The Economist USA - 22.02.2020

52 Europe The EconomistFebruary 22nd 2020

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1

I

n matters ofsex and politics, French

insouciance rules that the public in-

terest stops at the bedroom door. Presi-

dents have often kept mistresses. Public

opinion shrugs off such dalliances.

While in office, François Hollande was

photographed astride a scooter visiting

his lover. In 1899 Félix Faure died in his

mistress’s arms at the Elysée Palace.

Yet on February 14th Benjamin Gri-

veaux, Emmanuel Macron’s struggling

candidate for mayor of Paris, made his-

tory by standing down after a private sex

video he made was posted online. Mr

Griveaux, a close ally of the president,

did not dispute its authenticity. In 2018

he sent the clip via an app to a woman

with whom he was having a consensual

liaison. On February 12th the video was

posted by Pyotr Pavlensky, a Russian

political artist, on a pornographic web-

site along with an article denouncing Mr

Griveaux. Within 48 hours he resigned.

To some this marks a cultural shift:

the end of French tolerance of sexual

indiscretion in public life. It represents

the “Americanisation” of French politics,

wrote one commentator; the embrace of

“puritanism”, said another. That it was an

effort to bring down Mr Griveaux is not in

doubt. Mr Pavlensky, who once nailed his

scrotum to the cobblestones of Moscow’s

Red Square and was granted political

asylum in France, said he was out to

expose Mr Griveaux’s “hypocrisy”. While

campaigning, the candidate posed with

his wife and used the hashtag#hap-

pyfamily. Was this a sting from the start?

Who else was involved? In a twist, the

recipient of Mr Griveaux’s video, Alexan-

dra de Taddeo, is now romantically

linked to Mr Pavlensky. The police have

brought preliminary charges for breach-

ing privacy laws against both.

Yet most public anger is directed at Mr

Pavlensky and the perils of technology,

which suggests sexual culture may not

have changed that much. One in five

French people say they have shared

sexual images of themselves. The politi-

cal reaction has been near-universal

revulsion—not at Mr Griveaux’s behav-

iour, but at the way it was exposed, and

the Russian link. “Odious”, tweeted

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left leader

who usually delights in Mr Macron’s

woes. Others were darker still. The affair,

warnedLe Monde, carries the risk of “a

fatal erosion of democratic life”.

Liaisons dangereuses

French puritanism

PARIS

A sexting scandal in Parisian politics

Non-smart use of smartphone

Unemployment in the fourth quarter of

2019 fell to 7.9% in mainland France, its

lowest level for 11 years.

French airwaves are no longer filled

with relentless news of factory closures

and redundancies. The number of new

companies created surged to 815,000 in the

fourth quarter of 2019, a 38% increase on

the same period in 2017. Fully 84% of for-

eign investors now have a positive image of

France, up from 36% in 2016, according to

Ipsos, a polling group. Perhaps most im-

portant, disposable income grew last year

by 2%, its fastest pace for 12 years.

Mr Macron can hardly take credit for all

of this. France’s economy outperformed

Germany’s partly because it is less export-

dependent and more sheltered from trade

volatility. One boost to growth was €17bn

($18.4bn) of income-support measures,

implemented only as an emergency re-

sponse to the gilets jaunesprotests. Unem-

ployment began to fall under the previous

president, François Hollande. Much of the

rich world is enjoying a jobs boom. Still,

the turnaround is arresting. “The coinci-

dence in timing between Macron’s labour-

market reforms and the increase in job cre-

ation and the quality of jobs created strong-

ly suggests they are a big part of the story,”

says Philippe Martin, who heads the gov-

ernment’s Council of Economic Analysis.

All this should help Mr Macron improve

his dismal approval ratings. Yet in January

they fell another four points to 30%, ac-

cording to Ifop, a pollster. The president

has struggled to shake off a reputation for

arrogance and for favouring the rich. His

government has bungled the piloting of its

last big domestic reform, that of the pen-

sions system. Legislation to merge 42 re-

gimes into a single system went to parlia-

ment on February 17th, even though its

financing has yet to be agreed. Periodic

strikes and protests continue.

Above all, Mr Macron has failed to craft

a convincing and positive narrative around

such results. It may be that his technocratic

policymaking simply fits awkwardly with

today’s debate. The birthplace of Enlight-

enment rationalism is proving as vulner-

able as any country to distrust in facts, and

to the populists who manipulate it. When

insee, the official statistics body, unveiled

the latest drop in unemployment, Marine

Le Pen, a nationalist leader, tweeted: “What

if we stopped lying to the French?” At a time

when gut feelings trump bar charts, Mr

Macron finds it hard to persuade people

that his reforms are beginning to work. 7

T

raditionally, chinese ambassadors

are restrained, colourless figures who

emerge from the wallpaper only to object

ritually that any criticism of their govern-

ment is an insult to Chinese people. Gui

Congyou, China’s ambassador to Sweden,

has taken a different tack. He and his em-

bassy denounce journalists and public fig-

ures for perceived slights on an almost

weekly basis, a pace so unusual it has been

studied by Swedish political scientists. He

has been summoned to Sweden’s foreign

ministry more than 40 times in two years.

But Mr Gui has only grown more out-

spoken. Interviewed on Swedish public ra-

dio in November, he sounded like a gang-

ster: “We treat our friends with fine wine,

but for our enemies we have shotguns.” Mr

Gui offers a glimpse of a newly forceful

brand of Chinese diplomacy (see China

section). The regime is quicker to take of-

fence, and retaliates more harshly.

Sweden has friendly business ties with

Chinese companies: Volvo is now owned

by a Chinese carmaker, and Swedes are

happy with that relationship. But the two

countries are at odds over human rights. In

2015 Gui Minhai (no relation to the ambas-

sador), a Swedish national who was a book-

seller in Hong Kong, disappeared in Thai-

land and reappeared months later in

Chinese custody. His crime seemed to have

been selling disparaging books about Pres-

ident Xi Jinping. Mr Gui was released in

2017, but was snatched again months later

by plainclothes agents on a train from

Shanghai to Beijing, while he was being es-

STOCKHOLM

Swedes stand up to Chinese bullying,

most of the time

China v Sweden

Shotgun diplomacy