Voting between two political extremes, French voters go the polls Sunday to vote in the most consequential election in recent French history. French voters decide tomorrow between 44-year-old French President Emmanuel Macron and 53-year-old National Party leader Marine Le Pen. Macron has been hit with soaring inflation and a number of political blunders including the 2021 row with the United States over supplying submarines to Australia, who terminated its contract with France for diesel-fired submarines. Australia irked France accepting a nuclear-armed submarine deal, agreeing to patrol the South China Sea where China claims sovereignty but where the U.S. demands freedom of navigation on the open seas. With food and fuel prices soaring, French voters are starting to punish Macron, who, by anyone’s analysis, was caught in a bad economic spiral.
Pollsters didn’t expect a dead heat going into Sunday’s vote, realizing that Macron more accurately reflects the socialist politics of most French voters. Le Pen has run before, carrying negative coattail from her 93-year-old right wing father Jean-Marie Le Pen, former head to the Nationalist Front Party and member of the European parliament. Jean-Marie never came close like his daughter to mainstream politics, following a trend in 2016 the swept former U.S. President Donald Trump into office, largely over his antii-immigrant policies. Marine Le Pen, too, runs on an anti-immigrant policy something hurting French life, especially in the Paris suburbs where North African and Mideast immigrants groups periodically riot. “People are scared –with everything that going up, with price for fuel going, up,” Le Pen told voters before the Sunday, April 9, presidential election.
Macron, a member of the centrist La Republique En Marche party, finds himself in the mainstream of French politics, despite his recent high profile meetings with 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin with whom Macron tried to stop him from invading Ukraine. When Putin invaded Feb. 24, it made Macron look ineffectual to French voters, drawing criticism from the French press. When you add to that spiraling costs of food and energy, voters started to get second thoughts about giving Macron five more years. Macron’s debacle with Australia canceling the $50 billion submarine deal made Macron look weak. Macron was so angry about the Australian submarine deal with the U.S., he summoned the U.S. ambassador, calling the U.S. government hostile to France. Le Pen has a very different view of the European Union, seeking more autonomy from Brussels.
France’s mainstream electorate usually leans toward the left, reflecting the fact that French society is heavily unionized, reflecting deep socialist roots. Le Pen, on the other hand, seeks immigration quotas, less minority rights and a crackdown on Mideast immigration that causes periodic riots in Paris suburbs. Macron and Le Pen don’t differ that much on Ukraine, with both politicians opposing the war. Le Pen wants tighter controls on immigrants, though unemployment remains, like the U.S., at historic lows. Le Pen has hit Macron hard on the post-Covid-19 inflationary spiral that got far worse during the Covid-19 global pandemic. Macron boasts about a 7% Gross Domestic Product and lowest unemployment rate in a generation. But French consumers feel the squeeze from inflation in food and energy. Putin’s war in Ukraine has raised insecurities to all Europeans.
Le Pen has distanced herself from Russian President Vladimir Putin, no longer looked at as a Kremlin-puppet. Macron accuses Le Pen of connections to right wing, anti-immigrants groups. Le Pen hasn’t visited Putin since 2017 when he won his latest term in office. Le Pen called the invasion “indefensible” but still gets labeled by Macron as a right wing fanatic. “She has changed the way she speaks,” said a Paris merchant named Robert. White Robert plans to vote for Macron, he sees a change in Le Pen’s rhetoric. “She has learned to moderate herself,” Robert said, gone are the days when Le Pen was looked at as more radical to the French people. Both Macron and Le Pen look to advance to the April 24 second round of voting, where French voters get more serious about picking the next president. Le Pen has become a household name in France, harking back to the good old days.
Le Pen looks like she has the momentum heading into tomorrow’s first round of voting. When things get bad economically, voters seek change, if, for no other reason, they start fearing the future. Macron has made some real mistakes, especially lashing out at the U.S. after Australia scuttled their submarine deal. When it comes to the French economy, it’s struggling like most EU countries with high inflation, rising fuel and food prices. Macron’s high profile meetings with Putin were seen as last-ditch diplomacy but seen as failure. Le Pen offers French people a strong identify, washing away by Brussels’open door border policy, encouraging immigration from North Africa and Mideast. French voter get a contrasting choice between Macron and Le Pen, in many ways night-and-day candidates, promising opposite visions of French culture, with Le Pen looking back to the good old days.
