Opinion: Macron flirted with the far-right. And France lost

 

What role does the Ukraine war play in the upcoming French elections?

When he was first elected French President in 2017, Emmanuel Macron promised that over the next five years he would do everything to ensure people would no longer have "any reason to vote for the extremes."

Unfortunately for the French electorate, Macron fell short of this promise to stem the rise of the far-right. In the wake of his 2017 victory, the political landscape shifted dramatically, with Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party being the main beneficiary.

Now, just days away from France's presidential election on Sunday, Macron again faces Le Pen in a rematch of their 2017 contest -- and this time, Le Pen is riding a late surge in support that puts her a breath behind Macron's lead.

During his first term in office, Macron's administration flirted with the same right-wing themes that have powered Le Pen's rise -- including Islam, security and immigration. Indeed, the entire political landscape in France is not immune to the appeal of policies that have profound effects on anyone who was not born White and on French soil.

Whether or not Macron retains his seat, the effects of the creeping acceptance of the premises fueling Le Pen's rise will be profound.

The focus on French Muslims, in particular, has been marked by a steady increase in fear-mongering for votes over the past 30 years. As successive waves of terrorist attacks in France galvanized public opinion since the mid-1980s, state authorities have been trying to create a framework to oversee Muslim religious practices and organization, through the idea of creating a "French Islam."

But in the past 10 years, the threat has expanded from public safety to include Muslims being seen as an existential threat to the cultural identity of what is being called "traditional France."

Seeing an opportunity to ride a wave of discontent, politicians have pushed measures instrumentalizing the once liberal concept of laïcité (France's form of secularism), including banning full-face coverings and burkinis in public spaces.

While Macron is seen as an alternative to the far-right, he has also attempted to play both sides -- putting on a liberal face for an international audience, while quietly embracing the very policies that the far-right has championed at home.

To lead this charge, Macron appointed Gérald Darmanin to the Ministry of Interior, one of the most powerful ministries in France. Darmanin has polarized the electorate with a staunch support for the French police, gaining strong support from influential police unions while alienating much of the left.

Furthermore, critics accuse Darmanin of playing into anti-Muslim hatred with inflammatory rhetoric and action. In a vivid illustration of the Macron Administration's rightward shift, last year Darmanin accused Le Pen of "being soft on Islam" in the midst of the debate around the Law Strengthening Respect For the Principles of the Republic (Anti-Separatism Law) of August 2021.

The anti-separatism bill was part of Macron's strategy ahead of the 2022 presidential election to take some wind out of the far-right's sails.

Under the law, non-profit organizations are subject to signing a "contract of republican commitment" -- by which they must pledge respect to liberty, equality, fraternity, human dignity and public order. As a result, public authorities can arbitrarily deny, claim reimbursement or withdraw support to associations they deem are not respecting said values.

Some associations fear that the heart of their activities (such as providing support to undocumented people, or human rights activist groups denouncing government discriminatory policies) could be deemed a violation of public order -- and as a consequence, lose their funding.

Facing a fractured field on the left, analysts predicted Macron was trying to lure some right-leaning voters away from Le Pen by taking action on some of the far right's focal issues. Indeed, Darmanin declared in February 2022 that he wished that "far-right voters would vote for us (Macron's party)".

Meanwhile, Le Pen has done her own version of a face-lift, de-emphasizing the harsher elements of her platform, while refusing to concede the underlying ideology that her party pioneered over the past 30 years.

Her campaign promises include amending the Constitution to restrict immigration, family reunification and asylum that she deems a threat to France's identity. Le Pen's manifesto also contains measures for a legal distinction between "native-born French" and "others," for access to employment or social benefits.

Le Pen also announced her intention to extend the ban on the wearing of the headscarf in public spaces on the grounds of protecting Laïcité and the 1905 Law on Separation of Church and State. Laïcité has been understood for most of the 20th century as imposing neutrality upon the state and its civil servants, while guaranteeing religious freedom and freedom of conscience for private individuals.

But since the 1990s, the understanding of laïcité has evolved and been interpreted as limiting religious expressions, more specifically Muslim ones. This has primarily been implemented through legislation restricting the wearing of visible religious signs, especially the wearing of the headscarf by some Muslim women.

Macron sometimes unwittingly feeds into this narrative, once asking a young French Muslim woman wearing a headscarf if she was wearing a headscarf "by choice" or "by force" and complimented her when she confirmed it was by choice.

While Macron's statement was baffling, as it's unlikely he would have asked such a question to a Catholic nun wearing a veil, a Jew wearing a yarmulke or a Sikh wearing a turban, the President is clearly trying to backpedal from the actions of his administration and pretend measures like the Anti-Separatism Law never happened.

Once again, Muslims, and especially Muslim women, are being instrumentalized for electoral purposes. Regardless of who wins the election, the far-right has already won. They are shaping the agenda of French political debate. If Le Pen does not win this time, she or someone like her will most likely win another time.

French Muslims are tired of being pawns in this political game. Muslims comprise an estimated 8.8% of the population of France yet take up almost all of the political and media discourse, while their voices are left out of the conversation.

Islam and immigration are topics that the far-right loves to use for their agenda, and unfortunately Macron, and those before him, fell into this trap. If Macron wins, he will have to make amends with those he has affected. And he and his administration will have to stop treating their French Muslim citizens as if they were a population that needed to be tamed.

There is a need to proactively and constructively engage with Muslims, put in place programs that fight discrimination, and stop weaponizing laïcité as a tool for political identity. Muslims are simply not the threat some politicians and pundits make them out to be. France needs to allow Muslims to be full French citizens on their own terms, to express their identities openly and honestly, in a manner that is both true to their faith yet unambiguously French.

Whether or not Macron or Le Pen wins this weekend, there is no doubt that the political landscape is shifting under the feet of French voters.

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Emmanuel Macron to face Marine Le Pen in French presidential election runoff

 

French President Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen in the second round of the country's presidential election, setting up a rematch of their runoff contest in 2017.

Centrist Macron and Le Pen, a long-time standard-bearer for the French far-right, were the top two candidates in the first round of Sunday's vote, picking up 27.8% and 23.2% of the ballots respectively, according to the French Interior Ministry.

Twelve candidates ran for the top job. Since none of them received more than 50% of the ballots in the first round, the top two candidates will face each other in a runoff on April 24.

The first round of the 2022 contest was marked by voter apathy, with participation estimated at 73.3%, according to an analysis by pollster Ifop-Fiducial for French broadcasters TF1 and LCI -- the lowest in a first round in 20 years. 

 

While Macron received more votes than any of the other candidates in the first round, he is a polarizing figure whose approval rating has sagged during his first term.

In a speech after polls closed on Sunday, he urged citizens to vote in the second round.

"Nothing is settled and the debate that we will have in the coming 15 days is decisive for our country and our Europe," he said. "I don't want a France which, having left Europe, would have as its only allies the international populists and xenophobes. That is not us. I want a France faithful to humanism, to the spirit of enlightenment," he said.

Macron is seeking to become the first French president to win reelection since Jacques Chirac in 2002. Polls have given him a consistent edge over the rest of the field, but the race has tightened significantly in the past month.

 

Polling by Ifop-Fiducial released on Sunday showed that Macron would win a second-round contest against Le Pen by just 51% to 49%.

Le Pen's support has steadily risen in recent weeks. Though she is best known for her far-right policies such as drastically restricting immigration and banning Muslim headscarves in public places, she has run a more mainstream campaign this time around, softening her language and focusing more on pocketbook issues like the rising cost of living, a top concern for the French electorate. 

Marine Le Pen addresses her supporters on Sunday after the first round of the French presidential election.

 

In her speech Sunday, Le Pen vowed to be a president for "all the French" if she wins the second round, and called on those who didn't vote for Macron to support her in the second round.

Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon came third, with 22% of the vote. He enjoyed a late surge in support and was considered a possible dark horse candidate to challenge Macron.

Who Melenchon's voters choose to back in the second round could decide the presidency, experts say. Melenchon told his supporters that "we must not give a single vote to Mrs. Le Pen," but did not explicitly back Macron.

No other candidate received more than 10% of the votes. Far-right political commentator turned presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who enjoyed a seat among the top three candidates until March, according to Ifop polling, came in fourth at 7.1%.

The other candidates on Sunday's ballot have quickly begun throwing their weight behind the top two. While Zemmour called on his backers to vote for Le Pen, the others urged their supporters to steer clear of her.

The candidates from the traditional center-left and center-right parties, the Socialists and the Republicans, have already backed Macron.

 

Socialist Anne Hidalgo said a Le Pen victory would instill in France "a hatred of everyone set against everyone," while Republican Valerie Pecresse said she was sincerely worried for the country because "the far right has never been so close to winning."

"The project of Marine Le Pen will open France to discord, impotence, and collapse," said Pecresse. 

A woman picks her ballots in the first round of the French presidential election in Lyon, central France, on Sunday.

 

The rematch

Macron's political rise shattered the playing field, as his centrist political party has pulled supporters away from the traditional centrist parties, the Socialists and the Republicans. Both its candidates polled under 5% on Sunday.

Surveys ahead of the race showed that a second round of Macron vs. Le Pen was the most likely outcome. Macron handily beat Le Pen five years ago, but experts have said that a second contest between the two would be much tighter than the 2017 race.

France's President Emmanuel Macron (center), next to his wife Brigitte Macron (left), speaks to a resident before voting for the first round of the presidential election on Sunday.

Macron is no longer a political upstart and must run on a mixed record. While his ambitious plan to bolster the European Union's autonomy and geopolitical heft won him respect abroad and at home, he remains a divisive figure when it comes to domestic policies. His handling of the yellow vest movement, one of France's most prolonged protests in decades, was widely panned, and his record on the Covid-19 pandemic is inconclusive.

Macron's signature policy during the crisis -- requiring people to show proof of vaccination to go about their lives as normal -- helped increase vaccination rates but fired up a vocal minority against his presidency.

Macron has, so far, done very little campaigning. Experts believe his strategy was to avoid the political mudslinging as long as possible to brandish his image as the most presidential of all the candidates. Polling showed him consistently leading all candidates, and he was considered a shoo-in to make the second round.

"The widespread dissatisfaction with Macron (especially among the young) means that the outcome is uncertain and unpredictable. Le Pen will continue to exploit this, and a major political upset therefore remains possible," said CNN European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas of the second round matchup.

"However much they may dislike Le Pen, there is a world of difference between her and Macron, and how she would disrupt European and global politics."

Le Pen is the daughter of another famous far-right presidential candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The elder Le Pen made it to the runoff against Jacques Chirac in 2002, but Marine Le Pen has managed to perform better than her father in the first round of each of the past two presidential elections.

Le Pen has tried to portray herself as a very different candidate to the one who lost to Macron in 2017, when she attempted to position herself to the forgotten French working classes as her country's answer to then-US President Donald Trump. While her economic nationalist stance, views on immigration, euroskepticism and positions on Islam in France are unchanged, Le Pen has sought to broaden her appeal.

 

The contest was at first predicted to be a referendum on the dominance of the extreme right in French politics, but the war in Ukraine -- another key issue for voters -- upended the race.

According to Ifop polling, Macron's support peaked in early March, as potential voters rallied around the flag and rewarded the president for his attempts to mediate the conflict in Ukraine before Russia's invasion, even if it was a failure.

Many experts also expected the war to hurt the Le Pen, who had been a vocal admirer of Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader who has become a pariah in the West due to the Kremlin's decision to invade Ukraine in late February. Le Pen visited the Russian president during her 2017 campaign; this time around, she was forced to scrap a leaflet with a photo of her and Putin from that trip after Russia's unprovoked attack on its neighbor.

Thomas, the CNN European affairs commentator, explained that the forthcoming debates will be crucial if Macron is to convince voters that Le Pen's previous support for Putin should disqualify her.

"He will be vulnerable on a range of domestic issues, but she will have difficulty convincing the electorate of her foreign policy credentials, especially given her longstanding links with Russia," he said.

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