The French Elections
Update: It looks like it will be Macron with 23.7% versus Le Pen with 21.7% in the final runoff.
Tomorrow France votes in the first round of the French presidential elections which will have a dramatic effect on the future of Europe. If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, he or she will become France’s next President. But that is not going to happen as no candidate is even polling at half that number. That means that the top two finishers tomorrow will advance to a head-to-head matchup in early May.
There are four candidates all polling within 4 or 5 points of each other, either in the low 20s or the high teens. All four of these candidates are farther to the left of any US politician, especially when it comes to domestic policy, so take the descriptions of their positions with that grain of salt.
Marine Le Pen leads the National Front, an anti-Europe, anti-immigrant populist party that appeals to French nationalism and, in the past and perhaps even now, has been anti-Semitic. For most of this campaign, she had been expected to advance to the second round without any problems. Currently she is polling in second place at around 23%.
The Republicans, a more conservative party formerly led by former President Nikolas Sarkozy, is led by Francois Fillon. Like Le Pen, Fillon had been expected to easily advance to the second round. But a corruption investigation regarding payments made to his family for no-show jobs and his own obfuscations and deceptions on the issue derailed his campaign. Lately, he has shown a slight resurgence and holds the fourth spot in current polling with 19%. His campaign is pro-EU and more focused on lifting restrictions on French businesses, primarily at the expense of workers’ protections.
Current President Francois Hollande is a Socialist but his hapless leadership and betrayal of his base has thrown the Socialist party into total disarray. Their current candidate, Benoit Hamon, is not even a factor, polling at just 8%. Instead, two former Socialists are among the four current poll leaders.
Emmanuel Macron, the former economic minister in the Socialist government is running on a pro-EU and socially liberal platform that might be considered traditionally Socialist. But his economic stance more resembles Fillon’s in that is classically neoliberal, supporting deregulation. He currently leads the polls, slightly above Le Pen at 23%.
Macron’s neoliberal economic polices opened the door for another former Socialist and more left-wing candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon. He is anti-EU and, like Le Pen, would also reduce France’s participation in NATO. Also, like Le Pen, he would like closer relations with Russia and would consider reducing sanctions on that country. Domestically, he is focused on the devolution of capital, corporate, and political power in a complete transformation of France’s economic and political structure. It is Bernie Sanders’ political revolution on steroids. The oratorically gifted Melenchon has come from virtually nowhere since the middle of March and now polls at 20%.
The most devastating result for the European Union would be to have Le Pen and Melenchon advance to the final round in June. With both candidates firmly against the EU, it could lead to France’s exit from and the dissolution of the Union. For those who would like to see the wave of xenophobic populism stopped in its tracks, the preference would be to have Le Pen fail to make the final round.
The reality is, with the polls this tight, any two of these four could advance to the final round. Unlike the United State and its antiquated electoral system, we should know the results tomorrow evening.