France’s most popular politician looked out from the stage at a vast rally and proudly uttered a word that seemed taboo in a country rocked by terrorist attacks, mass unemployment, social division and economic gloom: “Happiness”. There was wild applause.
“People say I’m a prophet of happiness. Well I’m happy about that!” said Alain Juppé, arms outstretched. The audience waved French flags and cheered.
Despite France’s reputation for being the most pessimistic nation on earth, Juppé, 71, a former centre-right prime minister and mayor of Bordeaux who styles himself as an experienced elder statesman is topping the polls with a promise of a “happy” national identity.
His bold promise to lead a diverse France that can live together in harmony is a personal crusade against what he sees as dangerous Donald Trump-style politics of fear and demagoguery. It is also an attack on the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s hardline brand of national identity politics, which have dominated the headlines amid a recent row over banning burkinis and talk of France’s divided society descending into civil war.
Juppé’s mission to promote his harmonious idea has not been an easy ride. He has been attacked by Sarkozy’s camp as a naïve idealist, foolish to preach happiness in a country where more than 230 people have been killed in terrorist attacks in little more than 18 months, as the political class questions Islam’s place in French society and more than 3 million people are unemployed.
And yet, so far, the polls show that Juppé’s ambition for France is winning out.
He remains France’s most liked politician and – in a close-run battle with Sarkozy – is still favourite to win the nomination of the Les Républicains party and become the rightwing candidate in next spring’s presidential election.
In Strasbourg on Tuesday night, at his first big regional rally of the primary campaign, Juppé defended his vision for what he calls France’s “happy identity”. He coined the phrase in 2014 in an attack against the French intellectual Alain Finkielkraut, who had written a bestseller called The Unhappy Identity that warned of the supposed dangers to French national identity from mass immigration and multiculturalism. Juppé rejected the idea that a diverse, mixed society was a threat to France.
On stage in Strasbourg, he slammed the idea that France was inherently divided and pessimistic, brushing aside decades of intellectual treatises on national decline. “France and the French aren’t condemned to be unhappy,” he said. For him, “happy” national French identity was clearly not a current reality but an ideal and “collective aim” that could become possible if the country reformed.
He has criticised politicians for surfing on a fear of Islam and cultural difference, rejecting Sarkozy’s calls for a nationwide ban on burkinis as needlessly “throwing oil on the fire”. He vowed in Strasbourg: “I won’t turn people in France against each other.”
Juppé nonetheless stayed true to his traditions on the Gaullist French right, setting out firm rules for how this harmonious French identity could be achieved. He is against Sarkozy’s recent calls for “assimilation”, in which everyone must lose any trace of their roots to be French, and prefers the concept of “integration”.
For Juppé, integration must carry fixed rules. He wants a charter of secularism, a reorganisation of Islam in France to ensure French funding and preaching and a firm line on immigration control, with annual quotas set by parliament. He said the key to everyone in France living happily together would be the state honouring its responsibility to make France secure, fight terrorism and overhaul the economy, aiming for full employment in a country that has been racked by unemployment for decades.
Speaking to journalists before his rally, Juppé said there had been a “frenzy” and “mania” over more and more outlandish ideas of French national identity, including one intellectual’s call for all children in France to be made to have French names such as Marie or Jacques. He said: “The role of a political leader is not to add to the unhappiness of the times, or darken the situation even more.”
Online, some far-right sympathisers mock his perceived soft stance on Islam, calling him “Ali Juppé”.
Despite Sarkozy pushing a much harder line on security – including suggesting locking up people suspected of being radicalised – a recent poll showed French people trusted Juppé more on guaranteeing national security.
At the rally, Jean-Claude Sylvestre, who runs a renewable energy firm in Epinal, said he had voted twice for Sarkozy in the past but would now choose Juppé as his party’s candidate. “There has to be calm, not confrontation. We have to stop this constant running after news, rushing in on the burkini, seeking provocation,” he said. “It’s about calm and experience. Personalities more than manifestos will determine the presidential campaign.”
Marguerite Zabern, a retired nurse from Strasbourg, said: “I don’t know if Juppé will succeed, but I trust him as a person. I trust him to find the right path to a kind of peace in France. The attacks will continue and it’s difficult to live with that kind of threat.”
The primary race to choose the right’s candidate, with a final vote in November, nevertheless remains entirely open, with Sarkozy gaining ground.
“There is a psychological dimension to Alain Juppé’s standing in the polls,” said François Miquet-Marty of pollsters ViaVoice. “He has a capacity to reassure French people who are worried about their future and the future of France. The concept of ‘happy identity’ is seen as reassuring, contrary to Nicolas Sarkozy, who can be seen as divisive and conflictual. The notion of ‘happy identity’ is liked, and it’s one of the reasons for Juppé’s success.”
One young party member, who supported one of the smaller, secondary candidates in the right’s primary race, shrugged off the concept. “Juppé says ‘identity’ in order to win over rightwingers who are interested in national identity, and then he adds ‘happy’ in order to include everyone else. He’s trying too hard for consensus.”
Juppé, who has been in politics since the 70s and is working to soften his cold, aloof image, told supporters in Strasbourg that he would fight “a joyous campaign, full of hope”. He said he had won scores of campaigns in the past, “but I’ve never known a campaign to be victorious in sadness or gloominess”.
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