From Les 4 Vérités:

The election of Ségolène Royal would be a disaster

On this evening of April 22 where I write these lines, the French political landscape has become clear, as could be predicted. The center attempt to make a comeback with some combination of eating one’s cake and having it, along with the rolling pin, the flour, and the hot stove was relegated to the storeroom of ephemeral props, along with the narrow schemes – in the style of the Fourth Republic – of alternative “liberals” who are “liberal” only in name.

In spite of the attempts of the National Front to appeal to xenophobia and to Pétain-era nationalism, and to flirt with anti-Semitism, the Le Pen effect has waned, even though it remains at an elevated level, which is very revealing of the “French malaise.”

Villiers didn’t find a space to affirm the values of a France that has withered despite ambient nostalgia. Arlette was no more successful on the extreme left.

The confrontation of the second round of elections will be in keeping, globally, with the classic confrontation between the right, embodied by the UMP, and the left, embodied by the Socialist Party. Later, one will be able to think about what could comfortably be done to avoid the somewhat ludicrous pantomime that was the first round of elections, from the frantic race to gather five hundred signatures to the moronic rule that affords rigorously equal speaking time to both a representative of a large movement and to one of a small fringe group or to a gathering of fishermen: why not have a single election preceded by primaries of the left and right?

For the time being, one must think of the immediate future. We have Ségolène, the incompetent, half-witted, and arrogant representative of a party that, along with the entire French Left, has not known how to shift with modern times and remains stuck in a mode of reasoning that seems a throwback to the time of oil lamps. Opposite, we have Sarkozy, a man whose virtues and shortcomings I have already described in these columns.

Among his virtues is an understanding of the extent of the disaster on the brink of which this country finds itself. Among his shortcomings are the elements of interventionism, of state control, and of Bonapartism, which are, alas, very French.

Ségolène’s election would be a disaster that I do not want to think about, not even for an instant. This would not be a repetition of 1981 twenty-six years later. This would be a lot more serious. The economic suicide that we have been committing already seems irreversible; another five years of destruction will cause it to be not only irreversible, but even more destructive. To entrust a 20th century economy that suffers from lack of vigor and from exhaustion to someone that believes in terms of 19th century solutions would fall under what I would call an absolute, but slow, downfall. There would be a soporific sweetness in the air, of kind intentions, of intentions that are like those of a nurse that hasn’t anything more to offer than end-of-life care, until that moment when the soft, sweet, and ultimate sting of euthanasia must come.

The election of Sarkozy will open a new era. There will, perhaps, be some riots or, at the very least, tensions in suburbs. There will be hate and electricity in the air, and intellectual “anti-Sarko” terrorism will leave some traces. Sarkozy must choose very quickly between two options. Appeasement or confrontation. And I doubt that appeasement is truly an option. If Sarkozy intends to put France right, if he intends to truly reconcile the population of this old country, exhausted with the new century, it will come to pass after a very difficult initial period.

On the evening of May 6, if Sarkozy’s face is displayed on the television, I expect to see torched cars in Courneuve or in Nanterre, at the very least, or even more intense acts of violence. In previous writing, I said that France had an urgent need for a Reaganite or Thatcherite revolution. I think it’s true now more than ever. I also think that this revolution will be difficult: Thatcher had to deal with long strikes. Sarkozy should expect, at a minimum, the same kind of treatment.