Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...

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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III Chapter I: Strong political governance whose oligarchic regime relies upon popular plebiscites and promotes conservatism When « liberté, égalité, fraternité » is slowly yet firmly replaced by « autorité, sécurité, identité » I- Legitimacy: a combination of both the Universal Suffrage System and populism After his first aborted Coup d’état in Strasbourg, and fully aware that this failure was caused by the inexistence of a coordinated Bonapartist political party as such, Napoleon III started envisaging the popular support of the masses as an efficient tool for legitimizing his rule. As a matter of fact, and since 1838, he started an insightful campaign whose main goal was to praise state-populism with chosen and careful words. He stated in his “Des Idées Napoléoniennes” that “the Napoleonic conception (of power) awaits everything from the people, she is not flattering it; she despises the democratic “chambellanism” with which the masses are caressed for petty purposes”. His election to the French presidency the 2 nd of December 1848 with almost 75% of the expressed votes comforted him in looking for popular plebiscite for the rest of his political career. As explained by Garrigou, « this plebiscite conferred him a democratic legitimacy, with seven millions four hundred thousand « yes » and only six hundred fifty thousand “no” (2008). Accordingly, the universal suffrage was the solution to all the problems he was to encounter. While confronted to the non-reelection issue, he asked the popular voice in a double-aimed attempt: first to seat his rule upon a popular legitimacy and second to overcome and oversteps the lack of support he suffered from as far as political parties and factions of his time are concerned. As explained by Gildea, « Napoleon III wanted to restore universal suffrage, the authentic voice of the people, to submerge political faction in a A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 14
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III national consensus” (2003). The same mechanism was used after his Coup d’Etat, when he envisaged transforming his regime into an empire. It is therefore via a popular plebiscite that the title of Emperor of the French was awarded to him after the November 1852’s plebiscite. It is from this very perspective that Nicolas Sarkozy’s obsession with popular support establishes some bridges with the Emperor’s conception of legitimacy. Alain Duhamel highlighted Sarkozy’s thirst of popularity when he described him as “a republican, respectful of the universal suffrage; but also a plebiscitary, greedy of supports and popular consecrations” (2009). Duhamel labeled therefore Sarkozy’s conception of legitimacy as a “Bonapartism of the 21 st century” since this model seems to rely on both the French republic as an institutional framework and the “supremacy of the power of a leader legitimized by the universal suffrage” (2009). As a matter of fact, this mechanism is highly valued in the French conception of democratic governance: in a system where the two criteria that matter are formally the elections’ results (at all levels, even in the regional ballot vote) and informally the satisfactions’ polls, a popular sanction is generally assorted with a resignation from political matters (it was the case recently for Lionel Jospin) or an unquestionable decrease of legitimacy. On the contrary, being chosen by the people allows the elected president to benefit from a legitimacy no one is able to question. Accordingly, rallying the masses at any cost from such an obsessive perspective presupposes other underlying mechanisms, among which a populist discourse likely to be adopted by the population. At this regard, Napoleon III and Sarkozy’s approaches are a case in point regarding the overall physiognomy of their electorate, though they dealt with different societal expectations. While Napoleon III relied heavily on the prestige of his imperial uncle within the popular classes and capitalized upon it to forge political alliances with his main opponents, A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 15
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