After the first round of the French presidential election, “center-right” Macron and “radical right” Le Pen are positioned for a face-off. However, the real story of the election is that Le Pen’s agenda has shifted the political landscape toward new French Gaullism.
At the eve of the French election, A gunman opened fire on the Champs-Élysées, killing a police officer and wounding others, while the Islamic State claimed responsibility. Meanwhile, US observers explain the rise of Le Pen on the basis of the French industrial decline, while German observers see France sandwiched between extremists on the Left and the Right.
What both ignore is French frustration with the failed policies of both the pro-EU conservatives and socialists – and with US efforts to shape their electoral outcomes.
Image Source: Telegraph.co.uk
Before the vote, the leader of the Front National Marine Le Pen and the centrist Emmanuel Macron garnered about 23-25% in the polls. The two were followed by the center-right François Fillon (19%), whose ratings have been penalized by a funding scandal, and the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon (19%), whose ratings soared leaving behind socialist Benoît Hamon (9%), who failed to unite the left.
Since no candidate garnered an absolute majority in the first round, the second round is critical. With 75% of polling stations results in, Macron was leading (24%) with Le Pen (22%) close behind. Conservative Fillon was penalized by his public scandal; socialist Hamon by President Hollande’s socialists’ failures; and the left’s Mélenchon by the absence of institutional support.
Public facades versus financial interests in French election
Emmanuel Macron’s (40) stint in President Hollande’s socialist government as a business-friendly economy minister alienated most socialists while failing to win over most conservatives. As I have argued through the spring, French right, the business and conservatives can tolerate him as a unifying figure; media will portray him as a “centrist”, and Washington wants him in Elysee Palace. But in reality, he does not represent “center-right.”
Leave A Comment