The turnout recorded at 5 pm in the ballot of the presidential elections in France between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen was 63.23%. This is more than two points less than in 2017, reports the Ministry of the Interior. France chooses. Its future, literally: the continuation of the journey of Emmanuel Macron who, criticizable as much as one likes, has allowed the country to emerge from the political vacuum into which it had fallen with Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, and a tumultuous Marine Le Pen presidency, in cohabitation – in all likelihood – with a prime minister of different political backgrounds.
Paris will vote for Macron
City-world, open, cosmopolitan, multiethnic yet unmistakably French, Paris cannot love Marine, who finished sixth in the first round while the radical right, “adding” – if it is politically possible – the votes for Eric Zemmour, more in tune with life in cities, it does not exceed 14%. Not differently it will go to the other big cities, perhaps even to Marseille (where, however, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has won over).
But what will peripheral France do?
The reconfirmation of Emmanuel Macron hinges on the only real political error – beyond the opinions one may have on the project – of his mandate: having ignored the anger of the small towns, where 60% of the population live, the invisible middle class . A French municipality has an average of 2,000 inhabitants compared to 20,000 in Italy and Germany: these are villages and smaller urban centers that are increasingly smaller, uninhabited, financially poor and abandoned by essential public services – doctors, hospitals, gynecologists, schools, post offices. – but also from private ones: bookshops, parish priests, forced to manage tens of kilometers away. Jobs are also moving away, concentrating in larger cities and commuter travel times are getting longer.
It is France that animated the Gilets Jaunes, and which often – not always, not automatically – votes for Le Pen; or does not vote, however, giving space to the candidate from the far right. It is France that forced Macron to even discuss the cultivation of carrots, in the long “national debate” with the mayors that engaged him for several weeks across the country to mend France.
The dilemma of France
“Son of the French technostructure, Macron responded” technically “to a dispute whose requests are fundamentally immaterial”, explained geographer Christophe Guilluy, who proposed the concept of peripheral France, perhaps schematic, but more precise today than that between cities and countryside. Le Pen, it may be added, responds to intangible demands, but his “technical” responses are rapidly heading towards greater poverty. This, today, is France’s dilemma.