It was France that gave the world the concept of left and right in politics. Now it is France that leads the way to destroy this division and replace it with a new policy, in which the two dominant camps are nationalists and internationalists.
The split between left and right has its roots in the French Revolution of 1989 - when supporters of the royal veto stood on the right side of the National Assembly and opponents on the left. Over the next two centuries, left and right became the central philosophical division in Western politics.
However, in the first round of the French presidential election on April 10, the traditional center-right and center-left parties failed. Ann Hidalgo, the candidate of the Socialist Party, won only 1,8 percent of the vote, and Valeri Pekres, the candidate of the center-right Republicans, won 4,8 percent. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of the extreme left, received 22 percent of the vote, but was still eliminated.
The decisive round of the election on April 24 will feature Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, candidates who both claim that the days of left-right politics are over.
Although Le Pen is usually characterized as a candidate of the extreme right, she rejects this, insisting that: “There is no more left and right. The real division is between patriots and globalists".
Macron has also been claiming for a long time that he is "neither left nor right". As he told his biographer Sofi Peder: "The new political division is between those who fear globalization and those who see globalization as an opportunity."
Le Pen uses the term "globalist" as an insult. At a press conference in Paris last Sunday, I overheard her mocking Macron for talking "gross". In a speech in Avignon the next day, she accused the globalists of treating the French as rootless consumers instead of citizens bound by their culture and language.
That kind of rhetoric is now a hallmark of the nationalist right around the world. Influential political theorists in Vladimir Putin's Russia - such as Alexander Dugin and Konstantin Molofeev - have often dismissed "globalism" as a conspiracy against the Russian nation and culture.
Le Pen's rhetoric is strongly reminiscent of that of Donald Trump, who as president of the United States informed the UN that "the future does not belong to the globalists. The future belongs to patriots".
Politics designed around the distinction between "globalists" and "patriots" disrupt traditional left-right dividing lines. Macron has adopted positions that would traditionally be considered left-wing on a range of social issues, such as gay rights, but his efforts to deregulate the economy and cut taxes are close to Reaganite conservatives.
Le Pen, in contrast, takes hard right-wing positions on issues such as immigration, and left-wing positions on the economy.
The clearest dividing line between the two candidates is not left and right, but nationalist and internationalist. Macron is a passionate supporter of deeper European integration. Le Pen wants to destroy the current EU and return Europe to nation states.
A similar disruption of traditional left-right categories has occurred in the United States and Britain. Before Trump, Republicans were the party of free trade, globalization, and a belligerent foreign policy—all of which are associated with the right. However, nationalism in the form of the slogan "America first" turned Republicans towards protectionism and isolationism, leaving the Biden wing of the Democrats as the guardians of traditional internationalist positions on foreign policy and trade.
Brexit has also changed British politics around the nationalist-internationalist axis. That change was obscured after Brexiteers adopted the slogan "global Britain". However, the reality of "global Britain" is stricter border controls and a reduction in international trade.
Many Brexiteers were attracted to the slogan "global Britain" not because they are internationalists, but because they saw it as a description of their national greatness. The argument was that Britain was too globally significant to be limited by EU membership.
Le Pen has a similar vision for France. In her major foreign policy speech in Paris last Sunday, she insisted that France is one of the world's great powers with a global reach and destiny. As with the Brexiteers, her vision of a global France is actually a form of nationalist chest-beating.
One of the main dangers in spreading this type of politics around the world is that it increases the chances of international conflict. The "globalists" that Le Pen and Trump like to insult are generally not people without roots or patriotism. However, they are more inclined to believe in the need for international cooperation to promote peace and prosperity and to deal with global problems.
Nationalists may theoretically accept the need for international cooperation on issues such as climate change or trade. In practice, they are temperamentally inclined to view international agreements as betrayals of the nation or products of some kind of globalist conspiracy.
The politics of Le Pen, Trump or Putin - suspicious of foreigners and obsessed with restoring national greatness - can too often lead to conflict. A Balkan analyst once jokingly told me: "The problem with our region is that there are too many big countries: big Serbia, big Albania, big Croatia." But the results were not so great".
The rise of nationalist politics around the world risks repeating that grim pattern globally.
Translated by: N. Bogetić
The text is taken from "Financial Times"
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