Bitterness and Thwarted Hopes

Hell Hath No Fury . . . 

It's official.  Well, it's in the Guardian, so that makes it a grave matter, non?  It was only a few short months ago that Francois Hollande was elected President of France.  He came into the Champs-Elysees riding a big white horse, touting the biggest election victory for socialism in living memory.  He was going to turn Europe around.  He was going to tax the rich (70 percent at the margin).  He was going to stand up to Angela Merkel.  He was going to rein in France's soaring public debt.  He was . . . .  Now, it seems he was going . . .  always going to go down the tubes. 

Here is the Guardian's summary:

When François Hollande became French president in May, he kept his old mobile phone number so old friends could still reach him to give their frank views. The first Socialist party president in 17 years may be regretting that now: six months after the victory street party at Paris's Bastille, where he vowed to save Europe from one-size-fits-all austerity, his popularity is plummeting.

He has now broken the record as the most unpopular French president at the six-month mark of a mandate. Only 36% of French people have confidence in Hollande, according to the latest poll by TNS-Sofres for Le Figaro magazine. By comparison, the rightwing Nicolas Sarkozy had 53% approval ratings six months after his election in 2007.

What's the problem.  Well, the received wisdom within the Left Wing world view is that it is not a matter of personality or policy.  It is execution.  Hollande is still a nice, unassuming guy.  It's just that his government has proved to be less firm than a wobbly jelly. 

By contrast, Hollande's opinion poll nose-dive is not about personal animosity – he has kept up his image as a modest president – it's his politics, specifically his way of doing politics, which is under attack. The Socialist leadership and government is seen as confused, accused by its opponents of amateurism and inaction. Even the leftwing daily Libération recently dubbed Hollande and his prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault "The Apprentices".

But the problems lie deeper than that.  Hollande ran a typical socialist campaign appealing to envy and greed.  The reason ordinary French folk were suffering was because of the rich exploitative nasties who earned more than the average bloke.  It was because of the Germans' demand for austerity.  It was caused by the nasty fat-cat, cigar smoking bankers.  Since  all France has accepted the socialist world-view hook, line, and sinker pretty much since the Napoleonic revolution, anachronisms notwithstanding, these arguments appeared persuasive and powerful. 

Secondly, the socialist solutions to the problem were facile and easy to implement: tax the rich.  Isolate the enemy; then move in for the kill.  Any rich Frenchman or French business refusing to stay in the country and take the hit 70 percent tax seppeku cut to earnings was an implicit traitor to France.  Red meat to the socialist's viscera that one--and they wanted to see lots of it spilling forth on the pavements. 

The core problem is that Hollande played to the electorate to win the election.  He aroused simplistic, naive expectations of straightforward, easy solutions where the only pain would be someone else's.  But the truth and reality is far different.  Hollande now appears to know that.  Having aroused such visceral socialist expectations he has had to backtrack, dilute, prevaricate, water down.  But an electorate steeped in socialist nostrums and simplistic solutions were never likely to be impressed.  Moreover when a people believe government is a god, and the god fails to deliver, look out.  A nurtured sense of betrayal begins to take form.

The Guardian is not giving up on the vision.  To its mind

Hollande is forced to respect EU demands to cut the French deficit. But he must also persuade voters he has his own ideas. The old cliche of France being a country impossible to reform has given way to a searching quest for real structural solutions to rising unemployment, dying industry, low competitiveness, stuttering growth and the threat of recession.

Hollande favours slow, gradual "negotiation" in contrast to what he calls the "brutality" and headline-grabbing of the Sarkozy era. He has said there will be no "shock treatment" for Paris's uncompetitive economy, despite an impatient Germany fearing France is the next sick man of Europe, but instead a slow, five-year-long approach. But his consensual approach has been construed in the public eye as inaction.

In other words, Hollande aroused the expectations of socialist France, promised decisive measures and easy solutions, appealed to envy and now is trying to walk it all back.  The electorate is increasingly angry and bitter.  Its secular god is not delivering; it is impotent.  Hell hath no fury like a scorned electorate riddled with socialist dogma and entitled expectations.  

As always in such circumstances the causes and effects are thick and complex.  Our summary above is doubtless simplistic--yet, we believe, true as far as it goes.  There will be other causes for electorate dissatisfaction.  For example, Lucia over at NZ Conservative has argued the case for electorate anger at the Hollande government's intent to enforce genderless marriage upon the country in early 2013.  Issues such as this will doubtless be adding fuel to the fire.