Now that the French are pretending to forgive us, we might copy a few aspects of their political system. The bits worthy of emulation do not include the rate of voting abstention, which exceeded half the electorate in the first round of the June parliamentary elections. Nor would it be the ridiculously over-blown powers accorded to the president. That authoritarian version of elective dictatorship should be ruled out in our referendum on the Republic.
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Nonetheless, the French are much better than us at managing political transitions. In Australia, an outgoing prime minister usually offers the nation a surly, self-congratulatory account of his term before skulking off into political oblivion. Raucously rowdy staff parties sometimes precede that departure. Publication of a turgid, tendentious memoir often follows.
Pomp with purpose
In France, by contrast, the incoming prime minister is driven (in a car: the Republic would not approve a horse-drawn carriage) to his new office, an elegant Left Bank jewel-box adorned with a beautiful formal garden, called the Matignon. He or she is then welcomed in the courtyard by the outgoing prime minister. then taken upstairs into the office for a coffee, some gossip (possibly at the expense of the president) and perhaps even a cursory appraisal of a hot issue or two.
After Republican form has been observed, the new prime minister escorts her predecessor back down to the courtyard, where assembled outgoing staff clap as the defeated-sacked-deposed-resigned incumbent departs for the next phase of a political career. The same ceremony is replicated in minor key in each Ministry. Decorum is preserved throughout and dignity duly celebrated.
The French sequence also avoids the awkward silences known to occur in Washington, where outgoing and incoming presidents ride together up to the Capitol for the swearing in.
Deprived of a chance to rant and posture, Donald Trump flouted that tradition; he scuttled to the airport. Here, at least, a new prime minister enters office only in the company of loved ones and the Governor General's meagre entourage.
The French ministerial office
Once installed, French Ministers work in their departments, commuting to be given orders at the Elysee or Matignon, or to defend their performance at the National Assembly. We should copy that practice as well. Shutting up the executive in the ministerial wing of Parliament House has made all the old calumnies levelled at Canberra come true.
Ministers are isolated and cossetted, detached from the rigour of real life, far more likely to talk to their colleagues than to encounter the general public.
Mind you, many of us would kill for the chance to inhabit a French ministerial office. They are expansively scaled, luxuriously appointed, often with palatial living quarters attached (sometimes in what was formerly a palace). With wonky heating on a frigid winter's night, sharing a group house in an inner Canberra rental just does not compare.
Not wasting former leaders
A third borrow from France would entail showing a modicum of respect to the politically departed. That does not mean giving them a second go. Alfred Deakin enjoyed three terms as prime minister (amounting to 58 months) as did Andrew Fisher (not quite five years). Kevin Rudd's second spell lasted only a few months, but it took Australian voters 17 years before Bob Menzies belatedly ended his interminable second term.
As a point of comparison, under the Fifth Republic one French prime minister alone, Chirac, has served two separate terms, both tainted by squabbles, jealousies and eventual defeat.
Nonetheless, the French believe that a certain deference is owed to experience, standing, age and an earned reputation for competence. Having served as Prime Minister constitutes a warrant for those qualities.
Former heads of government are provided with plenty of cushions to fall back on, in national institutions, as local mayors, in business, as presidential candidates in waiting or even - for a favoured few - as elder statesmen.
One French prime minister, Michel Rocard, described his task as that of "a happy Sisyphus", rolling the stone of policy implementation or political calculation up the hill to the Elysee, only to have it slide back down again. None of the post-Matignon gigs would offer such exquisite torture.
Surely we could make more use out of our own former prime ministers, whether as special envoys, chairs for commissions into wicked problems, chancellors of universities or informal sources of advice. Continuing to serve the people after losing the top job remains an honour. John Quincy Adam arguably contributed more as a humble member of the House than he had earlier as President.
In political retirement as in most phases of French life, reading - and occasionally writing - books is regarded as an essential component of life's joys. Francois Mitterrand happily browsed among the booksellers along the Seine. Here, Jacinda Ardern said that she did not feel able to rise to the task of picking LPs for Scott Morrison. Selecting books for that ex-prime minister would be similarly foolhardy.
In France, consolation is meant to be found among the pages of the Pleiade, the French version of national classics. A dip into the Stoics might also provide comfort in defeat, as would a digression into Maigret. For Australia, I would recommend the novels of Peter Temple. They are not only models of concision, grace, precision and punch. They depict a world with even fewer rules, fewer moral choices and fewer happy endings than the realm of politics. Later on former prime ministers could ponder the ironies in A Fortunate Life.
- Mark Thomas is a Canberra-based writer.
