Macron liquidates the old governing parties
It was already an obsolete designation, but in France the old left-right political antagonism has just been definitively buried. Emmanuel Macron, winner of the first round of the presidential elections, can be credited with having buried this old cliché, which was so useful in the past for dividing and polarising societies under the colourful opposition between red and blue.
On this occasion, the Socialist Party's representation of the traditional left was embodied by Anne Hidalgo, still mayor of Paris. Her meagre 1.74% of the vote placed her among the marginal parties, far short of the 5% needed to recover the costs of the election campaign from the state coffers, which in scrupulous accounting terms is tantamount to decreeing the bankruptcy of the PS as well. Between François Mitterrand and François Hollande, the Socialist Party has governed France for 19 years out of the 64 years that the 1958 Constitution has been in force.
As for the old right, which has been shedding its skin and changing its name to present itself in these elections as the Republicans, it has not even managed to break the 5% barrier. Valerie Pécresse, their candidate and president of the country's richest region, Paris-Isle de France, was left with 4.79%, which will also deprive them of public funds to cover campaign expenses. Excluding Charles De Gaulle, the founder of the Fifth Republic, and his first successor, Georges Pompidou, the current moderate right or centre-right claimed to be the heir of Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. Also, as in the case of the SP, they have now definitively passed into history.
Both formations have monopolised power in the 64 years that the current Constitution has been in force, with the exception of the centrist Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981) and Emmanuel Macron himself (2017-2022), whose original formation, La République en Marche (LRM), he wants to turn into "a great political movement of unity and action", as he himself declared in his first speech after the results of this first round of elections were known. Thus, in addition to eliminating the socialists and conservatives, Macron has also consigned the communists - Fabien Rousell, representative of the PCF, came in at 2.31% - and even political environmentalism to the dustbin of history, since Yannick Jodot, with his 4.58%, also failed to cross the 5% threshold, which entitles the right to reimbursement of election expenses.
Thus, for the second and final round on 24 April, Macron will embody reformism firmly anchored in a Europeanism compatible with national sovereignty. In front of him, he will once again face Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), both ultra-nationalist leaders and parties that are now highly sceptical of the process of European integration. However, this is a substantial moderation with respect to the traditional Le Penist position, which advocated in her campaign five years ago France's exit from the euro and, consequently, the implosion of the European Union itself.
Le Pen does not, however, renounce the "recovery of national sovereignty", based on the need to address the "worrying" situation of millions of French people who have crossed the poverty line. She therefore advocates non-compliance with European budgetary rules, "breaking the bureaucratic tyranny of Brussels", so that France can then raise the minimum wage "massively" and by decree; multiply subsidies "to increase purchasing power" and reject European legislation that hinders the exercise of national sovereignty. In short, despite the alleged softening of her language, Le Pen continues along a line of insubordination, which is not very different from what Boris Johnson materialised with Brexit, or from the demands of Poland and Hungary not to comply with the entire European acquis.
In these two new weeks of campaigning, Le Pen will continue to try to seduce the disenchanted. The working class is practically hers, having had enough of the fact that neither the CP nor the SP have prevented the closure of the factories and sectors in which they have worked for at least a couple of generations. It will be very difficult, however, for her to convince the new generations, those who have already expressed the discontent of the first round and will now have to weigh up what is best for them in the future.
Despite the gloomy picture of France presented by his opponents, Macron has succeeded in his mandate in reducing unemployment figures, has begun the reindustrialisation of a country that, like the rest of Europe, had innocently believed in the goodness of putting strategic sectors, such as energy, in the hands of Russia or China, and has promoted leadership so that the European Union is not a mere sidekick in the decisive geostrategic battle that is being aired. It suffers less than its European neighbours from the scourge of inflation that threatens to spiral out of control. But he will have to be very persuasive to get back on track with the reforms he also promised and which have been interrupted: raising the retirement age to 65, lowering taxes, reforming the onerous national pension system once and for all, and increasing public spending on strategic industries. He will also have to deal with the huge public debt of 2.8 trillion euros, equivalent to 112. 5% of GDP, and slash the vast array of subsidies that weigh down the national budget.
Although the owners of the votes are each and every one of France's 48 million voters, the ten candidates eliminated in the first round have already urged their supporters to vote for or against one or the other finalist. Macron already enjoys the mixed support of socialists, communists, ecologists, conservatives and even the ultra-left populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the only one of the losers to receive more than 20% of the vote.
Marine Le Pen will count on her ultra-nationalist colleague Éric Zemmour (7.05% of the vote) and the sovereigntist Dupont-Aignan (2.07%). A priori it seems that, barring a telluric cataclysm, Macron will win and will have another five-year term to finish what he left half-finished. Whether he will improve on the result he achieved against the same Le Pen in 2017, 66.1% compared to 33.9% for the then leader of the still National Front, is a matter for statistics.