译者按：欧盟又到了风雨飘摇的时刻。这一次是法国总统大选。本文详细分析了法国面临的种种社会问题及其历史原因，介绍了风头正劲的反对派和整体大选形势。用八个字概括就是：愁云惨淡，前途未卜。希望高卢雄鸡鸡年安好。
本文译自《经济学人》3月4日刊。

《经济学人》封面

France’s next revolution

The vote that could wreck the European Union

可能毁灭欧盟的选举

Why the French presidential election will have consequences far beyond its borders
为什么法国总统选举将产生远远超越其边界的后果

1. IT HAS been many years since France last had a revolution, or even a serious attempt at reform. Stagnation, both political and economic, has been the hallmark of a country where little has changed for decades, even as power has rotated between the established parties of left and right.
   1）自法国上一次有过革命，或者甚至是认真的改革尝试以来，已经有很多年了。政治和经济的停滞一直是这个几十年来几乎没有改变的国家的标志，即使当权力在左派和右派的已成立党派之间轮换。

2. Until now. This year’s presidential election, the most exciting in living memory, promises an upheaval. The Socialist and Republican parties, which have held power since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, could be eliminated in the first round of a presidential ballot on April 23rd. French voters may face a choice between two insurgent candidates: Marine Le Pen, the charismatic leader of the National Front, and Emmanuel Macron, the upstart leader of a liberal movement, En Marche! (On the Move!), which he founded only last year.

in/within living memory: during the time that anyone can remember
e.g. It was the worst storm in living memory.
promise: to show signs of something
e.g. Tonight's meeting promises to be a difficult one.
e.g. dark clouds promising showers later

2）直到现在。今年的总统选举是在世人记忆中最令人兴奋的一次，预示着一场动荡。从1958年第五共和国成立以来一直掌权的社会党和共和党在4月23日的第一轮总统投票中可能被淘汰。法国选民可能面临两个反对派候选人之间的选择：玛丽娜·勒庞，“国家阵线”的有魅力的领袖，和埃曼努尔·马克隆，一个自由团体“前进!”的突然发迹的领导人，他去年才创办该团体。

3. The implications of these insurgencies are hard to exaggerate. They are the clearest example yet of a global trend: that the old divide between left and right is growing less important than a new one between open and closed. The resulting realignment will have reverberations far beyond France’s borders. It could revitalise the European Union, or wreck it.

implications : a possible future effect or result of an action, event, decision etc
e.g. What are the implications of these proposals?
e.g. This election has profound implications for the future of U.S. democracy.
reverberations: a severe effect that is caused by a particular event and continues for a long time = repercussion
e.g. the scandal's political reverberations

3）这些反对派的影响是怎么夸张都不为过。他们是一个全球趋势迄今为止最明显的例子：左右之间的旧鸿沟正在变得不如开放和封闭之间的新鸿沟那么重要。所产生的重新调整将具有远远超出法国边界的深远影响。它可能重振欧盟，也可能毁灭它。

Les misérables

4. The revolution’s proximate cause is voters’ fury at the uselessness and self-dealing of their ruling class. The Socialist president, François Hollande, is so unpopular that he is not running for re-election. The established opposition, the centre-right Republican party, saw its chances sink on March 1st when its standard-bearer, François Fillon, revealed that he was being formally investigated for paying his wife and children nearly €1m (1.05m dollars) of public money for allegedly fake jobs. Mr Fillon did not withdraw from the race, despite having promised to do so. But his chances of winning are dramatically weakened.
   4）革命的直接原因是选民对他们的统治阶级的无用和假公济私的暴怒。社会党总统弗朗索瓦·奥朗德是如此不受欢迎以至于他没有竞选连任。已成立的反对派，中右翼共和党，在3月1日发现它的机会丧失了，当天其领导人弗朗索瓦·菲永透露，他正在因据称伪造工作而支付他的妻子和孩子近100万欧元（105万美元）公款正式接受调查。 菲永先生没有退出选举，尽管他已经承诺这样做。但他的获胜机会突然大大降低。

5. Further fuelling voters’ anger is their anguish at the state of France. One poll last year found that French people are the most pessimistic on Earth, with 81% grumbling that the world is getting worse and only 3% saying that it is getting better. Much of that gloom is economic. France’s economy has long been sluggish; its vast state, which absorbs 57% of GDP, has sapped the country’s vitality. A quarter of French youths are unemployed. Of those who have jobs, few can find permanent ones of the sort their parents enjoyed. In the face of high taxes and heavy regulation those with entrepreneurial vim have long headed abroad, often to London. But the malaise goes well beyond stagnant living standards. Repeated terrorist attacks have jangled nerves, forced citizens to live under a state of emergency and exposed deep cultural rifts in the country with Europe’s largest Muslim community.
   5）更加激起选民愤怒是他们对法国现状的痛苦。去年的一次民意调查发现，法国人是地球上最悲观的人，81％的人抱怨世界变得越来越糟，只有3％的人说越来越好。这些消极情绪大部分是经济上的。法国的经济长期不振；其庞大的政府，吸收了57％的国内生产总值，已经削弱了该国的活力。四分之一的法国青年失业。在那些有工作的人中，很少有人能找到像他们父母享受的那种长期工作。面对高税率和严格的监管，具有创业活力的人早就跑到国外，往往是到伦敦。但是，这种不安远远超出了停滞的生活水平。反复的恐怖袭击已经刺激了神经，迫使公民生活在紧急状态下，并暴露了这个有着欧洲最大的穆斯林社区的国家内深深的文化裂痕。

6. Many of these problems have built up over decades, but neither the left nor the right has been able to get to grips with them. France’s last serious attempt at ambitious economic reform, an overhaul of pensions and social security, was in the mid-1990s under President Jacques Chirac. It collapsed in the face of massive strikes. Since then, few have even tried. Nicolas Sarkozy talked a big game, but his reform agenda was felled by the financial crisis of 2007-08. Mr Hollande had a disastrous start, introducing a 75% top tax rate. He was then too unpopular to get much done. After decades of stasis, it is hardly surprising that French voters want to throw the bums out.

come/get to grips with sth: to understand or deal with something difficult

e.g. I've never really got to grips with this new technology.

6）许多这些问题已经积累了几十年，但左派和右派都不能够应付它们。法国最近一次野心勃勃的经济改革的认真尝试，即一场养恤金和社会保障革新，是在90年代中期，雅克希拉克总统时期。面对大规模的罢工，它崩溃了。从那时起，很少有人试过。尼古拉斯·萨科齐曾谈到过一次大行动，但他的改革议程被2007-08年的金融危机击倒。奥朗德先生有一个灾难性的开始，引入75％的最高税率。从此他就太不受欢迎而成就有限。经过几十年的沉寂，法国选民想要把这些废物赶出去也不足为奇。

7. Both Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen tap into that frustration. But they offer radically different diagnoses of what ails France and radically different remedies. Ms Le Pen blames outside forces and promises to protect voters with a combination of more barriers and greater social welfare. She has effectively distanced herself from her party’s anti-Semitic past (even evicting her father from the party he founded), but she appeals to those who want to shut out the rest of the world. She decries globalisation as a threat to French jobs and Islamists as fomenters of terror who make it perilous to wear a short skirt in public. The EU is “an anti-democratic monster”. She vows to close radical mosques, stanch the flow of immigrants to a trickle, obstruct foreign trade, swap the euro for a resurrected French franc and call a referendum on leaving the EU.

tap into: to make as much use as possible of the ideas, experience, knowledge etc that a group of people has
e.g. Your adviser's experience is there to be tapped.
e.g. helping people tap into training opportunities
what ails sth: the thing or things that are causing difficulties for something
e.g. This initiative is not the answer to what ails our educational system.
distance yourself (from sth): to say that you are not involved with someone or something, especially to avoid being connected with them
e.g. The UNO has firmly distanced itself from the anti-government movement.

7）马克隆先生和勒庞女士都尽可能利用这种挫败情绪。但他们对于什么导致了法国的问题提供了完全不同的诊断，和完全不同的治疗办法。 勒庞女士指责国外的势力，并承诺以更多（贸易）壁垒和更大的社会福利的组合来保护选民。她有效地使自己和她的党的反犹太历史脱离干系（甚至把她的父亲驱逐出他创立的党），但她求助于那些想要隔绝与世界其他地方联系的那些人。她谴责全球化是对法国工作的威胁，那些使得在公众场合穿短裙子变得危险的伊斯兰教徒是恐怖的煽动者。欧盟是“反民主的怪物”。她发誓要关闭激进的清真寺，将移民潮止成涓涓细流，阻挠外贸，把欧元换成重新启用的法国法郎，并呼吁脱欧公投。

8. Mr Macron’s instincts are the opposite. He thinks that more openness would make France stronger. He is staunchly pro-trade, pro-competition, pro-immigration and pro-EU. He embraces cultural change and technological disruption. He thinks the way to get more French people working is to reduce cumbersome labour protections, not add to them. Though he has long been short on precise policies (he was due to publish a manifesto as The Economist went to press), Mr Macron is pitching himself as the pro-globalisation revolutionary.

破坏性创新(英文：Disruptive innovation)，亦被称作破坏性科技、突破性创新，是指将产品或服务透过科技性的创新，并以低价特色针对特殊目标消费族群，突破现有市场所能预期的消费改变。 破坏性创新是扩大和开发新市场，提供新的功能的有力方法，反过来，也有可能会破坏与现有市场之间的联系——维基百科
pitch sth as sth: to aim a product at a particular type of organization, group of people etc, or to describe it in a particular way, in order to sell it
e.g. It is pitched as a cheaper alternative to other workstations.

8）马克隆先生的本能是相反的。他认为更多的开放将使法国更强大。他坚定地支持贸易，支持竞争，支持移民和支持欧盟。他拥抱文化变革和科技破坏性。他认为让更多的法国人工作的方式是减少繁琐的劳动保护，而不是增加它们。虽然他一直缺乏清晰的政策（当本期《经济学人》准备出版时他正要发表一份宣言），马克隆先生自我标榜为支持全球化的革命者。

9. Look carefully, and neither insurgent is a convincing outsider. Ms Le Pen has spent her life in politics; her success has been to make a hitherto extremist party socially acceptable. Mr Macron was Mr Hollande’s economy minister. His liberalising programme will probably be less bold than that of the beleaguered Mr Fillon, who has promised to trim the state payroll by 500,000 workers and slash the labour code. Both revolutionaries would have difficulty enacting their agendas. Even if she were to prevail, Ms Le Pen’s party would not win a majority in the national assembly. Mr Macron barely has a party.
   9）仔细看，没有一个反对派是令人信服的局外人。 勒庞女士把她的一生都花在政治上；她的成功在于使至今还是极端主义的党在社会上得到接受。马克隆先生是奥朗德的经济部长。他的自由化计划很可能不如饱受批评的菲永先生的计划那么大胆，菲永先生承诺砍掉50万政府工作人员的工资，并大幅削减劳动法。两个革命者都难以实施他们的议程。即使勒庞女士最终获胜，她的党也不会在国民议会中赢得多数。 马克隆先生还几乎没有一个党。

La France ouverte ou la France forteresse?

10. Nonetheless, they represent a repudiation of the status quo. A victory for Mr Macron would be evidence that liberalism still appeals to Europeans. A victory for Ms Le Pen would make France poorer, more insular and nastier. If she pulls France out of the euro, it would trigger a financial crisis and doom a union that, for all its flaws, has promoted peace and prosperity in Europe for six decades. Vladimir Putin would love that. It is perhaps no coincidence that Ms Le Pen’s party has received a hefty loan from a Russian bank and Mr Macron’s organisation has suffered more than 4,000 hacking attacks.
    10）然而，它们代表了对现状的否定。马克隆先生的胜利将证明自由主义仍然吸引着欧洲人。 勒庞女士的胜利将使法国更加贫穷，更加偏狭和更加令人讨厌。如果她把法国从欧元中拉出来，它将引发一场金融危机，并毁灭一个联盟，因为它所有的缺陷，促进了欧洲60年的和平与繁荣。弗拉基米尔·普京会喜欢那样的情况。 勒庞女士的党已经从俄罗斯银行获得了巨额贷款，马克隆的组织遭受了超过4,000次黑客攻击，这些可能不是巧合。

11. With just over two months to go, it seems Ms Le Pen is unlikely to clinch the presidency. Polls show her winning the first round but losing the run-off. But in this extraordinary election, anything could happen. France has shaken the world before. It could do so again.

clinch: to finally agree on something or get something after trying very hard
e.g. a young salesman eager to clinch the deal
e.g. clinch a match/championship/victory etc

11）还有仅仅两个多月的时间，勒庞女士似乎不太可能最终赢得总统职位。民调显示她将赢得第一轮，但败于第二轮选举。但在这次非同寻常的选举中，任何事情都可能发生。法国曾经动摇过世界。它可能会再次这样做。

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原文出处：经济学人杂志

译者：七呵夫

本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。