Plus ça change……
A fascinating change of tone in the French media: during the couple of weeks following the presidential election, everyone talked about “Sarkozy’s government”. His government, he had promised, would be light, flexible, fast-moving, with (revolutionary) no more than 15 ministers. Now however, since the parliamentary elections, the government has grown to over twice the promised size - 31 - and, as a consequence perhaps, we are no longer to call it “Sarko’s government”, but “Fillon’s government”. If I were François Fillon, I would be worried.
Admittedly there are still 15 ministers living in 15 ministries, the other 16 are mere secretaries of state, but each is in charge of something strongly resembling a ministry. For comparison Dominique de Villepin’s government had 16 ministers and 15 ministres délégués, the total was the same. All Sarkozy has done is change the name of the latter to secretary of state. Indeed it was obvious that had to be. You cannot take a sub-ministry like Co-operation and Francophonie, employing I imagine several hundred people, and just close it down. La francophonie is important to the French and needs its own ministry. Similarly the anciens combatants cannot just be discarded by the roadside. But nevertheless if the intention was to show that the new France will not be state-heavy, this is not an encouraging sign. To his credit Sarkozy/Fillon has appointed two new secretaries of state who come from an immigrant background, both women and both with left-wing views.
What is bad is that in the new parliament there is not one member with African or North African roots, officially called “candidates of the diversity”, that is from the troubled ghettoes. There were several candidates, on both left and right, but none were elected. One candidate originally from the French West Indies was elected in Paris.
The representation of women in the new parliament is better than before, but still nowhere near parity: out of 577 members there will be 107 women in the new parliament, against 71 in the previous one.
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:21 am
Well, but look at the way they are elected! As I understand it, the second ballot system chooses one candidate from each constituency. Ie the candidate is meant to represent just the constituency and hence be representative of it. Now, if there is a native French majority in a constituency, surely it would be wrong if a black/Arab candidate got elected? I am employing the same logic as you did: that the racial profile of those who represent should correspond with the racial profile of those who are represented…
Perhaps this just one more reason why proportional represenation is superior;)
June 24th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
For me the telling point is that it looks as if very few white, français de souche voted (would think of voting??) for an Arab or Black co-citizen. If that is true, and while it remains true, without p.r., then no Arab or Black candidate will get in until attitudes change.