2022.04.22对建制派的反抗正在加速

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应邀参加｜法国大选
即使马克龙获胜，法国的政治可能已经发生了永远的变化
凯瑟琳-菲斯基说，对建制派的反抗正在加速。

2022年4月22日 (2022年4月22日更新)


随着法国4月24日第二轮总统选举的临近，一种似曾相识的感觉正笼罩着这个国家。距离上次投票已经过去了五年，现任总统埃马纽埃尔-马克龙(Emmanuel Macron)将再次面对国民大会党(RN, or National Rally)的玛丽娜-勒庞(Marine Le Pen) 。在4月14日的第一轮投票中，两人都比2017年的投票结果略有提高。勒庞女士从21%上升到23%，而马克龙先生从24%上升到28%。

这两位候选人的主导地位表明，法国选民如何对他们的政党制度进行了双重打击。2017年，他们摧毁了中左翼的社会党（当时为6%，如今为2%）。今年，他们淘汰了中右翼，给了它5%的选票，低于2017年的20%。


勒庞女士在2017年的失败后被注销了。从那时起，她的政党在选举中的表现一直很差。但她挖空心思，保持沉默，并从自己的错误中吸取教训。在2017年过于分散的情况下，这一次她开展了本地化的竞选活动，有更多亲密的会面，减少了大型选举集会。她在4月20日的唯一一场总统辩论中的表现被誉为比她在2017年备受冷落的表现略强。即使她输了，她也将远远超过她在2017年第二轮投票中仅有的34%的得分。这种反建制的反抗可能有多持久？

第一轮的结果表明，正在蓬勃发展的不仅仅是极右派。硬左派民粹主义者让-吕克-梅朗雄(Jean-Luc Mélenchon)获得了22%的高分，勒庞女士紧随其后位居第三。他的方案与勒庞女士的方案一样是民粹主义的，拒绝精英，承诺通过常规的公民投票实现直接民主，并承诺将法国与欧盟和北约保持距离。

因此，第一轮选举的教训不是极右翼开始占主导地位，而是法国选民继续转向既定政党体系之外的政治家，无论他们是什么政治派别。毕竟，这正是他们当初选举马克龙先生的原因。如果勒庞女士在4月24日获胜，她很可能要感谢那些在第一轮投票中投给梅朗雄先生的选民，他们要么选择她（19%的人威胁要这样做），要么留在家里。

为什么会发生这种转变？CEVIPOF/IPSOS最近的一项民意调查显示，这并不是因为选民们对极端主义政治家的信任。投票给勒庞女士的人中只有20%说他们信任她。其余的人支持她主要是因为 "她感觉最接近像我这样的人"（42%）或 "作为反对其他候选人的一票"（38%）。支持梅朗雄先生的选民也有类似的倾向：只有15%的人宣称他们信任他；64%的人说他们觉得他的想法与自己的想法接近。另一方面，马克龙先生在这种 "接近 "方面的得分是全局最低的，为29%。


为了表明她正在远离她的极右根源，勒庞女士改变了她的政党名称，从国民阵线（FN，意为国民阵线）。她将重点从种族和移民转向社区和工资。她的政党对伊斯兰教的立场现在被包裹在对西方价值观和世俗主义的强烈辩护中，而不是像国民阵线过去那样公然进行反穆斯林的宣传。在第一轮选举中，她得益于埃里克-泽莫尔的存在，泽莫尔是一个比她更偏右的候选人，这让她看起来不那么危险。

勒庞女士自2011年接管该党以来，对工人阶级选民的追求也带来了言论上的转变。她现在更多地关注与工作、人员和服务枯竭的社区的心灵相通的问题，这些社区看不到欧盟或全球化（或他们自己的传统左翼政治忠诚）如何给他们带来了痛苦和屈辱。这在许多先进的民主国家是一个熟悉的故事。

然而，RN的宣言清楚地阐述了该党与主流的距离。它承诺就移民问题进行公投（内容故意模糊），禁止在公共场所佩戴头巾，将工作、住房和福利限制给法国国民（一项被称为 "国民优先 "的政策），以及废除因出生而获得法国公民身份的权利。所有这一切都伴随着一个模糊的、几乎没有成本的经济计划，该计划承诺削减增值税和提高工资，以及重新谈判法国与欧盟的关系，其方式很容易让人想起匈牙利领导人维克多-欧尔班。勒庞女士显然希望从右翼撼动法国，比马克龙先生试图从中央做的要多得多。

大多数分析人士认为，马克龙先生仍将在周日获胜。法国选民有可能重新选择一个自由主义的中间派，这是一个福音。但选举本身应该是对各地自满情绪的一个警告。法国让我们看到了自由民主国家面临的挑战。在其任期内，马克龙先生一直认为，他是法国选民和民粹主义之间的唯一障碍。但20年前，82%的法国选民投票反对勒庞女士的父亲，勒庞女士的政党被认为是对民主的威胁；今天，这一数字下降到50%。调查显示，许多年轻人越来越倾向于这个世界上的勒庞党和梅朗雄党。公民们似乎对民粹主义的危险和自由民主的吸引力都越来越不感冒。民粹主义提供了 "近距离政治"，为更多脆弱的选民提供了自由主义中心所抛弃的归属感和参与感。

这对法国和西方世界来说是个坏兆头。从长远来看，无论谁在周日获胜，都需要确保法国选民不仅忠于自己的总统身份，而且忠于谈判妥协的政治，而不是谩骂的政治，忠于对手之间而不是敌人之间的政治。这将是一项更难的任务。
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凯瑟琳-菲斯奇是一位政治学家，也是英国智囊团Counterpoint的创始人和主管。



By Invitation | France’s election
Even if Macron wins, French politics may already have changed for ever
Catherine Fieschi says the revolt against the establishment is gathering pace

Apr 22nd 2022 (Updated Apr 22nd 2022)

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AS FRANCE NEARS the second round of its presidential election on April 24th, a sense of déjà vu is hanging over the country. Five years on from the last vote, Emmanuel Macron, the incumbent, is once again facing Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (RN, or National Rally) party. In the first round, on April 14th, both of them slightly improved on their 2017 tallies: Ms Le Pen up to 23% from 21%, and Mr Macron up to 28% from 24%.

The dominance of these two candidates shows how French voters have delivered a double body-blow to their party system. In 2017 they trashed the centre-left Socialist Party (then on 6%, today on 2%). This year they knocked out the centre-right by giving it 5% of the vote, down from 20% in 2017.


Ms Le Pen was written off after her defeat in 2017. Her party’s electoral performances since then have been poor. But she dug in, kept quiet, and learned from her mistakes. Having spread herself too thinly in 2017, this time she ran a localised campaign, with more intimate meetings and fewer big election rallies. Her performance in the only presidential debate on April 20th was hailed as slightly stronger than her much-derided showing in 2017. Even if she loses, she is set to far outshine her second-round score of just 34% in 2017. How lasting is this anti-establishment revolt likely to be?

The first-round results suggest it is not just the far right that is flourishing. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a hard-left populist, scored a solid 22%, running Ms Le Pen a close third. His programme is as populist as Ms Le Pen’s in its rejection of elites, its promise of direct democracy through the routine use of referendums, and its pledge to distance France from the EU and NATO.

So the lesson of the first round is not that the far right is starting to dominate but that French voters are continuing to turn to politicians outside the established party system, of whatever political stripe. That, after all, is what they did in electing Mr Macron in the first place. If she were to win on April 24th, Ms Le Pen would most likely have to thank voters who voted for Mr Mélenchon in the first round, either for choosing her (19% are threatening to do so), or for staying at home.

Why is this shift taking place? A recent CEVIPOF/IPSOS poll suggests that it is not because voters are placing their trust in extremist politicians. Only 20% of people voting for Ms Le Pen say they trust her. The rest back her mainly because “she feels closest to people like me” (42%) or “as a vote against the other candidate” (38%). Voters for Mr Mélenchon were similarly inclined: only 15% declared they trusted him; 64% said they felt he had ideas close to their own. Mr Macron’s score on this “proximity”, on the other hand, is the lowest across the board, on 29%.


To signal that she is moving away from her far-right roots, Ms Le Pen changed the name of her party, from Front National (FN, meaning National Front). She shifted her focus from race and immigration to community and wages. Her party’s stance on Islam is now wrapped in a strong defence of Western values and secularism rather than the more blatant anti-Muslim propaganda that used to be the hallmark of the FN. In the first round, she benefited from the presence of Eric Zemmour, a candidate even further to the right than she is, which helped her look less dangerous.

Ms Le Pen’s courting of working-class voters since she took over the party in 2011 has also entailed a shift in rhetoric. She focuses more now on issues closer to the hearts of communities drained of jobs, people and services, who cannot see how the EU or globalisation (or their own traditional left-wing political allegiances) have brought them anything but heartache and humiliation. It is a familiar story in many advanced democracies.

Yet the RN manifesto clearly lays out the party’s distance from the mainstream. It promises a referendum on immigration (the contents of which remain purposely vague), a ban on wearing the hijab in public places, the restricting of jobs, housing and benefits to French nationals (a policy known as “national preference”) and the abolition of the right to French citizenship by birth. All of this comes alongside a vague, barely costed economic programme that promises the slashing of VAT and an increase in wages, as well as the renegotiation of France’s relationship to the EU in a manner strongly reminiscent of Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban. Ms Le Pen is clearly looking to shake up France from the right much more than Mr Macron has attempted to do from the centre.

Most analysts think Mr Macron will still win on Sunday. That French voters are likely to re-elect a liberal centrist is a blessing. But the election itself should stand as a warning against complacency everywhere. France offers a glimpse of the challenges facing liberal democracies. Over the course of his mandate Mr Macron has consistently argued that he is the only thing standing between French voters and populism. But 20 years ago Ms Le Pen’s party was perceived as a menace to democracy by the 82% of French voters who voted against her father; today that figure is down to 50%. And surveys suggest that many young people are increasingly leaning towards both the Le Pens and the Mélenchons of this world. Citizens seem to be increasingly impervious both to the dangers of populism and to the attractions of liberal democracy. With its offer of “proximity politics”, populism offers more vulnerable voters a sense of belonging and involvement that the liberal centre has forsaken.

This bodes ill for France and for the Western world. In the longer term, whoever wins on Sunday will need to secure the allegiance of French voters not just to themselves as president, but to a politics of negotiated compromise rather than one of invective, and to a politics between opponents rather than between enemies. That will be a much harder task.
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Catherine Fieschi is a political scientist and the founder and director of Counterpoint, a British think-tank.