I ordered another round. ‘You’ll have to come over for dinner,’ Tanneur said. ‘Marie-Françoise will be so glad to see you. It’s hard for her, having to leave the university. It doesn’t make much difference to me — I’d have had to retire in two years anyway … Obviously, it leaves a bad taste, but they’ll give me my whole pension, I’m sure, and extra pay, too. Anything to keep me from making a fuss.’
The waiter brought our beers and a bowl of olives. The cafe had begun to fill up. People were talking loudly, it was clear they all knew one another, some said hello to Tanneur as they passed our table. I nibbled at the olives, thinking. There was something I didn’t get. I could always just ask him, he might know, he seemed to know about lots of things. I regretted that until now my attention to political life had been so anecdotal, so superficial.
‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, after I’d drunk some of my beer, ‘is what anyone hopes to achieve by attacking the polling stations. The elections are still going to take place, a week from now, under military protection. The balance of power hasn’t changed. The results are still up in the air. Unless maybe they manage to prove that the right is behind it, which would help the Muslim Brotherhood — or that the Muslims are behind it, which would help the National Front.’
‘Trust me, no one can prove anything, one way or the other — and no one’s going to try. Politically, though, big things are going to happen. And fast. We’ll see as soon as tomorrow. One possibility is that the UMP will decide to form a coalition with the National Front. So what, you say — the UMP are in free fall. Still, they’re enough to tip the balance and win the election.’
‘I don’t know. If they were going to ally themselves with the National Front, couldn’t they have done it years ago?’
‘Exactly right!’ he beamed. ‘At the beginning, the National Front was eager to team up with the UMP so they could form a governing majority. Then gradually, the National Front grew. Their numbers went up in the polls, and the UMP started to get scared. Not of their populism, or their supposed fascism — the leaders of the UMP wouldn’t have minded a few new security measures, a little xenophobia. UMP voters, such as they are, are all for that sort of thing. But as a practical matter, the UMP is very much the weaker partner in this alliance. If they make a deal, they’re afraid of being annihilated and simply absorbed into the National Front. And finally there’s Europe. That’s the deal killer. What the UMP wants, and the Socialists, too, is for France to disappear — to be integrated into a European federation. Obviously, this isn’t popular with the voters, but for years the party leaders have managed to sweep it under the carpet. If they formed an alliance with an openly anti-European party, they couldn’t go on this way, the whole thing would fall apart. That’s why I lean towards a second scenario, the creation of a republican alliance, where the UMP and the Socialists both get behind Ben Abbes — as long as they can get enough seats to form a government.’
‘I’d think that would be hard, too — or at least, very surprising.’
‘Right again!’ This time, as he smiled, he rubbed his hands together. Clearly, my questions amused him. ‘But it’s hard for a different reason; it’s hard because it’s surprising, because nothing like it has ever happened — at least not since the Liberation. We’re so used to the politics of right versus left that we can’t see another way for things to be. And yet what’s the problem, really? The UMP is much closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than the Socialists were. We talked about this the first time we met: the only reason that the Socialists gave way on education or reached a deal with the Brotherhood — the only reason their pro-immigrant wing won out over the secularists — is that they were cornered. They had no way out. It will all be much easier for the conservatives, who are in even worse shape, and who never cared about education — they hardly even know what education is. The only trouble is that the UMP and the Socialists would have to get used to the idea of governing together. That would be something completely new. It would undermine every position they’ve ever taken.
‘Of course, there’s a third possibility — that nothing will happen, no one will make a deal, and the run-off will take place with everyone in the same position as before, with the same uncertainty. In a sense, it’s the most likely thing that could happen — but that’s extremely worrisome, too. For one thing, no election has ever been so close in the entire history of the Fifth Republic. But what’s really problematic is that neither of the leading parties has any experience of governing, at the national or even the local level. As politicians, they’re all complete amateurs.’
He finished his beer. When he looked at me his eyes glittered with intelligence. He wore a polo shirt under his glen check jacket; he was kindly, disillusioned and wise; he probably subscribed to Historia. I could just see a dog-eared Historia collection in a bookcase by the fire, sandwiched between more specialised works, maybe about French Africa, or histories of the intelligence services since World War II. No doubt he’d been interviewed by the authors of these books, or soon would be, in his Quercynois retreat. On certain subjects he would remain silent, on others he would feel authorised to speak.
‘So we’ll see you tomorrow evening?’ he asked, as he signalled for the bill. ‘I’ll pick you up at the hotel. Marie-Françoise will be delighted.’
Evening fell on Place des Consuls, the yellow stones glowed gently in the setting sun. We were opposite the Hôtel de la Raymondie.
‘Martel is an old village, isn’t it?’
‘Very. And its name is no accident. Everyone knows Charles Martel — Charles the Hammer — fought the Arabs at Poitiers in 732, ending Muslim expansion to the north. That was a decisive battle, it marks the real beginning of the Christian Middle Ages. But it wasn’t all so neat and tidy. The invaders didn’t just pick up and go home. Charles Martel spent years warring against them in Acquitaine. In 743 he won another battle not far from here, and he decided to give thanks by building a church. It bore the three red hammers of his coat of arms. The village grew up around this church, which was later destroyed, then rebuilt in the fourteenth century. It’s true that Christianity and Islam have been at war for a very long time; war has always been one of the major human activities. As Napoleon put it, war is human nature. But with Islam, I think, the time has come for accommodation, for an alliance.’
I shook his hand goodbye. He was laying it on a little thick — the intelligence veteran, the old sage in retirement, etc., but after all he’d just been sacked. It would take him a while to grow into the part. In any case, I was already looking forward to dinner the next day. The port was bound to be good, and I had high hopes for the meal itself. He wasn’t the type who took these things lightly.
‘Watch the news tomorrow,’ he said, before he walked away. ‘I suspect there will be something to see.’
Tuesday, 31 May
Sure enough, the news broke just after two in the afternoon. The centre-right and the Socialists had formed a coalition, a ‘broad republican front’, and were backing the Muslim Brotherhood. Frantic, the networks spent all afternoon asking about the terms of the deal and the division of ministries, and kept getting the same answer — about putting politics aside and unifying to heal the wounds of a divided nation, etc. All of which was predictable enough. More surprising was François Bayrou’s return to the political stage. He had agreed to share the ticket with Ben Abbes: in return he would be named prime minister if Ben Abbes won.