France and the European Union breathe. Emmanuel Macron has won a large victory over Marine Le Pen, 56.5% against 43.5%, and has been re-elected for a five-year term. Macron, who was already the first outgoing president in 20 years to come out on top in the first round, is also the first re-elected president since 2002, when Jacques Chirac beat Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, by 82% of the vote against 18%. Macron’s results are only surpassed in the Fifth Republic by Chirac’s overwhelming record in 2002.
These data reinforce the clarity of Macron’s victory, but it cannot be forgotten that The extreme right obtained this Sunday the best result in its history, with a progression of 10 points compared to five years ago. Never has the extreme right been so close to coming to power in France, and this led Le Pen to describe its result as a “great victory” and to reaffirm, in his first speech after the estimates from the television networks were known, that he will continue in the political battle, ruling out speculation about whether these elections would be the third and last for the daughter of the founder of the National Front, now reconverted into National Regrouping (RN).
In her reaction to the results, Le Pen issued a disturbing warning: “This defeat can only be a hope, a signal to the French and European leaders that there is a great challenge from the French people, which they cannot ignore.” Indeed, that challenge cannot be ignoredbut if these elections represent something from an international point of view, it is that they reinforce France’s role in Europe and in the world, and drive away the nightmare what a victory for Le Pen would have meant for French and Europeans, who defended discrimination between French and immigrants within France and the destabilization of the EU, which he intended to turn into a Europe of nations, in the midst of the war in Ukraine .
Macron’s victory means that, although weakened, the republican front – the cordon sanitaire against the extreme right – still works in France. In the absence of detailed studies, it is quite possible, as the polls predicted, that the decisive votes of The Unruly France of Jean-Luc Mélenchon they went more to Macron than to Le Pen, but also mostly to abstention, which reached 27%, the highest in 50 years. Despite his victory, Macron has a difficult road ahead of him because discontent in France is chronic, and hence the last two presidents were not reelected. Macron, hated for his arrogance and elitism, will have a hard time getting rid of the label of president of the rich, and he can only do that if he tackles the social turn with measures like those he has promised between the two rounds to win votes. rebellious
Aware that Le Pen’s millions of voters need an answer, Macron promised in his victory speech to take them into account, as “president of all French people.” Le Pen and Mélenchon appealed to the third round, the June legislativewhich will be decisive in whether or not to renew the absolute majority that Macron obtained in 2017. Since the legislative ones succeed the presidential ones, the electorate chooses to reward the president with a comfortable majority to govern, but Macron’s party has not managed to establish itself in the territory and this lack makes the June result an unknown.