Will Macron’s coattails be clipped? (Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)
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For a President who’d scored a decisive re-election in a country that supposedly wanted him out, out, OUT!, Emmanuel Macron’s Sunday night victory party on the Champ de Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, was not just low-key; it was indistinguishable from what it would have been had he lost against Marine Le Pen.
He is the first president of the Fifth Republic to win a second term in 20 years. His 58.5% of the vote is better than anyone’s since Jacques Chirac’s 2002 triumph against Le Pen’s father (even if rising abstention means Macron’s numbers are the second-lowest since George Pompidou’s in 1969). His transparent bid to become King of Europe after Angela Merkel’s abdication has been boosted, especially since Merkel’s replacement, Olaf Scholz, has durably destroyed Germany’s reputation by denying proper help to Ukraine. (Tellingly, Scholz was the first foreign leader to congratulate Macron yesterday.) In short, his risky bet that Le Pen was his safest adversary paid off in a country where the Right-wing vote is close to a total majority.
In any other situation, Macron would have demanded a Roman triumph and ridden back to the Élysée behind four immaculate horses, his face painted with minium and his wife Brigitte in Dior whispering in his ear dire warnings about the Tarpeian Rock. Instead, he showed up an hour and a half after his victory had been announced to address a crowd of the party faithful, oscillating on the lawn to Daft Punk in front of empty bleachers. His speech was conciliatory; his manner was uncharacteristically humble; his security detail seemed to have been replaced by two dozen little kids, who turned out to be the children of party workers.
It was all over in 15 minutes and everyone left to go home at 10:30pm. There were no honking cars draped in tricolours driving up and down the Champs-Elysées all night (as for Chirac’s and Sarkozy’s wins), and no rock concert until dawn on Place de la Bastille (François Mitterrand, François Hollande). “This is positively geriatric,” one pundit joked of the youngest French president’s victory lap.
In short, Emmanuel Macron knew most of his votes came from those who saw him as the least-worst alternative in a miserable choice, and cast their ballots with clenched teeth. He wanted to erase the merest suspicion that he expected to enjoy a honeymoon.
The only question now is how the most fractious nation in the Western world will vote in June’s legislative elections. Our presidential races start with a cacophony of voices and end in binary language, zeros and ones. Our parliamentary elections are what you get when you layer a number of traditions, not all French, to reach optimal complexity, especially as old ones are rarely cancelled. Political parties that have disappeared from existence at national level for a century still explain local results and alliances today.
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SubscribeAt least none of them have beards…
Edouard Phillipe is bearded …
Unlike the late Madeleine Albright.
She’ll be waiting for you…