Will the Jasmine Revolution Spill over into the West?

For almost 10 years, two dominant French political parties (the UMP of President Sarkozy) and the Parti Socialiste (PS) of the left have battled for the hearts and minds of the French voter. Neither has entirely won.

In the 2002 French presidential election, The Front National (FN) president Jean-Marie Le Pen, led the “extreme” right FN to a first round victory over the sitting PS prime minister. In the second round, the French rallied massively around the conservative President Jacques Chirac, seeking his second term, and Le Pen was overwhelmingly defeated.

But his party lives on. Since 2002, the FN has changed leadership with the election of Marine Le Pen, daughter of the retiring leader in his 80s, and she is showing herself to be a modern, savvy politician.

This week, there was a televised debate in France with all parties represented, on the topic of immigration and the “islamization” of France (basically, this means bending current French law to accommodate the Muslim extreme right living in France at the expense of the French Christian majority). Marine Le Pen is vocal about not being against Muslims, only being against their taking over French culture, but many question her integrity on this point. Le Pen won the debate handily and the latest poll shows her ahead of Sarkozy or any other UMP candidate in 2012, as well as being ahead of any PS candidate, in the first round. The second round is tighter but possible, on paper, for Marine Le Pen.

I give all this detail to make a point, not solely about France but about all western nations. Sitting politicians are willing to do almost anything to try to buy peace with Islam extremists and illegal immigrants, all the while spending lavishly to try to overcome the current financial crisis, while their voters are silently but vehemently opposed to these policies.

President Sarkozy this week made a visit to one of the French launching points for Middle Ages pilgrims on their way to Compostello. He included in his remarks the statement that France must not deny that Christianity was responsible for French culture and civilization. This is a bold remark in a country devoted to laicity and he was immediately and predictably attacked by the left for mixing religion and politics.  

In addition, the recent financial crisis in the West has meant belt-tightening and higher taxes in almost every European country and America, where the voting populations are bearing a great burden for events that they neither fully understand nor feel responsible for.

One could replace the word “France” with Germany or Switzerland or Great Britain or Italy or Spain and the above would remain an essentially correct statement of the country’s political climate.

Add the words "Tea Party" and "Palin" and we have closed the circle in the West.

If our politicians do not soon realize that they are on a collision course with their populations, not just those of the extreme right but the majority, we could see the beginnings of a jasmine revolution in Europe and America.

The French polls this week were a wake-up call and the 2012 presidential elections in France and the United States could set the tone of conciliation or conflict in the West for the next decade.