THE best news from the French presidential election appears to be that Emmanuel Macron emerged with a larger vote than National Front candidate Marine Le Pen. There is a growing certainty that in two weeks time, the former top flight civil servant and investment banker turned politician will become the youngest person ever to occupy the Elysee Palace.
The euro has strengthened on the Sunday’s result. German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the flow of congratulations to the avowedly pro-European Macron. Doing the math, if the supporters of the failed center and center-right candidates rally behind the 39-year old Macron, he is a shoo in for the presidency. Pundits are predicting that he will win 60 percent of the final vote.
In his victory speech he sought to steal some of Marine Le Pen’s nationalist rhetoric. And Macron aides were quietly crowing that the National Front’s claim that it was the largest party in France was not borne out by the first round vote. They argue that Le Pen has no reserve of support. In a turnout of approaching 80 percent, it is hard the see where she could draw the extra votes necessary to propel her to the French leadership.
But this is to ignore some disturbing psephological evidence. The National Front has done well in local and European elections. Le Pen’s party has managed the tap widespread disaffection with the EU project and greater European integration. Macron’s liberal establishment agenda is the exact opposite of the National Front’s chauvinism.
With the defeat of the centrist Francois Fillon, the Republican party who pulled some 20 percent of the vote, means the removal of the only other politician to display, albeit mildly, the anti-immigration and Islamophobic colors of the National Front. There is no guarantee that all of his voters will now swing behind Macron. Equally the far-left socialist Melenchon’s core working class base is not obviously enamored of the establishment Macron. Even though her economic policies have been ridiculed as innumerate, it seems probably that blue collar workers will be lured by promises of job protection and enhanced welfare benefits. And among the French labor force there is no great love for EU worker mobility, which has seen French jobs go to East Europeans. It is striking that though the French elite has moved to work around Europe, not least London, there has been little in the way of working class worker migration, even to prosperous Germany which is crying out for skilled labor.
Therefore whatever his promises to seek reforms in Brussels, Macron looks to most French voters like a continuity candidate, who moreover threatens to undo the generous work and welfare benefits that have undermined France’s international competitiveness. Thus despite the apparent rising tide of complacency, the racist Marine Le Pen’s defeat is by no means certain.
Moreover, in June there will be elections to the French parliament where the National Front currently holds just two of the 577 seats. Even if Le Pen loses, her party could still see a dramatic increase in the number of its legislators. Unless Macron’s new and untried “En Marche” party makes a dramatic showing, he could fund himself as a president faced with a fractious and angry parliament. Le Pen and her odious supporters may currently be down but they are by no means out.
