SUSAN GEORGE interview by NICK BUXTON
Political & social scientist/activist/writer Susan George PHOTO/Wikipedia
In an interview with the TNI’s Nick Buxton, social scientist and activist Susan George reflects on the French Presidential Elections.
How do you feel after Macron’s victory?
Relieved. I was sick of the elections, I think the entire country was exhausted with the whole thing. I wasn’t afraid of a Le Pen victory as I had been earlier. The polls were unanimous that the gap was too big to cover for the far Right in a couple of weeks. However, this election has created huge divisions particularly on the Left and has revealed a very fragmented France. The Front National thankfully lost, but also scored a record vote in the sense that they doubled their vote.
What drove the record high support for Le Pen?
The reasons are similar to those driving Brexit, Trump and other events. This is what you get after 40 years of neoliberalism. Inequality has increased dramatically, unemployment is stuck at about 10 percent and people feel excluded, and are justifiably worried that their children will be worse off than they are.
Le Pen’s votes came from de-industrialised regions of the North, from rural areas feeling left out of French concerns and from people who have low and falling incomes and poor education.
And it’s true that these groups have been pretty much neglected by all governments for the last 30 years. In terms of rural areas, for example, French and European policies have favoured the Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA), representing the biggest rich farmers who receive nearly all the subsidies under EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, while small farmers get little or nothing.
It’s ironic that the big issues in these neglected parts of the country target immigrants and terrorists, who barely can be found in these communities let alone threaten them, but sometimes these simplistic answers are easier than analysing what’s really happening in society, which has been a huge transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich or the rural to the urban.
What did you think of the rise of Mélenchon, who was covered in international press as a surprise development in the election but ultimately failed to make the second round?
Well, from the outside he may have been an unknown figure, but inside France he’s been a prominent figure for the past ten years. He was a Socialist Party member but left in 2008, fed up with its conservatism. He participated as a left candidate in the last election (2012) and got an equal hearing but came across as an accusatory, loud, ‘angry’ candidate. He learned his lessons or mellowed with age – he’s now 65 – because this time he came across as amiable, smart and eloquent.
He is solidly left and has some very good ideas – in my view he is one of the few political leaders to have completely absorbed the theoretical and practical implications of putting the environment at the forefront and our need for a green transition. He has been an impressive speaker, charming crowds, particularly of young people, at mass events where he has spoken eloquently without notes and with the backup of a great tech team (appearing physically in one city and simultaneously in hologram in five others for example) and backed up by a sophisticated social media strategy.
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