International | Macron, Le Pen and the end of traditional parties

Today, the French men and women choose their president, or their president, at the end of an electoral campaign which will have marked the clinical death of the traditional political parties which are the socialists and the Republicans.

Frederic Merand
Scientific Director, Center for International Studies and Research of the University of Montreal

On the one hand, Emmanuel Macron is seeking a second term. The founder of La République en Marche accelerated the implosion of the political landscape. Neither left nor right, he is the liberal who wanted to modernize France, but had to manage the COVID-19 crisis through the state of emergency and public spending. He is the federalist who wanted to revive Europe, but failed to domesticate Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

On the other, the contender, Marine Le Pen, the first woman to approach the Pas de l’Élysée. On social issues, she led a campaign with “left” accents, defending the despised. She is still the heiress of a party that has its roots in the authoritarian and racist extreme right. And the ally of populist leaders, even dictators like Vladimir Putin.

The temptation of the politics of the worst

During the televised in-between-round debate, Macron made foot calls to green voters with pledges on climate and Europe. But he also insisted on the importance of nuclear energy and finally said little about the less favored social strata.

Le Pen, for his part, took up his arguments against the wearing of the veil and immigration, while striking the chord of the “losers of globalization”. Thanks to his “national-welfarist” program, his party, the National Rally, is the most popular option among working-class voters.

Behind these arguments, there was an electorate to seduce: that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France insoumise, who came third in the first round and who also succeeded in winning over a popular electorate outside the traditional partisan frameworks. He called on his supporters not to vote for Le Pen while refusing to support the incumbent president.

Will his voters abstain or will they line up, as in 2017, behind the “republican front” represented by Macron? They will, in any case, be the kingmakers of this second round.

What if Le Pen won?

Le Pen’s victory would be a decisive turning point for France, for Europe and for NATO.

True to its strategy of “de-demonization,” Le Pen has long refrained from using anti-Semitic and racist slurs. Compared to the troublemaker Éric Zemmour, she appeared moderate during the campaign.

The program of his party has not changed much since the time of his father, Jean-Marie. Offenders born abroad must be expelled from France. Social benefits must be reserved for French citizens. The rule of law must be curbed to make way for “popular sovereignty”.

A President Le Pen would bring the European Union to a halt. She no longer wants to leave the euro, but, like the ultra-conservative government in Poland and Viktor Orban in Hungary, she supports national sovereignty against European law. The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will refuse to collaborate with her.

Le Pen’s victory would also be the biggest crack yet in NATO’s collective effort vis-à-vis Russia. Although she distanced herself from Vladimir Putin during the campaign, Marine Le Pen suggests that it is up to Ukraine to make concessions.

A second Macron five-year term?

Polls suggest that Macron will win. A tight result will still be considered a failure. The legislative elections that follow in June will not be the tidal wave that La République en Marche experienced in 2017, limiting President Macron’s ability to act in a semi-presidential system where the head of state, elected by direct suffrage, must share power with the head of government from Parliament.

Macron’s strategy of cannibalizing the center left, then the center right, will have guaranteed him the position of a reasonable man in the face of the populism of the two extremes. But it also had the effect of creating a vacuum around him.

The parties historically anchored in the social fabric are rolled, which reduces of as much the choice of the voters.

Behind this strategy hides an evolution of democracies that is not unique to France. French political scientist Bernard Manin explains that party democracy, based on popular mobilization and intermediary groups, such as trade unions, has been replaced by public democracy, based on a leader who governs alone from the media and opinion polls. ‘opinion.

Macron, Le Pen and Mélenchon are the perfect expression of this evolution. Although their “parties” reflect the ideologies of their leaders (and founders, or founder’s daughter in the case of Le Pen), these formations only exist by and for them.

Admittedly, the traditional political parties are not popular, neither in France nor elsewhere. But as the Italian political scientist Piero Ignazi explains, they have been consubstantial with modern democracy. And they are very likely to be missed.

Maybe even to Macron, for that matter.

Closer than you think

During the debate between the two rounds, Marine Le Pen opposed free trade in general, and “Canadian beef” in particular. In principle, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) which binds Canada and the European Union was ratified by the French Parliament in 2019. But a President Le Pen could disrupt the functioning of the European institutions which are responsible for its Implementation.