Through the French presidential elections in April and the parliamentary elections in June, I'll be posting here the latest updates, my ruminations, and a sense of just where we are and where we might be going in this landmark series of votes—landmark for the French, for Europe and for the entire western alliance, especially the United States. Follow along with me….stay tuned! Moreover, be sure to read the background in my latest book, A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen. And of course, subscribe here to my SubStack page….don't miss a single issue!
Just three weeks left until Round 1 of the French presidential elections, and now it's quite clear the battle is joined. How do we know that? Quite simple. On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron took an uninterrupted four hours standing at a podium in front of the best and brightest, even the most rabid, of the French media. Live on television, he laid out a vision of his next term in office—provided voters decide he is the most worthy.
His program, which runs to 24 lavishly printed pages, has a number of unique suggestions, clearly designed to vacuum up any number of key voting blocs. For youths, there's more time for sports in the tightly-controlled school curriculum—up 30 minutes a day in primary school to two hours more per week in college, and what Le Parisien called "a shocking idea" (l'idée choc)—salaries for vocational students serving their mandatory internships in companies. In health care, a plan to recruit more nurses and aides nationwide, send doctors to remote towns where there are none. For the elderly, raising minimal social security to 1,100 euros ($980) a month, while recruiting another 50,000 healthcare workers for retirement communities. For green voters, moves toward a more carbon-free environment with a network of new nuclear plants, production of millions of more affordable electric vehicles "made in France." For everyone, raising the level of tax-free inheritance to 150,000 euros per child plus 100,000 euros for each grandchild, niece or nephew, and eliminating entirely the annual audio-visual tax and habitation tax. But then there was the third rail of French politics that nearly sent Macron's first term skidding off the rails—raising the retirement age to 65.
Apart from the raised retirement age—which Macron will still need to get through a National Assembly likely to remain supremely hostile to the idea—this program is clearly designed to lure to his side potential voters for the opposition, but also those who might otherwise not take the trouble to show up at all. The latest Ipsos poll reveals that nearly a third (32%) of eligible voters might not vote—potentially surpassing the previous record of 28% set in 2002, 20 years ago. And that happens to be the last time voters gave a second term to any French president (Jacques Chirac). Incidentally, the highest voter turnout in any American election in the 21st century was in 2020, when barely 33% stayed away.
The apathy that seems to have settled over France could well be a tribute to an election with an all but pre-determined outcome: Macron and Marine Le Pen overwhelmingly first and second place in the first round, followed by a second round between the moderate Macron and Le Pen, the perennial also-ran of the far-right.
The latest Ipsos poll conducted for Le Monde, shows a second round Macron victory of 59% to 41%. But the first-round gap between the two leaders of nearly 15% also happens to be the largest between two front runners in any presidential election since 1969. That's eight years before the 44-year-old Macron was even born. But wait, there are even more head-snapping numbers. As Le Monde columnist Gilles Paris observed after examining the Ipsos numbers, some 77% of those voters who are planning to cast their ballot for Macron said their choice was "final." And Macron is the only one with a majority of voters (62%) who'd choose him not because they share his vision, but simply because they "trust him." The next closest on the "trust" scale? Le Pen with 28%. Everyone else tails off from there.
Beginning last Friday, no government minister has been allowed to travel around the country, even in an exercise of their functions, so as not to suck any oxygen away from the eight men and four women who managed to win a spot on the first-round ballot. On Tuesday March 29, the "campaign" officially begins, which means that for the next 12 days, all candidates must receive equal time on all TV and radio broadcasts. This will require some contortions on the part of many of these outlets, especially since Macron has already announced he won't be participating in any 12-way debate.
Which leaves the rest of the pack to fight it out amongst themselves. And as virulent as it has been until now, one can only imagine how mad-dog it will become in the next three weeks.
Eric Zemmour, the rabid right-wing commentator who roared into his campaign last December at a violent mass assembly on the outskirts of Paris, only to find himself buried today in fourth place, behind even the radical left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has said he's planning 100 mass rallies across France in a frenetic dash over the next three weeks.
In the end, is there anything that could de-rail Macron's apparently unassailable path to victory? Not much, but not impossible—probably the reason that so many candidates, clearly also-rans, keep chugging along. Paris' Mayor Anne Hidalgo, polling at just 2%, half the paltry number of the communist candidate Fabien Roussel, no doubt thinks back to the 2002 campaign. Then, Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (now a member of France's Supreme Court), running neck-and-neck with incumbent President Chirac, was assaulted in a campaign appearance by a retiree and handled it badly. As a result, Jospin failed to qualify for the second round in which Chirac buried Marine Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, 82% to 18%.
For Macron, while in the second round he'll no doubt sweep up most supporters of the invisibles—Hidalgo, ecologist Yannick Jadot, even center-right Valérie Pécresse (now in fifth place)—there's always the danger of some faux-pas in the one-on-one televised debates or some other black swan event. And then, there's the ultimate danger of complacency or apathy.
Macron and his "mormons"—his fervent tight-knit équipe manning his La Ruche (The Beehive) campaign headquarters—are doing their level best to keep a tight control over the candidate's every appearance, his every word. And while the magazine Le Point calls readers' attention to his "position of self-proclaimed victor" (la position de vainqueur autoproclamé), this is hardly the image he is seeking to present.
The morning after he unveiled his campaign platform in Paris, the president traveled to the city of Pau on the northern fringe of the Pyrénées, barely 50 miles from the Spanish frontier. It is the home base of one of his most fervent and loyal supporters, François Bayrou, the mayor there, who served as Minister of Justice in an early Macron government. It is also the home base of the powerful local newspaper La République des Pyrénées, which hosted a meet-the-candidate event including12 questions from the audience. With the backdrop of stately windows framing the mountains beyond, the final challenge came from Elisabeth, a local leader of the gilets jaunes—the powerful, nationwide movement in 2018 against Macron's retirement program. "Do you hold yourself responsible?" she challenged the President, as the whole room held its collective breath.
"I have made my mea culpa" Macron responded gently, threading his way through the seated crowd to approach her. La République picks up the action: "He recognizes 'some clumsiness' but believes that this crisis is also 'the result of a lot of inaction' for years. He also explains that it is 'important to resolve disagreements with respect'. 'I try to be the candidate of reality and lucidity,' concluding with the slogan: 'uniting by acting'. End of this very rich debate." No black swans here.
At the same time, as he moved off to the motorcade to pay a visit to the local police headquarters, acknowledging the crowds that surged around his motorcade, it was also notable that not once during his visit did he cite a single one of his adversaries. For Macron, it seems, it's already the president and the also-rans.
Vive la France
Next week at this time, you will see a new dateline on our chronicle of Les Presidentielles. On Saturday, I shall be arriving in Paris to follow the remainder of the campaign, the first and second rounds, on-site. Then, I'll be back again for the "legislatives" two months later, in June. Indeed, if Macron is successful in his own contest, his ability to make good on his "Projet présidentiel pour la France," depends on his ability to achieve an unassailable majority in France's often fractious parliament.