EU Referendum


Brexit: continental noise


21/11/2016




More so than for a long while, continental politics really matter to the UK as we gear up to the Brexit negotiations. And while there are events elsewhere in the continent which have relevance to us, the two big ones are going to be next year's German and French elections.

Thus, as the UK debate stalls, bogged down in ignorance and trivia, we need to be listening to the continental noise for a while. After all, it is over the Channel where events will shape the EU response to whatever proposals the UK puts to them.

The key event of this weekend was the French presidential primaries for the "conservative" UMP, where the shock outcome was a defeat for Nicolas Sarkozy, who now pulls out of the running. That leaves two former French prime ministers François Fillon and Alain Juppé to vie for the conservative nomination the final run-off.

According to France 24, Fillon (pictured above) stunned his opponents by taking more that 44 percent of the vote, well ahead of Juppé (28 percent) and Sarkozy on a mere 20 percent.

The former president has conceded defeat and endorsed Fillon for the nomination. A Catholic traditionalist who takes a hard line on Islamism, likes Russia and wants to cut half a million civil servant jobs, is in a commanding position for the next round.

Sarkozy said in his concession speech: "I have no bitterness, I have no sadness, and I wish the best for my country". Turnout was much higher than expected, with between 3.9 and 4.3 million voters coming out on a cold, rainy, windy Sunday and waiting for up to an hour and a half to cast their ballots.

In the other half of the Franco-German motor, while Fillon was basking in his victory, Angela Merkel announced that she wanted to run for a fourth term as German chancellor.

At 62, Merkel is only two years older than Theresa May, but has a lifetime more of leadership experience. Nevertheless, she faces a voter backlash over her open-door migrant policy – to an extent that there were some who thought she might not even stand again.

With that in mind, she says she had thought long and hard before eventually deciding to stand again in the September election. "The decision for a fourth term is - after 11 years in office - anything but trivial - for the country, the party and, I say it consciously in this order, for me personally," she told reporters.

Yet, despite the reservations, an Emnid poll on Sunday showed that some 55 percent of Germans want Merkel, Germany's eighth chancellor since World War Two, to serve a fourth term, with 39 percent against, indicating that despite setbacks, she is still an electoral asset.

"Angela Merkel is the answer to the populism of this time. She is, as it were, the anti-Trump," party ally Stanislaw Tillich, premier of the state of Saxony, told the RND newspaper group, adding she stood for reliability and predictability.

In German presidential politics, it is often these factors which dominate the actual vote. And in the voting intentions poll, also carried out by Emnid, Merkel's conservative bloc took 33 percent, down one point but still ahead of her nearest rivals, the Social Democrats (SPD), with whom she shares power.

In a system where coalition governments are the norm, many pollsters see another 'grand coalition' as the most likely option after the election, although the rise of the AfD makes coalition arithmetic more complicated. On the other hand, the SPD has not decided whether its chairman Sigmar Gabriel, Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister, will run against Merkel so, for the moment, the final shape of the contest has yet to emerge.

Back in France, the obvious concerns are whether the established parties are capable of facing up to the challenge from Marine le Pen, and it is regarded as almost certain that she will make the final run-off in the presidential election.

However, we have been here before. In the first round of the 2002 election on 21 April, it was assumed that Jacques Chirac and socialist Lionel Jospin would make the running. Unexpectedly, though, Jean-Marie Le Pen bumped Jospin to take second place.

As a result, almost all French political parties called for their supporters to vote against Le Pen, including the socialists and many that had previously been opposed to Chirac.

Relying on the uncomplimentary slogan, "Vote for the crook not the fascist", Chirac went on to win the biggest landslide in a French presidential election (greater even than that of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1848, the first by direct ballot), winning over 82 percent of the vote. There is every indication that the socialists could be marshalling their supporters to do the same thing this time round.

By the time a victor is declared, we expect the Brexit negotiations to have been running for some months – unless the Article 50 notice is delayed – but it will only be then that we'll be able to see which way the wind is blowing. Then, only one thing is almost for certain: there will be a different French face at the table.