France sees a change of government, but it may not be enough to bring about real reform

Last week, in the face of unpopularity at the polls, France's Socialist Prime Minister resigned (Willsher, 2014). Jean-Marc Ayrault left office in the face of poor results for the Socialists at the 2014 municipal elections. With the Socialists being overtaken by, and dropping to second place behind, the right wing Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), French President and Socialist Francois Hollande was forced to respond.

The resignation of Ayrault certainly gave Hollande more options and some freedom of movement as he sought a response. He used the opportunity presented by Ayrault's departure, and the public rejection of his party, to bring in a new government. Under former Interior Minister Manuel Valls, that new government plays to a number of strengths, combing a mix of old faces amongst the ministers with a great deal of diversity - for example just under half of the ministers are women. But the ministers consist once more of politicians from the same party that was humbled at the elections.

Rearranging cabinet governments is only a stop-gap measure. There is only so much that a new group of faces from the same party can achieve following a reshuffle. They're still going to be bound to the same commitments and ideals.

Right now, those are difficult restrictions for France. It faces all the same problems common to most of the countries of Western Europe: the ongoing decline of voter turnouts, great difficulty in recovering from the financial crisis through the orthodox moves available within the legitimate political processes and disaffected voters turning to the more extreme options on offer (Penketh, 2014).

These are all symptoms of an affliction affecting all of western democracy and nowhere has it been healed by a cabinet reshuffle. Such measures are temporary, and aimed at keeping one group in power through turbulent times. The real question that France faces is whether the present systems can offer what the country and its people want and need.

All of Europe's governments are struggling to overcome a rising 'democratic deficit'. People are staying away from polling stations on voting day and the state is failing to get consistent popular backing for solutions to the major economic crises that they face. The traditional solutions are not producing answers.

Shaking things up by changing the faces in government is a pretty standard response to disappointments or setbacks. The time may have come to look at alternatives, like a much broader set of political and constitutional reforms and not just in France. Improvements are needed in democratic representation and oversight. We need to address where power comes from and how it is exercised.

To solve these problems that France and Europe faces, people need to be engaged. They need to be informed, involved, listened to, and debated with. No one man, or small group from one party, is ever going to have all of the answers. And where some few seek to solve everything alone, they inevitably exclude others. These problems face all of us, and need to be resolved by all of us.

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References:
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+ Kim Willsher's 'French elections: Francois Hollande under pressure after crushing losses'; in The Guardian; 31 March 2014.

+ Kim Willsher's 'French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault quits after Socialist local election losses'; in The Guardian; 31 March 2014.

+ Kim Willsher's 'France's new prime minister to appoint 'government of combat''; in The Guardian; 1 April 2014.

+ Anne Penketh's 'French MEPs expect low turnout in European elections'; in The Guardian; 1 April 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_municipal_elections,_2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valls_Cabinet