RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In a tough article signed by Bruno Meyerfeld, published on Monday, December 30th, the leading French daily ‘Le Monde’ views President Jair Bolsonaro as “a junior officer excluded from the army, an ultra-marginal deputy of the extreme right, mocked by his peers for three decades. According to the newspaper, the Brazilian head of state “was by no means a man of power”. “And even less a statesman.”
For Le Monde, in his trajectory, “the reserve captain accused the hated ‘system’ with more fury and noise than any other leader on the planet: serial lies, racist and homophobic comments, misogynistic jokes, conspiratorial delusions, praise for torture and dictatorship, insults to foreign leaders.”
The newspaper makes a surprising prognosis. “Bolsonaro is the mirror of the dark part of Brazil,” notes the article, and adds: “Jair Bolsonaro’s reign may last longer than we think.”
For former Minister of Education Renato Janine Ribeiro, the article demonstrates that “the beautiful and welcoming Brazil has shown, hides behind a mask a side full of hatred, hostility and very strong prejudice that will not disappear; but on the other hand, it indicates a path, that it is necessary to face hatred and fight it”.
The task is not easy, according to him. “There are cracks in Brazil. One, between PT (Worker’s Party) haters and PT followers, and another crack between anti-fascists and Bolsonarists. But these two cracks do not dialogue or coincide, because an important part is against PT and against Bolsonaro. And a lot of people covered their noses to vote for Bolsonaro.”
The situation is complex, in his opinion, because there are three electoral segments in the country: the extreme right segment that votes and supports the Bolsonaro clan, which has approximately one-third of the voters; the leftist and center-left segment of PT, with approximately the same percentage; and the center-right, which is weak in votes. “The center right is the third force, intermediate, that used to opt for PT, but is now vaccinated against the left, against which there was a lot of campaigning.”
On the political spectrum, he says, “the Brazilian center right (represented by figures like Geraldo Alckmin and Henrique Meirelles) has money but no vote. “It’s something typical of Brazil,” he says.
He recalls that, with free elections, since Eurico Gaspar Dutra was elected in 1945, the right “has never won the election with people coming from within. “There are four names that the right wing has managed to install as president: Jânio Quadros (1960), Fernando Collor (1989), Fernando Henrique (1994) and Bolsonaro (2018).”
(…) Faced with this complex environment, Janine assesses, there is room for the center-left to grow. “But it’s not PT alone. It has to be PT, PSB, PDT, maybe even (more progressive sectors of the) PSDB”. (…)
‘Le Monde’ is one of the French newspapers of record, as are also Libération, and Le Figaro, and the main publication of Le Monde Group.
In contrast to other world newspapers such as ‘The New York Times’, ‘Le Monde’ has traditionally focused on offering analysis and opinion, as opposed to being a newspaper of record.