With a presidential election in April, could France show Europe how to move left?
Across Europe, a widespread assumption has been that the combination of the cold economic climate, harsh austerity measures, and general disillusionment with politicians boosts the electoral chances of the populist right. The French presidential race, where Marine Le Pen offers a soft-ish version of the far-right option for the National Front, will be one of the first tests of this hypothesis.
It is possible, though, to conceive of another, quite different scenario that would have the effect of changing the political face of today's Europe almost as much. Instead of handing more power to the far right, Europe could take a decisive turn to the left. France, where the first round of the presidential election takes place on 22 April, will be the first test of this hypothesis, too.
Let us suppose, though, that it is the face of François Hollande that French viewers see forming on their television screens at 8pm on election night. Let us further suppose that the same factors that brought him to power give him a National Assembly with a left-of-centre complexion a few weeks later. Let us then take the same line of thinking a little further and posit that elections which are due in Greece in the first half of the year and likely in Italy in the second half also turn up left-leaning governments or coalitions.
Then consider a further possibility: that by 2013, German voters are not only fed up with the continuing euro-crisis, but bored with two terms of Chancellor Merkel and frustrated with the ineptitude of her second coalition. If Germans then decide, as they well might, to give the Social Democrats another chance, the political face of Europe suddenly looks very different.
If not just one but several major EU countries turned to the left, one consequence might be a new, much more aggressive approach to regulation in many areas, but especially in the financial sector Another might be a more egalitarian and redistributive approach to national taxation, and closer coordination of tax (and possibly benefits) across the eurozone. A third might be the burial of the 1990s preoccupation with economic competitiveness and greater attention to average living standards. A fourth might be the consolidation of a two-speed Europe, with moves towards political and fiscal union at the core, and a free-trade zone for everyone else.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-could-france-show-europe-how-to-move-left-6295278.html