French presidential elections: the comeback of the Macron-Le Pen

By Ewen Le Clec’h

On Sunday 10 April, the first round of the presidential elections took place in France. As a result, two candidates qualified for the second round of the elections: the current president Emmanuel Macron came out first with 27.85 percent of the vote, while the far-right leader Marine Le Pen received 23.15 percent of the vote.

 Thus, for the third time in less than twenty years, the far-right is again in the second round, and not so far from winning the French presidency. How could we explain this situation?

The question here is why the second leg is a tenser with a bigger opportunity for Marine Le Pen to win.

First of all, compared to the second round confrontation in 2017, this time Macron is not a newcomer, he is a president finishing a five-year term, having largely divided the French society.

If he managed to convince a part of the French electorate last Sunday (20.7 per cent of registered voters), on the other hand a huge part of the population is aiming to prevent his re-election.

 In fact, many social, political, and economic crises occurred during Macron’s mandate: the retirement reform, the yellow jackets, and even the Covid-19 pandemic.

  Many French citizens consider that he has failed to respond correctly to the crisis. For instance, the yellow jackets movements have been marked with violent confrontations with the police. Furthermore, many citizens also point the government’s responsibility in the management of Covid-19, with an acceleration of the casualization of French public hospitals under the liberal president.

If Macron has a part of the population supporting him, he has many detractors, labelling him the president of the rich. One of his measures was to supress the wealth tax (ISF). On the other hand, the outgoing president is also highly criticised for his behaviour, which is considered disconnected and arrogant.

 Indeed, he had phrases such as "I cross the street, I find you a job" for a young man explaining to him that he had difficulty finding a job; "people who are nothing" in a speech on the success of start-ups; or complaining that "we put an insane amount of money in the social minima and people are still poor".

On top of that, Macron did not run an intensive political campaign during the first round. In fact, he justified it by his desire to get involved in resolving the war in Ukraine. He also refused to debate, arguing that he would only be the target of the other candidates facing him.

Moreover, the McKinsey affair had been brought to light by the Senate a few weeks before the first round, putting the government in difficulty. All these different elements put Macron in a different position in front of Le Pen, no longer benefiting from his former image of youth and renewal.

Secondly, for some years now, we have been witnessing a gradual de-demonisation of the extreme right in France. The danger flag placed on the far-right is no longer as effective as before. There are several explanations for this. First, Macron and his government have largely participated in this result, by reusing and normalising the populist discourses and theories of the far right.

Indeed, Gérald Darmanin, the Interior minister, declared to Le Pen that he found her "too soft" on the theme of immigration. The minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal, was able to call for an investigation into the ravages of “Islamo-leftism” within universities, a baseless concept popularised by the far right and taken up en masse by the government.

 Moreover, the extreme right ideas are also shared by other political representatives, such as Nicolas Sarkozy (former president) or Manuel Valls (former prime minister). The media coverage has changed too, by normalizing the radicalisation of the right. For instance, Eric Zemmour, who was a far-right polemicist before being a candidate, was invited on many large-audience TV set.

Finally, there is also a process of normalisation made by the “Rassemblement National”, Marine Le Pen’s party, which tries to appear less extreme in its image. The presidential candidacy of Zemmour, a provocative character, has allowed Marine Le Pen to appear respectable and calm. Despite this, the ideas she conveys remain the same. Thus, far-right movements have succeeded in promoting and imposing their themes on a large part of the political and media scene.

The success of the far right is reflected in the fact that it has managed to impose its voters as the priority target of a large part of the political forces. The movement has constructed and implemented the idea of a cultural malaise affecting mainly the working classes, which could only be convinced by adopting its observations and proposals. As a matter of fact, during his mandate, Macron tried to seduce and to convince this electorate to join him, even if it means normalising its discourse and leaders.

Finally, in addition to a divisive Macron’s mandate and a progressive normalisation of the far right, the outcome of the Macron-Le Pen confrontation seems undecided given the first round’s context of the presidential election. First, the political campaign did not really interested the French citizens, eclipsed with the Ukrainian war. Abstention, by conviction or by non-interest of the voters, amounts to about 26.31 per cent and is higher compared to the first round in 2017 (22.23 per cent).

Moreover, the political results are really different compared to the former elections. Indeed, the two traditional big parties, the “Parti Socialiste” (left) and “Les Républicains” (right), collapsed totally in the vote’s polls, by doing less than 5 per cent. This time, we may observe an anchoring of split votes mostly between Emmanuel Macron (27.84 per cent) and the extremes, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen (23.15 per cent) and the far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.95 per cent).

There had been a huge dynamic in the last days in favour of the far-left party, “La France Insoumise”, trying unsuccessfully to overpass Le Pen in the first turn.  As a fact, the voice reservoirs situation is different too.

 Compared to the first turn in 2017, this time Marine Le Pen had done a higher score, and may expect more mechanical vote-shifting in her favour, as the two other far-right candidates gathered an important number of votes (Eric Zemmour with 7.07 per cent and Nicolas Dupont-Aignant with 2.06 per cent).

The possibility of significant mechanical vote transfers is lower for Emmanuel Macron and his party "La République en Marche", due to the weak results of the parties on the right and left. Thus, the outcome of the presidential election will mainly depend on the choice of the Mélenchon voters. The far-left leader called his electors to “not give one single vote to Le Pen”, without asking to vote for Macron.

In conclusion, the upcoming second round of the French elections will surely be more tense than five years ago.

If Le Pen wants to win, she will have to prove to her own camp that she is capable of having a better debate against Macron than the previous one.

She also needs to succeed in convincing and gathering those who are against the outgoing president. On the other hand, Macron needs to convince French citizens to make a republican barrage against the extreme right.

He will have to be more open to dialogue and negotiation, especially in direction of the far-left voters, if he aims to gather enough voices and to reform a socially and politically fractured country.