Back to the Future: Alain
Juppé's Star Is Rising in France
By
Julia Amalia Heyer
Many
see Alain Juppé as boring. But the conservative former French prime
minister is still the best liked candidate ahead of next year's
presidential elections. He could thwart Nicolas Sarkozy's comeback
and send President François Hollande into retirement.
August 30, 2016 –
02:55 PM
On a recent summer
morning, Alain Juppé is visiting Roger André, a butcher in the town
of Perpignan, to sample his pâté. After each bite, Juppé purrs
with pleasure and commends the butcher with nods of approval.
The thermometer
shows more than 30 degrees Celsius, yet Juppé is wearing a dark suit
with a patterned tie. He hasn't even taken off his jacket. He is
surrounded by his advisers and local politicians, all men and all of
them wearing suits, except for his personal photographer and two
journalists from a local radio station.
Juppé and his
entourage are touring the Departement Pyrénées-Orientales, France's
southernmost tip on the Spanish border. "Visiting the market"
is on the day's agenda, though the market is no more than four stands
in front of a police station. There are hardly any passersby and
Juppé and his men represent a majority of the visitors.
Alain Juppé is the
mayor of Bordeaux and is the most promising candidate from his party,
Les Républicains, when the French go to the polls next year to elect
a new president. In the primaries this November, the 71-year-old
wants to finally achieve what he failed to do for so many years: be
chosen by the French conservative party as its presidential nominee.
And then be elected president. Juppé has been in politics for nearly
half a century and things have never looked better for him.
Former French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, likewise from Les Républicains, also
announced his candidacy for the primaries this week, but polls
suggest that 80 percent of French people are uninterested in having
him lead their country again. Voters prefer Juppé, and they like him
even more than the incumbent, French President Francois Hollande, and
the right-wing populist candidate Marine Le Pen. Their unpopularity
is Juppé's chance.
He has been on the
road for months now, visiting recycling centers in Le Puy-en-Velay
and women's associations in Bretagne. He has even flown to the
overseas territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia to present
his platform to voters there. That, in fact, is why Juppé is now at
a butcher's stand sampling pâté. It doesn't bother him that the
market is nearly empty: Juppé isn't the kind of person who enjoys
shaking hands or patting people's shoulders.
'Best Among Us'
The butcher shakes
his head as Juppé and his men in black disappear. Roger André, 55,
is a friendly, corpulent man. "He's not going to save us and he
won't help us either," André says of Juppé. "He's part of
the old guard. What this country needs is for the younger generation
to take the helm."
Alain Juppé was
once prime minister and party chairman. He has also headed up the
foreign, budget and environment ministries at various times. But
there's one thing he has never been: particularly popular. As a
graduate of France's best schools, he has always been regarded as
highly intelligent -- and highly arrogant. His former mentor, Jacques
Chirac, referred to him as "the best among us."
Reluctant campaigner
Alain Juppé on the trail in June
Despite his good
election prospects, there's still something sad about Juppé. He's
been leading national polls for months, yet he still seems like a man
of the past, like a symbol of the difficulty his country is facing in
renewing both itself and its cadre of elites. In the late 1970s,
Juppé began working for Jacques Chirac, who was prime minister at
the time. He was promoted to his first ministerial post in 1986 and
became prime minister in 1995. In 1997, he was forced to resign in
the face of massive protests against his attempted reforms and was
regarded as one of the least popular prime ministers of the Fifth
Republic.
Juppé's current
popularity can primarily be attributed to desperation. There are
simply no better options.
The current
president, Francois Hollande, has little chance of re-election. He's
even more unpopular today than his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy was
when he was ousted in 2012. Still, both Hollande and Sarkozy appear
to want nothing more than to face off against one another one more
time. Each of them seems convinced that popular aversion to the other
is greater than their own unpopularity. Should such a political
rematch come to pass, the greatest beneficiary would be Marine Le
Pen, who is already rubbing her hands with delight behind the scenes.
Painful Platform
As such, Juppé's
candidacy is a significant source of irritation. It's an
inconvenience for Hollande, because the incumbent wants to position
himself as a moderate, and it thwarts Sarkozy, who is pursuing a
right-wing campaign strategy.
Alain Juppé's
platform seems reasonable in a lot of ways. He has set out to do
exactly what so many people have been saying needs to be done for so
long: He wants a smaller government and less spending. He wants to
extend the French work week to 39 hours from 35. He wants to raise
the retirement age to 65 from 62. He wants to unburden business and
boost the economy by lowering non-wage costs. He even openly admits
that his plans are going to be painful.
Nicolas Sarkozy, by
contrast, has reworked his old strategy of imitating the Front
National in an effort to win back voters who have drifted to the far
right. He rails against multicultural society, particularly against
Muslims, and intends to abolish guarantees that every child born in
France automatically gets French citizenship. He wants Muslim
children to eat pork in school cafeterias and headscarves to be
banned at universities. But his strategy has not had the desired
effect thus far. A majority of French voters simply don't trust him
anymore. Sarkozy's most influential adviser when he was president,
Alain Minc, has come out publicly in favor of Juppé.
Conservative
presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy
As such, the biggest
question in the coming months is whether Juppé or Sarkozy will win
the Républicains nomination. Juppé's problem isn't just that
Sarkozy is able to bounce back from defeats better than any other
French politician, as the Republican chairman, Sarkozy has also
brought the party to heel. He can never be counted out.
Still, Juppé has a
clear advantage for the time being, with surveys showing that while
nearly three-quarters of party supporters view him favorably, only
half support Sarkozy. In the past, "Sarko" always came out
on top in political duels between the two. Perhaps things will turn
out differently this time around.
Searching for
Peaceful Coexistence
Either way, it would
be tough to find two candidates who are more different. Whereas
Nicolas Sarkozy overlays everything with peripatetic emotionalism,
with exaggeration, hyperbole, bluster and flattery, Juppé is more
sober, merely announcing what he intends to do in a given situation.
Whereas Sarkozy
paints a picture of a France on the edge of the abyss and of himself
as the only viable savior, Alain Juppé talks about his concept of an
"identité heureuse," a happy identity, by which he means
that a more or less peaceful coexistence is indeed possible.
While Sarkozy
bellows his messages across France in an aggressive tone that is both
too fervent and too grim, Juppé is plagued by a lack of passion. He
sounds thoughtful, but not ardent. During his tenure as prime
minister, a Gaullist party colleague once told him that France could
not be led "like an administrative board." Can someone win
an election if he treats party policies like a bookkeeper checking
off inventory?
In interviews with
Juppé about his plans for the country, the candidate seems highly
practiced, to put it nicely. If he were president, what would he do
first? "I would like to win back the trust of the French. They
should once again be proud to be French," he says.
Juppé has
established three goals for his presidency: better education for
young people; a stronger, more assertive state, especially in matters
of domestic security; and full employment. He repeats these goals no
matter who he is talking to, usually verbatim.
Juppé spreads his
tan, well groomed hands over the tablecloth as he talks about the
chasm of trust between citizens and "the ones who govern us."
It's a curious choice of words for someone who's belonged to the
latter group for decades. But it's an absurdity that reappears
whenever elections approach in France. Those who have long borne
responsibility for all that has happened inside the country, whether
on the right or the left, suddenly claim to be part of a rebirth.
Juppé doesn't like
to be reminded of his hapless stint at the helm of France's
government. He says he "accomplished great things" for his
country and his city. He's been the mayor of Bordeaux for 20 years
now, and even those who don't much care for him admit that he has
been good for the city. Bordeaux now has a tram and bicycle lanes,
and the city center has become a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Past Transgressions
But even Juppé
shares responsibility for French politics losing their credibility.
He wasn't only a protégé of Chirac's, he was also his henchman and
vassal. As his deputy within the Paris municipal government, Juppé
was involved in the dark side of city politics, from jobs that only
existed on paper to dubious invoices. And Juppé was there as senior
city officials were making themselves comfortable in decadent
apartments in the upscale Saint-Germain-des-Près neighborhood for
unimaginably low rents.
One of the most
prominent tenants at the time was Alain Juppé. He had secured
himself a six-room pad with a veranda along noble Rue Jacob. And his
rent was a meager 13,000 francs a month, or less than 2,000 euros
($2,240) -- half the market price. Before moving in, Juppé spent
half a million francs renovating the apartment -- a bill that was
paid using taxpayer money. His son, daughter, half-brother and
ex-wife were also able to move into extravagant apartments.
When asked about his
extraordinary living conditions at the time, Juppé's expression
hardens. "Those times are long gone," he says. The French
people know he's not a dishonest man and he never enriched himself,
Juppé says. Still, unreasonably low rents are inarguably financially
advantageous.
"The laws back
then were complicated," he says. For Juppé, the boost in
popularity he is experiencing is also a vote of confidence.
His political career
appeared to have come to an end more than once. After losing his job
as prime minister in 1997, he was sentenced in 2004 to one year of
ineligibility for office following a scandal involving illegal party
financing. Then in 2007, after being appointed environment minister
by Sarkozy, he had to immediately relinquish the post because he lost
his parliamentary mandate in elections.
Maybe that's why he
is so assiduously making the rounds these days, because he still has
trouble relating -- not with issues, but with people. His audience
may be interested, even attentive, but they are never excited.
Softer and More
Indulgent
During a recent
visit to a seaside resort on the Mediterranean, Juppé stood out like
a sore thumb as he walked along the harbor. There he was, a man in a
dark suit in a sea of flip-flop-wearing beachgoers and their brightly
colored swim toys. The photographers were thrilled when he bought a
scoop of strawberry sorbet, but when they were done snapping
pictures, Juppé threw his ice cream away.
When a man in a
Mykonos T-shift slapped Juppé on the shoulder and exclaimed, "Good
luck!" he winced with fright. Often, Juppé just strides by the
crowds of people; it's his staff members who do the hand-shaking and
chatting with onlookers.
People who know
Juppé say he has grown softer and more indulgent over the years,
that he's no longer the cold technocrat who graduated from Ena,
Sciences Po and École normale supérieure -- three of the most elite
schools France has to offer. But he still seems to be most at ease
among those like him.
Juppé says he only
wants to stay in office for a single term, which is perhaps his
biggest selling point. It takes the wind out of the sails of those
who say he's too old to be president. The outcome of the
Républicains' primary is still wide open. It remains to be seen what
will ultimately convince voters -- Sarkozy's platform of fear or
Juppé's demonstrative composure. If he can manage to secure his own
party's nomination, it seems likely that his path to the presidency
will be open.
On that summer day
in Perpignan, after sampling pâté at the market in the morning, he
has another campaign event in a gymnasium. Juppé has changed his
shirt and suit after the long day, but the heat remains trapped
inside the gym.
Lowest Common
Denominator
The city's deputy
mayor introduces Juppé with an enthusiastic, effusive speech of the
kind the presidential candidate could never deliver himself. Juppé,
the local politician says, is an Ultima Ratio of sorts, the last
resort. And a voice of reason. He is, the deputy mayor intimates, the
antidote to the chaos sowed by Francois Hollande and Front National.
When Juppé takes
the stage, he uses his first few sentences to describe the state of
the world and that of his country. He paints a picture of a world
stricken by fear and endangered by ever new threats. Nevertheless,
Juppé says, his voice as dull as ever, "we can't destroy
everything now."
He doesn't want
barriers between Germany and France or border controls within the
European Union. "That would be an historical regression,"
he says, adding that Muslims are a part of France. "Our strength
lies in our diversity."
Such sentiments
aren't often heard in contemporary France, especially not from
someone running for public office. They are well received, in part
because of the unemotional tone in which they are delivered.
And because there
doesn't appear to be a better option on the table. It is a sad truth
about Alain Juppé's candidacy: Even if the French choose him as
their country's next president next year, it won't be out of
enthusiasm. It will be because he is the lowest common denominator in
a divided country.
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