Breaking
news: Jean François Copé is officially declared the winner of the hotly
contested November 18th election of the president of the UMP (Union for
a Popular Majority) by a slim margin of 50.03 percent against François
Fillon’s 49.97 percent
PARIS.
The media are having a feast over the cliffhanger that was supposed to
be a landslide for former Prime Minister François Fillon. It took the
party’s electoral committee twenty-four hours to recalculate the figures
and settle claims of irregularities and/or fraud in half a dozen
polling places, ultimately validating the razor thin victory of
Jean-François Copé.
Both candidates had proclaimed victory on the night
of the election: Copé with a forthright speech at 11:30PM and Fillon,
shortly afterward, with a brief legalistic affirmation of confidence
that the election committee would confirm his narrow lead of some 200
votes. By then, BFM TV had been giving non-stop coverage of the election
for six hours of uninterrupted suspense. It went on all the next day
and late into the evening, and began again early this morning with
post-match discussions and commentary. Copé’s victory is not only good
for the UMP, it is a benediction for the debate on the Islamization of
France, Europe and the West, because he raised the issues, stuck to his
guns, did not fold under pressure, and came through with a hard won
victory that will give the party a much needed thrust of positive
energy.
Since
Nicolas Sarkozy announced his retirement from political life after his
narrow defeat against François Hollande last May, pollsters and
commentators were predicting a crushing victory of Fillon over Copé to
fill the vacancy as president of the UMP. As the polls opened on Sunday
November 18th, Fillon’s inevitable triumph was estimated at 70% to his
rival’s 30%. This was the first time that the party chief was elected—by
card-carrying members of the UMP—instead of appointed by an inner
circle of party leaders. It had also been predicted that the months-long
battle between Fillon and Copé would turn nasty and tear the party
apart. But that didn’t happen. Now, undaunted by their previous
failures, the same predictors are ecstatically speculating on the myriad
ways in which the UMP will finally implode, explode, and go down the
tubes. I think they are dead wrong. Representatives of each candidate
fought bravely to make the figures fit their hopes, the election
committee ironed out the differences and officially declared the winner.
Despite Fillon’s refusal to accept the verdict with grace—he growled at
the umpire and pompously deplored a moral fracture in the party – the
UMP will close ranks and organize its opposition to the Hollande
government. The immediate goal will be municipal elections in 2014.
François
Fillon dutifully served as prime minister during the five years of
Nicolas Sarkozy’s one-term presidency. This is highly unusual in France,
where presidents traditionally stay above the fray, leaving the prime
minister to do the heavy lifting and eventually get dumped to placate
disgruntled citizens. Sarkozy initiated a new governing style, which
earned him the mocking title of “hyper-president.” Despite his efforts
to be a “normal” president, François Hollande is being forced by
circumstances to follow Sarkozy’s model.
Jean-François
Copé, who played an active role in Sarkozy’s campaign for re-election
last spring, was inspired by the president’s courageous combat in the
face of a predicted Hollande landslide. By carrying forward the platform
of that campaign, Copé opened himself to ferocious criticism from the
media and political opponents on the left and, more subtly, from certain
currents within the UMP that labeled him “divisive.” Fillon, on the
contrary, was appreciated within and outside his own camp as a unifier.
Copé—dismissed as divisive, abrasive, unpopular, and worse—was
constantly accused of “droitisation” [la droite = the right]. What
exactly is the “droitisation” of a right-wing party? Is it the
intensification of an over the top right-wingedness? Or something else?
Something that functions like the “Islamophobe” label to stifle
criticism of Islam, or accusations of “Judaization” to deny Jewish
sovereignty in Jerusalem.
In
Copé’s own words, this alleged “droitisation” is a call for a right
that is “décomplexée” –uninhibited or unashamed—that will oppose a
vigorous résistance to the harmful policies of the current majority,
with no concessions to political correctness; a “républicain” right,
meaning that it respects the laws and traditions of the République; a
party that reaches out to the population, on the ground, in its daily
life, and is unafraid to state problems as they are and undaunted in
attempts to find solutions. His program, detailed in a recently
published Manifeste pour une droite décomplexée, was reduced by the
media and his opponents to a pain au chocolat. Why? Because Copé dared
to cite parents in some neighborhoods, exasperated to learn that a bully
tore the pain au chocolat out of their kid’s his hands, shouting that
he doesn’t have the right to eat during Ramadan.
Without
bothering to question the veracity of the story, commentators followed
the example of the bully, pounced on Copé, tore the pain au chocolat out
of his hand, and smashed it in his face. Every time he was interviewed,
he’d get a barrage of pain au chocolat. As if he had uttered an
obscenity. The pain au chocolat –a delicious flaky buttery chocolate
filled pastry -- is the ultimate treat a French schoolchild can hope for
his afternoon snack. It smacks of French identity! And that’s why the
simple mention of it was treated as a provocation.
Copé’s
décomplexé comeback was: if telling the truth about what is happening
in certain neighborhoods is “droitisation” then knowing the truth but
hiding it is “gauchisation [gauche = left].”
In
addition to his role as General Secretary of the UMP, Copé is deputy
mayor of Meaux, a town famous for its mustard and brie, that has been
drawn into the orbit of Paris and subject to all the ills of the
banlieue. It is here that he was faced with the facts on the ground, all
sorts of human distress, conflict, violence and at the same time, he
says, the opportunity to find political solutions to social problems. He
contrasts this experience with the abstract ideologies of
Parisian-based politicians (Fillon is a deputy for the 7th
arrondissement of Paris).
At
his last rally before the vote, Fillon argued that he would be a better
leader because he can appeal to citizens across the board, from right
to center to left, while his rival was pulling the party too far to the
right. What is this droitisation all about? Is it connected to policies,
positions, or programs related to the economy, energy, the European
Union or the eurozone? Does it have anything to do with labor relations,
garbage collection, housing construction or taxation? Is it connected
to any political function, action, or theory other than the problems
with Islam? No. And this is why Copé’s remarks about the disturbing
development of anti-white racism in France is, like the pain au
chocolat, considered to be a “provocation.” Waving a red flag… in whose
face? Again, the question is not is it true but is it droitisation to
say so.
A
well-informed, highly motivated, determined counter-jihad activist
would no doubt find Copé’s manifesto weak and full of illusions. His
book is overwhelmingly devoted to social harmony, his method is
conciliatory, his action has always been directed at the “vivre
ensemble” [getting along together] his language is not inflammatory, he
doesn’t stigmatize anyone. What is his crime? And why did more than 50%
of UMP members ignore the pundits and put their trust in him?
Jean-François
Copé is “guilty” of the crime of lèse dhimmitude. He unashamedly
defends the notion of national identity, confronts issues of
“communitarisme” [tribalism, clannishness and, more frankly, anti-social
behavior of a significant minority of the Muslim population], crime,
anti-Semitism, homegrown terrorism, abuse of social services and, more
generally, the exasperation of French people whose hard won freedoms are
assaulted and whose social organization is gradually being overwhelmed
by retrograde forces.
And
to top it off, he is opposed to pet projects of the Hollande
government—same-sex marriage and voting rights for non-EU foreigners.
Does that make him a disgraceful neo-fascist, no different from the
Front National? Copé’s second-generation patriotism is in stark contrast
to the attitude of a troubling minority (or is it a majority) of the
current, essentially Arab-Muslim immigration. His Rumanian-Jewish
grandfather came to France in 1926 to escape anti-Semitism and
bolshevism; he changed his name from Marcu Copelovici to Marcel Copé.
His Algerian-Jewish mother fled her native land to escape anti-Semitic
nationalism. Copé’s paternal grandparents and their children were hidden
from the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators by righteous gentiles.
Copé was raised in a spirit of patriotic gratitude to their adopted land
and his precocious political career—mayor of Meaux at the age of 31 and
youngest deputy--was a logical extension of that gratitude.
Copé
is warm and personable, with a sharp but luminous intelligence and a
sincere smile. Forceful but calm, a man of integrity, unafraid of taking
the hard knocks of politics but never embittered or cynical. He loves
to be on the ground, in touch with party activists and simple citizens,
persuading voters with good arguments, getting results. He likes
competition, wants to win.
Contrary
to what is being said by the muddle-headed, Jean-François Copé will
take the steam out of the Front National. Always and unfairly suspected
of wanting to form alliances with the FN, the UMP has no interest in
dallying with a party that has no capacity to govern, draws its shaky
strength from the very exasperation that the UMP, under Copé’s
leadership, is prepared to squarely address. Why, he says, would I
countenance any alliances with the FN when Marine Le Pen deliberately
orchestrated the victory of François Hollande by convincing half of her
supporters to vote blank in May? And why, he pursues, should I take
moral scolding from the left that is allied with the far left,
implicitly approving their abhorrent policies.
Was
the hairline defeat of François Fillon and the 24-hour delay in
reporting official results of this election-- organized and carried out,
it should be reminded, by volunteers joyfully overwhelmed by an
unexpectedly big turnout-- a disaster and a disgrace for the UMP? Not at
all. It was a handsome exercise in democracy, a fine demonstration of
the superiority of politics over murderous tribal competitions for a
tyrannical chief, and a slap in the face of complacent chatterboxes who
wanted Fillon precisely because he would have been weak.
And
what could be more comical than to hear them blustering about the
shamefully bungled UMP presidential election while obviously ignoring
the glaring irregularities in the reelection of their hero, Barack
Hussein Obama.
Nidra Poller
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