Sarkozy held in custody: A blow to his mooted comeback and a gift to Le Pen?

Nicolas Sarkozy has been detained for questioning by the French judicial police this morning, over allegations of influence-peddling (trafic d'influence). No formal charges have been brought so far, but prosecutors are investigating whether Sarkozy had promised to help a high-ranking French judge get a lucrative job in Monaco in return for insider information about other investigations relating to the financing of Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007.

This story emerged from the wiretapping of phone calls between Sarkozy and his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, that French prosecutors had started last year as part of a separate case - the alleged financing of Sarkozy's presidential campaign by the Gaddafi family.

According to the French media, the conversations revealed that Sarkozy and his lawyer were not only receiving confidential information on the on-going investigations, but were even aware of being wiretapped - given that Sarkozy had reportedly bought a new mobile and was using it to talk to his lawyer under the pseudonym Paul Bismuth.

We will see how the investigation evolves, but it could have important implications. Over the past few months, Sarkozy's political comeback has looked increasingly like a matter of when, not if. A few of his closest allies seem to think the former French President is the only one who can preserve the unity of the centre-right UMP party.

Indeed, Sarkozy could decide it is time to come back precisely in light of this scandal - engaging in a Berlusconi-style crusade against politicised judges. But it is far from clear whether the French electorate would buy this.

In the meantime, Front National leader Marine Le Pen is waiting in the wings, and could come out as the big winner. France's last two centre-right presidents, Jacques Chirac and now Sarkozy, have both been hit by legal scandals. It could be a great argument to persuade disaffected voters to shift to Front National. 

Farage wraps up his European Parliament group faster than Le Pen...thanks to a Front National defector

Nigel Farage has managed to form a new Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group in the European Parliament. The group comprises 48 MEPs from seven EU member states. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and the Latvian Farmers' Union both joined forces with UKIP. But the story of the day is that the seventh nationality Farage needed to wrap up his group has been provided by...a French MEP who defected from Marine Le Pen's Front National.

Joëlle Bergeron (see picture) was elected to the European Parliament with Front National last month. However, according to her, she came under pressure to give up her seat to another member of the party deemed as more 'orthodox' and closer to Le Pen. A couple of days before the European Parliament elections, Madame Bergeron had raised a few eyebrows in Front National's leadership by speaking out in favour of giving immigrants the right to vote in local elections in France. She eventually decided not to step down as an MEP, but she quit Front National and joined UKIP's group.   

How these parties will coexist remains uncertain. For example, UKIP wants to quit the EU, and Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement is a rather unpredictable quantity that doesn’t want to leave the EU and supports a financial transaction tax. Indeed, the fact that parties will be allowed to vote independently on each specific issue could help make the alliance more sustainable.  

As we noted in a recent briefing, European Parliament rules mean the EFD group - as all the others - will be entitled to millions of subsidies every year. According to our estimates, based on 2012 figures, Farage's new alliance could claim in total around €5.6 million a year - €3.8 million for the group in the European Parliament, and €1.8 million for the affiliated pan-European political party and foundation. UKIP is not a member of the latter two, so it will only be entitled to a portion of the money specifically devoted to the European Parliament group.

So Nigel was faster than Marine, but Le Pen still has a good chance of forming her own group. She was in Brussels yesterday for a meeting with her new allies, and Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke was sitting at the table (see picture) - most likely a sign that Poland's Congress of the New Right (KNP) is on board. This means Le Pen only needs one more national delegation to finish the job. Difficult, given that the deadline to register new groups expires next Tuesday, but definitely not impossible.  

Grillo joins Farage, but UKIP's group in the European Parliament is not a done deal yet

Now it's official: Italy's anti-establishment Five-Star Movement will try to form an alliance with UKIP in the new European Parliament. Beppe Grillo launched an online survey of Five-Star members and activists on his blog yesterday, and 78% of votes went for Nigel Farage's EFD group.

The survey has drawn criticism from the Italian press, but also from some Five-Star MPs, for a number of reasons:

• Only 29,584 votes were cast, a microscopic amount when compared to the almost 5.8 million votes the Five-Star Movement won in the European Parliament elections;

• The survey only offered three options: EFD (UKIP's group), ECR (the UK Conservatives' group) or non-attached. Other groups that could have been more natural allies of the Five-Star Movement, notably the Greens and the European Left of SYRIZA and Podemos, were not included;

• The three options were presented on Grillo's blog in a way that appeared to privilege Farage's group. The description of the ECR was shorter and less enthusiastic in tone. As regards the non-attached group, the blog warned that being part of it would mean "limited or no influence on the legislative activities of the European Parliament", and would therefore prevent the Five-Star Movement from pushing its political agenda in Europe. A fair point, although it can also be quite difficult to impose your views if you are sitting in a group where no-one agrees with you on certain issues.

Still, the verdict of la rete (the internet) is sacred for Grillo and the alliance with UKIP will go ahead. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. Although they both emphasise the importance of referenda and direct democracy, the Five-Star Movement and UKIP are not exactly soulmates. Energy policy, EU farm subsidies, financial regulation, the financial transaction tax, GMOs and the EU-US free-trade deal (TTIP) are all issues on which the two parties do not see eye to eye.   

Indeed, the deal between Grillo and Farage is that their parties will sit in the same group, but will vote independently. This could help make the alliance sustainable in the longer term.

So where does this leave Farage with the formation of his group in the European Parliament? The bad news for UKIP is that they still need two national factions to wrap up the group. At the moment, parties from five EU countries are on board: UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

On the other hand, though, Farage is now ahead of Marine Le Pen when it comes to the number of MEPs in the respective groups. Farage has 45 MEPs on his side, Le Pen only 38 (42 if you count the Polish KNP party, whose participation has not yet been confirmed).

Will Le Pen and Farage both succeed in putting together a group? And whose will be the largest one? We will likely get the answer over the next couple of weeks.  

The anti-EU vote: Spot the difference

Question: What's the difference between these two opinion polls for this month's European elections?

Answer: Ok, the percentages in the bottom graph are slightly higher, but there is a striking similarity.

The top graph plots the front runners in the French European elections: Marine Le Pen's Front National, the centre-right opposition UMP, and Francois Hollande's governing Parti Socialiste.

Meanwhile, the bottom graph plots the latest European election poll results for UKIP, Labour and the Conservatives.

There is always a tendency to see the anti-EU/government/establishment phenomenon as unique to one's own country. These European elections are likely to prove otherwise.

Hollande expected to announce cabinet reshuffle after local election 'punishment'

If you want to get a sense of how badly the latest French local elections went for President François Hollande, have a look at today's front page of left-leaning French daily Libération:

 

The headline means 'The punishment', and it summarises the outcome of the local vote pretty well. According to data from the French Interior Ministry, the centre-right (that is, the opposition UMP and its allies) gained 139 towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants compared to the 2008 local elections. The centre-left (Hollande's Socialist Party and its allies) lost 160. The fact that the Socialist Party managed to retain Paris - where Anne Hidalgo was elected as the city's first female mayor - cannot compensate for what was an unequivocal defeat nationwide.

Marine Le Pen's anti-EU Front National took control of eleven towns - in addition to Hénin-Beaumont, where the party won an outright victory in the first round. Though not impressive in absolute terms (see this blog post from last week for some more background information), the score is nonetheless politically significant. It shows how French voters increasingly see Front National not just as a mere 'protest party', but as a credible alternative for power - albeit so far only at the local level and in a very limited number of towns.

Meanwhile, the immediate consequence of yesterday's local election fiasco is that Hollande is expected to announce a cabinet reshuffle any moment. The French President has just come out of a two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, whose departure looks very likely, judging by the headlines in the French press over the past few days.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who enjoys a pretty high approval rating compared to his fellow cabinet members (in part thanks to his tough stance on certain crime and migration issues), is broadly seen as the favourite to replace Ayrault as Prime Minister. Laurent Fabius, currently serving as Foreign Minister, is another name being mentioned by the French media. 

However, in light of the latest macroeconomic indicators, the impression remains that moving a few ministers around will not be enough to restore the French government's credibility vis-à-vis the electorate - unless the policies also change and France makes some real progress in pushing ahead with the reforms needed to restore its competitiveness within the eurozone.

Marine means business: Front National makes big gains in French local elections

Yesterday was a big night for Marine Le Pen's anti-EU Front National, which emerged as the main winner of the first round of the French mayoral elections. The party won an outright victory in Hénin-Beaumont, a former mining city in northern France, and finished ahead in six other towns - where its score ranged from 27.69% (in Digne-les-Bains) to 40.3% (in Fréjus). 

In Marseille, the second most populous French city, Front National finished second with 23.16% of votes, behind the centre-right UMP (37.64%) - relegating President François Hollande's Socialist Party to third place, with 20.77% of votes.

We will have to wait until tomorrow evening for the final results. But, according to the preliminary figures made public by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, the centre-right (that is, the UMP and its allies) won 46.54% of votes nationwide - well ahead of the centre-left (Socialist Party and allies) on 37.74%. So not exactly a night to remember for Hollande.

Le Pen's party was only running in 597 of the almost 37,000 municipalities up for grabs, and therefore won only 4.65% of votes nationwide. However, this is much better than in 2008 - when Front National only managed to run in 119 municipalities and won around 1% of votes nationwide in the first round. This suggests it may be consolidating as an electoral force at the local level.

The second round of the mayoral elections will take place on Sunday 30 March. Interestingly, several top Socialist figures (from Hollande's spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault) have called for the centre-right to support a so-called Front Républicain - whereby the Socialists, the UMP and other centrist parties join forces to stop Front National candidates prevailing in the second round. However, UMP leader Jean-François Copé has this morning dismissed the idea.

So unlike Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, whose PVV party saw its support decrease slightly in last week's Dutch local elections, Front National is on a clear upward path - and it would be no surprise if it came out as the largest party in the upcoming European Parliament elections. It will be interesting to see how yesterday's results will influence the campaign. We have already noted that several centre-right French politicians - including Nicolas Sarkozy himself - have embraced, at least in rhetoric, a less idealistic approach to 'Europe'. Given the Front National's strong showing, this is only likely to continue.

Irony alert: Farage could be the biggest loser if Le Pen and Wilders manage to form a new anti-EU group in the European Parliament

Belonging to a group in the European Parliament matters. Groups receive money on top of individual MEPs' allowances and are given additional group staff. It also boosts chances of representation on committees (where EU laws are discussed and amended before they are put to a vote in the plenary).

Therefore, the prospect of Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's Front National (FN) and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), forming a new anti-immigration, anti-EU group in the next European Parliament is causing some distress around Europe. When this was last attempted - with the so-called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) group - it quickly fell apart. The Greater Romania Party (PRM) didn't quite approve of Alessandra Mussolini - the granddaughter of you-know-who - labelling Romanians "habitual law-breakers" and thus withdrew from the group. Rather telling.

So will Wilders and Le Pen succeed to unite parties that, per definition, don't always like each other? According to EU rules, 25 MEPs from at least a quarter (seven) EU member states are needed to form a group.

By our count, at least four more parties from as many EU countries look willing to join forces with FN and PVV: Italy's Lega Nord (who currently sits in the same group as UKIP), Belgium's Vlaams Belang, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Sweden Democrats (whose leader today said they are considering joining). This leaves FN and PVV only one party and country short.

This could be filled by, for example, the Slovak National Party (SNS) - which is pretty hardcore, and currently sits with UKIP. Bulgaria's Ataka would probably also be quite keen to join, though Le Pen recently called the party "the real extreme right" (not meaning it favourably). Greater Romania may struggle to reach the 5% national threshold needed to win seats in the European Parliament, but could be another possibility.

The Danish People's party has said it won't join the group, while Greece's Golden Dawn and Hungary's Jobbik seem to be off-limits for everyone.

So this might come down to the wires. An interesting twist, though: if Le Pen/Wilders succeed, this could mean problems for Farage. UKIP currently sits in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group - which includes 31 MEPs from twelve different countries, but:

• Farage could lose several MEPs from Italy, with Lega Nord joining FN and PVV, and the other Italian, Magdi Cristiano Allam, standing for re-election with a different party (Fratelli d'Italia);
• The Slovak National Party might join the Le Pen/Wilders group in the end;
• The (True) Finns are talking to the European Conservatives and Reformist (ECR) group, where the UK Conservative Party sits;
• The two Greek MEPs in UKIP's group are from LAOS - a party which is currently polling below the national threshold of 3%. This means their re-election is not certain;
• In addition, seven out of twelve EU countries in UKIP's group are currently represented by only one MEP.

So Farage could need both new parties, additional MEPs and more countries to be able to set a group after May's European elections. And if not managing a group of his own, where will he go? Will he reconsider his decision not to join forces with Marine Le Pen, something he ruled out in the past  when he said UKIP and FN are from "completely different political traditions and background"?

What is clear is that the formation of political groupings in the European Parliament will be a messy affair - and then we haven't even begun to discuss the ECR...