US embassy cable - 05PARIS6439

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 006439 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2014 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, FR, GM, EUN 
SUBJECT: FRENCH REACTION TO GERMAN ELECTION RESULTS; MOSTLY 
ABOUT US 
 
 
Classified By: PolMC Josiah Rosenblatt for reasons 1.4 (B & D). 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  By and large, French politicians have 
interpreted the results of the German elections through 
purely partisan lenses -- and with an eye on the 2007 
presidential elections in France.  They find in this 
weekend's results across the Rhine primarily cautionary 
lessons against party splintering and an over-ambitious 
reform agenda that would call into question the French and 
German social models.  Foreign Ministry and international 
affairs commentators are concerned more with the prospects 
for re-energizing the Franco-German couple as the "motor of 
Europe" to overcome current EU paralysis following French and 
Dutch rejection of the constitutional treaty.  The French 
public seems largely to have shrugged off the way the French 
media has dramatized a "crisis of power" in Germany, given 
that the German parliamentary system is very different from 
the French presidential system.  That said, Germany's current 
parliamentary gridlock, to the degree that it is seen as 
democratically reflecting a fragmented and divided public, 
torn between the need for reform and fears of its 
consequences, mirrors the quandary in which the French 
electors also find themselves.  End summary. 
 
Fear of reform 
-------------- 
 
3.  (C) French politicians and commentators have almost 
uniformly viewed the German elections through the prism of 
the politics of reform.  Defense Minister Michelle 
Alliot-Marie's asserted in a TV interview that German voters 
had clearly rejected a fully "liberal" (that is, free-market) 
social model by not giving CDU leader Angela Merkel a clear 
mandate for change.  As a Chirac loyalist and supporter of 
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in his ambition to 
succeed Chirac, Alliot-Marie's point was that the French 
should prefer Villepin and his program of "social growth," 
aimed at adapting and preserving the French social model, to 
the more radical reforms advocated by Interior Minister 
Nicolas Sarkozy. 
 
4.  (C) Sarkozy himself has asserted the importance of France 
and Germany being "in phase" with each other, with his calls 
for reform echoing those of Merkel on the other side of the 
Rhine.  There is a general sense here that Merkel clearly 
underestimated the fears that her calls for more radical 
economic reform would engender among a German electorate 
loath to lose its comforts and entitlements.  This translates 
in France to a warning signal for Nicolas Sarkozy that his 
strategy of a dramatic break with the past, based on a more 
"Anglo-Saxon" and "liberal" economic vision, may not be in 
phase with a clear majority of the French electorate, either. 
 
Fear of splintering 
------------------- 
 
5.  (C) The rise of the smaller parties in Germany has also 
given rise to reflections about the dangers of a split within 
the main parties, along the lines of those who voted for or 
against the EU constitutional treaty.  Bernard Accoyer, head 
of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), conceding 
that "the divided state of German society parallels that of 
French society," warned against divisions that could bring 
"disproportionate" influence to extremist factions.  Many 
mainstream politicians in France fear that tensions within 
the center-right and center-left in France could potentially 
lead, given France's two-round presidential system and its 
tradition of large protest votes, to the unexpected victory 
(at least in the first round) of a marginal candidate from 
the far right or the far left (such as happened in the last 
elections, when Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked France by polling 
better than Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin). 
 
6.  (C) In the case of the UMP, the latter split boils down 
to the competition between PM de Villepin, increasingly 
regarded as President Chirac's heir in waiting, and Interior 
Minister Sarkozy with his calls for more of a break with the 
politics of the past.  An independent candidacy by whichever 
one of them is not designated by the UMP could prove 
catastrophic for the center-right.  Among the socialists, 
there exists the (lesser) risk of a split between the 
centrist party leadership led by Party Secretary Francois 
Hollande (and including heavyweights such as Dominique 
Strauss-Kahn and Jack Lang) and the anti-EU leftists whom 
former PM Laurent Fabius is attempting to bring under his 
wing. 
 
Fears of a paralyzed EU 
----------------------- 
 
7.  (C) As would be expected, the Foreign Ministry has 
insisted that the GOF is prepared to work together with 
whatever German government is formed.  Catherine Colonna, the 
Minister-Delegate responsible for European relations, has 
affirmed publicly that the elections will have no impact on 
bilateral relations.  She has also stressed that, now as 
before, the Franco-German relationship can be expected to 
continue to act as the creative "motor" for the European 
Union.  But it is difficult for many here to imagine how a 
weak German coalition government can contribute to overcoming 
the current crisis in the EU following demise of the European 
constitutional treaty.  The failure of the German elections 
to produce either a clear mandate for liberal reforms or a 
clear mandate against them leads to the conclusion here that 
the Franco-German couple, and by extension the EU itself, 
will only muddle along at least until after the 2007 French 
presidential elections. 
 
Fears of too much democracy 
--------------------------- 
 
8.  (C) Calls have been growing in France for some time, 
largely in reaction to President Chirac's quasi-monarchial 
dominance of all government institutions, to introduce more 
democracy through a system of proportional representation. 
The muddled results of the German elections, with their 
complicated proportional system and variable coalition 
geometries, will reinforce the view in France that it is 
better to err on the side of clarity and effective government 
(for a notoriously "ungovernable" people), even if this 
occurs at the expense of slightly less democracy.  Former 
President Giscard d'Estaing's first take on the results was 
that they showed the wisdom of the French two-round and 
British first-past-the-post systems, which are designed to 
guarantee unambiguously a winner. 
 
France is different 
------------------- 
 
9.  (C) Whatever the lessons to be found in the German 
elections, one cannot discount French exceptionalism.  France 
does not automatically follow German or other European 
electoral trends.  Indeed, as the President of the National 
Assembly's USA-France Friendship Group, Axel Poniatowski 
recently told the Ambassador, historically France and Germany 
have never been "in phase," to use Sarkozy's term.  If one 
had a leftist government, the other tilted to the right, and 
vice versa.  In sum, for a variety of reasons, not the least 
of which are structural, it thus seems unlikely that the 
muddled outcome of the German elections can or will be 
reproduced in France. 
 
 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
STAPLETON