Despite a hard-fought win in a decisive election for both France and Europe, Emmanuel Macron may now find himself in an unenviable position. The easy part: winning the election; the hard: reviving a sense of purpose both in France and the European Union.
At 39, Macron, elected the youngest president in the French history, inherits a country with 10% unemployment and sluggish economic growth. It’s officially still under emergency rule following a string of terror attacks beginning in 2015.
France remains deeply divided, too. In the first round of presidential voting, almost half the electorate supported candidates – including the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen – who oppose the international trading order championed by Macron, a onetime investment banker with a business-friendly outlook.
The president-elect’s campaign promises included investing €50bn ($55bn) in new technologies and energy, expanding job creation, infrastructure upgrades, tax reforms: all he planned to pay for with €60bn raised through a more efficient government. For the EU, he wants to pursue greater integration and tax harmonisation.
But this is, perhaps, the most important question: What does the Macron win mean for the EU and the euro? The single currency survives, at least for now. Le Pen wanted to strangle the euro, the common market and the Schengen zone to death. That doesn’t mean Macron won’t push for changes. He’s said he wants more joint EU investment projects and less rigid budget-austerity rules imposed by Germany.
Anxious financial markets will now see the reduction of political risk helping investors to refocus on the region’s improving growth prospects. The European Central Bank could also move to a “neutral balance of risks to growth and drop its easing bias on rates.”
Make no mistake, the far right is not down and out. Le Pen’s party had its best showing ever in 2017. Roughly half the French electorate voted for candidates who wanted to subvert the global order of the past half a century amid concerns over terrorism, immigration, de-industrialisation, stagnating wages and Uberisation.
More significantly, 61% of the French don’t want Macron to win a majority in parliament, according to an Ipsos poll. Much of Macron’s support in the second round came from people wanting to keep the nationalist Le Pen out of office, rather than picking him for his programme.
It’s too early to judge how a young Macron would fare with his one-year-old En Marche!(Onwards) party. With his team just taking shape, his immediate challenge would be to win a majority in Parliament without which he’ll be relegated to just a figurehead lacking in all the powers the Fifth Republic grants the president. That could weigh on putting into action his campaign promises of economic modernisation, emboldening populists who France has managed to keep at bay this time.
An inward-looking populist discontent is sweeping through France amid a growing disenchantment with the establishment. And the narrower margin of victory over the National Front should envisage that parties that see France’s central role in the EU may not get a second chance.
