March of Macron

With the French election in its final days, all eyes are on the charismatic centrist who has captivated

FRENCH election campaigns are donkey derbies that can oust favourites in short order and propel the unknown to the Elysée Palace. This one has sprung to life in the fortnight between the first round and Sunday’s contest as the final two candidates square up in a rush for votes. No two combatants in living memory have represented such diametrically opposing views as Emmanuel Macron — leading the fight for the French presidency as an independent centrist — and the spry, far-Right leader of the Front National, Marine Le Pen.

The cause of the fiercest stand-off was a visit last week to the Whirlpool kitchen goods factory in Macron’s native Amiens — home turf for the front-runner. The plant has been picketed by trade unions, protesting at plans to move 280 jobs to Poland. Macron’s En Marche! (Forwards!) campaign rolled up to discover that Le Pen’s team had got hold of his itinerary and beaten him to the site by a few hours, blasting out messages to applause and attacking globalisation and the “Macron class” of well-heeled bosses for not standing up for the workers.

Advisers sensed a campaign pratfall. The Le Pen camp pumped out pictures of Leftish strikers looking impressed by the Right-wing candidate’s promises of rolling back globalisation. But Macron insisted on going to the picket line to continue the debate — to a chorus of boos. “He took a risk many experienced candidates would not have taken,” says a local En Marche! supporter. “He could just have taken a detour but Macron hates to give up on an argument.”

In the closing days of the race, Le Pen has nibbled away at Macron’s lead. The latest polls show Macron at just under 60 per cent and Le Pen on around 40 per cent. His asset is the ability to attract a range of voters worried about Le Pen’s chauvinism (she ditched the party brand to run, formally, as an independent, but the nationalistic message is unchanged). He looks by far the more likely to end up in charge of a France caught between the strains of Brexit, long-standing economic woes and worryingly frequent terror attacks.

The rise of the former socialist economics minister to the status of “Macron Miracle” and his journey from “antisystem” candidate to the hope of Europe’s liberal clans is unconven-

‘He always forged his own connections. His eye has been on this prize for a long time. He jumped at

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tional. So too is his freewheeling political approach. Macron has unshackled himself decisively from the French Left, often picking fights, like one in 2014 when he questioned the sustainability of the prized 35-hour working week and was slapped down by President Hollande, his then boss.

Macron has profited from the campaign implosion of François Fillon, the Conservative candidate entangled in a sleaze scandal. But, says Eudoxe Denis, a political analyst, “his problem is that he will be elected on a misunderstanding. There is no such thing as Macronism. His brand of economic and social liberalism is not widely shared. And he will struggle to build an effective government — so his ‘etat de grace’ [state of grace] will be short.”

Similar claims were, it’s true, made about centrists of the Right and Left from Giscard d’Estaing to Tony Blair. And it is something of a luxury, in times when populist movements are winning, for a pro-EU social liberal to be facing election at all — never mind worrying about what to do in the aftermath.

A former British minister who knows and admires Macron says: “He has shown up the centre Left in Britain, wringing their hands about Corbynite Labour — but also moderate Conservatives who oppose Brexit by starting something completely new on clearly pro-European principles — and driving it through.”

Macron burst out of obscurity from a second-tier government role as minister for the economy, industry and digital affairs, having impressed Hollande as his helpmate and party official in the troubled socialist government. But, says a source who has known him since the start of his political rise, “even as a sidekick to Hollande, he forged his own connections, so you’d see him dining with prominent people in economics and politics in European capitals. I suspect that his eye has been on this prize for a long time — and when the moment was right, he jumped at it”.

In Britain, En Marche! has risen from non-existence to a force of around 200,000 activists, organising local appearances and events. Ygal el Harrar runs the London operation. Volunteers spearhead a campaign to get the vote out (180,000 French citizens are registered to vote). Given that few urban French sorts living in London are Le Pen voters, is it worth the trouble?

El Harrar thinks the final stage of the campaign is about “moving Macron support from being merely anti Le Pen to a vote of confidence that would enable him to do the job”.

THE Macron conundrum is what the campaign is for. Are they voting for a man of the L eft with reformi st ideas, or a brilliant opportunist who has simply risen on the coat tails of a socialist presidency, but whose real views are closer to a British free-market conservative? Denis, a former free-market think- tanker, reckons the menu is flawed. “There is no such thing as a settled Macronism, and that will lead to early clashes on matters such as wealth-tax reform. ”

But what is driving the campaign towards Sunday’s vote is a mixture of a “Stop Le Pen” mood and the desire for a defence of the embattled EU — with a major role for France. Macron has just