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?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, May 10, 2017
The Guardian view on the French election: Good luck, Mr Macron. You will need it
Editorial
French
voters have averted the catastrophe of a Marine Le Pen presidency. The
task for Emmanuel Macron is to deliver change, prosperity, unity and
healing
Emmanuel Macron: new French president. Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images
Any other result would have been a
European catastrophe and, for once, thank goodness, the opinion polls
got it right. Emmanuel Macron has swept Marine Le Pen aside to
become France’s next president. Mr Macron won by an even wider margin
than the polls have consistently implied: 66.1% to 33.9%. It is the
decisive majority against Ms Le Pen’s far-right racist challenge that
France needed, and one of the biggest presidential wins in the history
of the Fifth Republic, eclipsed only by Jacques Chirac’s victory over
her father in 2002. It is also a decisive setback for what has sometimes
been depicted as a rightwing populist tide threatening governments
across the developed world in the wake of Brexit and Donald Trump’s
election. The people of France have inflicted a major reverse on
demagogic nationalism. Their country is safer for it. So is ours. So is
Europe. We salute them for it. We wish Mr Macron every success.
But his victory is more a cause for relief than celebration. The new
president has been audacious in his centrist campaign based on a new
movement, En Marche!. He has also been incredibly lucky in his rivals.
Until this second round, he spoke for a quarter of his compatriots at
best. At various stages, François Hollande, Manuel Valls, Nicolas
Sarkozy, Alain Juppé, François Bayrou, Benoît Hamon, François Fillon,
Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Ms Le Pen all threatened. Yet, one by one, the
contenders knocked themselves out. He has a huge task of consolidation,
particularly given that more than a third of French voters supported a
far-right, anti-European, anti-immigrant and racist party leader, right
up to the end. There is nothing to salute there.
Who is the new French president, Emmanuel Macron? – video
Almost unknown to the French public until three years ago, the former
banker and – only in France – former assistant to a philosopher,
portrayed himself as an outsider, not entirely convincingly. Though
relatively new to politics, he is a graduate of the elite’s hothouse,
the École Nationale d’Administration, a Rothschild alumnus and a former
minister. Many, notably on the left, proclaimed themselves “ni patrie, ni patron” –
not for Ms Le Pen and nationalism, nor Mr Macron and “the boss”. He did
well to counter this with a positive message of hope and reform, of
liberal values allied to social justice, and of competence – but the
abstention rate was the highest since 1969, at around 25%.
It is a reminder that handling the fallout from the eve-of-poll hacking of
his emails is one of his easier tasks. He must demonstrate that his
tough liberalism can be an effective sell in parliamentary elections.
Then he must prove that his “neither left nor right” stance can offer
the balm, growth and reform that France craves in the face of high
unemployment, fear of terrorism, social and racial antagonism and
European Union ineffectiveness. In victory, he said he wanted France’s
new chapter to be one “of hope, and confidence rediscovered”. But these
are huge tasks, in exceptionally uncertain terrain.
He has five weeks before the first round of elections that may make him
the presidential prisoner of a hostile National Assembly in a
“cohabitation” France can ill afford. Under the Fifth Republic it has
had little experience of coalition government, and the party system,
with the exception of the extreme-right Front National, is in disarray.
The far-left will need to be won round by social programmes dependent
on economic growth that
eluded Mr Hollande. Each time Mr Macron falters, he may increase the
chances of a rematch with Ms Le Pen in 2022. She has already pledged “a
profound transformation” of her party to create “a new political force”.
The EU would have struggled to survive under Ms Le Pen – hence the unconcealed relief of Angela Merkel and Donald Tusk.
Mr Macron is pro-European, but also pro-reform. He wants a eurozone
budget and tighter fiscal cooperation, supports common defence plans,
and wants to expand cross-border professional opportunities. He needs to
engage, fast, with Mrs Merkel and other allies, not least to shift the
priorities of German eurozone policies. There is absolutely no reason
Britain, even amid Brexit, should not want Mr Macron to be a success in
all this.
In the end, his challenge is to translate campaigning into governing and
slogans into actions. He leads a nation in trouble, whose public is
often more anxious and angry than confident and trustful. He must make
innovative centrist government work on a continent where many have
despaired of it. His own future depends on him living up to his
promises. Many others, here as in France itself, have an equal stake in his success.
- This article was amended on 9 May 2017 to correct the final percentage results.