French Presidentialism and the Election of 1995 by Lorna Milne John Gaffney

Author:Lorna Milne, John Gaffney [Lorna Milne, John Gaffney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780429849374
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Jacques Cheminade and the Fédération pour une Nouvelle Solidarité

Although a graduate from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, like so many of the French political class, Jacques Cheminade is difficult to situate in French politics. He had already attempted to run for the presidency in 1981 and 1988. Leader of the Parti Ouvrier Européen (POE) (which became the Fédération pour une Nouvelle Solidarité in 1991) and an ex-high civil servant in the French department of Finance, he labelled himself a ‘dissident Enarque’ (student of the ENA), and called for a new ‘republican front’ while remaining closely associated with the American right-wing extremist and leader of the US Labour Party (of which the POE was the European counterpart), Lyndon Larouche.

In 1984 and 1989, while secretary general of the POE, Cheminade presented lists at the European elections. In 1984, he scored 0.08% of the vote. He reached 0.17% in 1989. In March of 1993, Cheminade tried his luck in the legislative elections and ran for a Paris district: his efforts won him 0.33% of the vote. In September of 1994, as a candidate in a by-election in the Puy-de-Dome region he obtained 0.58% of the vote against former President of the Republic, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In 1995, Cheminade succeeded in getting the necessary 500 support signatures to run for the presidency – he obtained 556 – and was thus able to participate in the contest.

Two things are of interest with respect to his candidacy. The first was his political orientation, which in spite of his strange right-wing associations was difficult to define. The second was the manner in which he was able to garner the 556 signatures, given his abysmal scores in all political contests to date.

Cheminade: right or left?

Cheminade’s close association and friendship with Lyndon Larouche had led to his being promptly slotted in the extreme right. Cheminade consistently fought against this label and repeatedly denied it during the 1995 presidential campaign. At a press conference, on 13 April 1995, for example, he declared that he had no links whatsoever with the extreme right and asked to be judged on his actions rather than on rumours T am the victim of a lynching operation, of a cabal (…) because I have some things to say, I have a project, a commitment to certain things’.69

It is difficult to judge Cheminade on his actions, so marginal was he to political life, but his presidential flyers give an idea of the complexity of the character. In his campaign literature as well as in his speeches, Cheminade came across as the champion of the little man. Most of his declarations attributed the failings of modern society to the preponderance of the market. More precisely, it was the inability of politicians to rein in capital and harness it to the forces of progress for the many as opposed to profit for the few which Cheminade primarily targeted:

A speculative cancer has infested the world in the past twenty years: money is increasingly absorbed into buying and selling operations which produce no tangible riches.

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