Macron Is France’s Man of the Moment, but Far Right Not Out of Sight

Le Pen said her ‘historic score’ in this election will power her party, the National Rally, ahead of French parliamentary elections in June. 

President Macron celebrates with supporters at the Eiffel Tower April 24, 2022. AP/Rafael Yaghobzadeh

Of all the places Emmanuel Macron could have chosen to rally his supporters this evening following the second round of France’s presidential election, from which he emerged the clear victor, he chose the one that is both a symbol of Paris and the global image of his country: the Eiffel Tower. 

The message to his indefatigable opponent, the defeated far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, could not be clearer: Mr. Macron ran on a campaign of liberalism and globalization while Ms. Le Pen’s politics trade on their opposites.

The energetic, 44-year-old Mr. Macron was elected to a second term as French president on Sunday with 58.8 percent of the vote, according to France24, citing an estimate from the Ipsos polling institute. The 53-year-old Ms. Le Pen won 41.2 percent. 

Although Mr. Macron triumphed over his arch-rival by a comfortable margin, the far right recorded its highest ever score in a presidential election. “Tonight’s result is in itself a remarkable victory,” she remarked. “Emmanuel Macron will do nothing to repair the fractures that divide our country and make our compatriots suffer.” 

Mr. Macron, for his part, said that “the anger of those who voted Le Pen must be addressed.”

With the war in Ukraine overshadowing the campaign, a second five-year term for the centrist Mr. Macron spares France and its allies the presumed upheaval of a wartime shift of power to Ms. Le Pen, who quickly acknowledged her defeat Sunday night.

The center-right French newspaper Le Figaro said that Ms. Le Pen will return to the battlefield, so to speak, without delay. “A great wind of freedom could have risen over the country,” Ms. Le Pen said to her supporters, who gathered in an upscale district of the French capital not far from the Eiffel Tower. She also said her “historic score” in this election will power her party, the National Rally, ahead of French parliamentary elections in June. 

The hard-left leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who was one of 10 candidates eliminated in the first round of voting on April 10, also quickly pitched forward to France’s upcoming legislative election, urging voters to hamstring Mr. Macron.

“The ballot boxes have decided. Madame Le Pen is defeated. France has clearly refused to entrust her with its future,” Mr. Melenchon said Sunday, adding with a dart to the incumbent: “Mr. Macron survives in a sea of abstentions, blank and invalid ballots.”

Five years ago, Mr. Macron swept aside Ms. Le Pen to become France’s youngest president, at 39. His final margin will be markedly smaller this time, but will become only the third president since the 1958 founding of modern France to win twice at the ballot box and the first in 20 years, since incumbent Jacques Chirac trounced Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2002. Mr. Le Pen was founder of the far-right National Front, precursor of the National Rally. 

Breaking through the threshold of 40 percent of the vote is unprecedented for the French far-right. Ms. Le Pen was beaten 66 percent to 34 percent by Mr. Macron in 2017 and her father won less than 20 percent against Mr. Chirac.

None of that means there was overflowing enthusiasm for either candidate. Voter participation in the second round of the presidential election was estimated at 71.8 percent, which is down three points from the second round of the 2017 election. With the exception of 1969, never has such a strong rate of voter abstention been recorded in the second round of a French presidential election.

During her campaign, Ms. Le Pen pledged to dilute French ties with the 27-nation EU and with NATO and Germany, moves that would have shaken Europe’s security architecture as the continent deals with its worst conflict since World War II. Ms. Le Pen also spoke out against EU sanctions on Russian energy supplies and faced scrutiny during the campaign over her previous friendliness with the Kremlin.

The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and European leaders congratulated Mr. Macron on his victory Sunday night. But “Emmanuel Macron’s election win won’t mean swift end to Brexit tensions between Britain and France,” the Telegraph reported. 

Ms. Le Pen’s score this time around rewarded her years-long efforts to make her far-right politics more palatable to voters. Campaigning hard on cost-of-living issues, she made deep inroads among blue-collar voters in disaffected rural communities and in former industrial centers.

The projected drop in support for Mr. Macron compared to five years ago points to a tough battle ahead for the president to rally people behind him in his second term. Many French voters found the 2022 presidential rematch less compelling than the 2017 battle, when Mr. Macron was an unknown factor, having never previously held elected office.

Many leftist voters — unable to identify with either the centrist president or Ms. Le Pen’s fiercely nationalist platform — agonized with the choices available Sunday. Some trooped reluctantly to polling stations solely to stop Ms. Le Pen, casting joyless votes for Mr. Macron.

“It was the least worst choice,” a transport logistics worker who backed a communist candidate in round one, Stephanie David, said.

It was an impossible choice for retiree Jean-Pierre Roux. Having also voted communist in round one, he dropped an empty envelope into the ballot box on Sunday, repelled both by Ms. Le Pen’s politics and what he saw as Mr. Macron’s arrogance.

“I am not against his ideas but I cannot stand the person,” Mr. Roux said.

At the foot of the Eiffel Tower tonight, upbeat music from the band Daft Punk played in the background — no accident, as it is synonymous with the youthful energy that even his detractors admit Mr. Macron has in spades. In a tacit acknowledgment of the legislative jockeying already under way in the run-up to June, Mr. Macron vowed to be le président “for everyone.”


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