I have witnessed three exceptional moments of contemporary life in France. In 1968, the May student movement. In 1981, the coming into power of the Socialist president, Francois Mitterrand. And now, in 1997, the election victory of Lionel Jospin and again, of the Socialist Party.
If May 1968 was the idealistic extreme of French Socialism and Mitterrand's presidency its pragmatic extreme, does Lionel Jos-pin's victory represent a desirable balance between the ideal and the practical?The Parisian May of 1968 shook the entire world. It was a prelude to a year of youthful rebellions, from the streets of Tokyo, to the Berkeley campus and to the bloody Plaza of the Three Cultures (Tlatelolco) in Mexico.
Politically, the May 1968 movements failed when the French Communist Party prohibited the working class from participating in the student movement and when President Charles de Gaulle fully displayed his genius for political strategies and tactics. In any case, the "May Revolution" only claimed one life and that, by accident. Tlatelolco has not yet accounted for its many dead. The difference between a de Gaulle and a Diaz Ordaz, the Mexican president at the time.
But the legacy of the young Parisians was immense. While it did not contain the wave of consumerism, technology and neo-liberalism that swept over most of the world, it did offer a prophetic warning of the dangers of separating economics from the social objectives of politics.
If May 1968 represents the idealistic extreme of French socialism, the long presidency - 14 years - of Mitterrand represented its pragmatic extreme.
Mitterrand's leftist spurt was soon held in check by political and economic realities. France was forced to live with the reactionary and interventionist presidency of Ronald Reagan of the United States and with the irrefutable success of the German economy, the locomotive of European integration.
Within an unfavorable climate, Mitterrand nevertheless opposed Reagan by defending peace and diplomacy against the use of North American military force in Central America. The joint declaration of the Mexican and French foreign ministers Jorge Castaneda and Claude Cheysson on El Salvador in 1981 and Mitterrand's support of the Contadora peace talks offer proof of a will to exercise reason in the face of the inevitable social and political changes in Latin America.
On the other hand, if Mitterrand made ideological concessions internally, he also demonstrated two things. First, that with social democracy in power and without sacrificing the market economy, it was possible to defend and extend the social conquests upon which European prosperity is based. Second, that a Socialist government could create market reforms that even the right does not dare to carry out.
It was Mitterrand who brought an end to the anachronistic economic laws that the right had not dared to touch: He eliminated currency control, artificial price regulation and recurring inflation. He did this, moreover, as a loyal member of European integration, as a traditional French Imperialist (his politics of selling arms to various petty tyrants in Africa and the Mideast) and, all the while, shoving Reagan's nose into his face.
Today, Jospin comes into power within a Europe largely situated left-of-center. Eleven European governments belong to social democracy. Only two - that of Helmut) Kohl in Germany and that of (Jose Maria) Aznar in Spain - are of the right. And both are experiencing difficulties. Kohl, because he dared to play games with finances to mask Germany's inability to meet the criteria for a European Common currency. Aznar, because he insists on leaving behind the climate of normalization and civility of post-Franco political life by sowing strange vendettas against those politicians and media who don't please him.
But the European norm, confirmed by Jospin's victory, is the left-of-center - democratic socialism. The electoral victory of the Socialist Party and its allies in France represent three things:
- First, the lack of confidence in neo-liberal politics and the majority decision to bring together economic obligations with social obligations. The French electorate has stated loudly and clearly that the market is not an end in itself but rather a means of satisfying the needs of the majority. Without human capital there is no social capital, and without social capital there is no financial capital.
- Second, the confidence that exercising the vote and alternating teams brings not only credibility but also efficiency to the democratic life of a nation. President Jacques Chirac, whether willing or not, has obtained this result.
- Third, that for all the talk of globalization, politics is above all a local matter. Globalization without localization is little more than a phantom. It is a danger that places societies at the mercy of a minority of multinational corporations and of a fleeting abundance of investments that, like the swallows, are here today and gone tomorrow. Uncontrolled, globalized markets can become a synonym for robbery.
No government in the world, however, deserves more support than that which its electorate is willing to lend it. This unfortunately, was learned too late by Chirac, the great loser in this battle. If, however, Chirac converts cohabitation with the left into an intelligent political strategy of cooperation, his will be, speaking in paradox, a Pyrrhic defeat.