Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...
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<strong>Neo</strong>-<strong>Bonapartism</strong>? A <strong>parallel</strong> <strong>between</strong> <strong>Nicolas</strong> <strong>Sarkozy</strong> <strong>and</strong> Napoleon III<br />
system of checks <strong>and</strong> balances is weakened thus materially deprived of its curative muscle by<br />
an emasculating presidential authoritarianism.<br />
Third, <strong>Neo</strong> <strong>Bonapartism</strong> arouses a graver problem: the democratic deficit of the Universal<br />
Suffrage system under the French Fifth Republic regime. Not that the leader is not<br />
“democratically” elected per se; in fact the very problem is that this democratic outcome is<br />
attained via barely-democratic mechanisms. A mostly devoted <strong>and</strong> curtsey-like media system<br />
coupled to the financing of the political effort by extremely rich business owners are the two<br />
main components of the equation that ended up in the 2007 electoral consecration. Not<br />
<strong>Sarkozy</strong>’s, but rather of a system in its entirety that backed up its political foal. Add to this the<br />
highly-efficient populist discourses of the <strong>Neo</strong> Bonapartist electoral machine de guerre <strong>and</strong> one<br />
ends up with a disturbing question: Is there a way to dismantle this iceberg of which <strong>Sarkozy</strong> is<br />
only the tip?<br />
In matter of fact, the immediate answer seems to be negative thus pessimistic: remelting this<br />
complex <strong>and</strong> rootly-settled socio-economic organization involves considering the extreme Left<br />
solution that is by essence a revolutionary one, 1789 style. Not that the French demonstrate<br />
cold-feetness when it comes to shake up things, but the radicality of such an enterprise seems<br />
hardly conceivable in 2010’s France. <strong>Neo</strong> <strong>Bonapartism</strong> seems from the latter to envision<br />
prosperous horizons before the advent of an eventual “Sixth Republic” system where such a<br />
democratic deficit would be erased or at least corrected.<br />
Finally, another hasty mechanism, though not domestic, reinforces even further the grasp of<br />
<strong>Neo</strong>-<strong>Bonapartism</strong> in contemporary France: the up-to-date configuration of both the European<br />
<strong>and</strong> international stage, torn <strong>between</strong> their divisions <strong>and</strong> contradictions. <strong>Sarkozy</strong>’s foreign<br />
A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/<br />
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