Emmanuel Macron was re-elected as head of the country on Sunday evening with 58.5% of the vote against 41.5% of the vote for his rival Marine Le Pen. An election of all records since it is the first time in the Fifth Republic that an outgoing president has been re-elected outside the period of cohabitation. Also the first time that the far right has reached such a score. And concerning abstention, it was at its highest since 1969, rising to 28%. A reality that Emmanuel Macron promises to take into account for this new five-year term.
“Five Years Better”
“My dear compatriots, it is with ambition and benevolence for all of us that I want to be able, by your side, to tackle the next five years. This new era will not be the continuity of the five-year period which is ending, but the invention group of a method overhauled for five years of better service to our country. So, we will have to be strong, but no one will be left by the wayside.”
Emmanuel Macron wants to be reassuring. The president is facing a fractured France. He is re-elected without a state of grace and under these conditions, it will be difficult for him to reach a consensus. The hardest part begins and he must face a dilemma: take into account those who voted for him by default or start this second five-year term in the same way as he finished the first, focusing on his base. A question that divides even within his entourage.
More than 50% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s voters in the first round voted for him in the second round. Some want this data to be considered at all costs. “We must not give the impression that we are betraying this electorate”, analyzes an adviser. “What do we do with these 50%?” Asks another who remarks in passing that some of the left-wing voters also voted for the outgoing president in the first round.
Sincere desire to unite or wishful thinking?
“One way or another it forces us,” analyzes a close friend of the head of state. An expression used by Emmanuel Macron himself in his speech on the Champs de Mars: “Tell them that I am aware that this vote obliges me. I am no longer the candidate of one camp, but the president of all “, he launched to the crowd.
Sincere desire to unite or pious wishes, Emmanuel Macron had in his program certain unpopular reforms on the left such as that of pensions. A lieutenant of the President did not hide his wish to take action quickly. “It’s the principle of the election. There is a winner, he must apply his project.” A new era of “At the same time” which opens for Emmanuel Macron.