ROCKY RENTREE
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| Thomas Thévenoud, come and gone |
It's been a rocky Rentrée for the government so far. Prime
Minister Valls and the new Cabinet he formed in late August had barely begun
working when newly appointed Trade Minister Thomas Thévenoud was forced to
resign after only nine days on the job. It was revealed that for four years in
a row he had "forgotten" to pay his taxes, and that during three
years he did not pay the rent on his Paris apartment until he was threatened
with expulsion. He then paid the back rent plus penalty just before his
nomination to Parliament. As he explained to the weekly Le Canard Enchainé: "I have an aversion to paperwork". It
appears that his wife was similarly afflicted: a week after her husband, she
was relieved of her job as chef de
cabinet of the President of the Senate. Icarus revisited.
This matter recalls the "Cahuzac Affair" of March
2013, when then-Budget Minister Jerôme Cahuzac had to resign over an undeclared
bank account in Switzerland (blog 4/14/2013). A
year later, Ecology Minister Cécile Duflot resigned in protest over Hollande's centrist
policies, and lackluster Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was replaced by
Manuel Valls who was more popular. In August of this year two disloyal ministers, Montebourg
and Hamon, were fired for their open criticism of the president, and were
followed by Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti, who resigned in sympathy
with their protest. A lot of coming and going in a government that still has
not found its footing and remains tentative and indecisive.
A pattern has emerged: as soon as a cutback is announced, it is followed by a protest which is followed by the cancellation or reduction of the cutback. Result: loss of credibility.
Halfway through his first five-year term, the president's standing in the polls has now reached a dismal 13 percent, the lowest ranking ever for a French president. He has lost the support of the left wing of his own Socialist party which has spawned a block of dissenters that threatens to change the balance of power in the Parliament during a Vote of Confidence there this week. Depending on the outcome, the ruling party may lose its narrow majority, in which case the specter of a referendum, new elections and co-habitation with the center-right UMP opposition party looms large.
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| Shrinking President Hollande |
Halfway through his first five-year term, the president's standing in the polls has now reached a dismal 13 percent, the lowest ranking ever for a French president. He has lost the support of the left wing of his own Socialist party which has spawned a block of dissenters that threatens to change the balance of power in the Parliament during a Vote of Confidence there this week. Depending on the outcome, the ruling party may lose its narrow majority, in which case the specter of a referendum, new elections and co-habitation with the center-right UMP opposition party looms large.
In the midst of all these problems, Valérie Trierweiler, former
"first lady" and live-in partner of President Hollande for the past
nine years who was brutally dumped in January, has come out with a score-settling
book entitled Merci Pour Ce Moment - her answer to the curt 18-word statement that François Hollande
personally telephoned to AFP, announcing that he had ended his relationship
with Ms. Trierweiler (blog 1/30/2014). The book depicts Hollande as a cold and
calculating man whose focus in life has always been his own political
advancement and who lost his humanity once he reached the presidency. He was
disparaging about Valérie's humble background and called her family "no
fun". Other, pettier, revelations concern his love of fancy restaurants and
luxury hotels. But what really hurt Hollande was the statement that he, an
avowed socialist, "does not like the poor and refers to them as the
toothless ones". In what sounds like an overreaction, Hollande called this
a lie and "a blow to my entire life". In Le Nouvel Observateur of 11 September he talks at length about his
total devotion to the poor, from his high-school days on throughout his years
of higher education and his entire political career. "I have always served
the poor", he assures, and goes so far as to call the poor his raison d'être. As a socialist who has
publicly stated that he dislikes the rich and who during his presidential campaign
against "bling-bling" Nicolas Sarkozy pointed out that Sarkozy wears
a Rolex watch ("I wear a Swatch"), not liking the poor does sound
like treason.
No comment from Hollande about the matter of his
ungentlemanly "dismissal" of Trierweiler, his alleged attempts over
the next few months to win her back with bouquets of red roses, dinner
invitations, and a stream of text messages ("one day he left me as many as
29 messages"), or his secret nighttime visits - helmeted and on a scooter
- to new lover Julie Gayet, which had people tittering for weeks. He may have
dismissed this as petty gossip, but being called a bad socialist really went
too far.
Trierweiler never recovered from the backlash to her jealous
Twitter outburst against Ségolène Royal, Hollande's previous partner and mother
of his four children, when in 2012 she supported Royal's opponent in a senate
race. Public sympathy went to Royal and shifted back only slightly when
Trierweiler was boorishly repudiated by Hollande in full view of the world.
The appearance of Merci
Pour Ce Moment created a sensation: a first printing of 200,000 copies sold
out in a matter of days and another 200,000 copies are currently being
distributed. Public opinion about Trierweiler is divided, with some calling the
book an act of revenge by a woman scorned, while others see it as a predictable
response to the needlessly public humiliation she suffered at the hands of a
selfish womanizer who cast her aside for a younger rival. Amazon has announced
that Merci Pour Ce Moment has become
an instant bestseller, topping "Forty Shades of Grey" as the
most-sold book in France so far. The English version will be available in
October.
TRADER MEETS
COMMUNISTS
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| Mélenchon welcomes Kerviel |
In another Only-in-France moment, convicted trader Jerôme
Kerviel, 37, who lost nearly €5 billion in risky derivative bets for his
employer Société Générale in 2008, was warmly welcomed at the Communist Party-organized
Fête de l'Humanité, an annual
festival for French and international left-wing political groups held in a
Paris suburb. Condemned to five years' imprisonment (two suspended) and
released from prison only days ago with an electronic ankle bracelet and a night
curfew, a happy Kerviel embraced Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder and until recently
co-president of the Left Party, and thanked him for his "unfailing support
through my darkest moments". Mélenchon in turn compared Kerviel to Captain Alfred Dreyfus: "the innocent victim of a corrupt system - in this case the
all-powerful world of finance that ultimately makes victims of all of us
citizens and taxpayers". The unlikely bedfellows were cheered as they
promised to fight together for more market regulation.
Société Générale denies that it knew of the risky trades but
Kerviel maintains that his bosses were aware of his actions and gave their tacit
approval, later making him the scapegoat for the bank. During his trial he
received wide support from a variety of leftist organizations who saw the Kerviel
case as a symbol of the wider failings of the financial system.
The three-day Fête de
l'Humanité was founded in 1930 and has been held every year with the
exception of the war years 1940-1944. It is a popular mix of left-wing politics
and a festival of music, food and wine, and draws many thousands of
participants.
STRIKES OF THE WEEK
After spending two weeks in the rather less excitable north
of Europe, I came back to an agitated France where this week alone several
strikes have been called: Pilots for Air
France-KLM kicked off a week-long strike starting on Monday 9/15, accusing the
airline of shifting jobs and operations to their low-cost carrier Transavia to
fight growing competition from popular budget carriers Easyjet and Ryan Air.
That same Monday, the French "Huissiers de
justice" (bailiffs) went on strike, to be followed on Wednesday by the
French "Notaires" (civil-law notaries) who plan to march in Paris
against the proposed reforms of their "regulated" profession. The
Huissiers announced that there would be no hearings and no process serving for
a week, hoping to temporarily paralyze the French judicial system.
Of the several hundred recognized professions in France, the
Finance Ministry is currently focusing on 37 "privileged" professions,
i.e., those that are in a monopoly position and can set high fees. They include
lawyers, notaires, commercial court clerks, bailiffs, certain health
professionals, dental technicians, real estate agents, but also driving
instructors.
The driving instructors will strike "for an unlimited
time from 9/15 on" because they object to the government's proposed
solution to reducing the long waits for a driving test by allowing certain gendarmes to assist in the testing. The waiting times in France are
the longest in Europe, with an average of 98 days for re-taking the test after
a first failure. A strike in June failed to produce results but caused 10,000
tests to be cancelled. This considerably worsened a situation which is said to
be due to a lack of inspectors and too many regulations. The gendarme solution
seems reasonable enough, but in France reason does not always prevail.
SAN FRANCISCO ESCAPADE
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| Filippetti and Montebourg |
WAIT AND CROSS FINGERS
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| Valls and Hollande, worried and waiting |
One thing seems certain: whatever the outcome, we are
looking at a bumpy road ahead.
