April in France. The beginning steps of following this possible branch of the universe started ten years ago and soon afterwards the beginning of the end of the traditional post-WW2 order in Europe, and France specifically, got under way. I can remember that we had moved into our Grenoble apartment just a few weeks earlier (after luxuriating [not really] in the finest Aparthotel that Xerox Research could afford [quite possibly] for the first several weeks there) and I was watching the news right at 8pm when it was announced that François Hollande had kind of just barely defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in the French 2nd round presidential election. At the time I think that I still assumed we'd be in France -- or more precisely, back in Canada -- after 18 months or so but I remember feeling both happy and proud to be there at that moment. Hollande was the first Parti Socialiste to win the presidency since Mitterrand in the 1980s. In his victory speech he said that he was "proud to have been capable of giving people hope again". Unfortunately we all know how that turned out and while I would argue that Hollande was able to achieve some (extremely) minor things, I'm quite sure that his very easily to argue "failed" presidency played no small part in getting France to where we are now (although there are clearly many more larger factors at play) seeing both the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties that exchanged the presidency back-and-forth since WW2 attain a combined total of less than 10% of the vote in 2022.
Five years later I happened to be in France again. I was on the Côte d'Azur in the port city of Toulon for a conference and again it was April and again it was the second round of the French Presidential Elections. This time, a lot more was at stake and times sure had changed -- both for France and its political situation and the greater EU, but also personally. Helga had recently been born and we'd become, if not citizens, then residents of the EU for more than five years. Brexit had been voted for less than a year prior and of course Trump had been sworn into office just a few months before. This time in France neither the centre-right nor the centre-left were on offer in the second round. Rather, it was the new political party of 39-year-old (hey that's even younger than me now!) Emmanuel Macron versus the far-right lunatic Marine Le Pen. I watched the results announcement in the hotel bar with a few random strangers and gave a sigh of relief when it turned out to be -- as expected -- a major landslide victory for Macron and his pro-European party. I can also remember the predictable headlines that would come in the following weeks about the far-right getting a real defeat and the tides of populism and nationalism were finally turning around. I bet Macron was also proud to have been capable of giving people hope again. Again, it certainly gave me some.
Fast-forward another five years and "post"-Covid we were ready to take another trip to France. This time it happened right in between the two presidential election rounds and we got to see first-hand the sadly ubiquitous Le Pen posters in the countryside when we visited a friend's parents' village home. But we were back in Munich in time for last night's announcement and this time it wasn't as sure of a thing. Of course it was Macron vs. Le Pen again but just because Macron seemed to be leading the polls, we all remember Trump. Thankfully Macron would prevail again and the EU that I personally believe in will again live to fight another day. But it sure feels like we're holding on by a thread and things keep getting closer. Germany, our new(-ish) home, had its own fright-filled elections recently which also happened to come out in basically the best way possible. But then all the grand promises have not been heard from all that much since the focus is understandably on Putin's WW3 project.
What's next? Maybe find out in five years? But don't worry, I promise I'll write another blog post before then.
