France opted for continuity with a pro-European leader, who also became the first to win re-election since 2002 when the conservative Jacques Chirac defeated the father of his rival yesterday, the right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Relief
Macron’s victory distances the rupture project of the 53-year-old RN candidate, who advocated excluding foreigners from social aid by inscribing the “national priority” in the Constitution and abandoning NATO’s integrated command. Likewise, it dispels the fear of a withdrawal of France’s financial commitment to the European Union (EU), the country’s departure from the NATO joint command and the imposition of socially divisive measures such as the criminalization of the use of the female Islamic veil in public places. .
Despite this, the extreme right has not stopped progressing in each election since 2002 and yesterday it took between 41.8% and 42.4% of the vote, according to estimates.
new battle
“The result in itself represents a brilliant victory,” assured the candidate who tried to maintain the traditional proposals of the Islamophobic and anti-immigration right, but who for some years has tried to cover them with a less inflamed rhetoric.
“I will continue my commitment for France and the French. I will fight this battle”, added the candidate, who intends to remain the main voice of AN and who during the campaign promised to fight for the recovery of the purchasing power of the workers.
“I am launching the great battle for the legislative elections tonight and I appeal to all those who want to join us in opposing Emmanuel Macron’s policies,” the candidate said yesterday, referring to the elections on 12 and 19 November. June, from which the name of the prime minister will come out.
According to a BVA poll released on Friday, 66% want Macron to lose his parliamentary majority. Given this scenario, Le Pen and the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, third in the first round, seek to position themselves to force a “cohabitation” government.
Shouts of joy erupted on the Champ de Mars, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, as soon as the first estimates were made public. There Macron greeted his followers.
The result caused satisfaction in the EU. “We can count on France for five more years,” said the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, on Twitter, while the head of the European Commission (EC, the bloc’s executive body), Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted: “I am delighted to be able to continue our excellent cooperation.”
Sign
However, “that the extreme right has been above 40% means that we will have to continue working, unite the country, have a political project and a parliamentary majority”, said, for his part, the French Minister for European Affairs, Clément Beaune.
Between 27.8% and 29.8% of French people did not turn out to vote, an unprecedented level of abstention since 1969, when it reached 31.3% (see separate note).
Macron’s proposal to delay the retirement age from the current 62 years to 65 – which, he said before the ballot, would limit it to 64 – heralds a series of social protests like the ones that shook his first term, especially that of the “yellow vests”. ”.
Five years later, France is not the same country: protests marked the first half of Macron’s term, a pandemic confined the population, and the Russian offensive in Ukraine shakes Europe today.
The war at the gates of the European Union (EU) flew over the campaign, although the main concern of the French was their purchasing power, in a context of rising energy and food prices.
Beyond choosing between two models of society, the voters had in their hands to select what place in the world they wanted for this economic and nuclear power until 2027, a decision that would have constituted an earthquake with Le Pen.
“The country will be more difficult to govern in the next five years,” said political scientist Chloé Morin.
Source: Ambito
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