With Emmanuel Macron’s re-election, reason prevailed in France. But the country is highly polarized, disenchantment with politics is high, and the President has contributed to this. Now it is time to make up for the mistakes.
Supporters of the President cheer at the announcement of his election victory in front of the Eiffel Tower on the Champ-de-Mars.
France got away again. Emmanuel Macron prevailed over right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen. He has secured a second term in office – the last time a French president managed to do so twenty years ago.
The French have thus saved themselves five chaotic years that were threatening to the well-being of society: Le Pen appeared in this election campaign primarily as a candidate for purchasing power, but she had not changed anything at the core of her ultra-nationalist program. She wanted to systematically discriminate against foreigners in terms of access to social housing and the allocation of jobs, thus creating a de facto two-class society. She questioned the principles of the rule of law, and parliament simply wanted to bypass her when implementing controversial projects. How she could have financed the generous welfare state she promised remained a mystery; the already high national debt would probably have increased immeasurably.
Le Pen’s plan to hollow out the EU from within would not only have damaged France’s role on the international stage. It would have considerably weakened the European confederation of states. Now that it is certain that not the nationalist, but the convinced European Macron will lead France for the next five years, many in Brussels should breathe a sigh of relief.
For many, a stale aftertaste remains
Still, a shadow hangs over Macron’s victory. Many French are likely to feel a stale aftertaste with his re-election. Voters on the left, in particular, were frustrated by the repetition of the Macron-Le Pen runoff duel. While a xenophobic and anti-European president from the right-wing fringe may horrify them, it is yet another mandate for what they see as an “ultra-liberal” and arrogant Macron but only slightly better.
A significant portion of the French resented what they called the “between plague and cholera” choice. The fact that, according to the first projections, around 28 percent of voters stayed away from the ballot box on Sunday is not surprising.
France’s politics is in a deep crisis
The past few weeks have clearly shown how polarized France is. Apart from Macron, only extreme candidates on the right and left fringe achieved good results in this election: on the one hand Le Pen, on the other hand the left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who placed third in the first round. This is not a good sign for the state of French society. And the legitimacy of the winner does not benefit from the fact that he had no serious opponents among the moderate applicants.
It’s only partly Macron’s fault. The fact that the former major parties, the Socialists and the Conservatives, have not succeeded in repositioning themselves against the self-declared center president and running with strong candidates is primarily due to their own weakness.
With his policies, Macron has deliberately cut off the water for the moderate camps left and right, with the aim of positioning himself as the only alternative to right-wing nationalist Le Pen. However, he has not kept the promise he made five years ago to do everything possible so that by 2022 there would no longer be any reason to vote for extreme candidates.
Now the President faces enormous challenges
While Macron’s first term in office was anything but a fiasco, his record is actually quite good. He strengthened the economy, lowered the unemployment rate and successfully steered France through crises. But he failed to take large parts of the population with him when he governed. In doing so, he fueled the enormous political disenchantment of the French. Especially in the periphery and the poorer areas of the country, many simply feel forgotten by the government in Paris. Le Pen has found her breeding ground there for years.
Addressing this feeling of being left behind and reconciling the French with their political class will be a colossal task for Macron in the years to come. It is far from certain whether he will succeed in what he failed to do in his first term. Nevertheless, he must try with all his might.