France stumbles into darkness

The blood-dimmed tide rises

Photo by Pedro Lastra on Unsplash

Emmanuel Macron is the most impressive world leader operating today. 

He is a genuine intellectual, who somehow managed to secure executive power - an almost unheard-of accomplishment. He grounds his political leadership in a coherent philosophical tradition derived from Paul Ricoeur, which seeks to dismantle either-or propositions in favour of both-and. He is an antidote to binary thinking and tribalism. He is a proud proponent of the open worldview, which seeks to liberate the world rather than lock it down. He is a visionary on Europe, the one figure who understands its historic responsibility and the things that are required to make it a reality. He is not just an impressive leader, but also a great man. 

He is also responsible for what we are seeing in France today. One of the great European states stumbling on the edge of the abyss, teetering on the brink of far-right rule. 

People will look at last night's election results and conclude that Macron made a strategic misjudgement in calling the election. That is true. But in fact the core strategic misjudgement might be more profound than that. It lies in the heart of his entire political project: the idea of centrism as a distinct political force with its own political party, rather than a tradition operating inside the existing political parties. 

Until Macron, centrist forces in France pulled at right and left from within the main parties, albeit rather weakly. This is also the manner in which we conduct politics in the UK, with One Nation forces in the Conservative party and moderates in the Labour party pulling their respective organisations towards the centre. Roy Jenkins tried to do a Macron and create a centrist political party withh the SDP in the 1980s. It didn't take. First-past-the-post is too brutal towards smaller outfits.

When Macron launched En Marche in 2016, he changed everything. He destroyed the traditional right and left. At the time, against the backdrop of Brexit and Donald Trump, it seemed like an extraordinary success. But wiser liberal voices were already raising a warning.

What happens in the aftermath of such a revolution, they asked? If the right-left dynamic was gone, what would replace it? Well the answer to that was unnerving. Elections fundamentally changed. They become not about right versus left, but about the centre vs the extremes. And there was an anxiety in the background of that, a sense of fear. Eventually, you'd spin the barrel and the chamber would have a bullet in it. Eventually the centre would lose. And when it did, it would not result in a government torn between extreme and moderation, but one defined by its extremity.

Well now it seems we have reached that place. Marine Le Pen is knocking at the door of power, through the medium of party leader Jordan Bardella. And it is not just happening in France. It is happening everywhere. 

We are somewhat blinded in Britain to what's happening in the rest of the world because our own narrative is so different. Here, a mainstream-populist Frankenstein’s Monster Conservative party is finally being defeated by a resurgent Labour party.

It's funny. For a while we seemed to have gone mad all by ourselves. Brexit turned us into an international pariah, a laughing stock. Now everything is reversed. We seem suddenly sensible and composed. But all around us, the dominoes are falling.

Today marks the beginning of Hungary’s six-month presidency of the EU, under the leadership of Europe's far-right godfather Viktor Orban. Yesterday, he formed a new populist far-right grouping in the European parliament, with Le Pen’s National Rally and Matteo Salvini’s League set to join. In the US, last week's disastrous debate performance by Joe Biden fundamentally altered expectations for the election, arguably making it more likely than not that Trump will win. 

At the top of the pyramid is one man: Vladimir Putin. He is the closest thing to a fascist in the modern period, the one figure who more than any other deserves the label. He engages in wars of territorial expansion. He undermines and then eradicates democracy. He aims to oppress minorities. He stands, most of all, for authority over liberty - the removal of individual rights, of free speech, liberal institutions, self-determination.

They are all his pawns. Each and every one. Le Pen and Orban support him in Europe. Trump supports him in the US. Farage supports him in the UK, albeit disingenuously and without the courage to state it outright. It is perfectly possible - probable even - that before the end of the year, Trump can kill Ukraine's support from the US while Orban and Le Pen kill it from Europe.

And once Putin has taken what he wants there, there is nothing to stop him continuing. We are at a moment now where truly terrible global outcomes are clearly visible. This is why serious people speak of the possibility of world war, because it is actually quite easy to imagine the pathways by which it would come about.

Is there a solution to what is happening? No. Or rather, if there is one, it's not yet obvious. But we can still learn things from what we are witnessing around us.

First of all, populism must be recognised as the challenge of our era. It is the story that will define our lifetimes. It is the most significant threat to peace and democracy that we have faced since the Second World War. You cannot defeat it without recognising it.

Second, there is no one way to destroy it. There is no set plan that can be adopted from place to place. 

Macron's way involved smashing the left and right and creating a new centrist force. It is failing. Biden's way was to try to ameliorate many of the material conditions which gave rise to Trumpism, by returning supply chains to the US, pumping money into the economy and spreading economic rewards. It is failing. Proportional electoral systems allow populists to sit in parliament. They are failing. First-past-the-post systems mostly prevent populists securing seats in parliament. They are failing.

Third, we should not become too emotional with our allies about tactical differences.

There's a tremendous amount of anger out there today from anti-populists berating other anti-populists because they chose the wrong course of action. Critics of Biden are outraged that the Democrats haven't gotten rid of him. Biden supporters point out that there is no one obvious successor and polling anyway doesn't suggest they'd do any better. Critics of Macron are outraged that the French president took a gamble on the election. Supporters of Macron think that holding off for another two was as risky as calling Le Pen's bluff. 

You can understand why. The stakes are so high. But the truth is, none of us is really certain of the right thing to do. We all want the same thing: For Le Pen to lose. For Trump to be defeated. We should be as generous as possible with those who share our values but come to different tactical conclusions.

Honestly, for all we know, the answer is actually much more superficial and non-ideological. 

Perhaps we are simply seeing a global wave of resentment against the status quo due to the economic chaos which followed covid and Ukraine. The reason that Britain therefore seems like a diamond in the rough is precisely because we fell to populism first. With a populist Conservative party in power, the anti-incumbent mood swung against them in Labour's favour. Elsewhere, with more moderate figures in power, the same happens in populism's favour. If so, none of these tactical considerations even make a difference. It’s all preordained by remorseless geopolitical dynamics.

Fourth, and most importantly: we should be willing to work with anyone. We should be willing to cooperate with anyone at all - on right, left or centre - who is prepared to fight for liberal democratic values against the populists. Anyone who recognises that the threat we face takes precedence over our normal right-left tribal enmity. Anyone who shares our belief that advocates for liberal democracy have much more that unites than divides them.

Slim pickings, admittedly. But all that's available on a day as grim as today.