Emmanuel Macron He is going for re-election after winning the first round (27.4%). But he arrives weakened after being forced to reshape his campaign, and accused of avoiding debates, hiding behind his role as Europe’s wartime leader and chief diplomat.
His main rival, Marine LePen (he took 23.4%), the far-right leader, grew strongly in recent weeks with an anti-EU, anti-NATO and pro-Russian platform, which will have global repercussions if it manages to hit the wall in the second round, nucleating the votes of a right that has grown by more than 10 points since the last election.
The next French president should help circumvent two forces currently plaguing Europe: a brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has driven millions to the continent’s doorstep, and a Economic recovery related to the pandemic that is testing supply chains.
Meanwhile, the forces of right seem to have largely won the culture wars finery of recent years. Polls show that French voters are now primarily concerned about the growing cost of living; the sustainability of its generous wellness model; and immigration fears and concerns about the weight of islam in the country. To which is added the disillusionment with traditional politics, reflected in an electoral participation of the lowest in decades.
On these aspects has worked the right gala, inspired by the American right, and adopting its codes and strategies to attract a younger and anti-system audience (as is also the case in Argentina with Javier Milei and other space candidates), Le Pen and company no longer sweeten their speech conservative and segregationist.
They have won the cultural battle from the campuses -usually socialist-, as is also the case in the United States, to the main media: with its own version of Fox-style television news channels, and multiple media platforms social media With a substantial and increasingly younger following, the French right emulates the Trumpist surge in the United States.
It even had a strong candidate from the media, Eric Zemmour (He retained 7.1% of the votes last Sunday and was the big surprise of these elections). An extremist and bestselling author who has managed to impose his daily appearances on the new right-wing media ecosystem, a strong anti immigrant speech and Muslim.
With conspiracy and racist theories, zemour he won white and Christian voters, whom he convinced to be the object of a macabre plan to be intentionally replaced by non-white immigrants, cheaper for the capitalist system.
The “great replacement”, as Zemmour’s theory is called, has been picked up even by Valerie Pecresse (he got 4.8%, votes that would go like those of Zemmour to Le Pen), candidate of the center-right Republican Party, and by Marion Maréchal, Le Pen’s niece, who runs a conservative political institution in Lyon, school of which Since 2018, with elbows, an alternative preaching to the proposal in higher education dominated by the left has emerged.
