What would a victory for Macron mean for London?
TODAY, the French election darling Emmanuel Macron is speaking in London to get the votes of French Londoners. As Boris Johnson was fond of saying, to the irritation of the French ambassador, London is France’s sixthbiggest city.
Macron fits in well in London, which is one of his drawbacks in France. He is a pro-European, centrist former Rothschild banker who looks even younger than his 39 years. He goes against the current trend for older men needing the validation of younger trophy partners. He could be France’s Justin Trudeau.
Metropolitan expats find him appealing and worrying. How does he match up against Marine Le Pen? Her card is security, and it is a hard one for him to play. He could toughen up on immigration but he strays into her area. She looks as tough as hell and he does not. Furthermore, Le Pen’s asymmetric politics make her hard to fight squarely. She is a social liberal who supports same-sex marriage. She is an economic protectionist who does not love bankers. She is bankrolled by Russia. She is a mix of far Right and far Left. The common link with Brexit and with Trump is a distrust of globalisation. Russia has also taken an interest in each election and Macron believes its cyber-hackers are bombarding his campaign at the moment.
What is the best outcome for London? In some ways, Macron could do us most competitive damage. He is economically plausible and making a tempting case for financial institutions worried by Brexit to move to Paris. If Marine Le Pen gets in, France would be a less attractive place for liberal internationalists. It would also mean that one of the two remaining central pillars of the European Union would collapse.
As a German official told me the other day, France was Germany’s saviour after the Second World War. Theirs was the European project. Without France, Germany is alone. Oddly, the “patriotic spring” has not reached Germany. There may be an anti-immigration mood but, according to the diplomat, there is no Brexit “contagion”. Germany believes its soul is in the European Union.
The Prime Minister’s stated position is that Britain wants a strong European Union to trade with, but I wonder if that is the view of Brexiteers. Those who see it as a corrupt bureaucracy, as does Trump, must surely want to see its decline hastened. The domino effect has to be a calculation.
So I shall go to watch Emmanuel Macron speak today, because a lot seems to be riding on him. Can he reverse the trend, as Tony Blair has tried to do, attracting enormous hostility? Will France provide an alternative political narrative or is the message the same, in different lands and different guises, that it is time for a new world order?
The 250,000 French in London have already made a cultural contribution to the city. South Kensington is full of little Macrons on scooters in padded navy jackets. The Eurostar is the love train between the countries. Now the EU stands or falls on the fortunes of Macron, who is not a conventional politician but a conventional member of the French establishment. Who dares predict the result?