Former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon delivers a speech in Paris on November 27. Fillon is set to be The Republicans party candidate in France's 2017 presidential election (XINHUA)

While nomination of party political candidates for France's presidential election next April has begun, the currently governing Socialist Party's prospects in the vote appear far from bright. President François Hollande's low popularity rating has encumbered the Left, and dissenting voices within the ruling party have grown louder as the presidential contest approaches.

Under such circumstances, Hollande finally announced on December 1 he will not seek a second term, citing risks to the Left if he were to run without gaining sufficient support. Hollande has thus become the first French president not to stand for re-election since the World War Two (WWII).

Following the dropout, Hollande's party comrade and colleague French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared on December 5 his bid to become the Socialist Party's presidential candidate, the vote for which takes place in January. But whoever wins--Valls or former French Minister of Economy Arnaud Montebourg--faces an uphill struggle just to reach the presidential election run-off in the spring.

In contrast to the Left and its predicament, the center Right is witnessing signs of revival. Former French Prime Minister François Fillon overwhelmingly beat moderate Alain Juppe in the Conservative run-off on November 27.

With strong opinion poll ratings, the 62-year-old Fillon is now set to represent the largest opposition party--The Republicans--in next year's presidential contest as the center-Right's favored challenger to both Socialist Party rule and the mounting pressure posed by the far-Right National Front party.

Current polls suggest a likely final showdown between Fillon and anti-establishment National Front leader Marine Le Pen. So, will a joint effort by the Center and Left halt the far-Right candidate's presidential ambitions in a remake of the 2002 election?

Voters cast their ballots in the Conservative first round run-off election in Paris on November 27 (XINHUA)

Unexpected popularity

Upholding economic liberalism and political conservatism, Fillon undoubtedly is attuned to France's current realities and public mood, although initial opinion polls showed no indication of a probable Fillon victory in the Conservative run-off.

The nation's economy has been stumbling through the doldrums for a decade with annual growth stuck at 1 to 2 percent. Unemployment has reached double digits, and the government budget deficit is too large to turn around. Rigid labor market rules and high labor costs are seen as the crux of the economic woe.

Fillon advocates pro market reforms for extricating France from the quagmire. In the hope of cutting public spending and reviving the economy, he wants to extend the 35-hour working week French law presently mandates. Fillon has also pledged to slash 500,000 public sector jobs and lower the corporate tax burden.

The other two center-Right candidates, Alain Juppe and Nicolas Sarkozy, have both proposed similar economic reform packages. What distinguishes Fillon from his rivals, though, seems to be his stance on social issues.

France's most prominent social problem is the increasing tension between the mainstream and large ethnic minority groups, particularly Muslims. Since the Paris terror attacks that shocked the world in 2015, the estrangement between these polarized sectors has worsened. Historically, France began to encourage immigrant inflows after the end of the WWII. To solve labor shortages and reconstruct the economy in the post-war period, the government at that time opened the gates to large numbers of people from the nation's former colonies, including Muslims from North Africa. Although the policy was subsequently abolished, the French authorities allowed the relatives of immigrants to join them and settle in France for humanitarian reasons. Consequently, the country has seen a large influx of immigrants and its ethnic minority populations have grown significantly over the past several decades.

Currently, Muslims account for one tenth of France's total population, and Islam has correspondingly become the nation's second largest religion after Catholicism. For various reasons, Muslim immigrants and their descendants have not integrated into mainstream society, and the chasm between the two sectors has become a long-term social problem. A few of Muslim teenagers have become involved in crime, even participating in riots to vent their resentment at not enjoying inclusive development together with society as a whole. Terror attacks in France in the past two years represented just the tip of an iceberg, as tension hidden beneath calm boiled over.

Fillon, ostensibly a Liberal, has campaigned with radical reform proposals, including tightening immigration and controlling naturalization, which appeal to voters with strong nationalist sentiments.

Turn right or far-right?

Thanks to the ruling party's poor performance, the center-Right Fillon has become odds-on favorite to win the presidential contest.

Unable to save France's economy from recession and cure the nation's social problems over the last five years, Hollande and his Socialist government have failed to live up to public expectations and have thus fallen from grace. Opinion polls show that the Socialists will have a tough job even reaching the election's second round and that their winning a successive term in power is akin to a pipe dream.

Perhaps blame for the Left's slump in popularity should be placed squarely on the Socialists' rigid adherence to welfare policies regardless of economic realities. Consistently prioritizing the rights and interests of workers and unprivileged groups, the Left typically emphasizes fairness over efficiency and shows no interest in stimulus measures advocated by Liberals. Economic globalization, however, promotes capital and investment flows to wherever labor costs are lower and, thus, profit higher. Capital outflow from France--well-known for its strict labor protection laws and high-level employee benefits--has resulted in the country losing a huge number of job opportunities.

To effectively address the situation, the government needs to implement reform by slashing public sector employment and relaxing labor protection regulations, among other things. But such measures go against Socialist ideology. Hence, the ruling party faces a plight from which it apparently has no means of escape.

Moreover, the Socialists have appeared soft on immigration and in responding to the terror threat, an attitude which has intensified public fear. Hollande adheres to the concept of a multi-cultural society, and French people are generally proud of their country's inter-racial tolerance, but such belief and feeling cannot increase people's sense of security in practice.

In the face of arduous global challenges, the Socialists' idealistic political views are weak and hopelessly unsuitable for solving France's problems. Actually, Left-wing parties across Western Europe face the same dilemma. The only way to solve the problems and turn the situations around is through political innovation and structural reform, which would certainly take a long time.

Division between the various factions is another critical weakness of France's Socialist movement. With Hollande out of contention, the Left lacks a strong successor for the top leadership spot, and the current candidates look unlikely to seriously threaten both Fillon and Marine Le Pen in the presidential race, according to opinion polls.

National Front President Le Pen is eager to contest the presidential election, as support for her party is currently on the rise. Donald Trump's U.S. election triumph, moreover, has greatly encouraged the French populist leader.

France's National Front, like other far-Right parties, poses a danger due to its allegedly radical political views based on extreme nationalism and racism. It opposes inbound immigration and promises to remove France from the Eurozone. But, as the country is a founding and core member of the European Union, the idea of quitting the bloc is anathema to a majority of French citizens.

In the second round of France's 2002 presidential election, Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen, was defeated jointly by the center Right and the Left. Current opinion polls show the daughter's popularity rating to be no higher than 30 percent. If disparate elements of the political spectrum can collaborate once again, Fillon could secure over 60 percent of the vote, crushing Marine Le Pen's ambition.

Just recently though, people have been taught a lesson about opinion poll forecasting courtesy of the Brexit referendum, U.S. presidential election and French Conservative first round run-off. Thus, with global challenges laying bare the social chasms in Western Europe as well as those in the United States, nothing can be certain in France's presidential election until the votes have been tallied.

The author is an associate researcher at the Institute of European Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Copyedited by Chris Surtees

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