Mort Rosenblum: France could give us guidance on elections

ETREMBIERES, France — Alexis de Tocqueville sailed to America in the 1800s to look at democracy in action. Today, Democrats and Republicans alike ought to pop over to France for updated advice. Say what you will about the French, but they do elections right.

Just take the last ones.

On June 9, the far-right National Rally party skunked President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party for seats in the European Union parliament. Worried about a similar result at home, he dissolved the National Assembly to let voters start again from scratch.

Never mind that Paris, obsessed with the approaching Olympics, looks a bit like bombed-out Kyiv as heavy equipment tears up the city center in preparation. The Tour de France is more like a tour of Italy, ending in the south to avoid the chockablock capital.

It was all over when the last polls closed at 8 p.m. TV channels announced the results, based on exit polling and fast counting of paper ballots fed into computers and kept under police guard in case of a rare challenge. Voting was on a Sunday, as always, to maximize turnout.

Campaigns are like that, whether for president or legislators. Contributions are strictly limited — businesses are not “citizens” and there are no PACS. Candidates have a few minutes each to make their case on TV; they draw straws to determine the order.

On June 30 in the initial round, the RN won a thumping majority, enough to impose a prime minister to lock horns with the president. That is how the system works.

Voters follow their conscience the first time around to cast a ballot for their preferred candidate among many: French versions of, say, Ralph Nader or RFK Jr. The next time, they get serious and choose between the better of two. The RN came in third.

For the final round on July 7, I visited an elementary school in Etrembiéres in the Alpine foothills near Geneva, where 500 registered voters wandered in throughout the day. The shape of French democracy was at stake, but you’d never know it from the mood.

A kindly councilman in charge laughed when I asked permission to take photos. He laughed harder when I described how things work back in America, where party hacks crowd the perimeters, monitors hover and police make sure no one violates strict rules.

Comfortable little Etrembiére went heavily for Macron’s centrist coalition.

The National Rally is a housebroken remake of the anti-immigrant National Front, founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a burly, blustering bully with carefully coiffed hair. He dismissed the Holocaust as “a detail of history” and made no effort to hide his racist, France-first platform.

Le Pen’s daughter Marine disowned him in a power struggle. She enlisted Jordan Bardella, a persuasive, silver-tongued 28-year-old, as the RN’s public face. The old guard is now joined by workaday families who find it hard to make ends meet in Macron’s France.

The real test will come when Macron’s second five-year term expires in 2027. Since he can’t run for a third, he’ll be a has-been at 49. That, he remarked last year, is “damnable bullshit.”

It’s too early for calculating odds on a possible successor. In any case, the winner will face tough going. As one British expert on France remarked, the French tend to loathe their president shortly after he — or now she — is inaugurated.

In presidential elections, a first-round eliminates minor candidates, leaving two to duke it out mano-a-mano two weeks later. In a single debate, they are forced to answer hard questions in detail with a moderator riding herd. Just about the whole country watches.

The campaign takes only a few months. No one can spend more than 22.5 million euros ($24.5 million), and the law is ironclad. Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to a year of minimum-security arrest for spending twice that in 2012, accused of reporting the excess amount as his party’s funds.

He faces a separate trial next year for allegedly accepting campaign contributions from Libya.

Earlier, Jacques Chirac had immunity as president, but upon leaving office he faced a barrage of corruption charges dating to his time as mayor of Paris. In 2011, he was given a suspended sentence of two years for diverting public funds, abuse of trust and illegal conflict of interest.

By then, as he was suffering memory loss and unable to mount a defense, prosecutors gave him a pass.

Beyond election candidates themselves, their close aides and party officials are also liable to prosecution. In recent years, several have been jailed or fined and are ineligible for public office.

French administrations are hardly squeaky-clean. Tolerance for presidential peccadillos is high. François Hollande made news when caught sneaking out of the Elysée Palace on a booty call only because he looked so silly on a motor scooter wearing a too-small helmet.

But during elections, after close-call recounts and challenges, losers walk away. I’ve heard no French equivalent of “stop the steal.”

This is Bastille Day, recalling when France tossed out a king. After an emperor then came and went, De Tocqueville toured America for thoughts on democracy. Alas, he is no longer available for comment. But I can pretty much guess what he’d say.