DIGNITY, liberty and authority. With this Gaullist trinity at the centre of his campaign, François Fillon has secured the primary nomination of the French centre-right Republicans for next year’s presidential election. With over 95% of the vote counted he had won a resounding 67% of the votes, to 33% for his run-off opponent, Alain Juppé. “Now,” declared Mr Fillon in his sober victory speech, “I need to convince the whole country.”
It was a stunning victory by one former prime minister over another. Barely a month ago, polls showed Mr Fillon trailing in fourth place. But his promises to restore respect to the presidency, freedom to the economy and firmness to social policy resonated with the country’s traditional centre-right, which turned out en masse to make sure that his name would be the one on the presidential ballot next year.
Mr Fillon’s nomination represents both a form of reassurance for the centre-right, and a massive gamble. Reassurance because he is in tune with a provincial, conservative Catholic part of the electorate that feels that the French presidency has been damaged over the past decade—first by Nicolas Sarkozy on the centre-right, then by François Hollande, the current president, on the centre-left. Mr Fillon has sounded a tough note on immigration, warned about “Islamic totalitarianism” and voted against the legalisation of gay marriage. This speaks to those on the right who judged Mr Juppé too moderate and close to the centre, but Mr Sarkozy too volatile and rough-edged.
It is also a gamble, because Mr Fillon’s economic programme represents a radical attempt to take on the trade unions and shake up France’s sluggish economy. He unapologetically invoked Britain’s Margaret Thatcher during the campaign, an unusual reference point in a country with a lingering suspicion of free markets and a deep reverence for the state. Mr Fillon promises to shrink the public sector (which currently accounts for 57% of GDP, second only to Finland among OECD members), cut 500,000 civil-service jobs, abolish the 35-hour working week limit and squeeze the official labour code from over 3,000 pages to just 150.
Although Mr Fillon made it clear during the primary campaign that putting such a programme into place would be difficult, he judges that the French are ready for it. This seems to be an empirical observation based on his travels through France over the past couple of years, in which he has encountered disillusionment at the failure of successive presidents on the right and the left to revive the economy and bring down unemployment. If the existing model has not worked, argues Mr Fillon, surely it is time to try what others—in Germany, Canada, Britain and elsewhere—have done.
This blend of social traditionalism and economic liberalism resembles Germany’s Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. It is strikingly different from the usual French Gaullist formula.
It also raises two questions ahead of next year’s presidential election. The first is whether it is the right mix to take voters away from Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front (FN), who is likely to enter the presidential run-off against Mr Fillon. In his favour, his tough talk on immigration and Islam, as well as his strong family policy, mean Ms Le Pen will find it harder to contrast herself with him than she would have with Mr Juppé. The same goes for his friendliness with Vladimir Putin and his calls for a rapprochement with Russia, which chime with similar longstanding demands on her part. Two polls published after his victory suggest that he could beat her to the top place in first-round voting at the presidential election.
The second question is whether Mr Fillon would be able to convince left-wing voters to back him in order to block her victory. Ms Le Pen draws much support from former left-wing voters in declining industrial areas of northern and eastern France. She will doubtless aim her fire at his economic reforms, portraying him as a threat to the French welfare system. The FN leader will also deride the attempt by the 62-year-old ex-prime minister to distance himself from Mr Sarkozy, whom he served as prime minister. A canny and opportunistic operator, she will not be short of ammunition.
Plenty of voters on the left deeply dislike both Mr Fillon’s economic and social policies. Already Libération, a left-leaning newspaper, has splashed a photo montage blending his face with that of Thatcher on the front page. The country’s biggest union has warned that it will be on the streets if the centre-right wins. During the primary, Mr Juppé spoke darkly of the “brutality” of Mr Fillon’s economic programme. After his primary win, one Socialist deputy called it “violent and dangerous”.
In the six months left before the French presidential election, and with the Socialists’ own primary due to be held in January, there will be a sustained assault from the left on Mr Fillon. This could test his capacity ultimately to appeal to a broad electorate in order to thwart Ms Le Pen.
