The publication of the program of the Socialist Party went almost unnoticed: no discordant
voices on the left; and almost no controversy on the right, but some criticisms for the
sake of it. Similarly, the program of the National Front has hardly raised any basic
reaction; and when the right will publish its proposals, we can expect the same
indifference.
This does not mean that these programs are not debatable: this one from the National
Front, if carried out, would lock up France in a suicidal head-to-head; the one from the
Socialist Party does not say a word about the situation of the unemployed, the fragility
of private banks, the collapse of competitiveness in the industry, the inevitable increase
in tax burden, the necessary progress of European integration, and many other subjects,
and finally, what is announced from the right is a dreadful race towards the extreme, at
the expense of all the founding values of the Republic.
This means first that the French people know that, anyway, because of the public debt,
these promises will not be kept: including those of the Socialist Party, which implies,
according to their own calculations, growth in GDP of 2, 5% per year as soon as 2012. More
generally, they know that the state, virtually insolvent, will not be able to do much, for
many years: the quinquennium of Nicolas Sarkozy will have exhausted all budgetary leeway.
They also know that the president has less and less power and that most of the promises of
the programs are within the competence of the Parliament, which will remain, after, to be
elected. Finally and most importantly they know that history is accelerating and future
challenges, national and international, are totally unpredictable, making any program
absurd.
So how to choose the next president? Basically, politics sends us back to figure skating:
in the competition represented by the presidential elections, the programs
represent compulsory figures. The campaign represents the free figures, which will allow
voters to judge whether candidates have the five qualities necessary for the exercise of
Presidential Office:
1. Self-respect and respect of the office: it goes from the way the candidate gets
dressed to the way he holds himself out in public, his handling of the French language, of
incarnating the country, in its greatness and history.
2. Understand the deep movements of the country, its anger and aspiration; anticipate
changing attitudes, technology, and global balance of power.
3. Defend against all odds all democratic values and human rights, which constitute the
real identity of France.
4. Inscribe their action in the long term, distinguish between the essential and the
ancillary and accept, if necessary, to be temporarily unpopular.
5. Being able to achieve compromises between conflicting views, in the country and in
international negotiations, even at the cost of abandoning some partisan objectives.
As in figure skating, in order for the jury, that is to say the voters, be not fooled by
cheap rubbish, it will require that the presidential campaign be not reduced to a duel of
pseudo gurus in communication and that candidates be forced to express their true
talents, to take the risk of being themselves: then truth alone will prevail.