France has never been as divided but I have never been as optimistic…
…and on Sunday I will vote twice for Macron (I have a procuration)
This morning I read this incredibly important article about the new economic divide in the US. It inspired me theses thoughts about what is going on in France.
I wanted to share them with you.
Currently roughly the country is divided in 4.
We have two poor classes one dominated by second-generation immigrants and one mostly white living in suburbia. Both voted for dangerous populist. Melenchon for the first one and Marine Le Pen for the second one.
In the privileged group cities and the creative class voted for Macron while older established and wealthy senior voted for Fillon.
Since last week, we now have 4 political forces in the country around the same size. This means a complete fragmentation and explosion of traditional electorate patterns.
In my opinion, this change was predictable because of these 4 groups of the population have been extremely well targeted by the politicians (and Facebook) who won them. It has also been exacerbated by a government who governed with the old model in mind and allowed this to happen.
The incredible cruelty of politics is that each population group hate each other now. At a time when they need each other the most.
Think about it
People who voted Le Pen needs young immigrants to do well so we can keep our incredibly unique social welfare state and improve their daily lives (free health care, free education and food at school, free cultural events….)
Old and wealthy people who voted Fillon should know that second-generation immigrants who did well are the doctors and in general a good part of the people that will take care of them when they are old.
Farmers need the creative class who voted Macron to be successful so we can turn around our agriculture into the organic age, increase price and make a better living. And Europe, which was created to support our agriculture even when it made no economic sense, would be the perfect platform to fund this transition.
White suburbia has been taught to hate immigrants when in fact they are as poor as them. Together they should fight to create better schools in abandoned regions and bring back quality cultural activities so their kids can have the possibility to be part of the next creative class instead of learning jobs disrupted by automation.
And the second generation of immigrants should seek for more social education and more mobility. They both need the help of the creative class to hire them and the support of the wealthy families to fund that transformation. Instead of being stigmatized, they should have been made aware that their success and contributions of the economy would put back the welfare state in order. Balanced social security budget because young and healthy people pay for older people’s expense. Retirement at 60 years old. No more security problems when everyone works.
France has a generous system (that I support) and a really well-functioning platform. We just have an imagination and ambition that doesn’t match our potential. We need to bring more imaginative politicans and better problem fixers but that will be for another post.
The next government will need to understand this 4 group dynamic and work to create a virtuous circle. But we need to go fast. As long as these groups are of similar political size and power we can act. If one group dominates then it will be very challenging.
Is Emmanuel Macron the person capable of doing this? We don’t know yet but we need to give him the opportunity to try and hopefully surround himself with people that can make things happen.
Next week I will vote for him twice (I have a proxy vote) and I will make sure everyone I know is doing the same.
Remind them there’s a third round election in June where we will have the opportunity to vote for a new parliament.
I have spent the whole year talking to people with such a different background and loved it so much. I see that the next mission of France is to make that virtuous circle work. I have never been so optimistic about its future than today.
We can only do that together.
But let’s vote first.
ps : procuration is the french word for Proxy ;)
