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Sarko, Ségo, or Bayrou?What you need to know about the French elections.

By Amanda Watson-Boles
Posted Friday, April 13, 2007, at 4:50 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Polls show that by far the most important issue for voters is high unemployment. But instead, candidates are focusing on crime and immigration, the traditional obsessions of the far right. At a time when conservatives are gaining support, those on the center and left are looking for ways to avoid the debacle of 2002's presidential election.

In the first round of that poll, there were so many leftist candidates running and so many apathetic nonvoters that ultraconservative Le Pen was able to slide into the run-off, where Chirac handily defeated him. This time, the heavyweight parties (Socialists and Sarkozy's UMP) picked their candidates in advance of the first round, cutting down on discord and strengthening their hand, but also stifling debate.

Moreover, after rioting by Arab youth spread from Paris across the country in 2005, the political establishment realized that Le Pen is no longer on the fringe. With his 15 percent poll numbers, he has forced both Sarkozy and Royal to pull their rhetoric and policies to the right.

Everyone is pandering to conservatives. Sarkozy says he doesn't want to leave far-right voters with Le Pen as their only option; however, he also wants to woo those who are less conservative but equally concerned with security and crime. To that end, Sarkozy has called for the creation of the ominous-sounding "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity," which would ensure that minority immigrants become sufficiently "French" after arriving in the country.

Riots at the end of March at Paris' Gare du Nord train station only highlighted the issue. Police say a man without a subway ticket punched an officer, sparking an hourslong melee, while youths involved in the violence say authorities struck first, roughing up a young North African. However it started, Royal's spokesman said the incident showed the lack of trust between the police and the people. Sarkozy attacked his opponent's obliging tone, accusing Royal of "moral bankruptcy" and being soft on crime.

Trying to recoup her image, Royal reached rightward, encouraging people to learn the French national anthem and display French flags on Bastille Day. The International Herald Tribune reports that she wants to put first-time criminal offenders in "military camps"—something, it is safe to say, that has never before been on the Socialist agenda.

Yet in the midst of all this vitriol, France's crime-and-immigration scare seems little more than a red herring. Arab youth rioted last year because they are unemployed—not because they are "scum," as Sarkozy controversially called them. France's hopelessly outdated economic and labor policies—including a strict 35-hour workweek and restrictions on hiring and firing employees—have crippled the country's job market for years.

Sarkozy has pledged economic "tough love" in the form of relaxing the 35-hour workweek, giving tax incentives for people to work more, and reducing corporate taxes. But he hasn't made these much-needed and overdue changes a main focus of his campaign. No French politician really has the couilles to overhaul the system completely. Why? Guess what young, white French voters did the last time the government made a serious effort to change those labor policies? They rioted.

But it's much easier to whip up fear of a criminal, immigrant bogeyman than to make the hard choices necessary to get him a job.

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Amanda Watson-Boles, a former Slate copy editor, teaches at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Fla.
Photograph of Ségolène Royal by Boris Horvat/Agence-France Presse/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

I would have thought that "what you need to know" might include, say, what the candidates' policy positions are. Instead, Amanda gives us fluff on their personal lives and her riffs on riots in France.

She seems mystified by Sego's call for bootcamps (suggesting it has been "reported"), but Sego made this call early in her campaign, even before she won the nomination, and quite forcefully.

She seems mystified that no French politician has the "balls" (as she puts it, excuse my French) to completely overhaul the system. She ascribes this to riots. But what US politician has the cojones (excuse my Spanish) to "completely overhaul" the system? What are they afraid of--riots?

She seems mystified that politicians have moved to capture the conservative vote. But has this not happened here, too? It is interesting in this context to note that there is not much light between the positions and personalities of LePen and, say, Pat Buchanan. The only real difference is that the major French parties and media, to their credit, will have nothing to do with LePen, whereas Buchanan was a keynote speaker for the Republicans and is an omnipresent "news analyst".

--lloyd667

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