Macron’s victory over Le Pen is clear in terms of numbers (difference of 16.8 percentage points), but qualitatively it is worrying.
Behind the figures is the collapse of the traditional parties, the consolidation of polarization and the slow but unstoppable rise of the extreme right.
When using the magnifying glass on the voting data set, concerns arise: 65% of young people between the ages of 25 and 34 voted, in the first round, for the radical left represented by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. On the other side of the coin: in a hypothetical scenario in which those over 60 would not have voted, Macron would not have made it to the second round.
The figures for the first round would have to perplex the segment that defends liberal democracy: 53% of the votes were concentrated in the three best-placed radical candidates after Macron: Le Pen, Mélenchon and Zemmour.
Another of the tests that reveal the little enthusiasm generated by the second round is synthesized by a phrase that has been heard in the last two weeks: “Neither Le Pen nor Macron.”
In the context where Boris Johnson will expel immigrants of any nationality to Rwanda, Marine Le Pen’s demonization process was successful. What seemed to be a harmless little lamb that caresses cats, had the intention of dealing a technical blow to the European Union: if it had won yesterday, April 24, it would promote a referendum on the meta-constitutionality of French law over community law (of the European Union). ). That is, a technical Frexit.
It was Éric Zemmour, a radical who sold his campaign with the ingredients of cultural replacement, who helped assimilate Mrs. Le Pen’s speech in a part of the demographic belonging to the traditional right.
A strategic part of the votes that gave Macron victory were lent or not cast. And paradoxically, many of them were lent to him by Mélenchon’s radical left. Louis Alliot, mayor of Perpignan and electoral spokesperson for Marine Le Pen, put it bluntly a few days ago: “We must count on the demobilization of the left-wing electorate, which has been nursed in hatred of Macron for five years” (La Vanguardia ).
Indeed, almost three out of every 10 citizens with the right to vote did not do so yesterday.
During his speech on the Champ de Mars, after hearing the results, Macron carried out an exercise in pure realism: he acknowledged that many of the votes that won him were aimed at blocking the rise of the extreme right.
You did well to admit it.
The virtues of Macron and of any leader in the 21st century must begin with knowing how to manage crises. The economic one of 2008 and the health one of 2020 have reconfigured the political map.
Some have not found out.
@faustopretelin
Consultant, academic, editor
Globali… what?
He was a research professor in the Department of International Studies at ITAM, published the book Referendum Twitter and was an editor and collaborator in various newspapers such as 24 Horas, El Universal, Milenio. He has published in magazines such as Foreign Affairs, Le Monde Diplomatique, Life & Style, Chilango and Revuelta. He is currently an editor and columnist at El Economista.