By David A. Andelman
Editor's note: David A. Andelman, editor
emeritus of World Policy Journal and member of the board of contributors
of USA Today, is the author of "A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and
the Price We Pay Today." Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. The views
expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN) -- Donald
Trump's travails are apparently sending shivers through Europe's
so-called populist right. This seems particularly true in France.
Marine
Le Pen -- the leader of France's National Front party and darling of
the French far right -- had hoped to ride President Trump's coattails to
power -- and in the process, bring down the entire European project.
As
France, Italy and the Netherlands gear up for critical elections this
spring, many of Trump's more outrageous pronouncements -- not to mention
actions -- are casting a pall over Europe's populism.
Trump's
continuing embrace of Vladimir Putin, his support for a Brexit that even
many Brits are now viewing with fear, and above all his de-facto Muslim
ban all appear to be moving much of the European electorate closer to
the center and driving these often-bickering nations closer to each
other.
The first test comes in France barely 10 weeks from now in
the first round of France's presidential election. Already, it holds the
promise of a most contentious period. In an effort to smooth her own
image and ease her way into the hearts of a broader electorate than her
explosive father, far-right demagogue Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine has
dropped her toxic last name from her campaign material -- at about the
same time she released a 144-point program that's clearly designed to
smooth some of her sharpest edges.
No longer does Le Pen want
France to "exit the eurozone," but rather "restore the national
currency," which many in France worry will do little to improve their
economic plight. No longer does she seek to reinstate the death penalty
but rather life imprisonment for "the worst crimes." She doesn't even
want to leave the European Union but rather renegotiate France's terms
of membership.
Still she does want an end to the Schengen,
passport-free travel within Europe, and an exit from the military
functions of NATO, much as President Charles de Gaulle did 50 years ago.
But this retro view of Europe is hardly exploding in popularity, as contiguous as it may appear with the views of Donald Trump.
Above
all, what Europeans value most from their leaders is competence and a
steady hand on the tiller. That is clearly, to most, been glaringly
absent from the early days of the Trump presidency. It is also not
something that Marine Le Pen, or many of her populist counterparts in
other countries, can promise.
Le Pen has never held any national
elective office in France (though she has been a member of the European
Parliament). She has never served in the National Assembly or as a
minister of government. That means she has never been forced to face the
consequence of any of her pronouncements or her positions that to an
increasing number of Europeans would appear to offer existential threats
to the continent.
Such threats have not been lost on
other leading European politicians seeking office this year, the vast
bulk of them distancing themselves persuasively from a broad range of
positions taken by the Trump administration.
In Germany, the
far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has managed to poll barely
11% of the popular vote. And, since Trump's arrival in the White House,
the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) have announced that their
candidate to take on Chancellor Angela Merkel in the election will be
Martin Schulz, a former President of the European Parliament and an
outspoken critic of Trump. His party has now pulled within four points
of Merkel's conservative alliance.
Of course Merkel, who's seeking
a fourth term on September 24, is also no friend of Donald Trump. And
while recognizing the need for some relationship with the American
leader, she "will see issue by issue where we can cooperate and where we
have different opinions, but it's in Germany's interest to strengthen
the common ground there is."
In a joint news conference with
France's president, Francois Hollande, Merkel elaborated, "We see that
global conditions are changing dramatically and quickly, and we must
respond to these new challenges, both in terms of defending a free
society and defending free trade, as well as in terms of the economic
challenges." Merkel is clearly walking a delicate line between extremes
in her own nation.
The first election to test the Trump effect in
Europe comes five weeks from now in the Netherlands, which will choose a
new parliament and ruling prime minister.
Here, a Trump clone is
generating quite a lot of interest. Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party
have promised to pull their nation out of the EU. Wilders promises a
"Patriotic Spring." Should he become the next prime minister, all that
could restrain his anti-Islam sympathies and preserve a united Europe is
the fact that 28 political parties are on the ballot, and any prime
minister will need to assemble a coalition of as many as four or five
parties to rule.
Le Pen faces a similar problem in France. Even if
Marine Le Pen should manage the unthinkable and pull out an election
victory in the final round of the presidential election on May 7, the
French will still go back to the ballot boxes a month later to vote for
the parliament. Le Pen's National Front party has never managed more
than 35 seats (out of 573 -- in 1986), and currently holds just two
seats out of 577. Such a showing makes it most unlikely that Le Pen
would be able to push through much of her 144-point agenda.
Above
all, it must be remembered, that the French, like much of Europe, have
long seen themselves in starkly different terms from those of a
Trump-tinged America. While many French people don't especially like
foreigners and -- since their own terrorist attacks from radical Islam
-- are in some fear of importing terror, they also still consider
themselves bastions of freedom and human rights. Closing all frontiers
and barring the desperate and needy is anathema to broad swaths of the
French electorate. Moreover, the French are hardly inclined to make
their own vast domestic Muslim population feel even more disenfranchised
and receptive to attacks on their Christian neighbors.
In these
respects, France is not alone. In Germany, Angela Merkel, who had to
deal with the Christmas terrorist truck assault in Berlin, has her own
cross to bear in the wake of her decision to admit 890,000 refugees in
2015, though that number dropped to 280,000 last year.
Still, her
humanitarian decision to continue accepting victims of Middle East
violence has been reinforced by what's being regarded as a 1930s-style
approach to such issues by Trumpworld in America.
"It often
seemed as though Donald Trump could no longer outdo himself when it came
to demonstrating his lunacy," the German magazine Der Spiegel suggested
in its issue with a cover of Donald Trump holding aloft the head of
Lady Liberty dripping with blood in his right hand, and a meat cleaver
in his left, with the caption, "America First." But, the magazine added,
the travel ban "is more dangerous than any other action he has taken
since his inauguration."
So, Trump's actions are being monitored
closely across the Atlantic. Ironically, the more intense the madness,
the broader the backlash, and the more likely that Europe could return
to a much-needed path of sanity.
