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"One victory, a thousand challenges" was the headline of Télégramme, "Everything remains to be done" was the headline of La Croix: after his re-election to the presidency of France, Emmanuel Macron is called upon to unite two France's, according to several commentators.
Le Monde summed up by calling it a "re-election without a grace period", pointing to the abstention rate "approaching a record high" and the fact that the far right embodied by Marine Le Pen "broke the 40% barrier of votes for the first time". The turnout (28%) was higher than five years ago (25.44%) and the highest since the 1969 presidential election (31%).
Some headlines were neutral, dry, newsy, such as "Emmanuel Macron re-elected" (Ouest-France) or "Macron re-elected with 58.5%" (La Dépêche du Midi), others more abstract, such as "Act Two" (Sud Ouest), some somewhat more enthusiastic, such as "Macron promises 'five better years'" (Le Parisien/Aujourdhui en France), or "A new beginning" (Echos), while the conservative Figaro saw "Great victory, great challenges".
At first sight, the result looks like "apotheosis", after a "cursed" five years, with the yellow vests, the Samuel Patti affair, the Notre Dame disaster, the pandemic of the new coronavirus, the war in Ukraine; the performance of Mr. Macron's performance is far from despicable, noted Figaro's editorial director Alexis Brezier, noting however that triumphalism is not appropriate as no one "can really believe" that the 44-year-old head of state has such broad popular appeal.
On the other hand, Libération put a big "Thanks to whom?" over the head of the election winner, while the newspaper's inside pages talk of an "inglorious" victory and list the many difficult issues that Mr Macron must resolve.
A sketch of Kak published by LOpinion humorously shows the outcome of the contest: on the boxing ring, a Mariana announces "Macron, winner on points", raising the right hand of a president beaten, with one eye swollen and almost closed, dazed, with a grim expression; on the other side, Marine Le Pen is in a similar state, beaten, dazed, defeated - but standing. So no one saw triumph. Nor chaos: "This election has made it possible to avoid chaos, but certainly not to appease anger," judges Jean-Pierre Dorian of Sud Ouest."
And skepticism persists. "Yes, but," is the headline of La Provence, "And now?" that of Corse-Matin. Despite the victory, "nothing has been done", for Stéphane Verne, who believes that what is needed is "to reconcile the French and quickly", as he titled his article in Ouest-France. France looks like a "multi-traumatised country", considers Dominique Diogon in the columns of La Montagne, assessing that the problem is not the supposed "replacement" imagined by the far right, but the downward class mobility, the "relegation" of many French people, the factor fuelling the climate of "explosive discontent" in the country.
The map of the election results does indeed seem to outline two France's. One voted for Emmanuel Macron: lives in the big cities, belongs to the middle and upper classes, retired. The other, the one who voted for Marine Le Pen, is generally more popular, often feels excluded, lives in the north-east or on the coast, on the Mediterranean.
Mrs Le Pen has, moreover, recorded a historic performance in the overseas territories, winning them with almost 60% of the vote (Antilles, Guyana, Reunion, Mayotte: 59.10%), in the midst of a generalised suspicion of the authorities and rejection of the health passport. Some columnists, such as Luc Bourian of LEst Républicain, pointed out the responsibility of the head of state for Mrs Le Pen's performance: mixing "brio and cynicism", playing with "opportunisms", "weakening the moderate left and the moderate right", leaving no room for "any alternative other than extremism, radicalism, conflict".
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Now, he is called upon to "listen and act", as Midi Libre's front page urged him. The question is how. It remains to be seen, remarkably, what the outcome of the parliamentary elections, the famous "third round", will be. If there is no clear majority in the National Assembly, Mr Macron's new mandate could be marked by political "paralysis", warns Frédéric Vézard of DNA (Dernières Nouvelles d Alsace).
As Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the radical left calls on the French to elect him prime minister, LHumanité puts a crumpled ballot paper of Marine Le Pen on its front page, stamped "defeated" with the commandment underneath: "And now, do battle against Macron."
The election winner seemed last night to acknowledge that many French people "did not vote for me because they support my ideas, but to put a stop to those of the far right," adding "I want to thank them and tell them that I am conscious" of the obligation to be taken into account in the policies he will formulate. Yet at the same time, he said he would also seek to give a "response" to those who voted for Marine Le Pen out of "anger" or as a "protest."
Source: Cyprus Times
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