After French election win, Macron faces even tougher test with political battle at home and war abroad
Emmanuel Macron faces myriad challenges ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the future of the EU, writes Borzou Daragahi
He faces a political battle at home and a war abroad. French president Emmanuel Macron’s re-election is a rarity that allows him to work on building up his legacy in a deeply divided country.
But his victory came after beating challengers on both ends of the political spectrum – including far-right Marine Le Pen, who came far too close to the presidency for the comfort of many in France and across the world.
And 44-year-old Mr Macron now faces herculean challenges as a western leader at a time when an unprecedented Russian war against Ukraine has upended cherished European assumptions about security.
“He needs to take the mantle of European diplomatic leadership,” said Tara Varma, head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He has to show that his ambitions have not faltered.”
Closer to home, in France, he must serve the needs of a volatile population seemingly seething with anger.
His far-right challenger, Ms Le Pen, won more than 40 per cent of the vote, more than her movement has ever attained, drawing 2.7 million or so more votes than when she ran in 2017.
Meanwhile, Mr Macron received 2.1 million fewer votes than in 2017, and nearly a third of France’s 48.8 million eligible voters either abstained or cast blank ballots.
“Our challenge is to heal our democracy and help those who remain fragile and left behind,” said Nabil Ait Akkache, a Macron supporter and a member of the president’s En Marche party. “We have five more years to do this.”
Among the challenges facing Mr Macron is that of keeping the EU together at a time when German leadership is faltering and nations such as Hungary are bucking the bloc’s norms on issues such as trade, migration, climate and energy policy.
He must bridge gaps of mistrust with the US and UK in order to coordinate a unified western response to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
France still retains the rotating presidency of the European Council, and Mr Macron has a number of pressing international items on his agenda.
Ms Varma suggested that he should go to Kyiv as soon as possible to visit Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and show French support for the effort to resist the Russian invasion.
“We’re seeing that Vladimir Putin is not really interested in a diplomatic solution to Ukraine,” she told The Independent. “He needs to show that he’s going to be firm in his support for Ukraine.”
France has already deployed thousands of troops to Romania and the Baltic nations as part of the effort to bolster Nato along its eastern flank. France also takes part in air patrols over the Baltics and Poland.
But Paris has been relatively cagey about its military support for Ukraine, and analysts have suggested that Mr Macron will provide visible, muscular support for the war effort now that the burden of the election is behind him.
“The war in Ukraine is there to remind us we are going through tragic times – times when France must be heard and must make its choices and anchor its strengths,” Mr Macron said in his victory speech in front of the Eiffel Tower on Sunday night.
The event on Sunday opened with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which is widely regarded as a celebration of European liberal values, and ended with “La Marseillaise”, sung by an Egyptian mezzo-soprano, Farrah El Dibany. Together they acted as a rebuke to the kind of anti-European, nativist ideology promoted by Ms Le Pen and other far-right figures who fashion themselves as populists.
As de facto head of the EU until June, Mr Macron must also focus attention on the western Balkans, where political crises and Russian interference are threatening to unravel a fragile peace imposed after the last major war in Europe.
Ms Varma said Mr Macron had done a poor job of coordinating and communicating with other European powers, including Spain, Italy, and the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which in many ways are taking the lead on Ukraine policy.
Mr Macron must balance international priorities while also attempting to detoxify politics in France, where the far right still vehemently opposes him and the left only voted for him out of fear of his right-wing challenger, Ms Le Pen.
Some 42 per cent of left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon’s 7.7 million voters in the first round switched to Mr Macron in the second, while 17 per cent opted for Ms Le Pen and 49 per cent either stayed at home or cast blank ballots, according to exit polls.
Extreme-right political columnist Eric Zemmour’s failed political candidacy unleashed dormant French racism and nostalgia for a more conservative vision of France, and normalised a strain of open bigotry towards immigrants from Africa and the Middle East that many had hoped was a thing of the past.
Nearly three quarters of Mr Zemmour’s 2.5 million first-round voters backed Ms Le Pen in the final round.
“For the last five years, France has been drifting toward the far right and far left, and that’s not a sign of the health of a democracy,” said Claire Berlinksi, editor of the Cosmopolitan Globalist, an international news organisation headquartered in Paris and Mumbai.
Anti-establishment candidates from both the left and the right won around 60 per cent of the vote in the first round of the elections.
“I am expecting a lot of unrest and a lot of violence,” she said. “The French get violent very quickly when they’re politically dissatisfied, and they’re incredibly dissatisfied.”
Mr Macron acknowledged such divisions in his victory speech on Sunday, referring repeatedly to the anger of the far right and the disappointment of the leftists who voted for him only to oppose Ms Le Pen.
“We also need to be careful and respectful, because our country is full of division and doubt,” he said. “We must be strong, and make sure that no one will be left by the wayside.”
Mr Macron’s most immediate domestic political challenge will be to win enough seats in June’s parliamentary elections to be able to name a prime minister and cabinet from his own party, En Marche.
But in a poll on 21 April, two thirds of French voters said they wished to deny him such a majority.
“You can see a very fragmented legislature ahead,” said Ms Berlinksy.
In his victory speech, Mr Macron attempted to woo both the left and the right. He vowed to honour the trust of the left by pursuing green energy, and to address the anger of the right.
Macron supporter Mr Akkache predicted that the president’s final result would be close to 60 per cent of the vote, just 6 per cent short of the 66 per cent he won in the 2017 race against Ms Le Pen. He suggested that such momentum would carry Mr Macron and his party to victory in the parliamentary elections.
“The gap is large enough that the French people are giving him a clear mandate,” he said.
But even among Macron supporters and allies, there was doubt and nervousness up until the very last moment before the results were announced. And as hundreds of supporters gathered in front of the Eiffel Tower ahead of the president’s victory speech, the sense was more of relief than triumph.
“We showed our partners and friends that France is still France,” said Mr Akkache. “But we know that he has big challenges ahead.”
Gert Van Langendonck contributed to this report
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