Above all, many French people voted against Le Pen. Macron will soon face a new test in which support is weighed, writes Maria Tolsa, a foreign journalist following France.
PARIS “Plague or cholera.” This was repeated in French TV news and newspaper articles during the election.
The cliché suggests that many Frenchmen felt compelled to choose the lesser evil between the two bad alternatives.
The lesser evil seems to many to have been the president Emmanuel Macron. He is getting nearly 59 percent of the vote, challenger Marine Le Pen about 41 percent.
Depends on whether Macron considers the result to be good or bad. The incumbent president has not been elected in France for a new term of 20 years. The first season will inevitably weigh on Macron. He is no longer that fresh and somewhat unscrupulous candidate as in 2017.
Macron grabbed the first season parables from the Sun King all the way to the Roman supreme god Jupiter. The pseudonyms came from his speeches and style of holding office. Critics find Macron elitist and detached from the daily lives of ordinary people.
No one is a prophet in their own country, Macron might think.
Elsewhere in Europe, there is support for Macron. The leaders of Germany, Spain and Portugal released the second round below open letter (switch to another service)hoping Macron would win “for freedom, democracy and a stronger Europe”.
It is unclear to what extent Macron has succeeded to reassure the French that his policy is worth supporting.
Macron got more than half the votes, but the mandate may not be very strong.
Le Penille also lost little in the first round Jean-Luc Mélenchon reiterated his desire to become prime minister. However, it is uncertain whether Mélencho will be able to mobilize left-wingers behind its own flag to the point of gaining a majority in Parliament.
A majority in Parliament is important, because if the president’s own party does not get a majority, the president will be forced to make compromises.
Macron plans for its second term carry out, inter alia, the unpopular pension reform, which will gradually raise the retirement age to 65 by 2031.
At the same time, the French are feeling the rise in prices in their wallets and many are feeling the plight of public services.
Finland also remembers the yellow vest demonstrations and the pre-pandemic wave of strikes against pension reform.
It will happen on the streets again soon, predicted a young man I interviewed in East Paris on Sunday. There is so much to fix in French society, he said.
When there are no more interest rate restrictions, it is possible that there will be big demonstrations in the offing.
Macron said in a speech of victory in 2017, five years from now, there will be no reason to vote for the far right.
National Alliance candidate Marine Le Pen received about 34 percent of the vote against Macron at the time. This time, Le Pen’s catch was clearly higher.
In his election campaign, Le Pen now highlighted everyday concerns important to the French, such as rising living costs, and managed to draw support for this dissatisfaction. He talked less about the immigration and identity issues that are still on the party’s agenda. More moderate rhetoric made Le Pen more salon-friendly than before.
This time, in his victory speech on election night, Macron declared himself the president of France as a whole.
He has a big job to deliver on his promise.