setback, a serious setback, and that he took full responsibility, though he didn’t go so far as to say he was retiring from politics, like Lionel Jospin in 2002. As for which candidate the UMP would support in the run-off, he said only that the executive bureau of the party would meet in a week to make their determination.
At ten o’clock neither the Socialists nor the Muslim Brotherhood had pulled ahead. The latest results showed them in a dead heat. This state of uncertainty spared the Socialist candidate from having to give what would have been a difficult speech. Was it really all over for the two parties that had dominated French political life since the birth of the Fifth Republic? The prospect was so amazing that, as the commentators blew by, you could see they all secretly wanted it to happen – even David Pujadas, whom no one suspected of being especially friendly to Islam, and who was said to be friends with Manuel Valls. Christophe Barbier, flashing around his trademark red scarf, was without question the star pundit of the night: he appeared on one channel after another so fast that he seemed to enjoy the gift of ubiquity, and kept the scarf trick going until a very late hour, easily eclipsing the ashen Renaud Dély, whose
Observateur
had failed to predict the upset, and even Yves Thréard, of
Le Figaro
, who usually put up a better fight.
It was just after midnight, as I finished my second bottle of Rully, that they announced the final results: Mohammed Ben Abbes, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, had come in second with 22.3 per cent of the vote. With 21.9 per cent, the Socialists were out. Manuel Valls gave a short, very sober speech congratulating the two winners. Pending a meeting of the Socialist leadership, he withheld any endorsement.
Wednesday, 18 May
When I went in to teach my class, I finally felt that something might happen, that the political system I’d grown up with, which had been showing cracks for so long, might suddenly explode. I don’t know exactly where the feeling came from. Maybe it was the attitude of my postgrad students: even the most apathetic and apolitical looked tense, anxious. They were obviously searching their smartphones and tablets for any news they could find. Or at any rate, they were more checked out than ever. It may also have been the way the girls in burkas carried themselves. They moved slowly and with new confidence, walking down the very middle of the hallway, three by three, as if they were already in charge.
I was equally struck by my colleagues’ lack of concern. They seemed completely unworried, as if none of this had anything to do with them. It only confirmed what I’d always thought – that, for all their education, university professors can’t even imagine political developments having any effect on their careers: they consider themselves untouchable.
At the end of the day, as I turned down rue de Santeuil on my way to the metro, I caught sight of Marie-Françoise. I almost ran to catch up with her, and after a quick hello I asked her straight out: ‘Do you think our colleagues are right to be so calm? Are our jobs really that safe?’
‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, with a gnome-like grimace that did nothing to improve her looks, and lit a Gitane. ‘I was starting to think everyone in the whole fucking place was asleep. Our jobs are certainly
not
safe, not by a long shot, and I know whereof I speak …’
She considered for a moment, then replied.
‘My husband works at the DGSI.’ I gazed at her in wonder. It was the first time, in all the ten years I’d known her, that I realised she had once been a woman – that she still was a woman, in a sense – and that once upon a time a man had felt desire for this squat, stumpy, almost frog-like little thing. Fortunately, she misread my look. ‘I know,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘Everyone’s always surprised … You do know what the DGSI is, don’t you?’
‘Intelligence, right?
At ten o’clock neither the Socialists nor the Muslim Brotherhood had pulled ahead. The latest results showed them in a dead heat. This state of uncertainty spared the Socialist candidate from having to give what would have been a difficult speech. Was it really all over for the two parties that had dominated French political life since the birth of the Fifth Republic? The prospect was so amazing that, as the commentators blew by, you could see they all secretly wanted it to happen – even David Pujadas, whom no one suspected of being especially friendly to Islam, and who was said to be friends with Manuel Valls. Christophe Barbier, flashing around his trademark red scarf, was without question the star pundit of the night: he appeared on one channel after another so fast that he seemed to enjoy the gift of ubiquity, and kept the scarf trick going until a very late hour, easily eclipsing the ashen Renaud Dély, whose
Observateur
had failed to predict the upset, and even Yves Thréard, of
Le Figaro
, who usually put up a better fight.
It was just after midnight, as I finished my second bottle of Rully, that they announced the final results: Mohammed Ben Abbes, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, had come in second with 22.3 per cent of the vote. With 21.9 per cent, the Socialists were out. Manuel Valls gave a short, very sober speech congratulating the two winners. Pending a meeting of the Socialist leadership, he withheld any endorsement.
Wednesday, 18 May
When I went in to teach my class, I finally felt that something might happen, that the political system I’d grown up with, which had been showing cracks for so long, might suddenly explode. I don’t know exactly where the feeling came from. Maybe it was the attitude of my postgrad students: even the most apathetic and apolitical looked tense, anxious. They were obviously searching their smartphones and tablets for any news they could find. Or at any rate, they were more checked out than ever. It may also have been the way the girls in burkas carried themselves. They moved slowly and with new confidence, walking down the very middle of the hallway, three by three, as if they were already in charge.
I was equally struck by my colleagues’ lack of concern. They seemed completely unworried, as if none of this had anything to do with them. It only confirmed what I’d always thought – that, for all their education, university professors can’t even imagine political developments having any effect on their careers: they consider themselves untouchable.
At the end of the day, as I turned down rue de Santeuil on my way to the metro, I caught sight of Marie-Françoise. I almost ran to catch up with her, and after a quick hello I asked her straight out: ‘Do you think our colleagues are right to be so calm? Are our jobs really that safe?’
‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, with a gnome-like grimace that did nothing to improve her looks, and lit a Gitane. ‘I was starting to think everyone in the whole fucking place was asleep. Our jobs are certainly
not
safe, not by a long shot, and I know whereof I speak …’
She considered for a moment, then replied.
‘My husband works at the DGSI.’ I gazed at her in wonder. It was the first time, in all the ten years I’d known her, that I realised she had once been a woman – that she still was a woman, in a sense – and that once upon a time a man had felt desire for this squat, stumpy, almost frog-like little thing. Fortunately, she misread my look. ‘I know,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘Everyone’s always surprised … You do know what the DGSI is, don’t you?’
‘Intelligence, right?
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