“A rock star and a boss endowed with strong powers, as if Mick Jagger and General De Gaulle had to live in the same person”. It is the dress that the Fifth French Republic asks its president to wear according to what Richard Ferrand, head of the Assembly of Deputies tells Arthur Berdah, the Figaro journalist who follows the Elysée and who wrote a beautiful biography of Emmanuel Macron, “Verités et légendes”, edited by Perrin.
The young French president (45 years old next December), candidate to succeed him, obtained 10 votes on 9.784.985 April, equal to 27,8%, of the votes. Next April 24 he will have to regain the highest seat in France in the face of the challenger of the far right Marine Le Pen who, for his part, has gained 8.135.456 votes, ie 23,1% of the preferences. The same challenge as five years ago.
Ballot in France: Mélenchon's votes are decisive
To win, both must share the booty collected by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the former socialist leader of the radical left, "La France Insoumise", who reached 22% of the votes, equal to 7.714.574 votes. And who invited his followers to "not give Madame Le Pen even one vote" without however indicating that they are choosing Macron, which means pandering to the visceral antipathy that his constituents have for the "president of the rich", as they define him , preferring to submit a blank ballot or go to the beach. If all goes well, because according to one of the latest polls published by French newspapers, at least a third of the mélenchonists could even choose Le Pen in the second round, because "everyone except Macron".
It remains to be seen who they will go to Melenchon's votes on the ballot.
Who is Emmanuel Macron: a rock star at the head of the French Republic
Back to the president, the two-tone suit, part rock star, part head of state, seems tailor-made for him, as reported by Berdah.
He has the "allure", the bearing, of the supreme leader, as granted him by the vast majority of the French in the polls taken before the vote, when he was trying to convince Putin not to invade Ukraine; but at the same time he also has the style of a rock star, to see how comfortable he is in the spotlight on any stage, in the provinces or in the capital.
But who is Emmanuel Macron today after five years of government during which he first had to face a terrible social crisis, that of the yellow vests, and then an even more difficult health crisis? To be fair for many it still is an unidentified politician. Or rather: someone to whom many political labels are glued, even if that of liberal-socialist is the one that comes closest to reality.
He is very popular in Paris, where he obtained 35% of the votes in the first round of these elections; he is detested in cities in crisis (in the north and south of the country), where he arrived behind Mélenchon (Lille) or Le Pen (Marseille).
From banker to Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital
A graduate in philosophy, a master's degree in public administration from the prestigious Ecole nationale d'administration school (Ena), he was a socialist (2006-2009), then independent (2009-2016), then creator and head of the movement “En Marche! ” (2016), renamed in 2017, after the election as President of the Republic, "La République En Marche", a party which today has, together with the ally of the Democratic Movement, the liberal MoDem, the majority in the French National Assembly. Before entering politics, his job was that of a banker.
Macron was for two years (2014-2016) minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital in the government led by Manuel Valls, during the presidency of François Hollande. It was his socialist period and within the party he occupied the centrist side, the one associated with the "Third Way" policies put forward by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerard Schroeder, and of which Valls was precisely the spokesman in France.
A curious thing for us Italians is that, as head of the French Republic, he is Protocanon of honor of the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, in Rome, an honorary position which belongs to the presidents of the Alps and which they inherited from the kings of France.
The president who broke the traditional left-right pattern
In 2017, Macron presented himself to journalists as follows: "I'm positioned rather on the right in economic terms, but as far as values are concerned, I feel on the left". Staff translation of him at the time: “the left of the heart, the right of values; left without laxity, right without racism”.
But ultimately the message has been read, over the years, in a different way: too much to the right for the left, too much to the left for the right.
And today? Today Macron continues to be a new type of politician, the incarnation of the leader of a "catch-all party", according to the formulation of the German political scientist Otto Kirchheimer, who in the XNUMXs, wondering about the evolution of mass organizations, theorized their advent. This type of party puts ideologies in the background to try to conquer the maximum number of voters possible. It is actually the new world of Western politics, the one we live in today: referring to everyone without letting ourselves be locked up by anyone. And in which the only distinction is: to be conservative o progressive.
Well? Bad? Realistic, more than anything else. And in any case, that's what Macron has done over the past few years, looking above all to the right (he has twice chosen prime ministers from this area), and that's what he intends to do now, however turning his gaze to the left, towards those who have left attracted by Mélenchon's populism.
Macron hunting for votes after the first round
Not waiting a minute after last Sunday's polls closed, on Monday morning he was already in the north of France, in the working-class towns, where he even finished third, after Le Pen and Mélenchon.
He told reporters that he was going above all to renew the pacts which imply the three uniforms of France: freedom, equality, fraternity.
But in more concrete terms? Those who voted for the radical left (as well as those who voted for Le Pen) quite simply expect more care from the state, perhaps the same one they have had in the fat years and which they do not want to give up: no to pensions at 65 years, no to new companies that expel workers, no to compulsory working hours for those who take the solidarity income.
How will Macron convince those who voted for Le Pen and Mélenchon precisely to block these projects?
The magic word that the president uses is "rassemblement", or rather "listening". All the leaders of the movements who presented themselves in the elections were invited to the Elysée to plead their convictions; and if a way is found to apply them – he claimed – it will have been an “enrichment” for his final project.
He was asked: also the racist Eric Zemmour? He too, because he represents millions of French people, he replied. We will see from April 25th.
To the citizens he met in the crowds, those he didn't do during the first round of the electoral campaign, he explained that the pension extended from 62 to 65 is essential so as not to weigh on state expenditure, but that it is a goal to achieve, not an imposition: the goal can be achieved in various stages. And he didn't even rule out a referendum for anyone who proposed it to him.
While on the hours to work compulsorily to get the solidarity income he has made it a question of the dignity of the worker: it is not a question of giving charity, but of accompanying those who are most in need towards a job. Even if, even in this case, he has said that he will listen to the social partners.
European sovereignty at the center of Macron's vision
On the other hand, he had no wavering on France's international positioning: Paris is fully in NATO, fully in the West, fully in Europe.
And Europe is his greatest passion. A New York Times article recently described him as "ardently pro-Europe," even at times when other leaders seemed to be wavering.
And it's no secret that his dream is to be elected the first president of a united Europe. He has the age to wait and also the tenacity to become one.
It is easy for him to oppose Le Pen on the international scene given that the leader of the extreme right says no to NATO, she wants a European Union as a confederation of national states, a sort of Frexit, and claims the protection of French agricultural and industrial products. A bit like Mélenchon.
In short, what emerges is an isolated France and objectively more under the influence of the remaining European power, Russia, than under that of the USA, rejected overseas. In fact, it should not be forgotten that Le Pen is the European ally on which Putin can count the most: even in the face of the recent massacres in Ukraine it has never exposed itself too much to criticize Moscow, requesting at most a UN investigation on the ground. Not to mention the debt of over 9 million euros that her party contracted in 2014 (the year of the annexation of Crimea) with a bank in Moscow and which she still has to pay.
In short, Macron in theory has what it takes to win the final challenge. But, as we know, the democratic game is like that of football: the game is not over until the last goal has been scored.
