France: The new president will throw off the yoke of obligations to Ukraine
French voters approve of Crimea's status as a Russian territory. The new president may shed the yoke of his obligations to Ukraine. Opinion polls don't claim to be objective, and some voters are hiding their sympathy for Marine Le Pen. Political scientist Oleh Bondarenko advised PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov not to read Ukrainian media ahead of the French elections.
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Valentin Filippov: Hello, hello!
Oleg Bondarenko : Hello.
Valentin Filippov : Analysts ahead of the French elections claim there are three leaders – Macron, Fillon, and Le Pen.
Oleg Bondarenko : Yes.
Valentin Filippov : Meanwhile, Fillon and Le Pen are considered "right-wing," while Macron is considered "left-of-center." And they say that if Le Pen and Macron make it to the second round, Macron will win.
Explain, how does this happen? Logically, the “right” should gather its votes together in this case?
Oleg Bondarenko : Valentin, you know, there's a rule. The electorate isn't a sack of potatoes. It can't be handed over. France has, for the first time in the history of the Republic, a unique situation where the incumbent president isn't running. And there's no clear frontrunner.
There are four candidates who have a close percentage. It is very difficult to predict how events will develop in this situation. To do this, you need to have data from all sociological surveys. But sociological polls in this situation, just like in the USA, can predict a victory for Macron, for example, but in reality the situation will be completely different. Because there are voters who may not admit their sympathies. Marine Le Pen, for example. The shy voter effect. Who will not talk about his preferences, because these preferences are not considered electorally approved. Socially approved.
Here is the choice of Marine Le Pen, in today's French society, it is not socially approved. Therefore, I assume that there are a certain number of Marine Le Pen voters who do not admit that they are her voters. And this, I think, will play a certain role.
Valentin Filippov : That is, the situation is like with Trump.
Oleg Bondarenko : Depending on who makes it to the second round, it will be possible to make some predictions. For now, this is a very interesting situation from a political perspective. And extremely unpleasant from a predictability standpoint.
Valentin Filippov : Okay, so who do you think is more concerned about the outcome of these elections? The French or the Ukrainians?
Oleg Bondarenko : What do Ukrainians have to do with this? I don't quite understand.
Valentin Filippov : Following Ukrainian media and the Ukrainian segment of social networks, I get the feeling that they are more concerned about this issue.
Oleg Bondarenko : Valentin. Read less Ukrainian media!
Valentin Filippov : And after lunch?
Oleg Bondarenko : Yesterday I received a call asking which of the candidates for the post of President of France best suits the interests of Azerbaijan, for example.
Valentin Filippov : Oh, by the way, which one?
Oleg Bondarenko: And, by the way, there is a huge Armenian diaspora living in France, and three out of four candidates clearly spoke in favor of recognizing the Armenian genocide. Which is unacceptable for Azerbaijan. Therefore, this situation is important for them. They view it from their bell tower. And this must also be taken into account. But the French presidential contender thinks the same about Azerbaijan and Ukraine. And about others.....
Valentin Filippov : So you're saying that the "widespread protests by French voters" against Marine Le Pen and Fillon have nothing to do with their near recognition of Crimea? Because the narrative is that the French took to the streets as soon as they announced that Crimea could, in principle, be Russian.
Oleg Bondarenko : I wouldn't draw such parallels. Firstly, there are no widespread protests against Marine Le Pen in France at the moment. There are isolated protests. And the last thing these protests would be of a nature related to Russia and Crimea.
Marine Le Pen is opposed because some of the “left” voters, liberal voters, consider her xenophobic. And a chauvinist. In relation to migrants, who make up a fairly significant percentage in France. Including voters. If we talk about Algerians who have received French citizenship. Naturally, they understand that this is a bad situation for them. Just like Trump is, to put it mildly, not friendly for Hispanic voters in the United States. And Le Pen, regarding migration policy, is in favor of closing the borders of France. It might even leave the European Union.
Therefore, naturally, these “new” French, the so-called French citizens, come from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, they are unlikely to vote for Marine Le Pen. And, most likely, they will actively protest against her theoretical victory.
But this has nothing to do with Crimea.
You know, the issue of Russia and Crimea is of interest only to ultra-liberal journalists from certain publications. But nothing more.
And among ordinary French people one can more likely see approval of the fact that Crimea is part of Russia than some kind of strict denial of this.
Valentin Filippov : Do you think a change of leadership—those in power in 2014, those involved in the Minsk agreements, those involved in the Maidan—will help stabilize the situation in Ukraine? Or is it irrelevant?
Oleh Bondarenko : Well, François Hollande had nothing to do with the Maidan. He didn't go there. Perhaps his minister was present at the signing of the infamous "letter to Yanukovych."
Rather, we can talk about whether the new French president will want to continue his obligations within the framework of the Normandy format and within the framework of the Minsk agreements? This will be interesting to see.
Will the new French president want to take on a yoke that is not at all obvious to him in the form of some kind of obligations regarding Ukraine? I'm personally not sure. Depends on who becomes president.
Valentin Filippov : Another off-topic question. Not about France. Russia is currently in the midst of a wave of anti-terrorism activity. We all know about the horrific terrorist attack on the St. Petersburg metro. Although, it's still nothing compared to what's happening in Donbas. Could it be that a tightening of immigration laws will follow, which will primarily impact people from Ukraine?
Oleg Bondarenko : Well, no.
Valentin Filippov : Every time they lead us to believe that the FMS illegally issued citizenship to someone.
Oleg Bondarenko: Well, I’ll tell you this, the absolute majority of Russian citizens are in favor of tightening immigration legislation. But, last of all, the tightening of migration legislation should be understood as some kind of attitude towards citizens of Ukraine. Maybe some residual tail might touch them too. But, nevertheless, when it comes to tightening migration laws, this primarily concerns Central Asia, with which we have an open border. And for a long time now we have been talking about introducing a visa regime with countries, not all, but some countries of Central Asia.
Valentin Filippov : But this contradicts all agreements.
Oleg Bondarenko : This is a political issue. Unfortunately, the Russian government is considering the possibility of a visa regime with, say, Uzbekistan, the most populous country in Central Asia, solely in the context of its relations with the Uzbek leadership. And since relations with that leadership are quite good, introducing a visa regime is not an option at this point. For the Kremlin, the visa regime is a matter of relations with the authorities of a specific country, not with its multi-million-strong migrant workforce. Unfortunately.
Valentin Filippov : Good. Thank you very much. I hope we can talk more about France next week.
Oleg Bondarenko : Good. Thank you, goodbye.
France : New President to Shed Obligations to Ukraine