Over the summer, President Sarkozy and the French Government have deported about 1,000 Roma people to Romania and Bulgaria. The mass expulsion of a community (based on ethnicity), the likes of which we have not seen in Europe since the Second World War, was duly met with widespread condemnation.

The European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution that Sarkozy put a stop to his expulsion of the Roma, calling the measures “discriminatory and contrary to Community law” and pointing out that that collective expulsions violate European law because they discriminate based on race.” So the question of whether this was a good or bad, legal or illegal is essentially over.

However, in an article on LabourList (here) Claude Moreas MEP made only the most superficial analysis of the political situation in France, which was callous at best and wrong at worst; so what I hope to do in this article is explain in detail the political reasons why Sarkozy ordered the Roma expulsion.

Part One : A Classic Power Struggle

Unsurprisingly, the motive for the Roma Expulsions can be traced to the beginning of summer between a minister and his contemporary, both of whom have their power bases where I live in Nice.

Christian Estrosi, the Mayor of Nice, an MP and Minister for Industry has always been a close friend of Nicolas Sarkozy. Estrosi, locally, has a friend called Eric Ciotti, who used to be his parliamentary aide until he was installed as President of the General Council (the Department of the Alpes-Maritimes) as a sort of deputy figure, and also became an MP.

Ciotti became the darling of his right-wing UMP party, earning the creative nickname “Monsieur Sécurité” thanks to his plans to punish the parents of troublesome teens. Meanwhile, Estrosi was involved in an expenses scandal over his daughters Parisian apartment. Appearing several times consecutively in Le Canard Enchainé (that’s like Private Eye) means the press smells blood.

So the apprentice began to eclipse the master. With a big reshuffle on the way, Estrosi was terrified that he would be kicked out and, even worse, that he would be made the junior partner to Ciotti. Even worse than that would be if Ciotti were to become Interior Minister – the classic springboard to the Presidency.

Estrosi had to catch up. He had to show that he could out-do Ciotti on security. He launched an attack way outside his brief with a plan to punish “laxist” mayors who didn’t do enough to protect their towns. It was born out of the Grenoble incident and at the same time a jab at the Socialist Party leader, Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille who has no security cameras in the streets. (Crime dropped by 0.9% in Aubry’s Lille compared to 0.5% in Estrosi’s Nice, by the way.)

Part Two: The Big Red Security button

In his LabourList piece, Moreas claimed that Sarkozy was

“Playing politics with peoples’ lives, he has reinforced his centre right constituency, attracting votes from people who may otherwise have been happier with Jean-Marie Le Pen’s ‘Front National’. As a strategy it’s working.”

What the Labour MEP forgot to add is that in March there will be elections for the departments (Cantonales for the Conseil Général). More importantly, these elections will be the last electoral test before the Presidentials in 2012.

However, Moreas was wrong to think that the “Steal Front National votes” strategy is working. Think back to last March and the Regional Elections, it was the FN that was able to steal UMP votes after a disastrous debate on National Identity. The Socialists won 21 out of 22 Regions.

So on the one hand we have the upcoming elections, and on the other we have the ministerial financial scandal “l’Affaire Woerth” that Sarkozy has been desperate to get off the front pages. He needed an opportunity to change to a higher gear.

Part Three : The Roma scapegoat

I wrote about the Grenoble incident nearer the time (a Roma was killed by a policeman which provoked other Roma to commit acts of vandalism), remarking that I thought it was strange that the President would get so involved in a relatively minor event.

I hope it’s clear now that I have put it in the wider context. This was the spark that lit the bonfire. Sarkozy had everything he needed to push the debate away from corruption and economics to security and immigration. Suddenly the Roma were perfect targets.

I return to the piece from Claude Moreas MEP:

“In fact, I recently led a delegation to meet Eric Besson, the French Europe Minister. [...] Sarkozy will not worry too much – he sees his actions as popular amongst centre and far right voters in France. As with the burka ban, he knows too that French Socialists may not go out on a limb to make this a national election issue.”

Two embarrassing and worrying errors here. Most concerning is the simple error that Eric Besson is not the French Europe Minister, he is in fact the Minister for Immigration, Integration and National Identity. This is important to understand not just because the Labour MEP didn’t know to whom he was talking, but moreover the title of “Immigration and National Identity” deliberately implies that the first is a menace to the second.

The other error is the claim that the Socialists won’t oppose the expulsions very seriously. It’s wrong because they (we?) have done, last Saturday in Nice alone around 5,000 people from the Socialists to the Greens to the Trade Unions to Human Rights organisations protested in the streets. Nice, I remind you, is one of the most pro-Sarkozy places in the country, and the home of dear Christian Estrosi.

Conclusion

For the elections, it is likely that the Roma will not be a central issue though, largely due to the fact that it has backfired spectacularly against Sarkozy. I think the Socialists will be more likely to use it as an example to paint the government as anti-republican. In any case, the Socialists would be wise not to rise to the bait but keep attacking on the Economy and Pension Reform.

The events this summer have brought shame on the French Republic, and Sarkozy has assaulted its key values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for his own cynical purposes. Certainly, the March elections will make an exciting run up to the 2012 Presidentials.

The Mayor of Nice decided without warning that the recordings would be cut, claiming that it was necessary to make economies.

He said that the practice costs the local government 25,000 euros per year. He runs the Conseil Municipal (the town of Nice) which serves about 450,000 citizens.

Here’s a video for francophones:

Compare this to the Conseil Régional, that serves the entire region of Provence, the Alpes and the Cote d’Azur (including  Nice), that’s about 4,781,000 people, with a much bigger number of councillors and hence a bigger room and presumably more cameras. To broadcast a meeting, it costs the region 2,000 euros.

The Region meets 5 times a year, so broadcasting costs 10,000 euros per year. Estrosi holds 4 meetings per year, the legal minimum. To reach his figure, over double the cost despite fewer meetings, his cameras must be made out of gold. Note that 4 times a year is the legal minimum for the Conseil Municipal to meet.

Also note that the propaganda “magazine” that gets distributed to everybody’s letterbox, as well as “letters from the mayor” costs the town 450,000 a year.

Having dispelled the money myth, the real reason he was to censor the broadcast is because it is the only source of unbiased, unfiltered news left. The Mayor’s office buys “advertising space” in the local paper, to the extent it provides a third of the newspaper’s total revenue.

Estrosi is simply trying to hide the truth, and by preventing the  recording of the council meetings he does a disservice to democracy and his electors.

The curfew forbids children from going out on the streets without an adult after 11pm on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
In principle, there is no reason for a minor to be out on the streets alone at night. However, this curfew is nothing but an ineffective and impractical publicity stunt.

Estrosi: “I said go to your room.”

Estrosi is showing a deeply authoritarian side to his personality, as was shown when he decided to ban street performers that had not passed his quality exam. (See my piece on that.)

In addition, this stunt has been designed to help Estrosi and his right-wing UMP party to make a few headlines on security issues just a few months before the regional elections. (More on them here and here).

The curfew is also impossible to administer and totally irresponsible. There are at most a little more than a dozen police patrols at night for 360,000 inhabitants. Children on the streets is not only a tiny problem, the police have much more frequent and serious crime incidents to deal with. The fact that Estrosi himself has closed 17 préfectures (police stations) makes matters worse.

In a typical fashion, Estrosi will be using the right hand to punish “offenders” by cutting and removing benefits instead of investigating why parents are letting their children out at night.

This is another trademark Estrosi policy; mad, worrying, dangerous and completely impossible. It’s Sarkozyism applied on a local level.

See the video here:

A classic weasel gaffe. “Um, well it depends on the size and weight of the letter.” etc. etc.

The journalist played a bit of a cruel trick. Estrosi guessed 52 cents, which is pretty close to the answer of 56 cents, but the interviewer called the bluff and asked “Really? 52 cents, are you sure?”

It is obvious what the response to this trick question should have been. “Look, I’m the Minister for Industry and the Mayor of Nice among other things. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a letter and if you think I have time to go to the post office to buy a few stamps you’re dead wrong!”

He could then have gone further and said “I don’t know how much a stamp costs, but as Minister for Industry, does it matter? It’s surely much more important that I know how many jobs are going to be lost when a firm closes, and how many we can save…”

Sadly, he couldn’t admit that he didn’t know the answer.

It’s not a serious scandal, just very humiliating because the post office is part of his mandate.

As such, the press officer of the Parti Socialiste, Xaier Garcia, has sent him a “don’t get ripped off” style book, “Combien ca coute?” (How much is it?), in the post.

My grandfather took part in WWII as a sergeant and though he is still alive, I always try to attend something to attest to that fact.

I think it’s important to note that the day is a public holiday in France, whereas in Britain we have just the two minutes between 1100 and 1102. There’s Remembrance Sunday for the parades and services. That in itself is a reflection of the national character, not to say the French don’t like working and ill find any excuse not to (ahem) but that the British spirit has always been to “keep calm and carry on” and the act of remembering is quite a private act.

At 1515, I met a friend at the Monument aux Morts (Monument to the dead) ready for 1530 for the “event” to start. It’s not a day for political point scoring, but I will add that Christian Estrosi kept the veterans waiting for 30 minutes before turning up so we could start. (Yes, yes, you’re right to boo him. Yes, Boooooo!) I also saw Lauriano Azinheirinha, the man who won the by-election in the summer. (That’s right, booooo again!)

Music started playing; of course the national anthem first; La Marseillaise but then I was surprised to hear Deutschland Uber Alles played because I don’t think this song in particular is politically correct in Germany. I was surprised to hear a German song anyway, though this brings me on to the content of the speeches and the day’s theme.

November 11 is very much a Franco-German affair here. It has become much Europeanized; even Ode to Joy was played, the not-the-anthem of the European Union. It goes back to when Président Mitterrand held hands with Helmut Kohl. Super Europeans.

That’s understandable, how November 11 in France is a day to remember war, but also peace, and to concentrate on the relationship, and having made up, and being united within Europe etc.

I think they pushed it a bit too far though.

France has had a very uncomfortable experience not just of war, but of dealing with the war in terms of its collective memory. (Get out your EU Studies Lecture bingo cards, uni friends!)

Thus, each year, particularly on VE day or Liberation Day, France rewrites its own history. Particularly in order to cope with Vichy France and the capitulation, the country has never quite come to terms with itself. General de Gaulle claimed that the Vichy government was “not France” and that the real France was with him, fighting on, it was the Resistance. It wasn’t quite like that.

This year after having heard the speech made by Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, a young person might be forgiven for thinking that France and Germany were in fact fighting on the same side against a common enemy.

As a final thought, I found the French service a lot more inspiring than a British one, partly because of the difference in the national anthems. Britain is a lot more gloomy and remorseful, while France tries to draw positive conclusions for the future. Both valid responses.

In fact, right-wing UMP Mayor Christian Estrosi has made Nice the champion of all of France… for local tax increases!

See the map for runners up:

The tax rises he has decided on this year will mean that a family in Nice will have to pay an extra 200 euros on average.

For certain property owners, the increase of 17% of the taxe d’habitation (living in a building) and 16.5% in the taxe foncière (owning a building) could be up to 900.

However, this money won’t be going towards neighbourhood improvement, or education, or social help for the elderly, or to create jobs. It will instead serve the financial requirements of the Mayor’s whims and pet projects. The failed candidacy to host the Olympic Games, the Balcons du Mercantour (the creation of a hiking route costing 20 millions euros) and cable cars to the Observatory…

Remember, it’s not just the Left who want to tax and spend, the Right are equally audacious. The difference is what they want to spend it on!

(French Speakers may wish to watch the report from France 2:)

This is unprecedented, despite other grandes villes like Paris and Marseilles already having a stable Vélo system in place.

What it really shows is the rapid increase of delinquency and anti-social behaviour in the city.

The security problems don’t lie with the Vélo company, Veloway, the affiliate of Veolia, but are really a consequence of the bad choices the Mayor Christian Estrosi has made since 2008.

Stop him, he’s getting away! (Estrosi)

For ideological reasons, Estrosi has constantly refused to increase the numbers of local policemen out on the streets to keep order in the city.

Instead, he persists to funnel investment into video surveillance and the over-equipment of existing police officers, such as his project to give them all tasers to play with.

Patrick Allemand, leader of the Opposition in the Conseil Municipal (Town Hall), said (in French):

The citizens of Nice do not need a « Robocop » but a human presence which dissuades crime and reassures citizens.

Furthermore, I have not seen one person wearing a helmet while riding these bikes. Not in the street, not in the adverts, not even Estrosi… though that might be a good thing!

Hubert Falco, who was widely tipped as the man to wrangle PACA from the Socialists, has officially refused orders to lead the UMP list.

The papers (including myself) were all too quick to draw the battle lines. However Falco’s refusal means that the UMP (particularly Sarkozy) is in substantial disarray, with no local candidate known well enough to take an important and symbolic prize.

Sarkozy has very little choice, given that he can no longer force Falco into it. After a public “no”, a public “well all right then” would not play very well in such a close contest.

The only real alternative could be Sarkozy’s minime, Christian Estrosi. Yet the Mayor of Nice also has far too many other jobs (including a ministerial post), and it’s a very risky proposition. By moving Estrosi to PACA, it creates a power vacuum in Nice, leaving the door open to anti-Sarkozyites in a key city.

Estrosi is thus unlikely to accept, which means Sarko is probably going to have to send someone down from Paris. French elections are highly localised, so without Falco the goalposts for the Socialists have just become that bit wider.

Most of my office time is spent in a branch of the Conseil Regional in Nice, a section mainly for civil servants, and apart from the incredibly pleasant atmosphere and kind people, it’s also a good place to be because the Socialists are in power.

However, the Regional Elections are taking place in March.

The Parti Socialiste took power from the Right in 1998 and has held it ever since, though in the present political climate coming from Paris, 2010 could be a difficult one.

Sarkozy is making it his business to reclaim a lot of regions lost to the Left in 2004, but PACA is on the top of his list along with Ile-de-France (No inside information from me on that one).

The pressure therefore rests on the Mayor of Toulon (and minister for veterans), Hubert Falco who is preparing himself to head the UMP list, though he has yet to officially declare it. PACA is fairly naturally right-wing, with Sarkozy himself winning 62% in 2007.

So on paper the region looks like it could fall to the Right in 2010, just as it looked in 1998. Normally, it would be a straight duel between the PS and the UMP, were it not for the far-right Front National.

Avoiding a Three-Way

The UMP’s biggest fear is that the Front gets more than 10% and thus qualifies to the second round, creating a PS vs. UMP vs. FN triangle. In 2004, the results were 45.18% vs. 33.82% vs. 21.00% respectively.

Clearly the FN is successful at sapping the support of the UMP, allowing the Left to jump ahead. It seems odd that the far-right would allow such a thing to happen. The explanation mainly comes from the FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, for whom PACA is his old stomping ground as an MEP for the South East, and so it comes from pride more than ambition.

Note here the stark lack of principle in Sarkozy compared to Chirac. Chirac would never do any deals with the FN and fired anyone who did (Not a No Platform, just a No Bargaining policy). Sarko, on the other hand, is determined to grab as much as he can, and the UMP have been in discussion with Philippe de Villiers and his far-right but not quite the Front team (MPF party, for you experts).

Hubert Falco, UMP, keeps his cards close to his chest

The regional level of the UMP is under a strict keep-quiet policy under Sarkozy’s orders. The line from HQ is nothing else than “We’re getting on with the task at hand.” Dealing with the recession and all that kind of thing; there’s an economic crisis going on, people aren’t bothered with silly things like elections that happen every six years.

Falco, set to be the local boss, will of course have to leave his city of Toulon, and the department, to which he claimed he was dearly attached. Much like how Estrosi said his only loyalty was to Nice before he became Minister for Industry.

Michel Vauzelle, Parti Socialiste, wants to keep the Left united

This gent is going for a third mandate as Monsieur Le Président de la Région PACA which is coincidentally how many times I have spoken to him. (We get on well.)

His plan is a coalition of the Left (if it worked before…) however, this typically does not include Communists who have their own group. This time, it probably won’t include the Greens, as they’ve gained a bit of confidence since the EU elections and want to go it alone. (Morons) Vauzelle’s response was “What do they think they’re playing at?” He’s a very good bloke.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Front National, wants to exact his revenge

As he’s past 80, these will be without doubt Le Pen’s last elections (Mark my words!), but he sees them as going to be triumphant. He didn’t run in 2004 because he was ineligible and left someone else at the top of the FN list, but with the big boss in town, the party might do surprisingly well. Last time when his part got about 20% he said the results were less than they were hoping for.

Le Pen’s strategy will be to go after those right-wingers taken in but then disappointed by Sarkozy, in addition to winning about 10% in the three “heaviest” departments. If they get past 10% in the regional, I won’t be the only one not surprised.

The Heavyweights

The local press has framed the election mainly as a “duel between left and right” with the two main parties in France likely to go through.

Xavier Garica: Parti Socialiste

My team! Xavier Garcia is the press spokesman for the Parti Socialiste and grew up in the constituency. He seems to be the only candidate with a consistent slogan “Pour mieux vivre dans notre quartier” (To improve life in our neighbourhood”) and a very good poster designer (not me). His website is also first rate.

We put out a questionnaire at the beginning of the campaign and had over 500 responses. Guess whose task it was to put the answers in a spreadsheet? Yo. At least now I know this section of town better than most residents of Nice.

His only potential weaknesses are the image of the PS at a national level (a mess) and the fact that he has never run for anything before. However, this could of course work in his favour compared to our adversary.

Lauriano Azinheirinha: Union pour un Mouvement Populaire

The “favourite” in that the UMP won the election first time round but were disqualified (The PS did not field a candidate; see the Greens). They have glossy leaflets and incumbency on their side.

However, the candidate is not particularly well known despite already being a Deputy Mayor. He is relying on the charisma and name recognition of Christian Estrosi. As you can see in the picture “Estrosi avec Lauriano!” and on all his literature the name Estrosi has been in bold. Dirty Tricks abundant, Estrosi even wrote a letter to the residents of the canton telling them who to vote for. TSK.

The problem with riding on Estrosi’s coattails is that they are plenty of anti-Estrosi people out there!

The Lightweights

Though there are other minor characters we’ve seen out and about:

Vincent Péchenot: Les Verts (Greens)

When the elections were officially taking place, the PS decided not to field their own candidate but make an agreement with the Greens, as they work together in the group Changer D’ère in the Mayoralty.

From what I gather, this gent is not really a viable candidate to go against the UMP war machine so the PS decided to take it upon themselves.

I’ve seen them out leafletting fairly frequently, though it was off to a slow start. One particular occasion they were riding around Pasteur on bicycles with green flags. That might work in Cimiez (lots of richy-ecologist types) but not so much in Pasteur. D’oh!

Then we have this not very interesting assortment of right-wingers, most of whom pitch them selves as “UMP without the UMP part” or just plain “No to Estrosi”. (Spot the Lib Dem)

The Loonies

And you can’t have 11 candidates without finding a few comedy gems and plain old nightmares!

Communists

Though the Parti Communiste is typically considered mainstream, I just haven’t quite got used tot eh idea that Communists still exist. The PCF campaign hasn’t been great at all, and their literature has been AWFUL. It’s a nice poster though, if a little cluttered by logos.

We haven’t seen much of this guy apart from posters, but he’s definitely my favourite after Xavier (for a different reason); I don’t know why, but everytime I pass his poster I die from laughing, perhaps you can figure it out:

Hahaha. It’s just brilliant. First, contrast it with the others and you notice a certain rough-and-ready quality.

Second, compare it with the official Communist Party candidate: The Black-and-White photo, OLD-SCHOOL! For all those who feel that the Communist Party is just too damn right wing these days! We need a PROPER communist around here.

I think it’s the Hammer and Sickle that gets me.

The Fascists

So we have the extreme Left, now take a look at the extreme Right:

Jean-Louis Faudi: Front National

The bigger brother of the BNP, the FN has been the subject of many questions posed to me.

First, it has to be said that the FN has not got a huge presence in Nice any more. It just to be very strong, but due to local internal fighting the organisation all but collapsed. You tend to find pockets of FN activity, but I haven’t seen any obvious activism as I think they only come out at night. I have seen areas with “Le Pen: President” stickers on lamp posts, and they have covered a fair bit of ground in terms of paper, but nothing slick.

Click on the poster above though, and you’ll notice a few things: One, he just looks plain evil, what with the squinting. Two, some have asked about  whether, like the BNP they have tried to “reinvent themselves.” I’ll point you to the black shirt. I’ll also point you to the mini picture of the Muslim women. The slogan reads “meme emballée, l’immigration n’est pas un cadeau” which means “Even wrapped up, Immigration is not a gift.”

Benoit Loeuillet: Nissa Rebelda

But for those of you out there who think the FN is for softy pinkos, there exists an even further right candidate for you!

This is, to my knowledge, the NiceIndependence  movement. You can see that some enterprising individual decided reveal his little Hiter ‘stache. The funny thing is he gave the kiss of death to Xavier in an interview where he said (roughly):

The only good surprise about this campaign has been that Garcia. At last! A lefty who is not afraid to talk about security. 2nd round, we vote for him.

Round 2

At the moment, I (like everyone else) am assuming that it is the UMP and the PS who will qualify, though the results will be announced officially tonight. Then it’s a straight head to head until the winner is decided next Sunday.

If all goes well, the Greens and Communists will come rallying to us. Conversely, it’s unlikely that the UMP guy, on such an overly pro-Estrosi platform, is going to win the support of the Far-Right or even the Centre-Right minor parties.