“Emmanuel Macron comfortably defeated far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Sunday, heading off a political earthquake for Europe but acknowledging dissatisfaction with his first term and saying he would seek to make amends.” Reuters

Many on both sides argue that despite Macron’s victory centrists in France should be worried about the future:

“Macron’s margin in the second round was larger than polling suggested but barely more than half his margin five years ago. Some 40% of this margin came from metro Paris, which is only one-sixth of the country and where he finished behind the leftist candidate in the first round…

“The powers that be may heave a sigh of relief over Macron’s reelection, but a look at the numbers suggests that they should feel a sense of discomfort. With Angela Merkel’s longstanding centrist government in Germany utterly repudiated, and the weakness of the underpinnings of Macron’s version of centrism in France becoming apparent, centrists have no cause for complacency.”
Michael Barone, Washington Examiner

“Macron’s decisive victory notwithstanding, Le Pen is not walking away empty-handed. In a little more than a decade, she has succeeded in transforming her party, the National Rally (formerly the National Front), from a toxic fringe group to one of the most significant players in French politics. She has advanced to the presidential runoff twice, but perhaps most significant of all, she has normalized her far-right politics on Islam and immigration and has forced her mainstream opponents—Macron among them—to engage with, and in some cases even appropriate, her views…

“Le Pen didn’t win this time, but if her own success and that of other far-right parties across Europe are any indication, she didn’t need to. As long as she remains a frontline political figure, and as long as mainstream parties continue to court her supporters, she and her party will continue to hold considerable sway over French politics.”
Yasmeen Serhan, The Atlantic

“It is worth noting what France’s election result was not. It was not a victory for France’s established parties, which garnered a mere 7 percent combined and were culled in the first round voting. And it was not a campaign waged on the cultural left. For instance, in recent years, Macron’s ministers sometime have claimed, sort of uproariously, that Le Pen’s people aren’t concerned about the French Republic’s compatibility with Islam enough…

“In contrast to American leadership, Macron made clear French statues weren’t coming down. As the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial winds down in Fairfax, it’s also worth recalling it was the Paris-led reaction to #MeToo that was the most clearly skeptical of the phenomenon’s excesses from the start… So, if Macron’s reelection is an establishment, center-left victory, it is a strange, center-left victory.”
Curt Mills, American Conservative

“As the election laid bare, France is dangerously divided along economic and generational fault lines. A majority of blue-collar workers – and more than four in 10 voters overall – opted for Ms Le Pen. This, the best score in the history of the French far right, allowed Ms Le Pen to declare her share of the vote a ‘victory in itself’… If he is to successfully navigate this volatile political landscape, Mr Macron will need to adopt a radically different playbook from the one that characterised his first five years in the Élysée…

“In an encouraging early statement of intent, it has already been signalled that there will be full consultation with unions and other bodies over proposals to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. As the cost-of-living crisis bites, in a still fragile post-Covid economy, Mr Macron should also recognise that more needs to be done to protect and improve the living standards of blue-collar workers and the youthful precariat.”
Editorial Board, The Guardian

Other opinions below.