President Macron's lead in all polls means alarm for the future of Europe He promises bold reforms in health and education, while announcing new tax cuts and GDP growth Le Pen propagandizes for Russia and wants a loose presence of (nuclear) France in the EU.
Countdown to tomorrow's crucial second round of the French presidential election and all of Europe is watching with bated breath. The re-election of Emmanuel Macron guarantees the future of the Franco-German axis and France's stay in the West, while a surprise victory for Putin's friend Marine Le Pen would lead the whole of the United Europe into "uncharted waters".
After the "political earthquake" of the first round, 44-year-old Macron, a former investment bank tycoon and graduate of the National School of Administration (ANA), the "mother" of the French political elite - having so far produced four presidents and eight prime ministers, even though he himself threatened to close it during his presidency, he now has to dive deep into Jean-Luc Mélenchon's left-wing tank in order to "lock in" his succession in the Elysée, even though he is ahead of Le Pen in all the polls.
"Love, I forgot the Left" was the headline of Liberation, demonstrating the urgency of President Macron's left turn in order to achieve victory through the progressive hemisphere of the electorate - and especially among the voters of the leftist Mélenchon (21,95%) and the Green MEP Yannick Jadeau (4.6%) - as the tanks and electoral mechanisms of social democracy were annihilated in the 2017 election.
However, by taking steps to reach out to progressive audiences and those who chose to abstain (by 26.31%), Macron has in recent days extended a hand of friendship to the French Left and Ecologist audiences, while promising bold reforms in health and education over the next two years.
He was also open to making concessions to the right, calling on the one hand for reform of the Schengen Treaty on internal security issues and on the other hand for speeding up asylum procedures.
In an attempt to restart the electoral clock by entering the second round, he also announced new tax cuts and an increase in GDP in order not to burden the country's public debt.
Left turn
Macron's left turn is further enhanced by his progressive past, as he was an active member of the French Socialist Party in the four years 2006-2009, as he was at the side of Socialist President François Hollande, first as deputy secretary-general in Elise (i.e. at the top of the civil service pyramid), then as economic adviser to the French presidency, and finally taking on executive duties as minister of finance and economy in August 2014, replacing Arnaud Montebourg.
The presence of the unknown Macron in Socialist President Hollande's entourage was felt shortly after 2010, although it has been multifaceted. Among the common ground between the two men is their personal relationship with the French economist, former advisor to François Mitterrand and one of the world's most influential intellectuals, Jacques Atalie.
The latter brought Hollande into the ranks of the French Socialist Party and later took Macron by the hand, presenting him to President Hollande as capable of working in Elise. Macron had earlier served alongside Atalie on the committee that the well-known economist had set up to 'unleash growth', drawing up a list of drastic reforms that the country urgently needed to relaunch itself, composing - without his knowledge - the beginning of the narrative for what was to become the 'Forward!' party. Even for the fruit-smoking Atalie, however, the young banker Macron seemed from then on "impatiently ambitious", as he himself observed, although the speed of his emergence as a central figure on the French political scene proved dizzying.
Although Macron - having served on Hollande's staff - had on several occasions disagreed with the policies of taxing the great wealth and especially the big French companies - earning him the nickname "President of the rich" - he turned out to be the big winner of the game, as when in 2014 the then President of France suddenly announced tax cuts of 40 billion euros in the form of a tax cut for the wealthy. In a surprise surprise tax cut of €40 million for French companies, he put Macron in the position of minister in charge as a guarantor of his announcement.
Resurrected from the reshuffle, the current president is shaping a personal agenda for the next two years, leading the reforms also on the labour market, in the France of powerful trade unions and fundamental labour rights.
Nevertheless, Macron did not hesitate in 2015 to describe the 35-hour work week regime as obsolete for the country's development objectives, causing shock even within the government's inner circle.
His relations with the country's Prime Minister Manuel Valls deteriorate dramatically and in the 2016 reshuffle the President feels the aura of discomfort, although he retains his portfolio.
Two months later, on 6 April, he takes the big step towards "Forward!", presenting his eponymous and - "apolitical", according to his opponents - movement, with the effect of setting fire to the staffs of the 2017 presidential election candidates, given that his entry into the electoral race was accompanied by the excitement of the new.
The time of "Forward!"
Indeed, on 16 November 2016, Emmanuel Macron publicly announced his candidacy for next year's presidential election, setting up his newest party "Forward!" and with it hundreds of candidates in France's 577 constituencies, the vast majority of whom were hitherto completely unknown to the general French public.
In his brief declaration of candidacy, fully indicative of his political stance, Macron proclaimed the "exit from the (political) status quo" of France, aiming at a "divorce between the governed and the governed...". "France is trapped by corporatism and is no longer living up to its promises", Macron observed at the time, concluding that "I refuse this system."
On the contrary, he announced a "democratic revolution" through a programme of sweeping reforms, focusing on the national economy and strengthening France's position in global competition.
By declaring himself in 2017 a denier of the then known French political world, however, he hoped to reap the rewards of his catalytic contribution to the collapse of the traditional French two-party system in 2022.
The once mighty Socialist party, the Parti Socialiste (PS), crumbled in the face of Macron's "star", scoring 6.36% under Benoit Amon in the first round of that year's presidential election, with the 38-year-old, new "player"
Since then, social democratic expression in France has been set on a trajectory... The French Socialist candidate and mayor of Paris Anne Indalgo came 10th in the first round of this year's presidential election, with a 1.75% share of the vote.
In his second consecutive contest with Le Pen, however, the French president lacks the reserve and the other pillar of the French bicameralism, namely the Republicans, who echo the tradition of the Gaulish Right. Although its candidate for the presidency in 2017, François Fillon, survived the first round then with 20.01%, coming in third place, the party's anointment of this year's candidate Valerie Pécres proved disastrous.
The Republican candidate, although head of the Paris Region and a former minister, was defeated by 4.78%, writing the first headlines for her party.
The disappointing results of both the Socialist and Republican candidates leave vital space for the emergence of populist and anti-systemic parties. Characteristic of the anxiety of the spokesmen of the systemic arc to contain forces in the face of the tsunami of anti-systemicism, there have been instances of a tendency to conspiracy theories even by outspoken 'candidates of normality', as in the case of Pekres.
The latter invoked at an election rally in Paris the French theory of the "Great Replacement", according to which the indigenous Christian French will dwindle in numbers over time in the face of the Muslim immigrant population with the tacit acquiescence of the French elite, a move strongly criticised by her electorate. However, a week before the first round of the elections, Macron's praise of his centre-right predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy in the newspaper Le Figaro, together with his technocratic agenda, contributed to the 'hijacking' of votes from Pecresse.
The same newspaper, however, criticised Macron for being impatient with the strong radicalisation of Muslims living in France, either as descendants of third-generation immigrants from North Africa or as immigrants and refugees.
The culmination of the government's confusion has been the issue of the Islamic headscarf, which was raised during Macron's presidency, leaving valuable ground for his running mate, Marine Le Pen, and the far-right candidate Eric Jemour
On a personal level, Macron championed the French secular state, as well as the inclusive role of education as a buffer against Islamic conversion, announcing a package of anti-radicalisation measures during his term of office. However, the murderous attack on the teacher Samuel Patti, which, according to the French President, bore all the hallmarks of an 'Islamic terrorist attack', turned French public opinion to the right after the events of 2015, causing a new headache for his staff.
Pandemic and Russia
The Macron administration has also been unsuccessful, however, in the face of its "strong card", namely the sweeping wind of reforms focusing on the recovery of the national economy.
The need to restructure the country's production model, but also the signs of fatigue in growth rates, gave the impetus to unveil a bold reform programme in the run-up to the 2017 elections, which provided for spending cuts and some redundancies in the public sector, increased investment in the welfare state, but above all, flexibility in labour relations and a reduction in business taxes.
The reform momentum of Macron's programme, however, was suddenly halted by the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, intensifying the contraction of French people's purchasing power. The latter interpret the rapid rise in the cost of living in recent years as a threat, since 9 300.000 French people (15% of the general population) were living on the edge of poverty in 2020
The young generation (particularly those aged between 18 and 24) is the most affected, with a tendency to disregard the electoral process as a result of the lack of prospects (particularly for those living in deprived suburbs), and is politically mobilised through social and activist movements, particularly those focusing on the protection of the environment.
By contrast, Macron's first-round vote this year, which came to 27.84%, slightly up from 24.01% in 2017, came mainly from centre-right voters aged over 65, but not from the predominantly productive 25-64 age group (the electorate for Marine Le Pen).
The productive age groups, however, are the ones who are facing head-on the decline in their standard of living on the one hand and the possibility of an increase in the retirement age from 62 to 65 on the other.Le Pen has argued in favour of maintaining the retirement age at 62), a possibility that Macron has reiterated in his election campaign this year, increasing the level of wear and tear on him because of the health restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
The biggest focus of discontent with the current president, however, occurred in late 2018 when the "Yellow Vests" movement erupted, bringing the cost of living violently to the surface of public debate in France.
Although its roots are mainly in the rural area (where Le Pen dominates politically) due to the rise in oil prices, it then extended, at the level of demands, to living conditions for the low and middle classes, and its mobilizations were accompanied by bloody clashes in the streets of Paris and other major French cities, which ultimately provoked the disapproval of the French public opinion.
In response to the 'message' of the demonstrations, which had a strong populist flavour, Macron announced tax cuts, such as income tax, totalling EUR 5 billion, but he did not back down from his sole message that 'the French must work for longer because they live longer' in his announcement on pension reform.
The first crack, however, in his doctrine on retirement limits appeared in the middle of last week, when he appeared conciliatory towards a compromise on 64 years, "turning a blind eye" to the left-wing commons.
"Make no mistake, nothing has been decided," the French president was quick to declare to his supporters as they cheered him on after the first-round results, acknowledging that he is the front-runner in the most contentious contest in post-war France
The objective difficulty for the current president to prevail comfortably - for the second time - in the second round arises from the objective reality of the numbers, as the leader of the National Coalition enters the second phase of the election with a lower percentage than Macron (i.e. 23.15%), but slightly higher than the 21.30% recorded in the first round of 2017, but also with more potential voter pools, such as the 7.07% of far-right televangelist Eric Jémour, who sided with her after the first round, and possibly the right-wing Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who registered 2.1%.
The bad news for her is her high voter turnout in the first round, seeking revenge against Macron after her defeat in 2017, which does not allow the 54-year-old lawyer from northern Neuilly-Cheer-Seine and stalwart of the nationalist leader and head of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, to hope for a greater mobilisation of her traditional electoral base, urgently seeking new audiences.
The "detoxification" of the daughter
The "transfusion" of new electorates has been going on for several years on the part of Le Pen, who has launched a concerted operation to reconstruct her public image, skilfully sweeping nationalism, misogyny and Islamophobia under the carpet.
Her father's biological and ideological successor took over the reins of the party in 2011 (although a member since 1986), and did not hesitate to publicly disown him when he described the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history", cutting off any chance of a seat for the most popular nationalist in Europe, in the 2015 regional elections
Marine's operation to "detoxify" herself from her father's political legacy intensified during Macron's years in the Elysee Palace, as she seems to have focused on the foci of popular discontent to construct a more mainstream political profile in the current contest.
Marine Le Pen seeks to semi-conceal her true identity until polling time
Starting from...From the tabola, Le Pen has renamed the political dowry from the National Front to the National Coalition, communicatively watering down the cocktail of antisystemicism, xenophobia and chauvinism which she initially "served" as an alternative political proposal to the French people.
Although in her 2017 candidacy manifesto she promised a drastic reduction of immigration, the deportation of all illegal immigrants and a restriction of their access to housing and health care, in this year's election she came up with a new... banner, promoting instead the protection of the French people from "Islamic fundamentalism", their... pockets.
In particular, it promises to alleviate the effects of inflation and the ensuing wave of unemployment, but also of the rise in fuel prices, "tinkering" with former US President Donald Trump's strategy of attracting the disillusioned "white working class".
Le Pen's attempted "obsidian transformation" was recorded, for the most sceptical, frame by frame, with her embracing - albeit not warmly and with all the fingers of her palm - a black woman in Guadeloupe, a former French colony, in order to amuse the impression of her racist positions, with this particular photographic snapshot, however, quickly going viral on social media internationally
In her revamped public image, Le Pen presents herself as the Frenchwoman next door, touring villages across the country. Still, as a mother of three children (with two divorces), worshipping Bengal cats, concerned about the derailment of the French family budget, the peasantry and unemployment, she attempts to erase from collective memory her old image, the one that started with insults and attacks on immigrants and ended up on the covers of "Playboy".
The Frexit candidate
Despite efforts to tone it down, Marine Le Pen's racist, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist past follows her. Social media users do not write off her move to publish on Twitter photos of Islamic State atrocities, while she spares no opportunity to attack the European acquis in every possible way.
Her Eurosceptic stance has not been dampened by her successive elections to the European Parliament since 2004, when she consistently advocated a revision of the EU's immigration framework and a passport-free Schengen area.
In her "revamped" rhetoric this year, hints of France's exit from the EU have been gently removed. with Le Pen stating that she has no hidden agenda towards the EU on the day after the first round of elections, although analysts find it difficult to accept the sincerity of her statement, pointing out that she is propagating a more relaxed version of the French presence at the European level, with a possible Frexit, however, appearing as a result of the relaxation.
Putin's friend
Le Pen also envisages a relaxed vision of the French future in the North Atlantic Alliance, having recently declared that "if I am elected president, I will abandon the integrated administration (of NATO) but I will not renounce Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and its implementation, on collective security, exactly as it was before 2009', causing turbulence in Euro-Atlantic relations at an extremely critical juncture following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Despite the criticism, some of it well-founded, that Macron is being criticised for entering the electoral race after a long delay, his attachment to the European ideal is more than self-evident.
By investing - also electorally - in his international reputation as the "European interlocutor" between the two warring parties, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has vigorously defended the European acquis and the Westphalian right to state sovereignty and territorial integrity, without asterisks.
His running mate, however, has in recent days stressed the need for a "strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia", even considering Moscow to be a key pillar of the security architecture on the Old Continent.
Le Pen's links with Russian President Putin go back many years and have increased the scepticism of French voters against her, even though she withdrew her campaign leaflet, which depicted a one-on-one meeting with the Russian leader, in fear of a backlash. €9.4 billion (at 6% interest) in 2014 from a controversial Russian bank, which went into liquidation, resulting in the French far-right political entity's loan being transferred, at the end of 2016, to the aircraft supply company Aviazapchast, run by former military officers.
A year later, in March 2017, President Putin warmly welcomed Le Pen as a presidential candidate, while she in turn refused in March this year to call him a "war criminal", as well as to support economic sanctions against Moscow following its attack on Ukraine.
Despite her well-known far-right positions and her close friendly relations with Eurosceptic leaders such as Viktor Orban, the question for political analysts in the run-up to the French presidential election is not only whether Le Pen's image has become more "normal" in the eyes of French voters, but above all whether the extreme right-wing and populist political figures are now firmly established as systemic, and whether French society now consciously chooses them as representative representatives of its will.
Source: protothema.gr
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
[Cyprus Times] Macron or Le Pen? What will happen if the European reformer or Putin's friend is elected president in France?
- Thread starter News
- Start date
