“I will do everything, during the years to come, so that they [les électeurs de Marine Le Pen] no longer have any reason to vote for the extremes. » Said Emmanuel Macron on May 7, 2017, the evening of his victory in the second round of the presidential election (66% against 34%).
It failed, we know, and he had recognized it. The results of the first round of the 2022 presidential election, held on Sunday, confirmed this. At the time of this writing, Macron was doing better than expected despite his “non-campaign”, with 27.60% of the vote, according to forecasts. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, arrived 2and with 23% of the vote, but narrowly, since followed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France insoumise (radical left), with 22.20%. Proof that the French consider they still have excellent reasons to “vote for the extremes”.
What will the next two weeks be made of, between now and the 2and turn of April 24? The election of Marine Le Pen has entered the field of possibilities for a few weeks. The good news is that this possibility is weakening in view of the results of the undrinkable Éric Zemmour (7%), who will no longer be able to serve Mme Lightning rod Pen about Russia. Mr. Mélenchon, for his part, strongly called on his activists not to vote for Le Pen. Advantage Macron, therefore. Democracy is not just about numbers.
In contrast to the emergence of Donald Trump in 2016, and despite the vagueness intrinsic to his “neither left nor right”, Macron carried certain hopes when he entered the Élysée the following year. However, his five-year term will ultimately prove to be more right-wing than left-wing. A man of many words, he will have made himself strong, in particular, in promoting participatory democracy and multiplying “citizen debates”, starting with the one launched in the wake of the acute social malaise highlighted by the Yellow Vests. But the opinion of the French, basically, will have been little taken into consideration.
Faced with the challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, it is also a presidency that did little to propose concrete solutions to the problems of an already fragile health system (care for the elderly, shortage of nurses, medical deserts, issues of privatization…). By virtue of his “non-campaign” strategy, Macron will inevitably have overlooked this, as on subjects as crucial and decisive as the fight against climate change and access to housing. How to be surprised then that disillusioned and angry voters fall into the trap of abstention (around 25%, Sunday), this great symptom of the malaise of our democracies?
From the top of his pedestal as Head of State and Chief of the Armed Forces, Mr. Macron thought he could step over this first round by ostensibly focusing on the war in Ukraine, forgetting that it is the economic consequences on their wallets that have little to do with little ended up worrying the French, and not the war as such. The president almost burned his fingers. This shift in opinion has not escaped Marine Le Pen, who, presenting herself as a champion of ordinary citizens and the defense of purchasing power, was able to avoid having to talk about her pro-Russian positions. With the result that the war of Russian aggression allowed the first to run for this presidential election without a coherent program. And at the second to advance masked, while she defends, under her softened and unifying airs, the positions of a party which remains fundamentally on the far right.
The electoral dynamic between the two rounds risks being what it was in 2017, with the re-demonization of Marine Le Pen. It is understood that his election would be an untold calamity. However, what offer of real social progress can the French expect from another Macron five-year term?