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Pointing fingers at Morocco through spying allegations (the infamous Pegasus saga), accusations of human rights violations; instigating resolution(s) of the European parliament to smear Morocco; supporting or driving the publications of a series of rushed articles against Morocco and its King; foregrounding, the wrongs and shortcomings of Morocco, and the generalization of all this to the rest of Africa… Thus has our friend France behaved over the past months and years.
And yet, as the French establishment continues to lecture others about democracy and human rights, the rest of us cannot help but ask: Is France still the democracy that we thought it was, that it still thinks it is, with the right to give lessons to the rest of the world? Perhaps yes, but perhaps also, and above all, no. And this confusion over France’s democratic credential is due to several elements, all of them contained in one generic name: Emmanuel Macron.
Since President Macron was elected, the balance of power between rulers and citizens in France has never witnessed so much conflict since 1958. Meanwhile, France’s relations with the outside world, which now seem to depend on the government rather than on the French diplomatic corps long known for its sense of nuance and its mastery of the art of subtlety, have also greatly suffered.
France’s decline as a democracy can be attributed to four main factors:
1/ The permanent policy of forced passage of legislation
Macron’s government is currently in limbo because of its permanent dismissal of the French people’s needs and demands. Most recently, the Macron government proposed a five, even ten-year pension reform project (2017-2027). According to polls, the project has been comprehensively rejected by more than two-thirds of the French population.
Despite such strong, widespread opposition, the Macron government is still fixated on passing the project into law. Since the government has failed to secure a majority at the parliament, it has stubbornly chosen to bypass the parliament’s rejection of its controversial reform project that many say will change the lives of the French people for the worse.
So, in defiance of the French people and its representatives at the parliament, Macron, long decried for his attitude of contempt for and detachment from ordinary citizens’ lives and concerns, has yet again chosen to enact a reform for the simple reason that he believes he knows more than the French people what’s best for them and their country. And should the masses take to the streets to express their frustration and rage, they are relentlessly met with tear gas. Forced passage of legislation and contempt for the masses have thus become defining markers of Macron’s France.
2/ The increasing dependence of the press
Slanted journalism is another marker of France under Macron. Over the past years and months, journalists have been suspended while the president himself has given instructions regarding what French media ought to say or emphasize when covering topics pertaining to France’s strategic interests. Meanwhile, the fact that the French government spends annually 30 million in aid to the press has rendered the country’s once respected leading media outlets dependent on and obedient to the government.
With the war in Ukraine, Russia Today and Sputnik have purely and simply been banned in France, and anyone with an opinion that differs from the prevailing doxa is systematically prevented from appearing on public or private television.
And when it comes to covering Islam and the situation in Israel, there is a set of predefined talking points to adhere to; any offender is immediately hunted down and ostracized. The same is true of the French media’s coverage of other important, controversial themes, such as the debates around the LGBT community. Finally, it is increasingly rare to find people calmly debating Macron’s diplomacy and the setbacks it has suffered… in Europe, Africa and the Indo-Pacific.
3/ The systematic repression of anti-government protests
Everyone remembers the behavior of the French police during the Yellow Vests crisis, with systematic use of so-called “sub-lethal” weapons. The result was 24 blindings, 5 hands torn off, and 11 directly or indirectly related deaths clashes between mostly masked police and brutally hunted demonstrators. While both the UN and the EU expressed concerns over the French police’s treatment of the Yellow Vests movement, no consequential changes came out of such verbal condemnations of police brutality.
Instead, since then, any demonstration involving the intervention of the French police has resulted in disproportionate use of force to the point that this has created a wide controversy over the techniques and the place of the police in cities across France. So normalized has police brutality been that, ultimately, legitimate violence has become routine violence in Macron’s France.
4/ The planned breakdown of the French political scene
Even before President Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, the technique used by his camp was to promote the confrontation of the two major political families that had driven the political history of France’s 5th Republic. The goal was to poach some, interest others, play on the antagonisms of some against others — all in hopes of weakening everyone. And the end result has been the paralysis of the entire French political class. In turn, this has offered fertile ground to extremist views, with desperate political parties developing an ever more extremist, radical and radically exacerbated discourse.
Every country knows its difficulties and its constraints, but any policy depends on those who design it and put it into practice. For the last 10 years and with the changes the world has witnessed and the emerging issues at stake in the international arena, national histories have been accelerating even as political authorities are trying to adapt to the emerging, disruptive realities.Since Jacques Chirac, France has experienced policies as different as those of the Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande presidencies, but both still tried to maintain relative restraint and worked to preserve the country’s place in the world.
Today, however, the teams surrounding Emmanuel Macron are not known for their experience or their “maturity,” let alone for their propensity to question themselves and seek advice. The current system installed in France has therefore become an accelerator of history. Its arrogance is spreading and becoming the rule, while the rules of propriety and benevolence have disappeared.
The result is that chaos reigns in France today, and the French model no longer makes people dream in Africa. African youths are now looking for other models, or a syncretism of models, to install in their respective countries.
This has resulted in the birth of a movement that currently seems to be in its infancy: the vigorous and wholehearted rejection of the former colonizer in many Francophone countries in Africa. And it is a pity for the “country of the Enlightenment” that is moving away from the democracy it invented, having forgotten what democracy means and how it functions.
