French Election: Emanuel Macron Decisively Defeats Far-Right ‘Putin Puppet’ Marine Le Pen

The New York Times reports Emmanuel Macron is re-elected French president, defeating Marine Le Pen.

Emmanuel Macron won a second term as president of France, triumphing on Sunday over Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, after a campaign where his promise of stability prevailed over the temptation of an extremist lurch.

Projections at the close of voting, which are generally reliable, showed Mr. Macron, a centrist, gaining 58.5 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.5 percent. His victory was much narrower than in 2017, when the margin was 66.1 percent to 33.9 percent for Ms. Le Pen, but wider than appeared likely two weeks ago.

Speaking to a crowd massed on the Champ de Mars in front of a twinkling Eiffel Tower, a solemn Mr. Macron said his was a victory for “a more independent France and a stronger Europe.” At the same time he acknowledged “the anger that has been expressed” during a bitter campaign and that he had duty to “respond effectively.”

Ms. Le Pen conceded defeat in her third attempt to become president, but bitterly criticized the “brutal and violent methods” of Mr. Macron. She vowed to fight on to secure a large number of representatives in legislative elections in June, declaring that “French people have this evening shown their desire for a strong counter power to Emmanuel Macron.”

At a critical moment in Europe, with fighting raging in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, France rejected a candidate hostile to NATO, to the European Union, to the United States, and to its fundamental values that hold that no French citizens should be discriminated against because they are Muslim.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, said the result reflected “the mobilization of French people for the maintenance of their values and against a narrow vision of France.”

The French do not generally love their presidents, and none had succeeded in being re-elected since 2002. Mr. Macron’s unusual achievement in securing five more years in power reflects his effective stewardship over the Covid-19 crisis, his rekindling of the economy, and his political agility in occupying the entire center of the political spectrum.

Ms. Le Pen, softening her image if not her anti-immigrant nationalist program, rode a wave of alienation and disenchantment to bring the extreme right closer to power than at any time since 1944. Her National Rally party has joined the mainstream, even if at the last minute many French people seem to have voted for Mr. Macron to ensure that France not succumb to the xenophobic vitriol of the darker passages of its history.

Ms. Le Pen is a longtime sympathizer with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom she visited at the Kremlin during her last campaign in 2017. She would almost certainly have pursued policies that weakened the united allied front to save Ukraine from Russia’s assault, offered Mr. Putin a breach to exploit in Europe, and undermined the European Union, whose engine has always been a joint Franco-German commitment to it.

If Brexit was a blow to unity, a French nationalist quasi-exit, as set out in Ms. Le Pen’s proposals, would have left the European Union on life support. That, in turn, would have crippled an essential guarantor of peace on the continent in a volatile moment.

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, declared that Mr. Macron’s win was “a vote of confidence in Europe.” Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, congratulated the French leader and called France “one of our closest and most important allies.”

Mr. Scholz and two other European leaders had taken the unusual step this week of making clear the importance of a vote against Ms. Le Pen in an opinion article in the daily newspaper Le Monde. The letter was a reflection of the anxiety in European capitals and Washington that preceded the vote.

“It is the choice between a democratic candidate, who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union, and a far-right candidate, who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy — fundamental values ​​that come directly from the French Enlightenment,” they wrote.

The BBC adds, French election: Historic win but Macron has polarised France:

Before the caveats, it is only fair to acknowledge the scale of President Macron’s achievement.

Not enough is being made of this, but this is the first time ever that a governing president of the Fifth Republic has been re-elected.

Yes, presidents have retained the Elysée before. But both François Mitterrand in 1988 and Jacques Chirac in 2002 were effectively in opposition in the period running up to the vote.

In both cases, actual government was – as a result of mid-term parliamentary elections – in the hands of the president’s foes. Though in office, Mitterrand and Chirac were politically impotent – but that helped when the wheel turned again and they found themselves back in favour.

As for Charles de Gaulle’s victory in 1965, he’d never been elected by the people in the first place.

So, Emmanuel Macron is the first president in modern times who, after running every aspect of foreign and domestic policy for a full term, has once again won the trust of the people.

When you consider France’s longstanding relationship with government – which is essentially to cheer ’em in, then chuck ’em out at the first opportunity – this is no mean feat.

He has done it by two methods, the first of which bodes well for the next five years, the second less so.

The results suggest that hidden beneath the seething mass of social media caricatures – the arrogant Parisian rich, the angry provincial mob – there are millions of French people of the middling type who feel that Emmanuel Macron has not been at all a bad president.

These people appreciate that unemployment is no longer a political issue, largely because of Macron’s reforms. They think his handling of Covid was competent, and they agree that pushing back the age of retirement is inevitable.

They also discern a leader who can more than hold his own on the international stage. They are glad there is someone at the Elysée with the stature to talk straight with Putin, even if it proved a fruitless endeavour.

And they reckon that under Macron France can aspire to take the lead in Europe, at a time when his vision of greater military and economic autonomy for the EU is looking more and more relevant. The contrast on this front with Marine Le Pen could not have been starker.

These people may not particularly like Emmanuel Macron – he’s too different – but enough have come to respect him.

Congratulations to @EmmanuelMacron on your re-election as President of France. France is one of our closest and most important allies. I look forward to continuing to work together on the issues which matter most to our two countries and to the world.

🇬🇧🇫🇷

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 24, 2022

However, the second aspect of the Macron methodology is more problematic – and this is where the caveats come in.

Five years ago, Macron made a brilliant gamble about the state of modern politics.

By straddling the centre, he destroyed the old pairing of conservatives and social democrats, and using the powers implicit in De Gaulle’s Fifth Republic, he installed a highly personalised and highly concentrated system of government from the Elysée.

Opposition was forced to the “extremes” of left and right, where he trusted they could never really pose a threat. So far he has been proved right, as this election shows.

But the election has also demonstrated something else: that more and more people in France are now prepared to dally with the “extremes”. They do it because – thanks to the successful Macron revolution – there is nowhere else for them to go if they want to oppose him.

Many of these voters – especially the millions who chose the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon – now want their revenge on the newly re-elected head of state.

They hope they can do it at the parliamentary elections which will take place in June. But if that does not work, they dream of a social “third round” in September taking the form of anti-Macron demonstrations on the street, especially if he has by then launched a new wave of reforms.

Emmanuel Macron will no doubt start this second term promising a new kind of government. He’ll be more of a listener. He knows there are wounds that need to heal. The trouble is that he has said that kind of thing before, and a lot of people simply don’t believe him.

“Not only has this election shown that there are two opposing Frances out there. It’s also revealed a growing tendency for people to say that the opposite camp is not legitimate,” said commentator Natacha Polony.

“In the past elections always ended with someone who people recognised as president of all the French. I’m not sure that is the case any more.”

This is what the international fascist movement is doing to democracies around the world. It is a malignant cancer which must be destroyed, hopefully possible without a war as destructive as World War II, the war to rid the world of Fascism.