(Paris) In the aftermath of a presidential election that revealed a fractured country and an extreme right at the highest level, Emmanuel Macron, re-elected on Sunday, faces major challenges to convince disillusioned or angry voters and win a majority in the June legislative elections. , whose battle promises to be fierce.
Posted at 9:08
A “re-election without a state of grace”, summarizes the newspaper on Monday The worlddue in particular to an “abstention close to records and an extreme right which for the first time exceeds the 40% mark”.
The Catholic Daily The cross judges that the victory of Emmanuel Macron – the first French president to be re-elected for a second term since Jacques Chirac in 2002 – also sounds like a “warning”.
The newspaper evokes a democracy “more than ever in unstable balance because of a presidential regime which has shown its limits”.
The battle for the legislative elections on June 12 and 19 promises to be hotly contested, as far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has gained around eight points since the 2017 presidential election, reached a historic score with 41, 45% of the votes.
Despite his 58.5% in the second round, Emmanuel Macron, 44, does not appear to be in a good position to win a parliamentary majority and have a free hand to conduct his policy.
He burst into the political arena five years ago, surfing on the disintegration of the great traditional formations. His party, La République en Marche (LREM), even if it won a majority in the National Assembly in 2017, is not well established throughout the country.
A “multi-traumatized” France
Some voters voted for this liberal centrist only to block the far right. From Sunday evening, during his first victory speech delivered in front of the Eiffel Tower, Mr. Macron also addressed them, stressing that he was “aware that this vote obliges him for the years to come”.
Also addressing far-right voters, he pledged to find “an answer” to their “anger and disagreements”.
The campaign, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, showed strong democratic fatigue.
The five-year term has been punctuated by crises, from the anti-system demonstrations of the popular movement of “yellow vests”, to the pandemic.
Mr. Macron, often described as “president of the rich”, must innovate in democratic practice, to “avoid a” yellow vest “of his five-year term”, judge Jean-Marcel Bouguereau, in the newspaper La République des Pyrénées.
Because this is a “polytraumatized” France, observes Dominique Diogon of the daily La Montagne, with a “great downgrading which feeds an explosive resentment”.
The results map draws two Frances. One voted for Emmanuel Macron: the big cities, the upper middle classes and retirees. And the other chose Marine Le Pen: more popular, often feeling excluded, particularly in the northeast and around the Mediterranean. With more than 60% of votes, Marine Le Pen has also achieved historic scores overseas.
Involve the French more
Faced with these deep divisions, Emmanuel Macron promised Sunday evening a “refounded method” to govern France.
We “want to go […] much stronger on a number of issues, in particular the question of purchasing power “and” the climate issue, “said government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Monday. ” That means […] to invent a new method which makes it possible to involve the French people much more widely and much more directly in the decisions that are taken”.
Facing Mr. Macron, the two other big political blocs have already entered the battle.
Sunday evening, M.me Le Pen, who placed the “national priority” at the heart of his project, saw in his unpublished score “a brilliant victory” and the manifestation of the “wish” of the French for “a strong counter-power to Emmanuel Macron”.
On the opposite side of the political scale, the leader of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round and with nearly 22%, made these legislative elections a “third round”.
“Another world is still possible if you elect a majority of deputies from the new popular union which must expand,” he said.
Abroad, the re-election of Mr. Macron is a relief for France’s partners, from Berlin to the European Commission, via the United States of Joe Biden, who said he was “eager to continue” the cooperation with Paris to “defend democracy”.