Final Campaign Meeting Paris

Since I often don't have much to do in the office, I translated a Le Monde article about the meeting I attended last night. It was a fun and interesting show. Quand l'Europe veut, l'Europe peut!

At the UMP, the final show on a note of unity
Le Monde, June 5, 2009

The UMP teams had worked on the set-up for several weeks. The bar was set high: the last meeting at Porte de Versailles in Paris, Thursday, June 4, was meant to be the final act of the campaign. “The most beautiful,” assured Xavier Bertrand, the Secretary-General of the UMP, so that the activists and citizens retain only these last images, three days before the vote. To succeed with its final flourish, after a wheezing and FALOTE campaign, the UMP looked to Serge Khalfon, director of Thierry Ardisson’s show and the Guignols de l’info and a specialist in election parties.

After hesitating with the Palais des sports, the UMP eventually decided on Pavilion 6 of the Parc des expositions, a completely convertible room, where Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory was “made” in 2007. This because they needed to create a “mass” feel, to erase the bad memories of the meetings in Lille and Lyon, where the overlarge gages gave the impression of sparse attendance.

The installation of the stage was conceived as follows: in the form of a T, the speakers were surrounded by activists, “5,000” according to Xavier Bertrand, doubtless fewer. The scriptwriters left nothing to chance: certainly not the music, with young singers from a Hauts-de-Seine school performing the European anthem and musicians playing on the bagpipes, accordion, and mandolin Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne à l’amour.

Symbolism was not forgotten, with the heads of the party’s lists signing, one by one, on stage, an immense plaque meant to record the candidates’ seven promises, including the refusal of the entry of Turkey, the fight against illegal immigration, and the obligation for future Euro deputies to be “present in parliament and in their regions.”

Even the placement of the representatives of the majority – Eric Besson, Hervé Morin, Jean-Marie Bockel, Xavier Bertrand – at the four corners of the stage, and that of the members of the cabinet and of parliament summoned en masse and seated among the spectators, was meticulously managed. Finally, the remarks given by the heads of the lists had been learned by heart, to avoid the gaffes of the beginning of the campaign, with Rachida Dati. “Everything was regulated down to the wearing of socks,” mocked Eric Besson.

“I NEED THEM”

The image of the last UMP meeting must first be that of unity, unity of the majority enlarged to the centre and to the left and united around the head of state, against “divided,” “confused,” “shamed by internal quarrels,” according to François Fillon.

Absent from the party, Nicolas Sarkozy was applauded throughout the meeting. “I had the President of the Republic on the telephone a while ago. He told me: ‘send them a simple message from me: I need them,’” Xavier Bertrand told the activists. Several clips glorifying the head of state and the French presidency of the European Union punctuated the meeting. Wednesday, in a cabinet meeting, Nicolas Sarkozy scolded his ministers who, in his eyes, had not sufficiently implicated themselves in the election.

Prime Minister François Fillon made an effort to laud him, describing his “pride” in “serving the President of the Republic because, in the face of the storm, he is the man of the situation.” Although it had largely campaigned around the outcome of Nicolas Sarkozy’s European policy, the UMP claims to be the only party “talking about Europe.”

“On the extreme left,” Mr. Fillon noted ironically, “the European vision is nothing more than a copy of the Marxist Internationale! On the extreme right, they still dream of a Europe bristling with border stations even though France figures among the largest agricultural and industrial exporters in the world! At MoDem, every day is the presidential election. As for the Socialist Party, it is staying true to itself: divided and hesitant.”

The only wrong note in the show was the absence of Jean-François Copé, the head of the UMP group in the National Assembly and rival of Xavier Bertrand who, last week, set for the majority’s lists a minimum floor of 25%.