There is so much bad news that we are not able to see the good. We know about the bad news. Next Sunday, the French far right could come to power. Even if it does not occur, Europe’s second-largest power is in danger of becoming ungovernable for a long time to come. Germany is not in much better shape, and so the whole Union is weakening at the very moment when war is taking hold on its eastern border, when total chaos is threatening the Middle East, and when the United States is turning away from Europe and the Mediterranean to focus on Asia and the Chinese challenge.
At the same time, the most powerful of democracies is likely to have to choose, in November, between an erratic former president and an incumbent who has problem with diction. Europe and the United States, all the Western democracies are staggering today to the point where they seem ready to fall into the mouths of Mr Putin and Mr Xi, but are we really there already?
No, absolutely not, and the first reason for this is that both the Russian and Chinese dictatorships have huge vulnerabilities. China’s young people are experiencing mass unemployment. The best young Russian graduates have chosen exile since the start of the war in Ukraine. The Chinese economy cannot do without the world market, and particularly not the Western markets. The Russian economy is managing to circumvent many of the Western sanctions and to keep its arms industry going. Its growth remains solid but the war is absorbing such a large part of the national budget that the country is in fact out of breath.
The West is faltering but, with their feet of clay, dictatorships are better suited to hybrid warfare than to real wars, and as for the rest…
Back to the point. The American presidential election has left the United States a power adrift, divided, humiliated and profoundly ridiculous. Never before has America experienced such a moment, but let us imagine that Joe Biden ends up withdrawing from the race, that a young successor, male or female, takes over, whose mere entry on the scene renders Trump obsolete and that the United States then opens a new page that would give a serious blow to the Russian and Chinese presidents.
There is no certainty here, but this scenario is not only possible. Necessity makes it very plausible, and on the other side of the Atlantic, things could also turn out less badly than we think, maybe even better.
The far right has taken root in France, as it has resurfaced everywhere, but it has regressed considerably between the European elections three weeks ago and the first round of legislative elections. Despite the merger of a portion of the governmental right, it now has just 33% of the vote, down from 40%. The Rassemblement National has lost some 10 points, the united lefts are only 5 points behind and, although they have slipped to third place, the Macronist centres have regained nearly 6 points.
This means that two thirds of France do not want the far right and that there is a small but real chance that Ms Le Pen’s party will not obtain the absolute majority on 7 July that would enable it to govern. Nothing is certain, but if the Lepenists are to remain in opposition, the right, left and centre would have to learn the art of government contracts and coalitions between opposing forces.
This would not be easy, as it would be a new art for France. It would be more than insecure, but would it be totally impossible, necessity being the law, for the left, right and centre to define common priorities, including the switch to proportional representation, and implement them before new elections in a year’s time?
Even if this does not happen, the very fact that people are starting to discuss it in Paris marks a change of era, heralding a new France, more like its European partners, more pragmatic and more capable of reaching political compromises. Germany, for its part, could regain stability with the return to power of a right wing that is confident enough to promote political change in the Union alongside France, Poland and Italy, if it so wishes.
At the end of the tunnel, there are lights and then…
Three more things. On Thursday, the British people will turn their backs on eight years of populism. With a second round of voting and the rise of a reformer, the course of the Iranian presidential election reflects the unpopularity of the theocracy and the strength of the people’s aspirations for freedom. It is all the more comforting that a young man in his forties, Péter Magyar, seems to be succeeding in organising a credible opposition in Hungary, the cradle of illiberalism.
Democracy is not dead.