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“French leader Emmanuel Macron and challenger Marine Le Pen qualified on Sunday for what promises to be a very tightly fought presidential election runoff on April 24, pitting a pro-European economic liberal against a far-right nationalist.” Reuters
The right argues that Le Pen’s success is due to discontent with the political establishment.
“Macron’s promises from five years ago, to turn France into a hub of entrepreneurship with a focus on opportunities for younger people, remain only partly fulfilled. Mr. Macron shifted his focus too quickly to vanity projects that have little to do with the lives of ordinary voters—and sometimes hurt them. After some initial successes with labor-law reform, Mr. Macron derailed his presidency with a tax increase on diesel fuel. This piece of green posturing sparked the yellow-vest protests in late 2018 from which his administration has never fully recovered…
“The runoff stakes will be especially high for Europe’s policy toward Russia and the war on Ukraine… Ms. Le Pen talks as if she thinks Mr. Putin should be a French ally, and she is deeply hostile to NATO. Her economics are a right-wing version of dirigiste government intervention hostile to free trade. But such politicians can prosper in times of economic insecurity and a war in Europe’s east. Mr. Macron will have to fight for a second term, and he can start [by] renewing his case for revitalizing the French economy.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“[Close polls signal] a major change in French politics. Marine Le Pen is the daughter of French rightist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. But where leftists hated the father, they’re increasingly willing to vote for the daughter in a two-way race with Macron. Why? Because in a huge shift, the left and the right hate the establishment more than they hate each other. [Michel] Gurfinkiel says that what he calls the ‘Resentment Coalition’ of left and right could command as much as 60% of the electorate…
“French politics don’t get a lot of attention here, but American elites, and Americans generally, should probably pay some. Because our situation is similar. The 2016 election of President Donald Trump was something of a ‘Resentment Coalition’ victory itself…
“The Cold War ended 30 years ago, and since then the establishment’s track record hasn’t been so good, and it’s treated ordinary Americans with increasing disrespect. The result is that many Americans on the left and the right are starting to realize they hate the establishment more than they hate each other.”
Glenn H. Reynolds, New York Post
“There is the cultural alienation from a progressive hegemony in the West’s major political, academic, media and artistic institutions; anger at the vast economic inequalities produced by globalization; a loss of morale from reversals in foreign wars and the rise of alternative civilizational models…
“Unease at an officially sanctioned uncontrolled immigration that changes the character of nationhood and citizenship; frustration at the failure to address the rot exposed by the global financial crisis; resistance to the new religion of universal climate-change compliance with its costly implications for energy consumers; and, most recently, seething fury with the little autocrats in government and health bureaucracies decreeing lockdowns, masks and vaccine mandates…
“[Yet] Every time the people take to the ballot box to signal their desire to change course, the reaction of these elites is to dismiss the votes as the result of some combination of deception and foul play… When will the political, corporate and cultural leaders of the West finally understand the level of discontent with the direction of political travel in their countries over the past two decades?”
Gerard Baker, Wall Street Journal
The left is divided about Macron but agrees that a Le Pen victory would be disastrous for Europe.
The left is divided about Macron but agrees that a Le Pen victory would be disastrous for Europe.
“Instead of distancing himself from the far right, Macron has dangerously played on its turf, adopting a tough stance on immigration that saw police officers destroying refugees’ tents in Calais, invoking the language of the founder of the far-right group Action Française in the Assemblée Nationale, paying homage to the ‘great soldier’ Marshal Pétain, the 1940s French leader who collaborated with the Nazis, and giving interviews to far-right magazines…
“Many [on the left also] feel betrayed after five years of Macron’s liberal, rightwing reforms that have widened the gap between the rich and poor, given greater powers to the police (who visited violence on protesters during the ‘gilets jaunes’ crisis) and failed to implement any real measure to curb emissions…
“Macron now has two weeks to reverse course and show the left he cares about the climate and social justice. He could, for instance, finally pledge to implement the 100 green measures he asked French citizens to come up with before discarding almost all of them in 2021. He could walk back on his widely hated pensions reform. He could announce a real plan to save the greatly underfunded public hospital and school system… It may be too late, but it’s well worth a try.”
Pauline Bock, The Guardian
Others argue that “Macron has combined tax cuts and pro-business policies with substantial new education programs, including universal preschool from age 3 and aggressive job-training efforts. Macron was no fiscal scold. During the pandemic, he spent freely with a ‘whatever it takes’ attitude toward protecting jobs. But as much as Macron spoke of the imperative of lifting up France’s economically marginalized regions, he never shook the image he created early on that he was ‘president of the rich’…
“[Meanwhile] Le Pen’s durability was a tribute to her skill at remaking her image without changing her underlying right-wing program. In what might be a warning to Democrats in the United States, she played down her trademark issues of immigration and fear of Muslims and focused on the cost of living. Macron acknowledged the power of the issue in his victory speech by saying only his approach would move prices down… The burden on Macron is enormous. He must fend off a far right that threatens not only his own nation, but liberal democrats everywhere — and, perhaps most immediately, the people of Ukraine.”
E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
"Ms. Le Pen’s long-standing hostility to NATO is well-known; she is promising to withdraw the French military from the alliance’s command structure. A Le Pen win, in short, would be a huge boost to Mr. Putin, symbolically and substantively… Sunday’s vote did not so much show a shift to the far right in France as a general gravitation to populists of all stripes: Ms. Le Pen was almost edged out for second place by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, an ultra-leftist who is also a NATO skeptic…
“Mr. Macron has an undeniably aloof and technocratic manner. But he has nevertheless done a pretty good job as president, having presided over a reduction in France’s stubbornly high unemployment rate to its lowest level in 13 years… Occupied by the Ukraine crisis and, possibly, underestimating his foes, Mr. Macron has done little campaigning so far. For the next couple of weeks, he must give his all to the electoral fight, for France’s sake and for the sake of Europe’s vital center."
Editorial Board, Washington Post
