Emmanuel Macron is ahead of Marine Le Pen in the ballot of the French elections: 58% against 42 on the basis of the first projections. At the Champs-de-Mars, under the Eiffel Tower, his supporters welcomed the announcement of Emmanuel Macron’s victory against the nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen in the race for the Elysée of 2022 singing the Marseillaise, in jubilation. However, abstention was strong, equal to 28 per cent.
Macron was favored for a second term but never before has the far right been so close to a possible election to the Elysée. It was the second time that the two politicians faced each other. In 2017, the president had obtained 66.1% of the votes, Le Pen 33.9%.
Macron therefore has five years to complete his political project. On the international level, he has already given back to France – thanks also to the vacuum created by Brexit and, for a certain period, by Donald Trump’s American disengagement – an important international role after the setbacks suffered with Sarkozy and Hollande. It is the internal reforms that must be completed, not so much on the economic level – unemployment is very low, the country is doing much better even if marginal – as for the compatibility of the French social model, generous and indispensable for citizens, with financial constraints .
The real issue is purely political. From the elections, from the first round, an important data emerged, which cannot be ignored: 57.8% of voters expressed themselves in favor of a radical, extreme, left (25.5%) or right wing party (32.3%). If we add the Verts, which in France, however, tend to be more pragmatic than elsewhere, the percentage rises to 62.5%: one in three voters wants not a new policy but, in fact, a totally different political system. In fact, Mélenchon, like Le Pen, wants a Sixth Republic, and Zemmour intends to launch a vast institutional reform anyway.
Macron has not given answers to the strong demand for a new policy that recognizes the hardship – not only and not only economic, even if there is no lack of problems – of a large section of the population. It has adopted “technical” measures, it has focused on the efficiency of politics, it has also moved in a relatively unscrupulous way, free as it is from ideological constraints: for example, it has supported the gendarmerie even during difficult moments for the police, it has measures against “Islamist separatism” have been launched, which are opportune but for some critics a bit on the verge of respect for freedom of association (Muslims in France have often voted for Mélenchon). However, he has forgotten the vast French territories – apart from the Gran débat national with the mayors of the whole country – certainly not decisive, and he has forgotten – despite a purely formal, external homage, to the symbolic aspects of politics.