News from the New Party

Signs of realignment in France

Thanks to Daniel Finkelstein for alerting us to this intriguing article by the French writer and philosopher André Glucksmann, who has declared his support for Nicolas Sarkozy in the forthcoming French Presidential Election. Daniel thinks it is an important article - so do we. The author is in traditional terms a man of the left, who nevertheless has recognised that the traditional left has abandoned the Enlightenment values which Sarkozy has clearly espoused. This quotation from Sarkozy cited by Glucksmann is striking:

'I don't believe in what people call 'realpolitik', which rejects values and still doesn't win any deals. I don't accept what's going on in Chechnya, since 250,000 dead or persecuted Chechens are more than a detail of world history. Because General de Gaulle wanted freedom for everyone, the right to liberty is theirs, too. To be silent is to be an accomplice, and I don't want to be any dictator's accomplice'

To this kind of thing the left these days (in France, as here) has little to say by way of meaningful response:

Wallowing in its narcissism, the left found itself badly wanting when Nicolas Sarkozy broke with every tradition of the right and claimed to stand for the rebels and the oppressed, as well as the young communist agitator Guy Môquet, martyred Muslim women, Simone Veil (who eradicated the suffering caused by clandestine abortions), Brother Christian à Tibhirine, and the Spanish Republicans. Instead of bemoaning the way he has appropriated the socialist legacy, allow me to rejoice. When I recognise Victor Hugo, Jean Jaurès, Georges Mandel, Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Albert Camus in this candidate's speeches, I feel somewhat at home.

In a presidential campaign it's useful to ruthlessly emphasise differences. It's also normal to point out candidates' shortcomings. But this should be on condition that we don't eliminate our opponents by questioning their nationality, like the socialist politician who inveighed against the 'American neoconservative with a French passport'. Exiling people, and stigmatising them as anti-French, was for a long time the prerogative of a right which could come up with few answers to the successes of Léon Blum or Roger Salengro. The left deserves better that that.

Glucksmann does not agree with every item of Sarkozy's programme (and though France's problems are for France to solve, we probably would not either), nevertheless this is an interesting indication of how traditional labels of left and right are losing their old meaning in the new circumstances since 9/11 and the War on Terror. It is encouraging to see continental Europeans fight back against the darkening of the continent by creeping totalitarianism. The fight for the Enlightenment has come home.