His slogan: "Our lives are worth more than their profits."

Finally, we have arrived at the dregs of the far Left, as we began with the dregs of the far Right. The campaign pamphlets of the last two candidates are in dreary black and white, in contrast to the full-color folders of everyone else. This serves to underline their dreary point of view. In the case of Daniel Gluckstein, the candidate of the Workers' Party, the pamphlet is enlivened with a small but significant touch of...red. Plaintive, cranky, dreary. His slogan: "Reconquer democracy."

But he's not at the bottom of the Left. That hallowed spot belongs to the dogged Arlette Laguiller, self-proclaimed candidate of the Worker's Battle. Arlette resurfaces from one knows not where in every presidential election with her grim face and heavy- handed dogma. For one thing, she wants to make it illegal for an employer to fire an employee for any reason. Her thin-lipped portrait on cheap paper says it all. Much more than her slogan, anyway, which is "Vote for yourselves, vote for the world of workers, vote for Arlette Laguiller."

Well, folks, there you have it. One thing you have to admit: numerically, at least, you certainly have a lot of choices, most of whom have gone through the pains of sending you a (reproduction of a) handwritten letter explaining how they are the best choice. (The French place a curiously heavy value on the handwritten--that's right, hand writing--letter.) All I want to know is, will the streets of Paris really be free of dog droppings by this time next year?

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