Forgive me if I sound a touch complacent at the news that Francois Hollande has fallen on his sword. In announcing on Thursday night that he won’t be seeking re-election in the spring, Holland has become the first president in the 58-year history of the Fifth Republic to make such a decision.
It was the right one. The wrong one was made by all those millions of French men and women four and a half years ago who gave Hollande their vote. I remember well the evening of 6 May. I went out for supper with a friend and on the metro home I passed through Solferino, the station closest to the Socialist HQ in Paris. Hordes of exultant young Socialists boarded the metro, intoxicated with victory, their eyes bright with triumph. They were still singing and cheering when I alighted, and the jubilation continued for days. I was a little more sceptical, writing in my diary that night: ‘It was a vote against [Nicolas] Sarkozy rather than a vote for Hollande, an affable but mediocre Socialist. He’s promised an end to austerity; I look forward to seeing how he achieves that.’
Ending austerity was just one of the pledges Hollande made when he addressed thousands of supporters in the Place de la Bastille in Paris on the evening of 6 May .’I am the president of the youth of France! I am the president of all the collective pride of France!’ he thundered. ‘Carry this message far! Remember for the rest of your life this great gathering at the Bastille because it must give a taste to other peoples, to the whole of Europe, of the change that is coming. In all the capitals, beyond government leaders and state leaders, there are people who, thanks to us, are hoping, are looking to us and want to put an end to austerity.’
It’s hard not to laugh on re-reading those words. Change came to France, all right, and what grim change it has been. Even the most ardent supporter of Hollande would struggle to oppose the motion that his reign has been the most catastrophic since the Fifth Republic began in 1958.
It’s a challenge to convey to those outside France the extent to which the nation’s morale is shot to bits. Not just the unemployment, the inertia, and the ongoing fight against Islamic terrorism, but the day-to-day crime that blights the lives of so many in France. Hours before Hollande made his historic announcement, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in his Marseille school by a 15-year-old. It was the latest in a string of such attacks in French schools this year.
During Hollande’s reign, France has reached levels of lawlessness that are frightening. These are the crimes that rarely get reported overseas – unless it involves Kim Kardashian being robbed of her jewellery in an exclusive Paris residence In the last year alone fire crews, lured to fictitious blazes, have been ambushed by gangs of youths; buses have been hijacked and torched; hospital staff have been viciously assaulted and schools have been fire-bombed. The one story that did make international headlines was in October when a mob attacked two police cars in the Parisian suburb of Viry-Châtillon. That incident led to a fortnight of protests from police throughout France as they vented their anger against a government and a judiciary they accused of failing to protect them in the face of the growing urban disorder.
On that May day in 2012 when Hollande was elected president, the Greeks also went to the poll to vote in the legislative elections. Noting the fact in my diary, I wrote that they were ‘predictably shambolic and anarchy beckons’. I could have been talking about France under Francois Hollande.
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