Macron’s impressive two-to-one margin of victory against far-right populist leader Marine Le Pen in the run-off of the presidential election has been celebrated internationally for stemming, at least temporarily, the seemingly unstoppable populist wave that had brought about Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Macron improbably combines a Gaullist style with a political and philosophical centrism more typical of the Fourth Republic. For the first time since De Gaulle’s return to power in 1958, France is now governed by the political center-the goal President Giscard d’Estaing failed to achieve in the 1970s. Conversely, the far-right and far-left presidential candidates collected an unprecedented and ominous 44 percent of the vote.
These two elections precipitated the collapse of the two parties that had dominated French political life for decades, the neo-Gaullist LR (Les Républicains) and PS (Parti Socialiste), as well as their respective leaders. In the legislative elections that followed in June, Macron unexpectedly turned his fledgling 18 month-old grassroots political movement into one of the largest political majorities in modern French history, triggering an unprecedented renewal of the political class. Macron took advantage of the favorite center-right candidate’s embroilment in a scandal to appear as the best shield against a possible, although unlikely, victory of far-right populist Marine Le Pen. The election of Emmanuel Macron, the Obama-like 39 year-old relative political novice who ran as an anti-establishment, pro-European centrist, was a major surprise. Yet, the stakes for France and Europe could hardly be higher.
At this early stage, whether Macron will deliver on his promises and start turning France around is everybody’s guess. It also holds the promise of long-delayed economic reforms in France and a new direction for Europe. The rollercoaster electoral cycle that the French have endured for about a year under the scrutiny of the international media has finally come to an end, producing the swiftest and most thorough transformation of the French national political landscape since the beginning of the Fifth Republic nearly sixty years ago.
0 kommentar(er)
