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!
UPDATES WITH MACRON REFUSAL TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY TELEVISED DEBATE BEFORE THE FIRST ROUND OF THE ELECTIONS ON APRIL 10.
How do you take down a statesman fighting two wars at the same time? That's the challenge that will be faced on April 10 by the 10 or 11 challengers who on Monday will finally be certified by the Constitutional Court to appear on the ballot facing down incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron, who's now announced officially that he's seeking a second and final quinquennat (five-year term).
There are all the familiar faces: from the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour to moderate Republican Valérie Pécresse, Socialist Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, ecologist Yannick Jadot, communists Fabien Roussel, and three others polling deep into the single digits—Jean Lassalle of the Pyrénées, neo-Gaullist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, and Workers' Struggle candidate Nathalie Arthaud. On Saturday, an 11th candidate, the far-left gilet-jaune (yellow vest) movement leader Philippe Poutou and his New Anticapitalist Party claimed to have qualified. All those officially certified will have finally managed somehow to accumulate the minimum 500 signatures (parrainages) of French mayors. Some 12,751 of these officials actually agreed to sign on the dotted line for one of the 60 aspirants (half the prospective candidates got just one or two signatures apiece), which gives you some idea of just how many mayors and villages are scattered across France. Of course, none of these figures really represents the popularity of any of the candidates among the nation's voters. After all, Pécresse led the list of parrains with 2,556, Macron came in second with 1,974, and Hidalgo third with 1,387, though she rarely rises above ninth spot with 2.5% popularity.
The latest poll conducted for Le Monde by Ipsos suggests the mountain the candidates will have to climb to reach the number-two spot in the first round of balloting April 10 to face off against the most likely front-runner Macron two weeks later.
But even more critical is the supreme question of just what any of the ten "chasers" can bring to unseat the man who is currently grappling, more or less successfully, with two simultaneous wars—against the covid pandemic at home and Ukraine abroad. Until Vladimir Putin suddenly invaded Ukraine, horrific images spreading across French television and on the front page of every newspaper, there was some question how deeply voters felt about a war far off in eastern Europe and the way their president was handling it. The latest polling, also by Ipsos for Le Monde dispensed with any such cavalier view of the importance voters attached to the most brutal war in Europe since World War II.
Hardly surprising that the purchasing power, a proxy for inflation which reached 3.6% in February (up from 2.9% in January and 1.6% for all of last year) is at the top of the list. Most surprising? That the war in Ukraine has surged to number two among the issues of greatest concern to French voters, but especially that covid is now dead last—barely 11% citing it as one of the three issues that "preoccupy you the most." Covid now finds itself behind terrorism, even behind retirement and social inequities which for seemingly endless weekends three years ago were sending gilet jaune (yellow vest) demonstrators into the streets of cities and towns across France facing down armies of police.
Paris 5 December 2019. Dior boards up as yellow vests and the gendarmerie face down on the Avenue Montaigne. Photos: David A Andelman
The gilets-jaunes and the emotions they unleashed seemed to represent a major threat to the Macron government……
Around the corner from our apartment.
…..No longer. Macron pulled back some of the more drastic reforms in the nation's vastly generous pension system, and the subject has faded to eighth (13%) on the list of concerns of French voters—tied with terrorism. Macron seems to be positioning himself most effectively for the final dash toward the finish line and defining single-handedly the shape and pace of the campaign going forward.
On Monday, March 7, in his first campaign appearance in Poissy (Yvelines), Macron put a stake through the heart of most of his challengers’ deepest aspirations. “I will not debate the other candidates before the first round,” Macron proclaimed. “No sitting president who is standing for re-election has done so. I don't see why I would act differently.” So many of his opponents had been counting on one or more nationally televised debates to propel themselves into some form of contention. As Le Parisien daily headlined Sunday: "Pécresse in turmoil. In continuous decline in the polls, the Les Republicans candidate is struggling to make an impression. She will bet on the debates to make her voice heard and try to wound her opponents." Indeed, Pécresse herself confessed to a nationwide television audience on France 5, "we have no campaign," then adding "the worst is yet to come."
She's not the only candidate who, with time before the first round shrinking, finds a path toward the second slot in the second round narrowing inexorably. Jean-Luc Mélanchon, darling of the far-left, and the Socialist Party standard-bearer, the widely disliked Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, find their supporters fleeing, largely to Macron. François Rebsamen, labor minister under the last Socialist president, François Hollande, has cast his lot with Macron. Though he insists he'll remain a Socialist, he said last week that the incumbent is the only candidate this time around who has "l'envergure d'un chef d'État" (the wingspan of a head of state).
Indeed, some candidates are becoming quite desperate when faced with a candidate who is far out distancing them—in eloquence as well substance. So neo-Gaullist Dupont-Aignan, lashed out last week on twitter: "Don't be fooled by Emmanuel Macron's grandiloquent and hollow letter! Meditate on this proverb: "If someone cheats you once, shame on him. If someone cheats you twice: shame on you." It was re-tweeted just 189 times and "liked" by some 565 readers. [By contrast, Macron's tweet with his announcement letter was re-tweeted 6,523 times and liked by 33,800.
Macron has to be asking himself, with the momentum being all but autonomously-generated for his campaign, what use would there be for him even to show up for a debate or jump with both feet into this campaign that is sputtering around him— competitors doing their best to chew each other up without any help from Macron himself? He certainly has some compelling reasons for his plan of action, or inaction. On Sunday alone, he was on the phone with the president of Serbia, then spent nearly two hours on the phone, for the 17th time since December, with Vladimir Putin, following up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. With Putin, Macron was trying desperately to get Putin to respect Ukrainian nuclear reactor sites and allow a truce for evacuation of civilians from besieged cities, some on the verge of starvation if not total collapse. He managed to wring an agreement from Putin only for a consultation with the IAEA (the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency) which regulates nuclear facilities. As the only western leader with whom Putin seems at all comfortable chatting, Macron takes seriously what he sees as a mission. He has, effectively, replaced retired German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the West's "Putin-whisperer" as I observed a month ago in my CNN column. Merkel believed, as does Macron, that Putin needs to hear another voice in his ear beyond the narrow echo-chamber of militant sycophants—many with deep KGB backgrounds—with whom Putin has quite intentionally surrounded himself.
All of these efforts, however, have sapped Macron's ability to mount a full-scale, full-throated re-election campaign at home. Still, leading widely in every poll, there seems to be little incentive for him to deviate from this path. Macron is still focusing far more of his attention and efforts on Ukraine and the future of Europe than his own electoral prospects—a tribute perhaps to the confidence of the president and his top aides in the Élysée and his La Ruche (the beehive) campaign headquarters. In fact, his efforts and the growing popular support in a host of EU nations for a tough stance against the depredations of Vladimir Putin, seem to have injected new energy into one of the cornerstones of Macron's first term.
Since the time of Donald Trump's first, fraught visit to France, Macron has been pressing for the creation of a European Defense Force, a counterweight to NATO and its on-again-off-again American leadership. Now, it would seem, Europe is suddenly again in the driver's seat of East-West relations in the revival of a Cold War that has already threatened to turn very hot. In a host of initiatives, there continues to be increasing divergence between a Europe that is prepared to lead and a United States that seems content simply to follow along. Now, Europe and Macron also seem to have their voters singing from the same songbook. As the weekly Le Point headlined last week: "Why is the United States playing small ball?"
None of this was more evident than this weekend when reports began surfacing of longshoremen, beginning in Britain then spreading to the continent, refusing to unload Russian cargo—oil, natural gas, grain shipments—even from non-Russian flag vessels. Eventually, this movement could spur a full-scale embargo on Russian oil and gas, an initiative that Zelensky believes is central to any possible defeat of Russia's invading armies.
In the end, Macron plans to pursue diligently a second term, but in a campaign far from the norm, as he explained Thursday evening to French voters in his open letter to the nation:
"Of course, I will not be able to campaign as I would have liked because of the context. But with clarity and commitment I will explain our project, our desire to continue to move our country forward with each of you."
[ Bien sûr, je ne pourrai pas mener campagne comme je l'aurais souhaité en raison du contexte. Mais avec clarté et engagement j'expliquerai notre projet, notre volonté de continuer à faire avancer notre pays avec chacun d'entre vous. ]
Vive la France!