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WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : France
French President Chirac appoints new government with right-wing agenda
By Peter Schwarz
17 May 2002
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The French constitution imparts powers to the president that are unique in Europe.
On May 5, the Gaullist candidate Jacques Chirac was confirmed as president with a
large majority thanks to the support of France’s “Plural Left” parties—the Socialist
Party, the Communist Party and the Greens. Now he is systematically using the
powers accorded to him by the constitution to strengthen his position.
In the final and decisive round of voting between Chirac and the neo-fascist Jean-
Marie Le Pen, the Plural Left parties, which had formed the outgoing government
under Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, called for a vote for the incumbent president,
arguing that this was the only way to defend the Fifth Republic and democracy. Now,
Chirac, is using his re-election to erect a regime that has more in common with a
Bonapartist dictatorship than a democracy. He is seeking powers previously
possessed only by his role model, Charles de Gaulle. In this way he hopes to carry
out the type of attacks against the working class that led to the fall of previous
French governments.
Immediately after his re-election, Chirac exercised his legal right as president to
name at his own discretion a new head of government and new cabinet. He
appointed a conservative prime minister and chose a collection of right-wing
ministers who can govern the country on an interim basis without the agreement of
parliament (still legally controlled by the coalition of left parties) until new
legislative
elections are held on June 9 and June 16. According to the constitution, the
president has the right to simply name the head of government, who then appoints
his ministers, who in turn are ratified by the president. In a break with common
practice, however, Chirac has himself taken charge of selecting the cabinet
ministers.
All the key posts in the government—the Interior, Foreign, Defence, Social and
Justice ministries—have been filled by close associates of Chirac. The Economics
Ministry, which is responsible for finance and industry, is to be led by the manager of
a steel company and representative of the employers’ federation, Medef.
The prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is a member of the Liberal Democrats. He
has been appointed as a symbol of moderation to lure supporters of the former
governing majority. Of the 28 ministers and state secretaries, 12 belong to the
Gaullist RPR, 6 to the centrist UDF, and 5 to the Liberal Democrats (DL). Five are
independents.
The composition of the new government serves a number of purposes. The first and
most important is to ensure a majority for the right wing in the run-up to the
legislative
elections. A number of ministers have been appointed exclusively with the aim of
attracting voters from the former governing majority as well as from the camp of Len
Pen’s National Front.
As president, Chirac is responsible for French foreign policy. If he succeeds in
obtaining his own governing majority in the legislative elections, he will also be in a
position to determine domestic policies. Unlike the US, where the constitution gives
the Congress broad powers to serve as a counterweight to the president, the French
National Assembly has far more limited authority.
Chirac has also used the formation of the new government to sort out his own camp.
His supporters have been rewarded, and his rivals ditched. From the parties on the
right that traditionally vie for power with the Gaullists, i.e., the UDF and DL, he has
mainly chosen politicians who supported him in the recent election campaign.
For example, the new head of government, Raffarin, called for a vote for Chirac in
the first round of the presidential election instead of backing the Liberal Democratic
candidate, Alain Madelin, even though Raffarin is himself vice-chairman of the DL.
Raffarin also supported the new grouping called into being by Chirac to support his
candidacy—UMP (Union for a Presidential Majority )—which brought together all of
the right-wing bourgeois parties to seek a parliamentary majority for Chirac in the
upcoming legislative vote.
Chirac has sought to achieve a fait accompli in the short period between the
presidential and parliamentary elections, when he is not subject to parliamentary
control. He wants to impress the electorate while implementing measures that cannot
be subsequently reversed.
The new head of government, Raffarin, is regarded as a moderate and a man of the
political centre. His reputation is based on his support for a corporatist course in
the
realm of economic policy. In his first official speech after taking office, he declared
that, together with re- establishing the authority of the state, his most important
working priority was to establish a social dialogue. He accused the previous
government of Jospin of allowing such a dialogue to collapse.
Raffarin`s notion of social dialogue is close collaboration between the government,
the employers’ organisations and the trade unions. Following the catastrophic results
for the Socialist and Communist parties in the presidential elections, the trade union
bureaucracy is more than willing to listen to encouraging noises from the new
government. Facing a dramatic loss of members—less than 8 percent of all French
employees are organised in trade unions— the union hierarchy fears for its very
existence, should the government prove unwilling to accept it as a partner.
Marc Blondel, the general secretary of the Force Ouvrière union, responded
immediately to Raffarin’s offer and made his own demand for a “social dialogue” with
the government. All of the other main trade union organisations have indicated their
willingness to engage in government talks with their “social partners.”
It is also Raffarin’s job to counter the broad dissatisfaction with the remote and
corrupt political establishment in France’s capital city. The 54-year-old president of
the region of Poitou- Charentes is generally credited with being affable and down to
earth. In recent years he has kept his distance from the discredited centre of national
politics and struck up close relations with middle-class layers in the French
countryside. He first held national office between 1995 and 1997 as minister for small
and middle-sized industry, a post to which he was appointed by Chirac as a reward
for supporting Chirac against Chirac’s major rival at the time, Édouard Balladur.
Alongside Raffarin, two other state secretaries have been appointed to appeal to
moderate voters. The appointment of Tokia Saïfi to the Environment Ministry marks
the first time that the offspring of a so-called “Beur,” or Algerian immigrant, has
been
included in the national government. In charge of the “struggle against poverty and
discrimination” is the former head of the social emergency service in Paris,
Dominique Versini.
While Raffarin has been given the task of presenting a liberal image, the real
strongman in the new government is a confirmed right-winger. The former general
secretary of the Gaullists and close confidante of Chirac, Nikolas Sarkozy, has been
appointed head of an expanded Interior Ministry, with powers far exceeding those of
previous interior ministers.
Originally Sarkozy sought the post of prime minister. He is so far to the right,
however, that his appointment was regarded as unacceptable to a broad spectrum of
the electorate. In 1998, for example, he agitated in favour of prioritising the
allocation
of jobs, social benefits and accommodation to French citizens at the expense of
immigrants—a basic demand of the National Front.
Sarkozy’s appointment, together with that of his deputy, Patrick Devedjian,
underscores the narrowness of the differences between the interim government and
the neo-fascists. Devedjian, a legal advisor to Chirac, was in his youth a member of
the fascist organisation “Occident.” On January 12, 1967 he took part in an assault at
the University of Rouen on an information table of the Vietnam Liberation Front. A
number of students ended up in the hospital as a result of beatings administered with
the aid of iron bars. Devedjian was merely fined, while other participants in the
attack
ended up in jail. In 1976 Devedjian helped draw up the legal statutes for the newly
founded Gaullist party.
The Foreign Ministry is also in the hands of a confidante of Chirac. Officially
registered as an independent, Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin formerly served the
president as general secretary in the Elysée palace, and has been one of Chirac’s
closest associates for the past 10 years.
The Defence Ministry is to be headed by the former chairman of the RPR, Michèle
Alliot-Marie, who is regarded as Chirac’s right-hand man in the Gaullist party.
The Justice Ministry is to be led by one of the few ministers with a long record of
government office. In the 1990s Dominique Perben was an official in the
governments of Balladur and Alain Juppé. At that time he was responsible for a
number of laws curtailing trade union rights in the factories and attacking the
conditions of workers in marginal jobs.
The only close associate of Chirac not included in the new government is Juppé, the
luckless prime minister during the first two years of Chirac’s initial presidential
term.
Nevertheless, Juppé remains a key figure, feverishly pulling strings in the
background. Should the Gaullists strengthen their position in the upcoming
parliamentary elections, Juppé is regarded as a possible replacement for Raffarin.
The nomination of Francis Mer as super-minister for economy, finance and industry
is a clear signal to big business. Mer is a leading representative of the employers’
federation, Medef, and was formerly general director of the European steel concern
Arcelor.
As a steel executive, Mer was for 15 years responsible for the “renovation” of the
steel industry in the region of Lothring, a process that involved the destruction of
70,000 jobs. He is a close friend of François Bayrou (the candidate of the UDF,
which favours a “free-market” economic policy), and the Socialist Party politician
Jacques Delors, long-time president of the European Union Commission, as well as
Jean Peyrelevade, the executive chairman of the Bank Crédit Lyonnais. Mer is
reputed to have a high estimation of Nicole Notat, the general secretary of the
Socialist Party-linked CFDT trade union.
Last year, as the representative of Medef, Mer negotiated a job training program with
the unions that contributed substantially to the transformation of the unemployed
savings scheme Unedic. This “reform” was aimed at doing away with the right of the
unemployed to receive financial support from the state. It was the first step toward
the so-called Refondation sociale introduced by the Jospin government. The
continuation of such “reforms,” in particular, the aligning of pension and health
schemes to the requirements of the market, is a central aim of the new government.
An additional priority for the economics minister is to open up the state-owned
energy concern EDF-GDF to private capital—a measure that was already agreed at
the recent European Union summit in Barcelona. In line with the plans of the new
economics minister is the appointment of Roselyne Bachelot as minister for
environment and development. She is a declared advocate of nuclear energy.
Another representative of industry is François Loos, a counsellor in the Ministry for
Youth, Education and Research. Loos has a background in the chemical industry
and was director of the Rhône-Poulenc factory in Thann-Mulhouse. He will head the
department for research and universities.
Another minister, François Fillon, also has a background with business ties. His
specialty— military affairs—would not appear to have prepared him to take up his
new responsibilities in the Ministry for Social Affairs, Labour and Solidarity.
However,
as a minister in the government of Juppé in 1996, he oversaw the privatisation of
France Télécom, securing the agreement of the unions for early retirements.
Little wonder that Medef has expressed enthusiasm for the new government.
According to the organisation’s leader, de Seillière, Prime Minister Raffarin is “a
down-to-earth man with entrepreneurial experience, and someone prepared to
listen.” Francis Mer is “splendidly informed on the situation of the French economy
and the necessity to make it competitive. He is aware of the burden of taxes and
deductions that employers are forced to bear.”
At its first meeting, on the initiative of Chirac, the new cabinet agreed an extensive
catalogue of measures to be implemented before the coming parliamentary
elections. After the meeting, Raffarin declared that he and his colleagues were
progressing at a “breakneck pace.”
At the heart of the agreed measures are issues affecting domestic security.
Immediately after his appointment, Interior Minister Sarkozy accompanied Parisian
police on a night-time patrol of suburban areas in a show of solidarity with the forces
of law and order. After the cabinet sitting, he announced plans for extensive legal
changes in the spheres of security and justice, due to be completed by the summer
and agreed on by the incoming National Assembly.
Measures to be implemented immediately include the close collaboration of police,
gendarmes, customs officials, investigative judges and tax evasion inspectors in the
prosecution of organised crime in suburban areas, and the increased use of the
paramilitary CRS, which up to now had only been used for special operations. The
CRS is to work more closely with the police.
On May 15 the cabinet agreed by decree to subordinate the Council for Domestic
Security (CSI) directly to the president. The CSI, which includes the interior,
defence,
justice, economics and finance ministers, was founded in 1988 by Socialist Party
Prime Minister Michel Rocard, and its mandate was renewed by Jospin in 1997. It
was previously under the control of the prime minister and constituted a major centre
of government power.
Now, under the control of the president, the council’s powers will be considerably
expanded. In practical terms the council now assumes oversight of key areas of
domestic policy. According to the speaker of the new government, the council has
the job of determining key aspects of domestic security policy, coordinating the work
of diverse ministries and overseeing the implementation of the new security policy.
Its status will correspond to the defence council, which has traditionally been
subordinate to the president and responsible for foreign security issues.
In a further decision, the cabinet agreed to elaborate a draft law for a 5 percent cut
in
income tax. It is to be completed in the next 10 days and passed immediately after
the new elections.
Another measure demonstrates how ably the new government is working to exploit
popular opposition to actions taken by the previous government. Transport and
Construction Minister Gilles de Robien announced a fundamental review of plans for
a third major airport in the vicinity of the capital. These plans had been pushed
through by his predecessor, Jean-Claude Gaissot of the Communist Party, in the
face of considerable opposition from the population at large, which feared the
resulting increase in noise and pollution.
The new government has succeeded in winning support from circles usually
associated with the left. The newspaper Le Monde, which, since the period of
François Mitterrand, has tended to support the Socialists, has expressed high praise
for the government. Raffarin’s government cuts a fine figure, the newspaper
commented, and declared that the nomination of the independent ministers Mer
(Economy and Finance) and Ferry (Education) were particular coups for Chirac. The
paper went on to declare that Chirac had struck a blow against Le Pen with his
appointment of a state secretary, Saïfi, of Algerian origin.
The broad chorus of approval for Chirac’s new government represents a
consolidation of all those bourgeois forces that supported Chirac in the second round
of the presidential election. The new-found unity behind Chirac has less to do,
however, with a rejection of Le Pen—in many respects the new government, by
beefing up the state, is adapting itself to Le Pen’s demands—than with a fear of the
popular anger and discontent reflected in the massive abstention and the three
million votes cast for candidates claiming to be revolutionary socialists in the first
round of the presidential election.
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World Socialist Web Site
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