Free translation
By VELIA GOVAERE - Professor UNED
The boost to European armaments, triggered by Russia's aggression against Ukraine, signals a novel EU tendency to take on a leading role of its own as an autonomous bloc. We are not there yet, nor will it be easy. Many hurdles will have to be overcome. The United States is not the least of these barriers, since it takes a dependent Europe for granted.
In the hour of the ovens, when the war in Ukraine threatens a premature abortion of globalization, the European Union is calling for a leadership capable of rescuing it in this ill-fated predicament. In the absence of Merkel, Macron plays a decisive role in its leadership. No one like him has set Europe on its own course and proposed autonomous political, economic and defense unity. He alone has seen NATO as "brain dead", that is to say, he has understood it as a military alliance out of step with the times. But his starring role will depend on the upcoming presidential elections on April 24.
The polls predict a victory of Macron. For him, that would be a different palmarès. From leap to leap, his life has been a race of obstacles overcome. His unusual trajectory is surprising, because it is unexpected; meteoric, because of its brilliance and disconcerting, because of its unforeseen twists and turns. If he began as François Hollande's Minister of Economy, as a candidate he disavowed his ties with socialism. With a newly invented party tailored to him, he presented himself "above" left and right. In the first round of 2017, his "Republique En Marche" crushed all the traditional post-war parties.
Socialists, communists, republicans, leftists were swept aside, skirted by a candidate who 6 months ago was an unknown. In the second round, he faced Marine Le Pen, of the xenophobic and anti-European extreme right. One debate was enough to bring her to her knees. And so, at the age of 39, he came to power as the youngest president in French history.
But nobody was betting much on the success of a president with such an audacious program, with so few possibilities to impose himself on the status quo, without a proven team and with an "assured" minority in the National Assembly. He jumped over this hurdle with an unexpected pole vault.
The parliamentary elections follow the presidential elections and have, in each district, two rounds that mimic the presidential elections. As they are not simultaneous, presidential and legislative, the French system offers the winner of the presidential elections some possibility of enhancing his legislative weight. Qui potest capere capiat.
Without local party organization, Macron pulled an ace out of his sleeve: he opened to the citizenry the nomination of candidates according to criteria of merit and efficiency. Candidates were finally defined by open digital voting. With this instrument, he crushed the old parties once again, also in the legislature, and in the second round he achieved the unimaginable: an absolute legislative majority.
Then came a stormy mandate. He began with a program favorable to business and the public funds: he eliminated the wealth tax, made the labor code more flexible and undertook a pension reform. The unions confronted him with a general strike that lasted longer than the one in 1968.
But his troubles were not over. Never had a president of France faced such a whirlwind. With '68, De Gaulle fell. Not so Macron, when a fuel tax unleashed the biggest spontaneous movement in French and European history: the "yellow vests". And then came the pandemic.
To the right of Macron his critics say he "came out of the socialist closet" where, perhaps, he was hiding in pectore. Faced with the Covid-19, he said he would spend whatever it took, "quoi qu'il en coûte", to support the French people. He subsidized salaries and companies in trouble. He spent ten times more than what he collected from the repealed wealth tax. And so continued his "socializing" or "populist" initiatives, as some would say.
He assumed and took social proposals wherever they came from. Socialists, communists, even right-wingers, saw their initiatives progress with a president unbridled in social aid. 300 euros in culture for young people; 150 euros supplement to other benefits; 650 euros increase for health workers, 1 euro ceiling in university canteens, free breakfasts in schools in marginalized areas; free medicines for students; 100 euros more for retired farmers. France was left with the largest fiscal deficit in the European Union.
Did Macron turn out to be a populist, then, and not a structural reformer? After 5 years in office, it is difficult to decipher the mysterious code of his political line. He started on the right and moved to the left. He calls it "radical centrism", i.e., To their right, the xenophobic nationalists are divided with three candidates. To its left, the Socialists are practically destroyed. The left has the lowest voting intentions in French history, since elections have been held. They have run out of social support. The working class leans more to the right and in the second round, Macron will fish in all waters, which will probably catapult him to his second term.
But as president of France, in second term and with his European leadership uncontested, he will need much more than a club to reclaim the European project and stop the spiraling escalation of tensions. With Ukraine destroyed, millions of refugees, the United States emboldened and Russia dangerously cornered, Macron will face the historic hour that is waiting for him.any orientation, according to what is required. This pragmatism clashes with the divided French intellectuality, until recently ideologically purist.
In April, two presidential rounds will be assured. New stumbling block. New track record? Well... it has been more than 20 years since no French president has managed to win in the second round. It would be another tour de force.
