In his “A Tale of Two Cities” English novelist Charles Dickens uses the French Revolution as a background for the claim, never openly stated, for superiority of the British political system. Here are two European nations tracing their ancestry to ancient Greece and Rome and cradled in Christian culture, yet, when it comes to politics, acting at opposite ends of the spectrum.
The lesson the reader is supposed to learn from Dickens’ novel is that common historical background and religious traditions are no guarantee for similarity of political culture.
Fast forward to last week as Britain and France held general elections.
The two neighbors, allies for more than a century, are members of NATO since 1949 and had been members of the European Union for decades before the UK gambled its future on Brexit.
Last week’s general election attracted 60 percent of the registered voters in Britain and 65 percent in France with dramatically different results.
In the UK, the opposition Labour Party collected around 30 percent of the votes but won 414 of the House of Commons’ 650 seats, the largest victory for any party since 1997. In the previous election in 2019 when voter turnout was 67 percent, the party received 32 percent of the votes but obtained only 202 seats-its lowest since 1935.
In other words, Labour won twice as many seats with a lower share of the vote.
What happened in France was different.
In the second decisive round, voter turnout of 65 percent was the highest in decades.
The ultra-right National Rally (RN) collected 37 percent of the votes, higher than Labour did in UK, but won only 143 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly.
The left coalition of New Popular Front (NPF) won 180 seats with 26 percent of the votes. Coming first in number of seats, NPF now demands the right to name the prime minister and form a government.
In other words, both in Britain and France you may get around or even less than 3O percent of the votes and yet secure a chance to form the government.
Not surprisingly, cyberspace has been buzzing with attacks on democracy as a system of government. Apologists for authoritarianism mockingly say: We thought democracy meant government by the majority! Tongue-in-cheek, they claim that France has become ungovernable and may even be heading for civil war.
The authoritarian parrots are wrong on all accounts.
To start with, democracy is the government of the people by the people for the people not just the rule of a majority in one or more elections.
It is a social contract about how to exercise the political power needed to govern a nation, resolve its inevitable contradictions, provide public services and ensure security from domestic criminals and foreign foes.
Elections that could be held with many different rules is one way of forming the administration needed to perform those tasks. What is important is that all participants, including the losers, know and accept the rules of the game.
That has been the case in both Britain and France even when most of the adult population, including women, did not have the right to vote. Today that consensus is stronger than ever.
In Britain, the two-party system is in need of reform on two accounts.
First the over-representation of Scotland in number of seats needs to be reviewed. Next, a dose of proportional representation could reduce the gap between the percentage of votes collected and the number of seats allocated.
In 1997, Tony Blair promised action on both those issues but reneged on it.
France may have a few weeks or months of haggling and horse-trading before a new cabinet is in place. As the only country in the European Union with a presidential system in which parliament is often treated as Cinderella, France needs to become more “European”, that is to say, develop a political system in which forming coalitions is regarded as an art rather than a peccadillo or even a sin.
French editorialists warn of “return to the IVth republic” when the nation witnessed the rise and fall of 22 governments in just a decade, as if France faced expulsion from heaven and dispatching to hell.
The lachrymose editorials forget that the French 3rd republic, also a parliament centered regime, succeeded in weaning France away from the authoritarian imperial system and healing the wounds of Napoleon III (Badinguet’s) crushing military defeat and the savage civil war that followed.
French colleagues may curse me for saying this.
But the IVth republic wasn’t the disaster they claim.
Sure, the cabinets were short-lived but French democracy continued to deepen its roots.
The IVth republic healed the wounds of the Second World War, ended the witch-hunt against “collaborators” and restored the rule of law instead of retribution.
It also started winding down the French Empire by getting out of Indochina and launching the de-colonialization process in Africa.
It sought a way out of the crisis in Algeria which couldn’t be treated as a colony because it was organized as an integral part of French national territory.
The IVth republic, benefiting from the Marshal Plan, rebuilt the infrastructure damaged in World War II and recorded the fastest economic growth rate in Europe.
Under the IVth republic France joined NATO, maintained its veto-wielding position at the UN Security Council, achieved reconciliation with Germany after a century of hostility and hatred, and laid the foundations for the European Common market, later the European Union.
In just a decade France - defeated in World War II and humiliated under Nazi occupation - re-emerged as a big player on the international scene as a major industrial, scientific and cultural power and the world’s 3rd biggest exporter of modern weaponry.
Unlike the Vth republic which regards politics as the art of unanimity if not uniformity the IVth republic learned the art of unity in diversity.
A French colleague says those were the days of “backroom deals” and “humiliating compromises.” But who said politics was a stage for choir-boys?
In a democracy, politics is like a chaotic, noisy and often dirty kitchen that, nevertheless, produces the dishes that, if not always mouth-watering, keep society in good health.
