ATTAC and the Last Presidential Election

In case you would like to know what the French antiglobalization movement thinks of the last presidential election, ATTAC just released a collection of brief articles, including, among many others, contributions by Ignacio Ramonet, Susan George, Jacques Capdevielle, Gustave Massiah, Thomas Coutrot, Michel Husson, Philippe Corcuff, and François Chesnais.

Will There Be Representatives of Ethnic Minorities at the French National Assembly?

So far, there isn’t a single one. But things could change on Sunday, as the French will vote in the first ballot of the legislative election. The latest poll announces an overwhelming victory of the right, with 42% of the vote to Sarkozy’s UMP, 28% for the Socialists, and 8% for Bayrou’s new centrist party, the MoDem. As the PS and the MoDem keep invoking the need to avoid having a homogeneous National Assembly as an argument to support their candidates, what about ethnic diversity? How are ethnic minorities represented in the election? Do they stand a chance?

As you may know, the French don’t like to talk about ethnic minorities. Since the French Revolution, the Republic is allegedly made of universal citizens engaged in a direct relation with the state. There are no statistics about minorities; only about foreign-born citizens. Talking about ethnic identity makes you a “communitarian” guilty of undermining the sacro-sainte Republic. In France, ethnicity is like money: it’s everywhere but you can’t talk about it.

Although some intellectuals have been calling for a stronger presence of minorities in parliament and office, political parties stand far behind expectations. While the new Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, is getting a lot of media coverage, the UMP is presenting only 10 “minority” candidates. The PS does a bit better with 20 while the Greens and the Communist Party have about 50 minority candidates each. However, most of these candidates are running in tough districts that they are very unlikely to win. So one is tempted to conclude that they are just tokens.

In a chat on lemonde.fr today, Dominique Reynié, professor at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, predicted that the next National Assembly would be essentially composed of white males over 50, mostly public servants and retirees. So much for ethnic (and social or gender) diversity…

After the riots in the suburbs of Paris in the fall 2005, it’s a pity to see that French politicians are missing almost every opportunity they get to show that they got the message. It will take more than a President of Hungarian descent and a Minister of Justice of North African descent to convince poor ethnic minorities that the Republic actually has room for them.