Run-off vote for French presidency is centrist Macron’s to lose
The polls had barely closed at 8 p.m. Sunday when the also-rans began appearing on television — acknowledging defeat, denouncing the hard right, embracing the soothing centre.
Such is the confidence of polls in France that candidate after candidate — and the prime minister, too — acknowledged the result without knowing it. It was hours before the official (with three per cent uncounted) count declared that Emmanuel Macron (23.7 per cent) would face Marine Le Pen (21.5 per cent) for the presidency.
There had been much anxiety that a “surging” Jean-Luc Melenchon, a leftist, would make it to the run-off on May 7, setting up a contest between extremes. But Melenchon (19.6 per cent) came behind Francois Fillon (19.9 per cent), the former prime minister, who endorsed Macron. Melenchon did not.
The remaining candidates were far behind, principally Benoit Hamon of the Socialists (6.3 per cent). Hamon also asked his party — what’s left of it — to support Macron.
Polls here are critical. The exit polls were dead on, as were the campaign polls, even though the professionals hedged their bets, describing the outcome as “uncertain” amid a high level of undecided.
So when polls Monday showed Macron entering the run-off leading Le Pen by 20 or more points, you can take this with more confidence than pollsters forecasting the prospects for Brexit and Donald Trump.
Less than two weeks before France votes again, Macron’s likely margin challenges the narrative that the country is moving right like Hungary, Poland and Turkey. Or that it is following the populist trend in Britain and the United States.
That narrative is tidy but untrue. The story of the firstround election is that France has rejected the hard right, like the Netherlands and Austria. Beware of declarations that Le Pen signifies the triumph of “the people” in France. The wave stops here.
This isn’t to say that Le Pen cannot win: Macron, an unproven politician, may falter under the strain of the campaign. His movement (“En Marche!”) did not exist a year ago, and may not have the organizational prowess to carry this off. Disillusioned voters from the other parties may stay home. Moreover, Macron’s ambiguity on policy may be a liability against a demagogue such as Le Pen.
The Russians may intervene in the election, as they did in the United States. Le Pen, like Trump (who all but endorsed her on the weekend,) talks warmly about Vladimir Putin. He would welcome a fellow-traveller such as Le Pen in the Elysee Palace, who admires him and disdains NATO and the European Union.
So expect more rumours around Macron, such as the one that he is a closet homosexual because he married his school teacher, 24 years his senior. In Moscow, this allegation might be fatal; in Marseilles, it brings a shrug.
Yes, things could go wrong for Macron, as they did for the highly favoured Hillary Clinton. But the burden of proof remains for Le Pen to persuade the country that closing its borders to immigrants, leaving the EU and adopting an isolationist, nativist and racist crouch, is the future.
It is dark and fearful. Le Pen will have to make this case against Macron, who will argue that his patriotism is more than narrow nationalism. He has more room to grow. His sunnier vision of France is one that benefits from immigration, profits from free trade and lowers perennial unemployment with innovation.
The system is against Le Pen; unlike Trump, who lost the popular vote and won a narrow victory in an antiquated Electoral College, she will have to win a clear majority. In 1958, Charles de Gaulle designed the Fifth Republic to give France’s president that kind of authority and clarity.
Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the country’s great philosophers, defined existentialism. Now the French face an existential crisis of their own, defined by terrorism, social malaise, economic weakness and a loss of stature. That will not go away in two weeks.
But as of now, most of them do not see Marine Le Pen as the solution. The election is Emmanuel Macron’s to lose.