After weeks of fearing the worst, it turned out much better than expected. Macron had the second strongest majority for the re-election of a President (which is not very frequent in the V Republic). In Europe and on an international level he certainly emerges much strengthened. It has been written that the result is a defeat for i populists e sovereigns in Europe. It is true in the sense that a Marine Le Pen victory would have strengthened them enormously. However, the characteristic of nationalisms is that they are (as Tolstoy would have said) each strong and dangerous in its own way; each moved by objectives determined by the specific terrain in which it operates. The populists must therefore be defeated each at home.
The most difficult task: promoting EU unity vis-à-vis Putin
Macron now has the opportunity to step on the accelerator three European priorities: a new jointly financed investment programme, organize Europe's exit from dependence on Russian gas without compromising the climate transition and promote a European defense and foreign policy in the light of the war in Ukraine. The three objectives are linked to each other, but the third is the most complicated because it implies making sense of that "strategic autonomy" which is the guideline of his Europeanism.
The first two months of the war saw not only an unexpected European cohesion, but also a reborn transatlantic unity within NATO. These two elements of Western unity are sides of the same coin. Macron will therefore have the difficult task for a French President of promoting EU unity vis-à-vis Putin taking into account, on the one hand, the majority of countries that do not want to compromise Atlantic solidarity, on the other, the priority objective of accelerating the exit of Germany from the position of complacency and denial in which it has lived hitherto. The same is true about economic and energy plan: autonomy always risks turning into protectionism. As Gideon Rachman effectively wrote in the Financial Times, Macron will need two qualities that he has so far lacked: patience e empathy.
The main test, however, will be internal politics
The good electoral result must not mask some disturbing signs. Macron is not popular. The vote in favor of him was at least half motivated by the desire to block the way to the extreme right: a "republican" reflex, however less strong than in the past. France is crossed by political and social fractures which cannot be overlooked. Contrary to an easy vulgate they do not reflect the traditional social inequalities; France is one of the most prosperous, least unequal and with the best social services countries on the continent. Instead, they reflect identity problems linked to poorly integrated immigration and then territorial and generational inequalities.
The cities voted for Macron, the countryside for Le Pen. Young people voted en masse for Mélanchon and then abstained. Macron's first challenge will be by change the style of government and demonstrate the ability to speak to people in understandable language. It will also have to correct the centralization it has practiced so far and restore a role to Parliament. His first statements suggest that she understood the message.
The crucial test will be that of legislative elections which will take place in less than two months. Even in the Fifth Republic one cannot govern without a parliamentary majority. Macron has to manage a situation characterized by the collapse of traditional parties on the right and on the left; a collapse that he largely caused himself. In their place, two large blocs of far right and radical left have arisen; the first around Le Pen, the second around Mélanchon, a skilful tribune who embodies a left wing like Corbyn or (si parva licet) like Fassina. Both populist, anti-European and anti-Western blocs. Both lacking a minimally credible agenda, but with strong emotional appeal.
To defend the majority he has in Parliament, Macron will have to fulfill the promises made between the two electoral rounds: more security measures for right-wing electorates, more ecological and social measures (disproving the image of "President of the rich") for the leftist electorate. Not an easy political somersault in a country with a debt level not too far from the Italian one.
Legislative elections: three possible scenarios
Il electoral system perverse and distorting majority with ballot, makes any forecast uncertain. There are basically three possible scenarios. The first is that Macron manages to play the usual driving effect that has often ensured the re-elected president a majority in Parliament. At present it seems the least likely. One of Macron's mistakes, which de Gaulle and his successors had never made, was not worrying about having a real party to lean on. En Marche was and remains a plastic party, with little or no roots in the area. The best hope of having a "Presidential" majority in Parliament is to be able to count on a substantial contingent of friendly forces, moderate right or left. A hypothesis not very far from what Draghi claims in Italy today.
This brings us to the second scenario: that, despite the serious electoral defeat, the moderate right and left are still sufficiently rooted in the territory to compensate for the "useful vote" reflex that rewarded the extremes in the presidential elections. It would be a complicated result to manage, but not a negative one. The problem is that the defeat of the "moderates" was so devastating that it exists the risk (third scenario) that any recovery is impossible. This would push many moderate voters back into the arms of Le Pen and Mélanchon. It would be a real disaster because no democracy can function with a center forced to defend itself against two strong extremist camps. The danger is especially present on the left. The French left has never really completed its social democratic evolution, revolutionary mythology still has a strong appeal and Mélanchon's siren is likely to be effective.
The truth is that the Constitution of the Fifth Republic was tailor-made for De Gaulle and for the exceptional crisis that the country was going through due to the end of the colonial empire. It is no longer suitable for today's world. A debate on this problem is finally starting in France too. However, we know very well how long and tormented attempts are change the constitutions even when they are clearly outdated. France is not the only case. According to the Constitution, this is Macron's last mandate. Ultimately, the success or failure of his presidency will be measured by the methods and quality of his succession. In the meantime he will have to make great use of the two virtues recommended by Rachman: patience and empathy. Plus the quality whose importance Napoleon never tired of recalling: the luck.
