Pécresse Zemmour debate: and freedoms in all this?

The Constitutional Council published this Monday, March 7 the official list of the 12 candidates for the presidential election, those having obtained the 500 required and validated sponsorships. Unless the program changes, there will be no Liberal candidate. On the contrary, everyone speaks only of interventionism, nationalization, tax increases, and ever more government. France would be nothing without the State!

France is French genius, French know-how, the D system.

For a democracy to live, we must first trust the citizens!

At the end of the debate on Thursday, March 10, which saw the candidate of the Republicans, Valérie Pécresse, and that of the Reconquête party, Éric Zemmour, viewers of TF1 / LCI remained unsatisfied. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the two candidates mutually claimed the Gaullist heritage, then followed a rat race on immigration. The debate degenerated over Islamism. As for economic reforms, each went from his verse accusing the other of demagogism. Nothing concrete came out: reform of the civil service, budget deficit, debt, taxation, reform of unemployment, pensions, social minima… There was, however, no lack of subjects. A common litany: “don't worry good citizens, the state will take care of everything!” 

And freedoms in all this?

So, it is agreed that in France, liberalism is limited to economic liberalism. It is therefore synonymous with ultra-liberalism and therefore with capitalism.

This lexical error is however regularly contradicted in the columns of your favorite online newspaper. It is not for lack of explaining that economic liberalism is freedom of enterprise, free competition, the right to work. Nor is it for lack of explaining that liberalism is not just economic liberalism. The first conquest of the liberals is reflected in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: “men are born and remain free” and to add that they are also “equal in rights” 

What fine subjects we had there for the Liberal candidate!

Freedoms are attacked from all sides

Freedom of expression first: necessary in a democracy, the various laws since that of 1881 have reduced it to a trickle without limiting its excesses. Citizens must be able to express themselves on all subjects, whatever their opinion or thoughts. The only debate is capable of limiting the influence of conspiracy theorists of all kinds. You have to know how to question yourself without prejudging and build your own thinking. But we no longer know how to debate.

Freedom of movement then: in recent years we have been under the yoke of a state of terrorist emergency (with travel subject to Vigipirate), a state of a health emergency (with house arrest – renamed confinement) . Tomorrow war in Europe and then a state of climate emergency (as recently requested by the WWF association via an ecological pass ) will continue the illiberal nightmare of our lives.

Because that's the enemy: fear. Instrumentalized by politicians, exploited by Antifa or neo-Nazi movements, “ France is afraid ” as a famous newscaster once declared. But liberalism is based on the opposite of the politics of fear: trust. ” Do not be afraid ” had, in another register, declared Pope John Paul II.

For the creation of a truly liberal party neither of the right nor of the left…

In these columns, Pascal Salin asked the following question:

Why, given the current ambiguities in so-called right-wing politics, would it not be possible, for example, for a candidate from the Liberal Party to be a candidate in the next presidential elections?

Two candidates could correspond to this expectation: the philosopher Gaspard Koenig and the entrepreneur Rafik Smati. Both the first and the second did not obtain the necessary sponsorship due to a lack of media visibility, insufficient involvement in local democracy, insufficient financial resources, and certainly too complicated an intellectual position. Moreover, Gaspard Koenig only benefited from the support of the think tank “  Génération Libre  ” and Rafik Smati from a micro-party “  Objectif France  ”.

In his latest book Pour un liberalisme Populaire, the economist Nicolas Bouzou draws inspiration from great thinkers of liberalism like Tocqueville to think about the future of our country. According to him, our salvation can only pass through work and innovation.

In short, the right and left-liberals will once again find themselves alone in the voting booth.

The Constitutional Council published this Monday, March 7 the official list of the 12 candidates for the presidential election, those having obtained the 500 required and validated sponsorships. Unless the program changes, there will be no Liberal candidate. On the contrary, everyone speaks only of interventionism, nationalization, tax increases, and ever more government. France would be nothing without the State