The French Fifth Republic may be at its end. Already strained by François Mitterrand's two terms in office from 1981 and 1995, French political institutions are increasingly at odds with French society. Were President Jacques Chirac to depart overnight, the French would barely notice. A recent poll showed that only 1 percent wanted the president to seek a third term. The discomfiture of Chirac's presidency overshadows even the stagnating governance of his predecessor. While Mitterrand managed to maintain some buoyancy, Chirac has lost all policy credibility.
Because President Chirac is, according to customary political labels, a conservative politician, his decline has implications for the future of French conservatism. It may seem odd to consider, but the future of conservatism in France may now reside in the advent of some sort of neoconservatism--French style. It would not be the first time that social or political developments in the United States gave birth to stepchildren in Continental Europe. The spur of economic liberalism under Ronald Reagan (and in Thatcher's UK) was imitated to some extent in the 1980s, with French privatization and overtly pro-market policies.
In the United States, a loss of faith in the efficacy of government to solve social ills helped to give birth to the neoconservative movement. The decay of French institutions under a neo-Gaullist president could lead to a Continental resurgence of U.S.-style neoconservatism of the 1970s and 1980s--not to be equated with today's movement so heavily focused on regime change. But before exploring how a French neoconservative movement may gain momentum, it is important to first delineate the depth of France's political disillusion.
