Emmanuel Macron was elected today president of France. While this didn’t surprise anybody, a few observations
are in order.
The margin of victory, 65.2% to 34.8% for Marine Le Pen, is
wider than even the most optimistic estimates made just after the first round
(see previous post). I have little doubt
that the debate of May 3rd accounted for most of this shift. Le Pen’s behavior and tactics were so awful
as to turn off many uncommitted voters.
Le Pen still scored the most votes and the highest electoral
percentage that the Front National
ever got in a national election. She
succeeded in attracting some votes from the Extreme Left and from the Right. But more than an endorsement of her
leadership, this reflects the deep frustrations and the anger felt by a large
minority of the population.
Faced with a choice between anger and gradual change, abstentions
(at around one in four) were 25% higher than normal[1]. Blank votes[2],
at an estimated 12%, were two and a half times the 5.4% average of the last
twenty two years. In all, compared to
historical trends, an extra one in seven voters refrained from expressing a
choice.
It would be easy to show that only half of the registered voters
chose Macron[3] while the other voted
against him or not at all. That would be
overly pessimistic. He has three big
things working for him:
One is momentum and the fact that, with the possible
exception of Les Republicains[4], the
political opposition is both fragmented and in disarray. This should help him score very well at the forthcoming
legislative elections in June.
The other is that he has read the political scene and the
French population better than anybody.
It is easy to forget that, when he announced that he would run without
the support of any established party, he was laughed at by almost everybody[5]. This probably explains why his program seems
so gradual, some will say timid: the
French want change but are not ready yet to pay the price for it.
Last but not least, Macron seems ready to depart from his
predecessors in one very significant way.
He seems willing to spend the time to explain his policies to people, in
simple terms, again and again. This is
something that US audiences are familiar with (think of Reagan or Obama), but
it is a novelty for the French.
After five years of hectic buzz under Sarkozy and five years
of frustrating stagnation under Hollande, France is about to try a new
approach. I think that Macron is best suited
for it. In his speech to his supporters
tonight, he repeatedly stressed how “immense” the task ahead will be, implying
but not expounding to his audience its inevitable costs. He acknowledged the frustrations that led
people to vote for extremism, promising to address the underlying issues. Finally, earlier in the week, he stated that
he would seek to reform the European Union failing which extremism in France
would win. Echos of de Gaulle famous “Je vous ai compris”[6]?
The French want change, but what change and at what price, this
remains unclear. Macron seems to have
grasped this situation and offered a palatable way forward. One of his biggest challenges will be to
convince voters on the Left to accept more economic liberalism and to convince
voters on the Right to give the European Union another chance. Both Left and Right will be unforgiving as
far as security is concerned.
[1] Abstention rates at presidential elections
have been trending up over the last 40 years.
Except for an abnormal 31.1% in 1969, they rose from the mid-teens in
the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s to around 20% since 1995.
[2] First estimate for blank votes is 12%.
[3] 65.2% x 0.75=48.9%.
[4] Fillon and Sarkozy’s party.
[5] I didn’t think he stood a chance.
[6] I heard you.
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