A French revolution
Toppling the old guard
European stock markets surged this week after the centrist Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French presidential election, easing fears of a victory by the far-right National Front (FN). Macron won 24% of the vote, while FN leader Marine Le Pen – with whom he’ll now go head to head on 7 May – garnered 21%. Trailing them was François Fillon, the conservative former PM and one-time favourite, whose campaign was derailed by corruption allegations.
The vote was a humiliation for the two mainstream parties that have long dominated French politics: for the first time in almost 60 years, neither will have a candidate in the second round of the presidential election. The 39-year-old Macron, who is expected easily to win the runoff, founded his En Marche! (On the Move!) movement only a year ago and has never held elected office. The outgoing Socialist president, François Hollande, threw his weight behind Macron in a televised address. Le Pen, who has stepped down as FN leader, possibly in order to broaden her appeal before the final vote, attacked Macron as a “hysterical, radical ‘Europeanist’” who is weak on jihadi terror.
What the editorials said
“The storming of the Bastille in 1789 sets the bar high,” said The Guardian. So one hesitates to use the phrase “French revolution” in relation to this week’s events. But the election certainly represents an “epochal political upheaval”. Whichever of the “outsider candidates” wins the runoff vote, France is “set upon a new political course, with major implications for itself and for the rest of Europe”. French voters face a “stark choice”, said the FT, between “preserving the liberal world order and France’s place in it, or voting to tear it up – as Ms Le Pen would have her compatriots do”. Fortunately, they look set to choose the former option.
Macron’s first-round win has been greeted with “hosannas and hallelujahs from Brussels to Berlin”, said The Times. A late surge of support for the far-left candidate Jean-luc Mélenchon had raised fears that the race might come down to a choice between two extremist, anti-eu candidates. The victory of the pro-eu Macron, “hard on the heels of last month’s rebuff of Dutch populist Geert Wilders”, has come as a great relief. European policymakers don’t have that much cause for celebration, though, given that nearly half of French voters supported anti-eu candidates on Sunday.