Left-wing will be the biggest loser in French election
GIVEN the record of recent shocks at the ballot box it would be foolish of anyone to write off Marine Le Pen’s chances in the second round of the French presidential elections. Electorates everywhere have shown themselves to be increasingly unpredictable and inclined to reject candidates who take them for granted – as indeed they did in Sunday’s ballot in France by turning their backs on the established parties which have alternated in power for decades.
Yet as things stand Rightwing hopeful Le Pen, who has announced that she is temporarily stepping down as the leader of the Front National in a bid to woo moderates, will be defeated in two weeks’ time and that France’s president will be Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former economic minister. If that is what happens France will not be following Britain in leaving the EU.
But why so many on the Left are cheering the first round result defeats me. What a strange world it has become where The Guardian is hailing Macron’s first place as a victory for “progressive” values and many others are chirping that Marine Le Pen’s second place is a “defeat for the Right”.
Actually the real loser on Sunday was the Left. The candidate of the Socialist party – the party of current president François Hollande and France’s equivalent of the Labour Party – polled a derisory 6 per cent of the vote. Even Jeremy Corbyn is doing better than that. The far-Left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon could finish only fourth.
THE run-off in two weeks’ time will now be between two candidates who in different ways represent an anathema to the traditional Left. Marine Le Pen upsets them because she is a nationalist who wants to put the French people before immigrants.
But Macron too represents many of the things which the Left has long detested. He is an unashamed capitalist, a former banker who champions globalisation and is standing on a strong pro-business platform.
Thanks to his youth Macron has been likened to John F Kennedy and Tony Blair. But politically he is closer to a man who achieved high public office at an even younger age: he is