In the end, despite some apparent attempts by the centrist candidate to throw the French presidential election, it wasn’t even close. emmanuel macron has humbled Marine Le Pen into the dust by a percentage that some exit polls suggest is 65 to 34 percent. The business oriented, internationalist moderate has trounced the fiery French nationalist.
And now, what does this all mean from the other side of the Atlantic?
First, and this is directed to American conservatives as much as anyone else, France and the world dodged a bullet. Le Pen may seem appealing to some on the right in the United States, primarily because she has garnered some of the same enemies as American conservatives, but had she become president of the French Republic she would have been trouble.
Usually, when a French politician announces that he or she (in this case) wants to put France first, it is at the expense of the ancient alliance with the United States, which goes back to the Revolutionary War. American President Donald Trump, the alpha male, would have had a lot of trouble with Marine Le Pen, the alpha female, trying to get cooperation on a variety of issues.
France, unfortunately, has not elected a prize politician in the person of Emmanuel Macron. He ran as a kind of gooey, third way, Tony Blair type who is pro business but not, by and large, pro free market. France’s chronic economic problems, which feature 10 percent unemployment, more than double for young people, and a bloated social welfare system is not going to go away with a few incentives for high-tech startups.
On the other hand, columnist George Will is not correct when he calls Macron a French Barack Obama. No democratic country deserves such a fate.
In the end, the French chose as their president the candidate who was less scary. That is the one aspect that is similar to the recent American presidential election, but in that case, the scary candidate was the left wing, ethically challenged woman and not the nationalist, morally challenged man.
Even though she was trounced decisively, Le Pen promises that she is not going anywhere. The mainline socialist and conservative French parties have been discredited, and Le Pen has cast her National Front as the primary opposition to Macron. She can be satisfied that the strength of her party, though not nearly enough to win elections, has been steadily growing. The next French presidential elections are in five years and Le Pen, still a young woman, promises to be back. That alone will create enormous pressure on Macron to perform.
