Although the stirrings of a presidential campaign can be
heard in France, the issue that has exercised the neighborhood
lately is whether Mr. (Monsieur, in French) Jean-Pierre
Chevènement should be kicked out of his flat. My
considered view, as I explained to the Moroccan garsown day
caffeine (the waiter at our corner bistro, which is called the
Petite Perigourdine — mind, this is not a placement ad, but you
must taste their duck cassoulet if you have a chance) is
that the mean-spirited harassment represents a lack of respect for
the great man. It is inspired not by concern for the homeless poor,
but by cold political scheming. The attack is being led by no less
than the Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, and his point
man, Pierre Aidenbaum, Socialist mayor of the Third
arrondissement, who also happens to be the boss of the
Regie Immobilire de la Ville de Paris, which
is the Paris housing authority. It shows how tasteless politics can
get. Mr. Chevènement is an , after all (ex Cabinet
member.) A man of the east, he is a senator, a powerful man in the
region of Franche-Comte, and president (honorary) of
the Mouvement Républicain et
Citoyen political party (Citizens United, in English). He is
the party’s standard-bearer in the presidential sweepstakes, to be
held in May.
In the Fifth Republic, which allows you to hold several public
offices simultaneously, you get to vote twice for president — a
twist on Jake Arvey’s admonition to the precinct leaders of
Chicago’s 24th Ward preparing to roll up another big one for
the ticket, “Tell your people to vote early and often.” I would
like to think Arvey is giving admonitions to the new mayor, Rahm
Emanuel, but he died in 1977 — though, come to think of it, no one
has yet figured out what he meant by that. The first time, they
have a field of more than two from which to choose, so the usual
result is that no one gets the clear majority. The second time,
they have a run-off between the two who got the mostest.
A small third party (or fourth or fifth) like Citizens
United, not to mention a big third party like the Front
National (tr.: National Front) can gum up a front-runner, as
indeed happened to the Socialists in 2002, when a bunch of little
left-of-left parties allowed the National Front candidate, a
certain Jean-Marie Le Pen, to get a few more votes than their man.
This made the second round a shoo-in for the incumbent, Jacques
Chirac. The Socialists have a nightmare that it could happen again,
due to stubborn spoilers like Mr. Chevènement and the
Green candidate, Mrs. Eva Joly, a famous prosecutor. However, the
Socialists and the Greens agreed to downsize and perhaps even phase
out nuclear energy — which supplies three quarters of France’s
electricity — so it is not sure how vigorously Mrs. Joly will
campaign.
Mr. Chevènement, for his part, seems more
interested in defending his right to stay in what we would call
low-income housing than in running for president, but that is
because in France no one runs for president until a week or two
before the first ballot. It is not clear whether this is because no
one has the money for a long campaign, or nobody wants to spend the
money on a long campaign.
The French are a stingy race and they are not big on campaign
contributions. There was a venerable tradition of getting a little
help from certain friends in Africa, in the form of valises
(suitcases) stuffed with francs. The custom began to wither when
they switched to euros — another good reason to scotch the euro,
according to certain sources in Paris whose names would not mean
anything — but anyway the smart money sez they won’t be no euros
in circulation by the time the election begins, due to the Greeks.
No one knows why the Greeks have suddenly become the all-purpose
European fall guys, but you can ask the German Chancellor, Frau
Merkel, or the leader of Finland’s True Finn Party, Timo Soini.
Both seem to have it in for the Greeks these days. Failing that you
can always ring Mr. Caldwell at the Weekly Standard, who
usually has the poop on the euro.
However, the French are notorious for being frivolous —
an old word for ADD — and it may be, too, that no one would pay
attention to a long campaign, so an American-style long campaign
would be wasted effort. Instead, to warm up, they get into little
character-assassination games, such as claiming a fairly wealthy
man, as Senateur Chevènement is, should not
be paying a monthly rent that is half what the place — 150 sq.
meters, I gather, though I have not been invited (yet) — would
fetch on the open market. Which, note, is sort of ridiculous as a
notion, because in the land of Bastiat and Rueff about half the
economy is under state control so who can talk about an open market
anyway? The last serious open (free) market pol in France was a
gentleman named Antoine Pinay, a man of some popularity in his
time. He was prime minister, I believe, during the Fourth Republic.
(This may be an old rumor, unverified.) But Pinay was a man of
principle. He saved the franc. His successors, young technocrats
educated at the elite Ecole Nationale d’Administration
(management school, and do not ask why it is always preceded by the
word “elite”), such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the Socialist
Party presidential candidate, François
Hollande, killed it. They claimed the euro would be much
better.
However, I must admit I cannot explain why there was one
election where a young ex-paratrooper named Jean-Marie Le Pen ran
for parliament (and won a seat) under the colors of Pinay’s party,
which if memory serves was, still is, called the Independent
Peasants’ Center and National. Or maybe it was the National
Peasants’ Independent Center. Party names are weird in some
countries. In Germany, if you are a socialist you belong to the
Social Democrats and if you are Oskar Lafontaine you belong to
die Linke. I do not know from German but my guess is that
die Linke translates as the Left. If you are a
conservative you belong to the Christian Democrats and if you are a
Danny Cohn Bendit fan when he was a municipal councilor in
Frankfurt — where the money is — you belong to die
Grunen, which if I were a betting man I would say means the
Greens.
In England if you are a conservative you belong to the Tories
and if you are all right, Jack, you belong to the Socialists.
Formally, they are the Conservatives and the Labour Party, or New
Labour, but since they abolished Clause Four under Tony Blair — a
great man, according to those who know him — there is some
uncertainty. I might add, while we are on the subject of England,
that not one Englishman is in the professional tennis players’
year-end tournament, where the best play the best. There is a Scot,
though, Andy Murray, who happens to play with the same racquet that
I, myself, use, the — this is not a placement ad — Head Radical.
I am a Murray fan, but I recognize the other great gentleman tennis
pro, Roger Federer, is likely to repeat last year’s success at
London’s O2 Arena. Mr. Federer — this is to show I am not shilling
for Head — plays with a Wilson. He is very rich and his money is
in Swiss francs. In Switzerland, and particularly in his hometown
of Basel, where he is only average rich, they do not recognize the
euro as legal tender.
So anyway, as I was saying to my young garsown de
caffeine, “Where do you live, by the way, Fadel? Just curious,
you know.” He said, “La Courneuve, c’est dans le 9-3.”
Observe that I did not point out that I knew La Courneuve is a
suburb in the nine-three, by which he meant the
département (county, as I said
earlier) of the Seine-Saint-Denis, to the north of Paris,
whose postal codes (also auto license i.d.’s) begin with 93,
which people pronounce 9-3 or ninety-three, depending. One
of the “tricks” or “skills” of solid investigative reporting is to
not ask questions — let the other person talk, he will reveal all.
In tennis, this is called, “let ‘im beat ‘imself.” This,
unfortunately, is what they say when facing Andy Murray, and for a
reason. However, Murray is hot these days and there is no saying
what will happen at London’s O2 when he steps on the court this
afternoon to test his skills against David Ferrer, a Spaniard. It
was not immediately known whether Ferrer — or Rafael Nadal, who
won his match against the American Mardy Fish — rejoiced or
mourned or paid no heed following the landslide victory of the
Spanish Partito Popular (conservatives) in the weekend
elections. But, already, Federer is ahead, having dispatched the
French powerhouse, J. W. Tsonga yesterday.
“So it takes you what, 20 minutes to get to work?”
He laughed. “Oh non (no) monsieur, y faut
compter une bonne heure avec le bus jusqu’a la station du
RER.” Translating is a chore, but what he means is that
it takes him an hour.
Good Lord, I thought under my breath, the poor immigrant spends
two hours a day in public transportation — do you know what this
means, in France? — so that I can loll around in this nice
bistrot (restaurant-bar-coffee shop) and have my morning
caffeine and quahsan while reading the International Herald
Tribune, a fine paper, made famous by such exceptional
journalists as Art Buchwald and John Vinocur.
It is pretty outrageous that a nice young man like Fadel should
have to get to work under such difficult conditions. If they have
subsidized housing in the city, should it not be for those who need
subsidies? How would you like it if a Congressman or a Senator had
a Section 8 place in Washington? Would that be fair? I know very
well President John Kennedy said life is not fair. But does it have
to be cruelly unfair?
I know why the Socialists are bringing up this matter. It
is because they consider Mr. Chevènement a renegade.
He played a key role in getting François Mitterrand
the presidency, and he was rewarded with the big jobs, including
the defense ministry. Then, he left in a huff. The reasons are
complicated. But to put the matter in Anglo-American terms, he felt
the party was drifting away from its Jacobin traditions. No, I am
putting it in French terms, but you know, the big government thing.
He felt they were abandoning big government.
The quarrel, in truth, was semantic and, of course,
personal. Chevènement did not get along with the ones
who took over after Mitterrand left the scene. Monsieur Pinay, the
National Peasants leader who saved the franc and with only one arm,
too (he was a World War I vet, badly wounded), was perhaps France’s
only, certainly its last, small government man. But he was prime
minister for less than a year and then there was the franc to save
and he was unable to put his small-government ideas to
work.
Also, he had a vivacious interest in young women and some
witnesses from those bygone days claim it sapped some of the energy
that he might have put into politics. There was some talk in his
party (the Peasants Whatever) of running him against de Gaulle for
the presidency at one point (he had been the general’s finance
minister, but they wanted a challenge from the right, de Gaulle
being above-it-all), but the Gaullist hard men let it be known they
would publicize it all. All of it. It would be embarrassing, even
in France. He declined to run and it was all forgive and forget. By
contrast, that fellow who got into trouble in New York, minute he
got back to France someone — a police officer of high rank —
spilled some beans about a high-end international call-girl ring
that did all manners of unspeakable things and guess who was a
client.
In such a climate, no wonder Jean-Pierre
Chevènement cannot campaign for president without
somebody making a stink about his arrangements.
