Thatcherite French politician ready to win race to take on the far Right
FRANCE is today expected to elect its first truly Thatcherite leader of the Right, with François Fillon in pole position to take on an ebullient far-Right Front National (FN).
A last-minute poll showed Mr Fillon, a former prime minister, winning the presidential primary nomination for his Republicains party, with 61 per cent of the vote, against 39 per cent for his older, more moderate rival, Alain Juppé.
The race to see who will almost certainly face Marine Le Pen of the FN in a presidential run-off next year has attracted huge interest in France, drawing four million voters to the polls in the first round.
Mr Fillon was seen as a no-hoper even a month ago, but at his final rally in Paris on Friday, up to 10,000 flagwaving supporters roared as they were told France must “change everything so that nothing will change”. The quote perhaps best sums up the “tornado” of support, as he called it, for the 62-yearold, whose Welsh wife, Penelope, was beaming from the front row.
A Fillon victory could usher in what some are calling a “Conservative revolution” via a Gallic brand of Thatcherism, mixing economic liberalism with social conservatism, the likes of which France has never seen.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the president from 2007 to 2012, under whom Mr Fillon served as brow-beaten prime minister, was knocked out in a shock first-round result after a checkered first mandate.
Crucially, Mr Fillon has enticed a normally discreet part of the French electorate – the ageing, socially conservative bourgeoisie from its provinces – to take an interest in the debate.
The father of five, from the rural Sarthe in western France, has spoken out for the sort of traditional, Catholic family values that sparked mass protests against gay marriage in 2013.
He has declared himself against multiculturalism and on Friday demanded that “the Islamic religion accept what all the others have accepted in the past… that radicalism and provocation have no place here”.
Almost half of those who backed him last Sunday were retirees. They appear ready to break with France’s statist tradition to try out Mr Fillon’s unabashed free-market programme, provided he takes on the unions and restores France’s international standing.
He has pledged to slash half a million state jobs, jettison the 35-hour week and pay civil servants 37 hours for working 39 – measures his rival calls “brutal” and unworkable.
Antoine Lescop, 63, who was a classmate of Mr Fillon, said: “He is in some ways reminiscent of of Mrs Thatcher.
“We know we’re going to go through tough moments. When he takes these measures, there will undoubtedly be strikes, street protests, and it’s up to us to accept this and support him.”
Mr Lescop said France was ripe for change after five years of listless socialist rule under François Hollande, during which time unemployment and public debt have surged.
“I think there is an awareness not present five years ago that we are really on the edge of the abyss,” said Mr Lescop. He was attracted, he says, to the politician’s plan to ban medically assisted procreation for lesbians and to restrict homosexuals’ adoption rights.
“We were almost made to feel under the socialists that having a traditional family and children was bad.”
Patrick Buisson, a leading electoral analyst, said a Fillon victory would be a sea change for the French Right.
A Fillon win would limit the ability of Marine Le Pen to make progress among the Right-wing electorate “and that is a major development,” he said.
‘There is an awareness not present five years ago that France is really on the edge of the abyss’