Macron in Denain on Monday (LEWIS JOLY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
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Watching Emmanuel Macron hard on the campaign trail in the Northern France rust belt yesterday morning, mere hours after he’d scored a surprisingly decisive top place in the first round of the French presidential election, a question sprang to mind. Had his earlier decision to stay aloof until the last minute actually helped him score almost 28% of the vote on Sunday, four points ahead of Marine Le Pen?
Paris wisdom said his statesmanlike pose, maintained for months, had been too risky, and helped forge a harmful image of a President unable to connect with le peuple. On the other hand, seeing the man himself on a walkabout in the once-thriving mining town of Denain, unable to hit the right tone to reassure locals protesting his vow to raise retirement age to 65, it was obvious he was doing himself no favours. “One needs to start with the real in order to progress to the ideal,” he told an angry middle-aged voter, in the gotcha! voice of a clever philosophy student in his tutor’s study.
You can’t deny Macron’s courage (or hubris): in Denain, Marine Le Pen received almost 42% of the vote; followed by the hard-Left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon with nearly 29%. Macron himself got a measly 15%. How tactically useful could it be for his run-off results to show up at the heart of his opponent’s constituency? It looked as if the President, who as a teenager dreamt of going on the stage, was now acting the part of the gritty local candidate — just as he overplayed the persona of the world diplomat capable of winning over Vladimir Putin in his Moscow lair a month ago.
On the other hand, half of any victory is self-belief; and after reducing France’s two historical mainstream parties to genuine bankruptcy, Macron may be right in thinking that he is the only one who can lay to rest the Curse Of The Windshield-Wiper Five-Year Presidencies (Right, Left, Right, Left) of the twenty-first century. Ever since Jacques Chirac amended the French Constitution in 2000 to whittle down by two years the old Septennat (seven-year) terms, no Fifth Republic president has won a second term in office.
The main thrust of his campaign is “Well, who else is there?” (“You’re not going to vote for the Fascist/Stalinist, are you?”), and he took great care to remain in sole possession of the field. Early after his 2017 victory, he picked compatible personalities among both the Républicains (his first PM Édouard Philippe, for instance) and the Socialists (see former Lyon Mayor Gérard Collomb), and sat back to watch the fissures on either side deepen.
François Hollande’s Economy Minister for a year and a half, Macron nominally came from the Socialist Party, although he’d never joined (you don’t need to be an MP to become a Minister in France). He started off by betraying Hollande himself, swearing he would never run against him. Fast forward five years and the Socialists ended up committing seppuku-by-Hidalgo: the detested Paris Mayor scored 1.7% on Sunday, managing to get even worse results in some arrondissements of the capital. The Républicains, Nicolas Sarkozy’s own party, did little better. Their candidate Valérie Pécresse, a clear case of Capax imperii nisi imperasset — a woman everyone liked the idea of, whom an early poll even gave as run-off winner against Macron 52-48, until she actually started campaigning — fell to 4.8% of the vote.
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SubscribeThey could just roll the dice and take their chances with Le Pen on the “anything’s got to be better than this” principle?
That worked so well in the USA with ‘anyone but Trump’.
I think you got that the wrong way round. Trump was the “has to be better than this” candidate, and the Americans channelled their inner Frenchman. Biden is Macron. Trump is Le Pen.
My apologies. I was trying to upvote you, but it has somehow become a downvote.
That reflects the current state of the world very closely
Just re-tap to correct
Yet another great analysis from Anne-Elisabeth Moutet. I must confess, I was not previously aware of that quote from Tacitus “Capax imperii nisi imperasset”. Gordon Brown sprang to mind instantly (well, actually, instantly after my wife had translated the quote for me).
Surely there are quite a few other Britons who deserve that epithet?
Our beloved leader, BJ must be a ‘classic’ example?
Cowardice will likely set them back on the path. The French don’t have the grit to ever do anything different. The Fifth Republic has enervated them beyond repair.
To think we came very close to a runoff between Macron and Mélenchon. A thoroughly disgusting result.
Macron is just too good-looking and smug not to vote for him. And if it’s all duds, you vote for the most attractive person. There, modern politics explained in simple terms.
excellent article, indeed the youngsters and the Muslims went en masse extreme left for Melenchon (much more than the ecological party), the brand new party Zemmour Reconquete (120 000 joined in 4 months) the majority is less than 35 years old, and concerned about the future of the West while those who voted with their wallet (mostly boomers), the “vote utile” go with the flow, and those worried about covid and the dhimmis voted Macron .
Yea and they surely won’t vote for Le Pen next.
The French will p***y out and re-elect Micron but Elizabeth’s analysis is certainly superior to Litchfield’s.
You could make an argument that a President (particularly in the French political system) is an elected King. Which makes it less appealing for voters to replace such ‘Royalty’ without good reason. And if there is a good reason then there are so many would-be kings (or queens) struggling for anointment.
I am surprised Valerie Precresse didn’t even got her share of criticism in this well written article apart from owing the state……5 million euros.
Well…..she can take it…..her estate is worth 9 millions and she got the flack she deserves when she went begging on tv yesterday. I was in the village café in Corrèze and she made quite an impression. I can’t even write what these good people eructed…..but it was extremely graphic and much to the point…..I think.
Macron, apart from being a modern times Rastignac, didn’t split anything. The rest of the pack running for high office are sooooooooo mediocre…..that he just filled the void.
No matter how unlikable the man is, there isn’t any other option and who cares if he is likeable or not……for me the main thing is that he does the job.
The french have this deplorable habit of sentimentalising everything when they, at the core, are just very cynical. I think queen Mum said something along these lines.
The Germans are pulling their hair in the German press, describing a situation that is no near reality.
Macron will be re-elected……will act as smugly thereafter as he did the first time and will manage what is to be managed in this padded cell.
See you in 5 years.
for those who read french, pretty well written article
https://www.lesechos.fr/politique-societe/politique/europe-derriere-lapparent-recentrage-de-marine-le-pen-un-programme-radical-menant-au-frexit-1400170#utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_lec_18h&utm_content=20220412&xtor=EPR-5020-%5B20220412%5D
What is that strange rumbling sound from across the Channel? It must be de Gaulle and Mitterrand turning in their graves.
Another excellent analysis by Madame Anne-Elisabeth.
I fear a very hot summer on the streets of Paris and elsewhere.
“France faces yet another miserable choice”
Which country doesn’t at present? In next year’s New Zealand elections, we face a choice between Ardern’s jiggery-wokery, the ACT Party’s free-market fundamentalism, and the National Party’s insipid pitch that seems to consist of the status quo + tax cuts. There don’t seem to be any adults in the room.
How anyone can describe this globalist, anti-human, puppet of the corporatist elite as “left” is beyond me. As is why anyone who consider themselves to be a “moderate” would give their vote to a vile, divisive, arrogant, hubristic, narcissistic oddball; a stupid clever man who openly persecuted, isolated, and scapegoated those who refused to submit their bodily autonomy to the demands of his psychotic, dissociated worldview.
indeed…. it almost becomes bearable to vote for Marine….