Below are the main lessons of a presidential election, in which Macron became, with 58.5% of the vote, the first president to be re-elected since 2002 and Marine LePenwith 40.5%, achieved the best performance of the extreme right.
A divided France
The elections left a country fractured: a France of retirees and upper-middle class that voted for the winning horse Emmanuel Macron, 44, and another more popular and that feels excluded, that supported his rival, 53 years.
The first lives in the big cities and in the West. The other, which opted for Marine Le Pen, is located in the old industrial bastion in the northin the east, on the shores of the Mediterranean and in its territories in Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to the polls, Macron obtained his best results among those over 60 years of age and, above all, among those over 70. The centrist especially seduces executives, retirees and voters with at least three years of higher education.
The far-right attracts a popular electorate made up of workers and wage earners, especially sensitive to a campaign based on defending its purchasing power without denying the radical nature of its program on migration.
overseas territories
Marine Le Pen prevailed in the majority of overseas territories: in the American territories of Guadeloupe (69.6%), Martinique (60.87%) and Guyana (60.70%), as well as in Réunion (59.57 %) and Mayotte (59.10%), in the Indian Ocean.
Except in Mayotte, where Le Pen already won, in the rest the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon won in the first round. The result of the ballot thus reflects a protest vote with a social crisis as a backdrop.
“If Le Pen is in the majority in these territories, it is for a vote to dismissnot a vote of support for their program,” said Martial Foucault, Sciences Po’s expert on overseas territories.
The centrist president prevailed for his part in the South Pacific territories: New Caledonia (61.04%), French Polynesia (51.80%) and Wallis and Futuna (67.44%), according to the results of the Ministry of the Interior .
youthful disenchantment
28% of the almost 49 million French called to the polls abstained, 2.5 points more than in 2017, when there was already a duel between Macron and Le Pen, and a record since the 1969 presidential ballot (31 %).
Another three million voters voted blank or null for their part. If the abstentionists are added, “more than a third of the electorate decided not to elect”, summarized Mathieu Gallard, from Ipsos, on France Info radio.
By age, 41% of voters between 18 and 24 years old abstained, as well as 38% of those between 25-34 years old, according to an Ipsos survey.
This percentage plummets to 20% among those between 60 and 69 years old and 15% among those over 70.
Disillusionment with the first round led students to temporarily occupy the Sorbonne university. Many denounced the social and ecological balance of the five years of Macron, but they also feared that the extreme right would come to power.
“I am happy that the extreme right has not come to power, but I do not think that Emmanuel Macron really represents a large majority of French people,” Baptiste Dengremont, a 20-year-old student in Lille (north), told AFP on Monday.
A political board in recomposition
The first lesson came the night of the first lap. The traditional parties -socialists and the Republicans (right)-, touched already in 2017, have just sankin front of a board occupied by Emmanuel Macron (centre), Marine Le Pen (far right) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (radical left).
The latter two are now seeking to build blocs in their respective political spaces to wrest the parliamentary majority from the centrist in the legislative elections on June 12 and 19 and force him to govern jointly.
According to polls, more than half of French people want Macron to lose his majority. The last “cohabitation” dates back to the period from 1997 to 2002, when the conservative Jacques Chiracappointed the socialist Lionel Jospin as prime minister.
A “renewed method” of government
Aware of the political and social situation, Emmanuel Macron promised on the night of his election to govern “for all French people”, to respond to the “rage” of those who voted for Le Pen and promised to adopt a “renewed method” of government.
Perceived as “president of the rich” and “arrogant”, his first term was marked by protests against his policy towards the popular classes, such as that of the “yellow vests”, and against his reforms, such as his star promise to delay the retirement age from 62 to 65 years.
Source: Ambito
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