Sarkozy is playing not to the Armenian but to the Le Pen crowd
by Ali Yurttagül*
French President Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech at the end of the
`New World’ conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Jan. 6, 2012.
Relations between Turkey and France have become tense following a
decision by the French Parliament to give the green light to a law
that would make it punishable to deny the Armenian genocide. (Photo:
AP)
ZAMAN
8 January 2012 / ALI YURTTAGÃ`L
Following a decision by the French Parliament to give the green light
to a law that would make it punishable to deny the Armenian genocide,
relations between Turkey and France have become very tense. If the
decision passes the French Senate and is approved by French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, it is not difficult to foresee that Turkish-French
relations could be negatively affected for a long period of time.
Reactions to this possibility can be easily heard, not only from the
Turkish public but throughout Europe. Opinion-makers all over the
continent point to the timing of this decision and how it dovetails
with upcoming elections in France, noting that it is clearly aimed at
capturing the votes of the nearly 300,000 ethnic Armenians living in
France. Some Turkish commentators assert that Sarkozy wants to see
Turkey isolated within the greater framework of the EU, Mediterranean
and Middle East and cut off at the pass its precipitous rise in these
regions. We, on the other hand, assert that, more than all of the
above, Sarkozy’s real aim is related to the election campaign — not
just to the hundreds of thousands of potential Armenian voters but
rather to the millions of Jean-Marie Le Pen supporters that reside in
France. After touching on why the problem is not one of France-Turkey,
let us talk about `Turkey as campaign material.’
France is not only one of Turkey’s most important trading partners;
Turkey is also one of the most influential countries in which the
French business world makes investments. The political and economic
benefits shared by these countries are, in fact, vital. Policies which
affect both North Africa and the Middle East bring together the
interests of both Turkey and France, even if there are some details
which differ from place to place. Both France and Turkey would emerge
as the countries most benefitting from peace, democracy, and economic
development and betterment in the Mediterranean region. In this
region, where crises are so common, French diplomacy is smart enough
to know that close cooperation with Turkey is required in this region.
Thus, we can say that French diplomacy is as clever as both British
and German diplomacy. We can extend this, our thesis, to general EU
policy. Turkey is a unique country whose potential EU membership would
really open up the EU to the Mediterranean. And so France, if it
wishes to see EU resources channeled toward Mediterranean projects,
really must support Turkey’s EU membership. That is why ex-French
President Jacques Chirac, despite vociferous opposition from his own
party, lent his support to Turkish accession talks, dropping the
decisions taken against Turkish membership from his party’s agenda at
the general congress led by Sarkozy on Feb. 26, 2005. And in fact,
close advisors to Sarkozy do not think differently. It is, no doubt,
within this framework that the search for dialogue during French
foreign minister Alain Juppe’s most recent visit to Turkey took place.
Which is why it is most realistic to seek the answers to this French
stance, which tramples so many shared interests, in the framework of
French national politics and election strategy rather than anywhere
else.
Let us take a close look at the coming elections and the influential
voter masses, after first talking about why the Armenian voting bloc
is actually not a very active factor in the larger framework of
France.
By its numbers and sociological makeup, the Armenian voting bloc in
France is not actually a decisive one. It is said that there are
between 300,000 and 500,000 ethnic Armenian voters in France. Even if
we were to say that these numbers, which we find exaggerated, are
true, we are still talking about a 1-percent voting block. And if we
assume the Armenian voters in France, who are very well mixed into
French society in general, as basing their votes not only on `Turkey
policy’ but also on economic, social and other political
considerations, it would not be incorrect to think that Armenian
voters casting their votes for Sarkozy, for reasons that go beyond the
genocide bill, make up a small bloc. No doubt Sarkozy is aware of
these realities. The fact that this recent decision in parliament
received the support of all political groups represented shows
Armenians are influential in every spectrum of politics. But to sum it
up, Sarkozy is actually reaching out, not only to this voting bloc but
to the entire Le Pen voting bloc, whose far-right numbers can range
from between 10 percent to 20 percent of all votes in France.
The two rounds of voting for the French president generally wind up
seeing votes divided between the right and the left. In the
presidential election in which Chirac was elected president for the
second time, in 2002, Le Pen took 16.86 percent of the vote, and
Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin took 16.18 percent of the vote,
`competing’ with Chirac in the second round. With the support of the
left, Chirac was elected with nearly 82.21 percent of the vote, making
him the final right-wing politician to cooperate so much with the
left. As for Sarkozy, he brought to an end the `shared policies’ with
the left in order to not neglect the votes of the extreme right after
Le Pen’s electoral victories and decided at the same time to take this
voting bloc into his sights for an election strategy of his own. Le
Pen’s ability to make it to the second round of voting was influential
in Sarkozy’s decision, as was the fact that Le Pen made his way into
the European Parliament and has been influential in French politics
since 1984; his numbers in French presidential elections have been
14.38 percent in 1988 and 15 percent in 1995; and he successfully made
it to the second round of voting in 2002.
If we think about the fact that just a few months ago, Le Pen’s
daughter, Marie Le Pen, could be seen standing in front of Sarkozy at
drilling sites, we note the general importance of this political
stream is clearly continuing. Theoretically, Sarkozy could be
eliminated, as Jospin was, in the first round of voting, and the right
vote could be split between some powerful candidates on that side, and
the economic crisis in France could deepen. For this reason, we can
say that Sarkozy has clearly put the Le Pen effect at the center of
his own election strategies, as he is allowing the elections five
years ago to shape his course now.
Turkey’s potential accession to the EU is not today even really an
influential topic on the agenda but was a topic of great importance in
the elections five years ago. Though it is a topic with ties to
dialogue that spouts fear of foreigners and racism, it is not limited
to these areas.
Sarkozy has managed, with his `Turkey policy,’ not only to squeeze Le
Pen on his own electoral front but also to provide voters with an
alternative to Le Pen by shouldering the very policies spouted by Le
Pen. In a sense, Sarkozy’s use of his `Turkey policy’ has allowed him
to appeal to Le Pen voters without having to use rhetoric. No doubt
Sarkozy has also reached voting blocs that respond to Philippe de
Villiers, whose rhetoric normally appeals to far-right Catholics,
stressing the religious differences between Turkey and France. It is
thought that votes cast for de Villiers will be around 5 percent. The
Le Pen voting bloc would be one which will have to be won over not
only in the first round but also in the second. Just as this bloc
might not even go to the ballot boxes in the second round, it could
also go to the leftist candidate. To sum it up, Sarkozy succeeded in
appealing to the Le Pen voters with his `Turkey policy’ without having
to even use any direct racist rhetoric in the 2007 elections, pulling
31.18 percent (in the second round 53.06 percent) of the vote, with Le
Pen votes in the first round at 10.44 percent. Just as it would not be
wrong to think that these coming elections will see a repeat of this
strategy, we could also say that the `Turkey policy’ spouted by
Sarkozy has in the meantime become more attractive, in light of the
Arab Spring, the economic crisis in France and also the visible rise
of Turkey.
The second phenomenon that deserves some thought here is what the
`Turkey policy’ means for the middle layer of voters in France and for
ethnically North African voters. The tough rhetoric heard from Sarkozy
when he was a government minister meant that he had problems with
voters in the middle, as well as immigrant voters. Which is why he has
subsequently tried to appeal to voters in these groups with the
message `I have changed,’ and he has tried not to use openly
anti-immigrant rhetoric. And so the Sarkozy strategy of using his
`Turkey policy,’ which does not directly target Arab and Muslims,
appeals not only to Le Pen voting bloc, but also leaves the door open
for potential immigrant votes, these votes of course becoming
increasingly important within the general framework of France. After
his previous electoral success, Sarkozy appointed both ethnic African
and Arab ministers, and thus tried initiatives aimed at these voting
blocs, which were at least partially successful. If it appears that
Sarkozy is really targeting the Le Pen bloc for votes, he could
experience serious problems with the middle and immigrant groups of
voters.
Hrant’s legacy
Hrant Dink himself sensed that these ongoing debates in France had
less to do with Armenians than with Turkey itself and opposed them
violently, as he saw they worked to satisfy influential
anti-Turkishness in the Armenian diaspora, as well as tapping into
racist instincts. There was a second very important phenomenon at hand
for Hrant, who asserted that he would be the first to head to Paris to
deny the genocide; as we have also witnessed in recent days, Hrant too
saw that, in fact, the French parliamentary decision would not make
debates over Turkey easier, but rather more difficult.
Hrant died suddenly, too young to have written his own legacy. If
Turkey wants to take the legacy left behind by Hrant seriously, it
must debate the history and pains experienced by the Armenians. But
these debates do not need to occur within the framework of personal
relations with Armenia, and not with France at all, but within its own
public and institutions. The `Ä°ttihat Terakki’ ` or Union and Progress
Party, which was in power in Turkey from 1908 to 1923 — drove out and
killed and ignored the killing of hundreds of thousands (whether it
was 300 or 800 or 1.5 million really doesn’t change the crime, and
Hrant said it was 1 million) Armenians who were guilty of nothing
other than belonging to this group of people, giving as a reason the
fact that some few thousand Armenian nationalists had betrayed the
Ottomans. In almost every talk I ever heard Hrant give, he would say,
`What we say is not what was important; let us look at the realities
of history and at its perspectives.’ Does not everything we have
experienced in modern-day Turkey, from Ergenekon to the killing of
Hrant, show us that the spirits sown by Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha
are still influential? Without removing the masks from those killers
who are still among us, Turkey cannot live with its own history and
people in peace. The sensitivity shown by the prime minister on the
matter of Dersim can win people over and soothe wounds; it is this
that can make Turkey great, not denials. Which is why the answer to
Sarkozy and France’s active Islamophobia, anti-Turkishness and racism
can actually be found in Turkey’s own debates over its history.
Let me finish up by pointing to a second result in relations between
Turkey and France. In the coming five months, Sarkozy will experience
success or failure to the extent on which he provokes talk of the
`Turkey policy’ and on which he delivers anti-Turkey EU membership
messages. In fact, if he manages to transform the problem from a
Sarkozy-centered problem into a France-Turkey problem and appears to
be a president who is simply defending his nation’s values, he will
have won. After all, some economic losses and `temporary tension’ with
Turkey are a bill which he can afford to pay, especially if they mean
victory at the ballot box. Which is why Turkey needs to highlight the
fact that the problem is not with France but with Sarkozy, and it
finds worrisome the anti-Turkish hostilities being spouted as such.
This message needs to be delivered in particular to the middle layer
of French voters. We need a policy that works not with an aggressive
and high-pitched voice and which takes economic damage to France —
and thus Turkey — in its sights, but rather a policy that embraces
France and works to isolate Sarkozy. It needs to be a clever policy.
Turning Sarkozy into something that equals France only works to `run
water into Sarkozy’s own mill.’ There may be no President Sarkozy if
immigrant voters are aware when they head to the ballot boxes. And
with no President Sarkozy in power, this means five full years for
French-Turkish relations, as well as for Turkey’s own EU accession
process.
*Ali Yurttagül is a political advisor for the Greens in the European Parliament.