Bold, haughty, hyper: will Macron throw it all
away as France fights for its future?
Simon
Tisdall
The presidential election is his to lose. But the
divisive forces of the far-right are on the march in a struggle that will
resonate across Europe
Sun 3 Oct
2021 09.00 BST
Germany’s
“watershed” election? Yawn. For a truly stimulating contest, Europe must look
to France, where pre-poll noise levels are rising rapidly. Political debate
ranges from the repulsive to the bizarre. Issues that matter most to EU and UK
citizens – nationality, migration, climate, cost-of-living, place in the world
– are under brutal examination. For floating voters angry about English fish
wars, there is even, potentially, a President Poisson.
In an age
of predictable, managed and blatantly fixed elections, France’s looming
democratic denouement is refreshingly rambunctious and emblematic. As April’s
presidential contest comes into focus, the question of identity dominates. What
does it mean, these days, to be French? Who belongs – and who doesn’t? Is
France a global power or mere cultural theme park for Chinese tourists?
It’s a
conundrum deeply familiar to the British. While France, unlike the UK, faces no
immediate secessionist threat, it suffers similar internal social, economic,
racial and geographical divides – and an imperial hangover, too. The far-right,
xenophobic, nationalist-populist tendency common to both countries finds more
powerful public expression there. At one time, the National Front’s Jean-Marie
Le Pen and his daughter, Marine, held a monopoly on bigotry. Now it’s an ugly
free-for-all.
The new
champion of hate is Éric Zemmour, a TV chat show celebrity likened to Donald
Trump and Nigel Farage. He demands the “re-Frenchification” of France. “We have
to tell French people of migrant origin to make a choice who they are,” he said
last month. The French “feel colonised… and have an existential fear of
disappearing”. Zemmour wants to ban non-French first names, Islamic headscarves
and much else besides.
Although he
has yet to say he will run, Zemmour’s headline-grabbing is undermining Marine
Le Pen, who launched her third presidential challenge last month under the
supposedly fumigated banner of the National Rally. Struggling to regain the
initiative, she is promising a national referendum to “drastically” curb
immigration, in part by ditching EU freedom of movement and refusing asylum.
Le Pen
remains favourite, at this stage, to win a second-round run-off place against
the centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, in a repeat of the 2017 election.
Macron won easily then with 66% of the vote and would be expected to do so
again. But if disillusion, coupled with defections to Zemmour, splits the
far-right vote, a centre-right candidate with wider appeal could seize the
second-round spot. Such a scenario poses a real threat to Macron.
If Zemmour splits the far-right vote, a centre-right
candidate with wider appeal could seize the second-round spot
Problem is,
the centre right, represented by the conservative Les Républicains party, has
yet to agree a candidate. Xavier Bertrand, a former minister under Nicolas
Sarkozy, leads the pack, closely pursued by Valérie Pécresse, council leader in
the Île-de-France. Then there’s Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator who
is probably better known in Britain than in la France profonde. But nothing is
decided.
All the
same, if the centre right does eventually rally round one candidate, if that
candidate is endorsed by a party vote in December, and if a campaign meltdown
similar to that which overwhelmed François Fillon in 2017 is avoided, there is
good reason to believe Macron may face a second-round opponent who, unlike Le
Pen, has a realistic chance of beating him. That’s a lot of “ifs”. But a lot
could change.
Whatever
happens on the right, it seems Macron need not fear the left. Airy talk of a
social democratic revival across Europe after the SPD’s slim victory in Germany
ignores French political realities. Divided as ever into factions, the choice
on the left ranges from Anne Hidalgo, Socialist party mayor of Paris, to communists,
Trotskyists and the maverick leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France
Insoumise (Unbowed France).
If the
French left, broadly defined, and the Greens united behind one presidential
candidate, it could in theory win enough votes to secure a run-off spot and
beat Macron. But that’s just not going to happen. Macron’s main worry in this
respect is that many on the centre left will more readily back a centre-right
second-round candidate, rather than him, if Le Pen has already been eliminated.
Le Figaro’s
latest daily poll of polls predicts 25% first-round support for Macron,
followed by 19% for Le Pen, 15% for Bertrand, 13% for Pécresse and 10% for
Mélenchon. One poll last week put Zemmour on 13%. Sadly, Jean-Frédéric Poisson,
another rightwing hopeful, is floundering. So despite everything, the election
remains Macron’s to lose. Will he blow it?
In recent
weeks, busy-bee Macron has been hit by an egg and slapped in the face on
“meet-the-people” tours. He’s been confronted by the misery of the excluded and
the unextinguished, visceral anger that infused the gilets jaunes (yellow
vests). He struggles to reconcile his vow to uphold secular values and
eradicate Islamic “separatism” with a vision of a country at peace with its
differing racial, religious and cultural aspects. The pandemic may produce more
booby traps.
Macron
talks a big, unguarded game about France in the world, too. For him, the
question of identity is also bound up with the nation’s status as a leader of
Europe and a respected power in Africa and the Indo-Pacific. So last month’s
US-UK plot to torpedo a prestige submarine sale to Australia amounted to a
personal humiliation. It made him look silly, France look weak – and, worse
still, irrelevant.
Like the
submarine debacle, multiple other issues at home and abroad could yet blow up
in his face before next April. They point to fragility at the heart of the
Macron presidency. His peculiar brand of bold, haughty hyperpolitics, which
brought unexpected glory in 2017, is a vulnerability, too. Political enemies
may fail to dethrone him. But ultimately that may not matter. Mercurial Macron
has seven months to defeat himself before the guillotine descends. Hold
on to your chapeau.
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