Few countries can beat France when it comes to the failure of politicians to learn rather obvious lessons. A glittering example of this was given in the middle of August, when Benoît Hamon, a former education minister, announced that he would be a candidate in the forthcoming primary for the Parti Socialiste.
To say M Hamon is one of the towering figures of European statesmanship would be something of an exaggeration: he lasted just four months in his job, and before coming into government he had been best known as a left-wing firebrand of the sort that M Hollande felt he had to appease when running for office in 2012. In announcing his candidature, M Hamon proclaimed that the PS needed to get back to its left-wing roots: above all, it had to promise to cut the length of the working week.
The long and steep decline in M Hollande’s popularity – he is now the most despised French president in the history of polling – began with his own attempt to take France to the left, thereby undermining the country’s economy. It continued when he tacked back to the right again, trying to repair some of the damage done by his initial policies. The working week, which M Hamon is so keen to reduce, was set at 35 hours by Martine Aubry more than a decade before M Hollande took office. However, the brake it has placed on French productivity has been one of the fundamental factors that is wrong with the French economy and holding it back. In the fantasy world inhabited by M Hamon it can be cut even further.
Most French people have come to realise the insanity of such propositions, and it is why not just M Hamon, but any PS candidate, will struggle to reach the second round of the presidential election next May.
We remain unsure who will be joining M Hamon in the primaries, which are held over two rounds on January 22 and 29 next year. Mme Aubry, who has her supporters – even if her leftism is too milk-and-water for the likes of M Hamon – announced in August that she would not be a participant. So too did Emmanuel Macron, the business minister, who tried to launch a new grouping and whose ambitions were squashed by the ridicule this importunate act provoked.
M Hollande himself has said that he will announce in December whether or not he is standing. At times over the last four and half years his grasp of reality has seemed so shaky that he might even persuade himself that he ought to run: it is far from obvious that he would win the primary, and also impossible, given his current standing, that he would win the election.
Arnaud Montebourg, the former economy minister, has announced his candidacy, and will be a strong contender. So too would Manuel Valls, the prime minister, though it seems his heart may no longer be in it.
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What is certain is that a selection of other PS luminaries, in the course of their campaigns, attacking the policies and record of M Hollande in asking their comrades to choose them rather than him, will by December have demolished what is left of the dignity and credibility of the incumbent president.
In writing about the candidacy of Nicolas Sarkozy for Les Républicains, whose primary is held on November 20 and 27, some parts of the press have started to salivate about what has been called Sarko’s “revenge match” against M Hollande. They should contain their excitement. Not only does it appear to be highly unlikely that President Hollande will even get into the first round of the contest; it would also be a brave man who would bet on M Sarkozy getting there.
All the old criticisms that were aired against him during his presidency between 2007 and 2012, and which contributed to his failure to be re-elected, have started to seep out again: he is the candidate of the rich, the idle, the ostentatious, the frankly corrupt.
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Others, operating on a more sophisticated level, remember how little he achieved during his time at the Elysée: he came in promising to deregulate and reform sclerotic France and, faced with the immovability of French public opinion and his own limited attention span, he failed entirely.
He remains resolutely behind Alain Juppé, the current favourite: and others in the field have their appeal, notably François Fillon, Sarko’s hugely experienced former prime minister, and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the telegenic former mayoral candidate in Paris, who seems to be positioning herself for a strong run in 2022.
Sarko has started to campaign in properly populist style, saying that in the present terrorist threat France needs someone of authority and commitment to the idea of a French identity – such as himself – to lead it. The questions the French people need to ask themselves are, first, whether he would be any more likely to deliver on the promises inherent in that rhetoric than he managed to do with his 2007 pledges; and, as I discussed in this column last month, whether taking a hard line on terrorism would cause an explosive outbreak of civil unrest that would make things much worse before they became any better.
In the next few weeks we shall be wiser about two things: whether Sarko can dupe his party’s electorate with his undeniable mixture of charm, aggression and manipulative genius, and see off his rivals – I suspect not – and which of M Hollande’s rivals will be the most likely to be the PS’s candidate. Most primary seasons are foregone conclusions. This one isn’t, and will be truly fascinating.
Simon Heffer is also a columnist for the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs
