Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the French presidential election would have been one to watch closely, given the implications for Europe and the liberal order that was ushered in by the end of World War 2.
It has been under strain in recent years and has been shaken by the rise of extremist parties, which in some countries have seen far-right parties tasting power as part of coalitions. Then there was the UK voting to leave the EU in 2016 and Donald Trump winning the US presidency the same year.
But nothing would send more shockwaves than France, effectively the number two country in the EU after Germany, electing a leader who is not just hostile to immigrants, but has voiced scepticism towards the Nato alliance that has underpinned European security and is a self-professed admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When Trump won, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front who is seeking to unseat Emmanuel Macron, described the event as “an additional stone in the building of a new world”.
The old world has never been more threatened and the world will be closely watching the second round of the French election on April 24. And the result will be of more than academic interest to SA. The type of friends SA’s leadership likes to keep at the UN might give a different impression, but Europe is still by far the country’s most important economic partner.
France held the first round on Sunday with Macron getting the biggest share at 28% of the vote, but in reality that was not the one to watch. The question was who would get enough votes to go head-to-head with him in the next showdown. Macron, perhaps unwisely, sat out much of the early campaigning as he played global statesman in the wake of the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
In 2017 he easily beat Le Pen, who despite having disowned many of the policies that were pushed by her father and predecessor Jean-Marie, remains on the extreme side of politics. The older Le Pen is an open racist who was convicted for downplaying the Holocaust, having once referred to Nazi gas chambers as merely “a detail of history”. He also has a history of making discriminatory remarks about France’s Muslims.
On April 24 things might not be so easy for Macron, who in his five years in office has made enemies of both the extreme left and right. While he has not exactly transformed France as he promised in 2017, he has been brave on some issues. He fought off France’s status as one of the more vaccine-hesitant countries in Europe by introducing Covid-19 vaccine mandates, promising to “piss off” the unvaccinated.
It doesn’t help that the traditional centrist parties that used to provide France with its presidents have both been decimated, meaning he cannot count on history as a guide of how things might turn out. The Socialist candidate, Anne Hidalgo, got just 2% on Sunday, while Valérie Pécresse for the centre-right Republicans received just under 5%. There is no guarantee that the 22% of the voters who backed Jean-Luc Mélenchon will shift their allegiance to Macron. Le Pen got 23% and can count on those who voted for far-right candidates, including the 7% who opted for Éric Zemmour.
Two decades ago, the older Le Pen shocked France by making it to the final round, having relegated the sitting Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, to third. He horrified both socialists and conservatives, who rallied behind Jacques Chirac, eventually giving him the presidency with a margin of 82% to 18%.
“Today, what is at stake is our national unity, the values of the republic, the very idea that we have of mankind, his rights and his dignity. It is the idea we have of France, of its role and its place in Europe and the world,” Chirac said then.
There is arguably more at stake now and Macron will be hoping he can pull a Chirac. But as Brexit and Trump showed, nothing can be taken for granted. And Putin, who has once declared Western liberal democracy obsolete, will be a keen observer.
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