The Socialists may be humiliated, but the Républicains are angry, lost and in a state of panic. For the first time since World War II, the xenophobic, euroskeptic far right, which has been steadily growing under Ms. Le Pen’s leadership, has become mainstream.
Where, today, does the right stand in France? What does it stand for? How does it define itself against the anti-immigrant, nativist message of the National Front? What ideology, which strategy will help it regain control of the political agenda before the 2017 presidential election?
The Fragile French Republic
Among Parisians, one senses a quiet resolve to fall back into routines and social habits, not only because they must, but because they should, and can—because the so-called Islamic State is not, of course, an existential threat to Paris or to France, unless the French choose to give themselves over to hysteria, and to treat it as if it were.
.. And yet the policy response seems to reflect exactly this, less confident, stance. The choice is unfortunate but unsurprising; any democratic government, trapped by electoral calculus and the felt imperative of immediate action, might be expected to do the same. Yet French authorities have been particularly alarmist, opting for a response that is both notably bellicose and notably heedless of civil rights. They have retaliated with bombing raids in Raqqa, with calls to close French mosques and deport more radical preachers, and with the declaration of a three-month state of emergency that has already allowed for more than 1,000 warrantless police searches, 165 warrantless arrests, and the placement under house arrest, without judicial approval or the possibility of legal recourse of any kind, of more than 250 people. There have been serious calls for the internment of the thousands of people listed by the intelligence services as possible threats; Prime Minister Manuel Valls has declared himself open to the possibility.
.. What is certain, however, is that such responses are of precisely the sort the Islamic State sought to provoke. “What IS wants is to set off civil war,” pitting Muslims against their would-be oppressors in the West ..
.. A history of political upheaval and collapse seems to have instilled in the country’s political leaders the conviction, even in times of political calm, that France’s Republican project is terribly fragile.
.. “Anxiety” over the survival of the Republican model, a collective project that from its start has sought to impose national unity, and uniformity, from on high, is indeed “hard-wired into French Republicanism,” said the historian Emile Chabal.
.. the brutal Algerian war of independence, in which France’s colonial subjects effectively turned Republicanism against the French, demanding for themselves the freedom and equality it nominally guaranteed.
.. The possibility that the country’s particular approach to Islam, or the integration of its post-colonial underclass, or the poor concrete neighborhoods of the banlieues, might contribute in some way to this sad phenomenon has not been the subject of any serious political debate since the start of the Syrian conflict.
How the Greek Deal Could Destroy the Euro
These tensions are not new. Germany always thought of the euro as an improved exchange-rate mechanism built around the Deutsche mark, and France had bold but vague ambitions of a real international currency that would enhance the effectiveness of Keynesian economic policy. These fundamental differences were papered over at the launch of the euro because both François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl agreed that the single currency should first and foremost serve as a means toward the greater aim of European political integration.
.. Indeed, the European institutions led by Germany seem to have decided that waging an ideological battle against a recalcitrant and amateurish far-left government in Greece should take precedence over 60 years of European consensus built painstakingly by leaders across the political spectrum.
By imposing a further socially regressive fiscal adjustment, the recent agreement confirmed fears on the left that the European Union could choose to impose a particular brand of neoliberal conservatism by any means necessary. In practice, it used what amounted to an economic embargo — far more brutal than the sanctions regime imposed on Russia since its annexation of Crimea — to provoke either regime change or capitulation in Greece. It has succeeded in obtaining capitulation.
.. This forceful attitude and the several taboos it broke reveal that the currency union that Germany wants is probably fundamentally incompatible with the one that the French elite can sell and the French public can subscribe to. The choice will soon be whether Germany can build the euro it wants with France or whether the common currency falls apart.
.. Over the long run, France, Italy and Spain, to name just a few, would not take part in such a union, not because they can’t, but because they wouldn’t want to. The collective G.D.P. and population of these countries is twice that of Germany; eventually, a confrontation is inevitable.
.. Meanwhile, Germany has built a politically and morally coherent narrative that obscures an economically deceptive vision based on the idea that abiding by the rules alone can create prosperity and stability for the European Union as a whole. This narrative has wide support across the German political spectrum and the clear backing of the German public.
.. This unhappy marriage could last for years, but it will substantially increase the chances of anti-establishment parties coming to power across Europe, because mainstream leaders can no longer disprove the assertion that the euro as it stands has become both economically and politically destructive.
Franco-Prussian War: both France and Germany wanted war
The conflict centered on Prussian ambitions to extend German unification. Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck planned to provoke a French attack in order to draw the southern German states—Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt—into an alliance with the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation.
Bismarck adroitly created a diplomatic crisis over the succession to the Spanish throne, then rewrote a dispatch about a meeting between King William of Prussia and the French foreign minister, to make it appear that the French had been insulted. The French press and parliament demanded a war, which the generals of Napoleon III assured him that France would win.
.. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine and fear of another Franco-German war, along with British concern over the balance of power, became factors in the causes of World War I.