Election marks turning point
France’s traditional political class suffers humiliating blow in latest presidential poll
PRO-EUROPE maverick Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine le Pen threw themselves into campaigning for France’s presidential run-off yesterday, with Le Pen styling herself the true candidate of change.
Macron, 39, is the clear favourite to become France’s youngest president after topping Sunday’s ballot with 24.01% of votes, ahead of National Front (FN) leader Le Pen on 21.3%.
The result revealed a country deeply divided, with Macron, an advocate of open borders and free trade, leading the vote in cities and Le Pen topping the polls in rural areas that feel left behind by globalisation.
Le Pen seized on a flurry of endorsements for Macron from the mainstream parties routed in the first round as proof he was the choice of the discredited old guard.
On Sunday, the failed conservative and Socialist candidates, Francois Fillon and Benoit Hamon, joined a chorus of calls for voters to back Macron to bar a win by the anti-immigration, anti-EU Le Pen.
Visiting a market in the northern town of Rouvroy yesterday, Le Pen, 48, lashed out at the “rotten old republican front” – the anti-FN coalition formed by mainstream parties whenever the party comes close to power.
“I’ve come here to start the second round campaign in the only way I know, on the ground with the French people,” she said.
France’s traditional political class suffered a stunning blow in the election, with voters fleeing the Socialists and conservative Republicans who have governed for the past half century in favour of the extremes or outsiders.
Both Macron and Le Pen campaigned as rebels who transcended the left-right divide.
Le Pen, who has been hoping to emulate Donald Trump’s victory in the US, said the French faced a choice between runaway globalisation and a protectionist France.
Her plans to restore France’s borders with its European neighbours, pull out of the eurozone and hold a referendum on leaving the EU, have sown fear of another devastating blow to the bloc after Britain’s vote to leave.
Eurosceptics made strong gains on Sunday, with Le Pen, fourthplaced left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon and nationalist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan taking around 46% of the total votes.
But the euro rose yesterday, backed by polls suggesting Macron would easily beat Le Pen in the run-off.
“Most likely, the French election can mark a turning point for France and Europe,” Berenberg Bank analyst Holger Schmieding said.
After addressing euphoric supporters in Paris on Sunday, Macron spent the evening at the capital’s famed La Rotonde bistro, drawing criticism for what some saw as his triumphalist attitude.
“We need to be humble. The election hasn’t been won and we need to bring people together to win,” Richard Ferrand, secretary-general of Macron’s En Marche (On the Move) movement, said yesterday.
Despite serving as economy minister in the outgoing Socialist government of Francois Hollande, Macron casts himself as a newcomer and his year-old party as revolutionary.
“The challenge is to break completely with the system which has been unable to find solutions to the problems of our country for more than 30 years,” he said. – AFP