Patrick Chamorel, Ph.D. – Senior Resident Scholar and Lecturer, Stanford in Washington, Stanford University

Dear Colleagues:

April in Paris approaches, and that can be beautiful (if a bit rainy) but, every few years, it is also a bit contentious. For April is the month for France’s presidential elections. On April 10, in the first round, voters will choose among six candidates, most prominently current President Emmanuel Macron and nationalist-rightist candidate Marine LePen. When (not if) no candidate wins a majority, the top two will contest in the second round on April 24. Macron easily beat LePen in the runoff in 2017. But a lot has changed since then.

The past five years have not been good for Macron, who has faced or created crises including an unpopular pension reform, the gilets jaunes protests, the place of Islam and Muslims within France, and of course Covid-19. But they have not been good for LePen either, and in last year’s regional elections both Macron’s and LePen’s parties took a beating. French voters appear to be in about as foul a mood as voters everywhere else, and that may in part be because no alternative seems attractive. In particular, the center-right parties that did very well in the regional elections do not appear to have a strong candidate for April. So, while Macron remains a clear if unpopular favorite to lead the first round and win in the second, there are some serious uncertainties about what will happen.

And that is rather important, as France remains one of two central members of the European Union, arguably the strongest military power in western Europe, and a nuclear power. The military part having become more prominent recently. A France with a president LePen, or Jean-Luc Melenchon, might have effects beyond France’s borders. Therefore I’m pleased to welcome Patrick Chamorel to give us an update on an important event that we know is coming but has been crowded out of the news. Dr. Chamorel came to campus three years ago for a talk on France’s challenges and a Friday Lunch discussion of how American problems look from a French perspective. I regret that he can’t join us in person but look forward to more astute observations and information via Zoom.

Signing In

The “Friday Lunch” has been convening each Friday that classes are in session during Fall and “Spring” semesters since 1989. Regrettably, after more than three decades meeting in person and eating lunch (or at least coffee and cookies) together, we had to take our gatherings online after the pandemic hit in 2020. I am hoping we can do some sort of dual-delivery, in-person and online combination, before this semester ends.

But not yet. For now we will still meet by Zoom. Our discussions begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. Even when we resume in-person meetings, we will set it up so people can participate by Zoom. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu/. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. Please note that we will open the meeting at Noon so people aren’t all signing on at once, but the speaker starts at 12:30.

This week’s link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwsce6opj8iHd2Zias4ppPjzWBImN5hhRMc

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Patrick Chamorel is Senior Resident Scholar at the Stanford University Center in Washington DC. He teaches Political Science, with an emphasis on comparative American and European politics, public policy and political economy, as well as transatlantic relations. He has taught Transatlantic Relations on Stanford’s California campus as well as French Politics at the Stanford in Paris campus. Over the last few years, he has been teaching a semester course and an intensive seminar at the Reims Euro-American campus of Sciences-Po Paris. In addition to Stanford, he has taught at the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz), George Washington University, and Claremont McKenna College where he was the Crown Visiting professor of Government (2002-2005). He was a Fellow of the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and the Hoover Institution at Stanford, as well as a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association (Offices of Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate and Norman Mineta in the House of Representatives).

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

April 8: Greening the Grid: The Energy Storage Challenge. With Robert F. Savinell, Ph.D, Distinguished University Professor and George S. Dively Professor of Chemical Engineering.

April 15: TBA

April 22: The Present and Future of Cryptocurrency. With Peter Zimmerman, Ph.D., Research Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.