The battle for Élysée Palace

The battle for Élysée Palace

• Clash of ideologies as France holds run-off Sunday

On April 23, 2017, the electorate in France rejected traditional politics for the first time in the 59 years of the country’s fifth republic. The candidates of the two main parties, the Republican (rightist) and the Socialist (leftist) lost in the first round of the presidential election. Of the 11 candidates that contested, a perceived novice who formed a centrist political party only last year and the candidate of an unpopular but growing party emerged as candidates for the run-off on Sunday.

Founder and candidate of the En Marche (On the Move), 39-year-old Mr. Emmanuel Macron, won 24.01 per cent, while the leader and candidate of the Front Nationale (National Front), 48-year-old Ms Marine Le Pen, came second with 21.3 per cent.

The outcome of the first round of polls immediately showed that a tacit revolution has begun in France. For once, the people summoned courage to pass a vote of no confidence through the ballot on the old politicians who have dominated the two main rightist and leftist parties for over five centuries. The electorate chose to use the 2017 election to express their angst and a yearning for a new political template to allow fresh leadership.

But beyond the issue of fresh leadership is the impact that the decision of the electorate to embrace two parties that have never been in power would have on the old blocs. Certainly, both the Republicans and the Socialists and their allies have been thrown in disarray. Ahead of the Sunday run-off, the hitherto known political colossus have either been pledging support for the candidate of their choice or abstaining from the rest of the electoral process. Indeed, some are going to the drawing board to, perhaps, consult the ‘oracle’ to determine the future of their political career.

Today, France is in a quagmire. There seems to be a sharp disagreement between the people and the traditional politicians over how to move the country forward. While a cross-section of the electorate, particularly the youth and the unemployed, are calling for a demolition of the old structures, which they blame for the ‘retrogression’ of the country, traditional politicians think otherwise. Le Pen is certainly a protest candidate whose popularity has been hinged on her populist stance. She is France’s version of Donald Trump. She is saying what the people want to hear. She has won the heart of the unemployed, a cross-section of youths and the elderly with her campaign, blaming immigration, the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for the poor economy.

Two crucial questions the Sunday run-off is expected to answer are: is France ready for a populist government and a female President? Of particular note is that the 2017 campaigns was focused more on personalities than election issues. Some of the candidates that failed in the first round had promising manifestoes but they could not proceed because of their personality, tainted by association with either previous governments or the old parties.

Some of the electorate had staged public protests over the campaign and the results of the first round over the failure of the candidates to focus on issues bothering the nation such as terrorism, health care, taxes, the economy and the place of France in global affairs.

Interestingly, with Macron and Le Pen contesting the run-off, France seems polarised by two blocs: the pro-EU supporters and the anti-EU supporters. For this reason, Macron, an ardent believer in EU is receiving massive support from majority of the rejected traditionalists and EU countries who have accused Le Pen of trying to ‘cage’ France from the outside world.

France is a notable member of the EU and NATO. It is has been migrant-friendly over the years. The current government has tried to address the question of growing terrorism in the country. But it has failed in economic development and growth, according to the people’s verdict. It has also failed to create employment and cut taxes.

Though it is a head-to-head race between Macron and Le Pen, pundits strongly believe Macron will defeat Le Pen and become the next President of France. The odds against Le Pen seem enormous not because she is a woman but because of her political antecedence and her current populist campaign.

Profile of Macron

Born on December 21, 1977, Macron left the government of President Francois Hollande to form En March, a centrist political party, last year. He served as Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs (2014-2016), Deputy Secretary-General of the Presidency (2012-2014) and Head of the Economy and Finance Division (2012-2014).

He is a relatively unknown politician who was invited to serve in the cabinet of the prime minister. He left the government to form his party when it became obvious that the ruling Socialist party would lose its grip on power. Before joining Hollande’s government, he was an investment banker.

Reports said that until he came into the political arena to launch his campaign, he had no banner, no official backing and no mechanism to vie for power. “But with his boyish, clean-cut looks, the smart, if dull, grey suits and a gap-tooth smile, he has a reputation for charm with his earnest talk of “serving my country and my convictions.”

In September, 2016, he told a country jolted by the emergence of a political novice that “I am not just a liberal movement, I come from the progressive left. I am trying to refresh and counter the system.” Macron read the mind of the people. They were in need of a new leader who could counter the system.

The son of a neurology professor and a doctor, Macron is the eldest child in a family of three children. Described as a brilliant student, he attended the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the country’s hothouse for the ruling elite, graduating among the top five. Earlier, he had gained degrees in philosophy and public affairs.  An accomplished pianist and a football fan that also practices French boxing (kicking allowed), Macron married his former French teacher and proprietor of the theatre club, 48-year-old Brigitte Trogneux, in 2007. Before the marriage, Brigitte already had three children and seven grandchildren.

Macron was reported to have said he had the best of times “while working for Rothschild in 2012. He helped arrange Nestlé’s purchase of Pfizer’s baby-food business, making him a millionaire, though he insists he is not motivated by money but by success.” He joined the civil service in 2004 before quitting to join the Rothschild Investment bank.

His manifesto

Macron released his manifesto in early March, promising to implement policies that would boost the economy. His major policies include: debate and strengthen the country’s membership of EU, encourage social mobility, reduce the number of MPs and shrink the public sector (but increase investment).

Others are, relax labour laws and cut business taxes, hire more police, meet France’s NATO defence budget obligations and reform “failed” and “vacuous” French politics.

Profile of Le Pen

Born on August 5, 1968, Marion (aka Marine) Anne Perrene Le Pen is the leader of the far-right  Front National (National Front) and the youngest of three daughters of the founder of the party, 88-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen. The party was founded in 1972. She attended Pantheon-Assas University, Paris, and obtained a Master of Laws and a Master of Advanced Study in Criminal Law degrees.

Twice married, she has three children for ex-husband and businessman Frank Chauffroy. the deputy of her party is her current partner. She joined the party at the age of 18 and was appointed to its national executive in 2000. In 2011, she was overwhelmingly elected national president. Earlier, she had served as Director of legal affairs (1998-2003), executive committee member (2000), vice president (2003) and managed her father’s 2007 presidential campaign. Since taking over the leadership of the party, she has struggled to distant herself from the fascist posture of her father, repositioning the party for public acceptance.

Her father contested the presidency in 2002 and also qualified for the second round but lost in a landslide to conservative the candidate Jacques Chirac. In 2015, she expelled her father from the party “after a bitter public feud.” Her father would publicly disown her “and they haven’t spoken since.”

However, her father last week commented on her performance in the first round of the election, saying she ought to have been more aggressive. He said, if it were him, he would have adopted the Trump approach.  The daughter has said she hopes the father would call her after her victory.

This even as “the troubled father-daughter bond and the brutal public breaking of it has hung over her presidential campaign.”

Reports quoted David Doucet, who co-authored a biography of her early years, La Politique Malgre Elle, as saying that “Marine Le Pen grew up in a very odd atmosphere, a family that appeared close but was actually very distant. She lived almost 20 years without her mother. Her father hardly knew her. She was brought up by nannies and governesses, left to her own devices.”

The story is told of how her mother, Llanne, had eloped with the journalist her husband employed to write his biography. She did not speak with her daughters for more than 15 years.

Le Pen took after her father, showing strong interest in politics. She has been a local councillor and is currently a regional councillor.

Her manifesto

Le Pen has an ambitious manifesto that the establishment is unwilling to accept because they believe it “fascist and anti-Semitic.” They believe a win for Le Pen would isolate the country from the rest of the world, particularly Europe.

Le Pen has repeatedly insisted that, “The National Front is the only party to defend an authentic French Republic, a republic with only one vocation: the national interest, the development of French employment, the conservation of our way of life, the development of our tradition and the defence of all the French.”

Major policies in her manifesto are: withdrawing from NATO, the EU and the euro; protecting the French economy from “unfair” competition and globilisation; giving priority to French citizens in jobs and housing; and ending mass immigration.

Others are, taking a tough stance on law and order issues; reasserting “French cultural identity;” and being a “strong and independent” France in defence and foreign affairs.

Hollande and some of the notable candidates defeated in the first round of the election have drummed support for Macron and asked the electorate to reject Le Pen. But she has said she will win against all odds. Sunday’s ballot will tell who occupies Èlysèe Palace.