France's biggest political earthquake of the past 20 years took place one year ago : for the first time since the dreadful years of Maréchal Pétain, an extreme right-wing party was in good position to come to power. On April 21st 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen, president of the "Front National" (French nationalist party) made it to the second round of the presidential election. This man who had been fined many times for "incitation to racial hatred", this man who had publicly denied the existence of gas chambers during WW2, this man whose party was founded with the help of former Nazi officers... this man could become president.

Millions of people were shocked and scared both in France and abroad.
I remember that night. I was rehearsing a play with friends, we had not paid attention to the results of the election, none of us had gone to vote because we all knew what the outcome of the first round of the election would be. We thought that political parties were mocking us. We all knew that the president (Jacques Chirac) and the prime minister (Lionel Jospin) would be face to face on the second round. What was the use of voting ?
I remember hearing my phone ring in the middle of the rehearsal. I remember everybody's glare telling me that I should have turned it off.
This is when I got the news. The unbelievable news. Le Pen on the second round.
I couldn't believe it. I told everyone and nobody believed me. I called a few friends... they were all shocked. They told me it was true. The impossible had come true.
Me and the whole theater gang were unable to say a word. I remember how the air grew thick... I felt like I couldn't breathe.
We all silently went down the stairs and to the street. Many people were like us... pale and shocked. We walked to the central square in Grenoble... hundreds of people were there, looking at each other in silence in the darkness of the night.

And then someone triggerred it off. "La Jeunesse emmerde le front national !" (Youth fucks the Front National)... people started to sing this famous demonstration motto of the late 1980s. "Et F comme Fasciste et N comme Nazi" (F as in Fascist, N as in Nazi")... many cries resounded in the cold air. People started to walk. Where to ? We had no idea. We just had to walk, get it out of our system. We had to shout, to cry, to run...

At the same time, in most French cities, thousands of people were doing the same thing.
For two weeks (during the whole second round campaign) people were demonstrating from dawn till dusk on all the plazas, the squares, the main streets of the country. All ages, social backgrounds, beliefs were represented (except... racist people of course).
And on May 1st, 1.5 million people took the streets of Paris for the biggest demonstration ever since Paris was freed from the Nazis in 1945.

I took part to the organization of this demonstration in Grenoble. I demonstrated many times. And of course I went to vote on the second round.
Many people (and myself) thought that this situation had started something new. A "génération spontanée" (spontaneous generation of activists) was said to have come into being... Jacques Chirac was reelected with over 80% of the votes, thus defeating Jean-Marie Le Pen... and Frenchies lived happily everafter.

But a few weeks later for the election of the representatives to the national assembly people didn't vote. French political parties and unions all proudly announced a rise in the number of their members consecutive to April 21st. People launched associations, like the famed "Champ Libre" which gathered committed youths who had met on the streets during the demonstrations.
But things stopped quite abruptly. Many people who signed up at political parties gave it up, most of the associations created after April 21st disappeared... As Mancur Olson once wisely pointed out in "The Logic of Collective Action", many people live as "free riders" who only get involved when the cost of getting involved is lower than the cost of not getting involved.

I remember the sky at night in Annemasse a few weeks ago. While the presidents of the 8 richest countries were meeting for a summit in Evian, we were camping in a field discussing life and death, society and politics, economics and environment, love and hatred... I slept at the "Intergalactic Village", a camp for activists from all around the world who were saying one thing : "don't build the world without asking everybody's opinion". We were all from different backgrounds. Some were from unions & political parties, some were from NGOs (concerned about poverty, human rights, environment, STDs...), some were just people who wanted to be a part of this movement... but there were very few people. Much fewer than in May 2002.
I don't know where people hid all this commitment they once had. I guess there was never such a thing as a génération spontanée... I guess people took the streets only cause they felt their vital interests were directly threatened... not because a new solidarity had come into being.

They may say we are dreamers, but we're not the only ones... I hope someday they will join us and the world will be as one ;-)