Allez, Europe! Macron’s diplomatic push

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. For decades, Texas has been a reliably Republican state, but its demographics are changing. And this week there were electoral upsets in other die hard red states. Could Texas really turn blue? And in Japan, a majority of female commuters have experienced groping on public transport. We look into what commuters, the police and even plucky startups are doing to persuade everyone at last to keep their hands to themselves. First up, though, it's nearly two and a half years since Emmanuel Macron became president of France. He's had difficult moments at home, not least the sprawling Gilets Jaunes protests that began a year ago. Now, with his domestic poll numbers stabilizing, he appears to be assuming a greater international role. He sees America and China tussling over trade and technology and wants to ensure that when they make peace, the European Union doesn't get the short end of the stick. Part of that effort took Mr. Macron to China this week.

So we left Paris on Sunday night and arrived in Shanghai the next day. That was on Monday.

Sophie Petter is our Paris bureau chief.

I was traveling on the plane with President Emmanuel Macron of France, along with another two French journalists. He also had with him A delegation of French businessmen on the plane and he came to greet everyone who was traveling with him when we boarded and before takeoff, It was a three day trip to China. So taking in a stop in Shanghai first of all, and then Beijing.

And what was it like following Mr. Macron so closely on a visit like this? I mean, you've met him plenty of times in Paris. Was he any different when on the international stage?

I think what's really struck me about the trip is Macron's attempt to try and put a European face on his diplomacy.

La conclusion positive.

Listening to him at the Shanghai International Fair, for example, he very much stressed that what he was doing was representing Europe. He hardly mentioned France at all. One had the feeling that this was all part of his plans to try and make Europe a more strategic sort of power player. Faced with the rise of China, I.

Mean, you got that feeling, but he must have been looking for something kind of more concrete. I mean, what were the more tangible reasons for his visit?

One of his concerns, of course, is to be able to secure better market access for French products and European products, and to make sure that trade rules are reciprocal, that Chinese opens its markets, if the European Union does, to China. So trade investment trying to increase market access was very much on the top of Macron's agenda. And particularly he wanted to ensure that Europe doesn't sort of suffer the collateral damage of any truce that China or America may achieve in their own trade war. Of course, Macron was also there playing the bilateral French card and the sort of soft power that France can project. It was interesting listening to him open a new outpost of the Pompidou center, the modern art museum in Shanghai. And it was, I think, very much part of Macron's sort of a different layer of operating diplomatically to make sure that French interests are represented in the cultural sphere by the building of this museum and sort of cementing cultural ties between France and China. So, you know, he can operate on a strategic sort of hard power basis, but he also feels it's important to make sure that France still maintains that soft power voice at the same time.

And I guess that speaks to the sort of Mr. Macron on the international stage that you were alluding to before. But what is it that gives you the sense that he's more concerned about the state of global geopolitics rather than simply kind of making himself a part of it?

A couple of weeks before the China trip, we, the economist went to interview President Macron in his presidential palace in Paris. We were in his gold decoration office. It's where Charles de Gaulle in fact used to work on the first floor of the Elysee Palace. It has this view over the back gardens and is really rather such a splendid place. And one had the impression, listening to him, that he is really very concerned about Europe's future and the threats to it. He sees Europe sort of squeeze between America that has withdrawn from Europe, even wants to divide Europe. The withdrawal of troops from Syria has obviously been a bit of a wake up call for the Europeans and on the other side, authoritarian regimes in Russia, Turkey and then the rise of China. So I think Macron feels this is a very crucial moment for Europe.

I don't believe I'm over dramatizing things, I'm trying to be lucid. But just look at what is happening in the world, things that were unthinkable five years ago. To be wearing ourselves out over Brexit, to have Europe finding it so difficult to move forward, to have an American ally turning its back on us so quickly on strategic issues. Nobody would have believed this possible.

And his message in a way was sort of wake up. We Europeans can't be complacent. We can't take for granted things we have like the NATO security umbrella.

So given all these factors, I don't think I'm being either pessimistic or painting an overly gloomy picture when I say this. I'm just saying that if we don't wake up, face up to this situation and decide to do something about it, there's a considerable risk that in the long run we will disappear geopolitically, or at least that we will no longer be in control of our destiny. I believe that very deeply.

And he talked about Europe in almost apocalyptic terms. I would say Europe being on the edge of the precipice, at risk of disappearing, it was rather extraordinary.

And so why do you think Mr. Macron is sort of pitching himself at that precipice? Why is he the one who believes he should be sounding these warnings?

I think what we're looking at is the emergence of Emmanuel Macron as a diplomatic player. He is not quite the new boy he wants once was. He's halfway through his presidential term, actually. And you know, Europe is at a time when German coalition difficulties are making it very difficult for Angela Merkel to assert herself on the world stage, even though she's obviously far more experienced than Emmanuel Macron is. Brexit has distracted Britain completely from sort of geopolitical affairs. There are difficulties in governing coalitions in Italy and Spain. So France really is the sort of almost the only country where you have a leader who's strong domestically or relatively strong. He's reasserted control, I think, after the Giles Jaunes crisis. But also he's got that ambition to play a sort of world diplomatic role. I mean, the question is whether the whole of the rest of Europe really wants him to be playing that role. But it's certainly one that I think Macron, at least the way that I've been watching him operating this week in China, is going to seize if he has the chance.

And from what you saw in China, would you say that the visit was worth it for him, accomplished what he was aiming for?

We're about to head back to the airport and fly back to Paris. It's been a really sort of interesting trip in the sense of being able to see the way Macron operates, the way he tries to play both the French card and the European card, to operate on a different sort of level to try and build this relationship with President Xi. They've spent a lot of time together in the last three days. Let's see whether he can build on that to try and move forward on some of the issues that Macron cares a lot about, you know, whether it's the multilateral rules based sort of system or whether it's climate change and certainly questions of trying to calm or at least protect Europe from the fallout of what happens in the American and Chinese trade war.

Thank you very much for joining us, Sophie.

Thanks very much to you, Jason.

To read more of Mr. Macron's interview and our next analysis, go to economist.commacron2019 and you can subscribe to the economist@exterator.com radioffer get 12 issues for $12 or 12 pounds. The state of Texas has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, which perhaps isn't that surprising. Conservatism and small government are part of its image.

When people think of Texas, they think of older folks, white folks, cowboy hats.

On, you know, out in the country.

Drew Galloway is a political activist with a group called MOVE.

And actually, Texas is an extremely young state. So 43% of the state is under the age of 30 and of that group 63% are people of color.

A lot of Americans are moving to Texas from other places.

All of that is beginning to change the way that Texans want to self govern and is changing policy.

Most of the people who want change are not, in fact, out in the country.

That's absolutely being driven by the cities.

Have you ever filled out One of.

These thingies, Mr. Galloway's group organizes voter registration most days across Texas. This one is at a college in Dallas. The volunteers with MOVE don't tell anyone whom to vote for. But many are excited about recent strong performances by Democrats in traditional Republican strongholds. This week, Democrats claimed victory in a vote for a new governor in Kentucky, a state that Donald Trump won handily in 2016. Democrats also took control of Virginia's state legislature this week for the first time in two decades. And the Texan volunteers note how strongly Democrats performed there in last year's midterms, even if they didn't quite win.

I think we saw during the midterm election that Texas can be a competitive state and that young people are a huge driver of that.

Erica Elliott is helping people fill in forms.

For instance, we saw a 500% voter turnout increase among young people in the midterms. And this upcoming presidential election is only going to be bigger and there are only going to be more young people turning out. There are kids turning 18 every single day and they've been paying attention and like they're voting pretty consistently with their climate change values and things like that. So the chances are not terrible that Texas would flip.

The young people registering here have all kinds of reasons to vote in a state with historically low turnout, especially with.

My identity as a Latino male. My people, Hispanic people have fought for that right to vote and have fought for many things that I feel like we take for granted these days.

And some clearly want a new president.

Hopefully some more change, maybe not so.

Much bias and maybe not so much clear and straight.

I guess racism in a way, just.

Because it's pretty evident, you know, our current president does not like certain minority groups and he very clearly does not care for many, many Americans.

But is it possible that this huge state, the country's second most populous, could really turn blue?

So there's no doubt that politics in Texas are changing and they could be changing rather rapidly. When I was growing up there, you know, the 2014 election was my first election in the state. The governor, current Governor Greg Abbott, won his election by roughly 20 points. And the idea that someone like Beto O', Rourke, the Democrats Senate nominee in 2018, could come within just 2 points of winning a Senate seat in Texas was relatively unfathomable.

Elliot Morris is a data journalist at the Economist.

Well, Democrats have for a while regarded Texas as their white whale sorts. The idea is that demographic change in the state would push the state's politics more to the left over time. But this does seem to be coming more true now than it used to be. And it seems like Democrats at the top are realizing this. So at an event sponsored by the Texas Tribune, the state's largest nonprofit newspaper in Austin on September 28, Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker of the House, said that Texas as Democrats, hope for the future of the party.

I'm not just talking about Democrats.

I'm talking about the country and I'm talking about the world. When Texas goes blue and people have to pay attention to everything that happens here and the views of people here, that's going to be very, very wholesome for our nation. Very wholesome for our nation.

So do you agree with that assessment? Is there reason for hope among Democrats in Texas?

I do think there's reason for Democrats to be optimistic about taking control of state politics in Texas. The demographics of the state have changed. The younger generation is much more non white, meaning they're more democratic than the older voters in the state. And even young whites are more liberal than older whites. And this demographic change does seem to be being borne out in state election results. So in 2018, the rural areas did become more Democratic than they had been in the past. And the suburbs, especially white women and college educated whites, are moving more towards the left. And because Texas is mostly an urban and suburban state, the largest four metros have about 75% of the population. These shifts in the cities make a large impact on the state's politics.

So you say that there is reason for optimism that Democrats could take control of state politics, but what about in a presidential election? Do you think that Texas could vote Democrats next year?

Well, I think that they should be optimistic, but they do need to be realistic. Considering the data. I don't think Texas will vote blue in 2020. I think they need to give it a few election cycles. So although the demography in the state is becoming more non white, it's just not there yet. Texas electorate is still majority white, even though the non white population controls a majority of all adults in the state. But they don't all turn out. Older, whiter people are more likely to vote all around the country, and that's especially true in Texas. There's also a bit of recency bias in the Democrats assessment of how likely the state is to turn blue. So in the 2018 midterm elections last year, Democrats were optimistic that they might see the same electoral politics in 2020 in next year's presidential election. But there's reason to believe that some non educated Republicans in the state didn't turn out in the numbers that they will next year. In other words, the state could lean more towards the right.

And yet it doesn't seem that that's discouraging Democrats from trying to turn Texas right.

Well, it seems like they're optimistic enough to spin to turn the state blue, regardless of what analysts think. When I was having conversations in Texas, many of the state's Democratic Party leaders and leaders on the ground were optimistic, regardless of what data I threw at them, that they could turn the state blue. And all the resources that they're spending will probably meet an onslaught of Republican opposition in the future. There's one super PAC group called Engage Texas, which is explicitly formed to spend millions of dollars to register Republican voters throughout the state. So there's a bit of an arms race dynamic going on in campaign spending in Texas right now, and it doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon.

Campaign finance is a bit of a zero sum game. Is it your view that the money that Democrats are spending in Texas is somewhat squandered if the partisan lien is so strong?

Yes. There do seem to be more competitive races that Democrats could spend their money on, especially at the Senate level. If Democratic Party leaders are looking for a majority non white state that's actually competitive, they could just hop two states over to Arizona. Or they could spend money in more traditionally Democratic places like Colorado to flip Senate seats in a state that Hillary Glenn actually won in 2016.

Elliot, thank you very much for joining us.

Very happy to be here.

Surveys in Japan suggest that at least half of female commuters have been groped on public transport. It's so widespread that it's often framed as a mere annoyance, a fact of commuting life that may at last be changing, thanks in part to one woman who decided she'd had enough.

So I met Ms. Yayoi Matsunaga, and she told me that throughout her 20s, she was groped almost daily on rush hour trains going to and back from work.

Miki Kobayashi reports on Japan for the Economist and is based in Tokyo.

And three decades later, she discovered that the same thing was happening to her friend's high school daughter on her commute to school. And the teenager tried to talk to the police and railway companies, but they basically did nothing to help her. So the teenager decided to hang a sign from her bag that said, groping is a crime. I will not cry myself to sleep. And the groping stopped immediately. And Inspired by this, Ms. Matsunaga launched a crowdfunding campaign in 2015 to create badges with the same message. And according to a survey, nearly 95% of users stopped experiencing groping on public transport.

I mean, there must be other ways to solve this problem if a badge can have that kind of effect.

Yeah. So there has been a series of innovations that have actually popped up over the recent years. And one example is a startup called Kuka, which created Chican Radar, or groping radar in Japanese. And Chicken radar is an app that enables users to report groping anonymously and also see where groping is the most common. And since its launch in August earlier this year, almost 1,000 cases have been reported across Japan. And another example is Shachihata, which is a company that sells personal seals. And this company developed a stamp that allows victims to mark their attackers with invisible ink. And this invisible ink can be detected under ultraviolet light. A trial run of 500 of these anti groping stamps, which cost 2,500 yen a pop, or about 23 US dollars, they sold out within 30 minutes.

I mean, this sounds useful and great, but why is this being left to the startups and to commuters themselves? Why aren't the authorities trying to do something about it?

So the authorities are trying to do something about it. For example, many train companies offer women only carriages during Russ in the morning and sometimes in the evening. And they have also installed ceiling cameras to catch gropers on film. And the police are also addressing the problem of chikan, or groping, to a certain extent. So the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, for example, created an app called Digi Police. So when it's activated, it screams, stop it. And it also produces a full screen message that says, there is a molester, please help. And also, under Japanese law, gropers, if they are caught, can face up to six months in prison or fines of up to 500,000 yen.

But that doesn't appear to be enough of a deterrent, I suppose. Do you think that all of these other innovations, all these other approaches, might actually change attitudes, maybe stem the problem?

So groping has long been trivialized as a nuisance, something that many women go through, and hence something to be put up with rather than a form of sexual assault. And it also doesn't help that much of the Japanese media and society focus not on the female victims, but on stories about men being falsely accused of groping on public transport. So, for example, a film that came out in 2007 about a man falsely accused of molesting a schoolgirl actually became a hit. And insurance companies even provide policies that defray the cost to commuters of finding accusations But I do think that this narrative is starting to change slowly in Japan. So the MeToo movement has enabled Japanese victims to speak up and to actually realize that groping shouldn't be tolerated. And Ms. Matsunaga, who now runs an organization in Osaka called the Groping Prevention Activity center, she actually told me that she believes groping can be eliminated in the future. And she actually gave me a very interesting example. So in Japan, it was normal until about two or three decades ago for people to smoke in hospitals, trains, restaurants, bars, schools, basically everywhere. And if people can change their perspective on smoking, Ms. Matsunaga believes that a shift in thinking of groping could happen as well.

Miki, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. See you back here tomorrow.

Sam.