Just as in the case of the US elections, also for the French elections we are faced with two candidates on which the citizens will have to choose for the least worst. As was also evident in the last televised debate, on the one hand the extreme right lines up Marine Le Pen as a champion of the people, of intransigence towards the costs and consequences of the wave of migration from Africa and the Middle East, of the fight against lax judicial process that has led France to underestimate the terrorist threat and to the desertification of health coverage in the more peripheral areas of the country and of the right of the sick to correct health care spending.
While far but not too far from the Republican party, the young Macron presents himself as the competent economist on the perfect recipes to finance the tax cuts and the fiscal and monetary measures necessary to restart the country. He is arrogant and prepared but when Le Pen puts him in a corner on social issues, legality and Islamic terrorism, he defends himself and is less convincing.
The French economic situation highlights the failure of the Hollande government, which failed neither to reduce youth unemployment nor to solve the thorny problem of the labor reform and much less to stem the worsening of the living conditions of retirees and young couples.
But the electoral result will mainly depend on a stable abstention rate between 25 and 30%, which was already lower than expected in the first round, and on the transfer of votes from the other presidential candidates who had to abandon the race. According to public indications, about a third of Melenchon voters will vote for Macron while Fillon's supporters should vote for him solidly.
There is another delicate aspect related to the vote of the Muslim community, now made up of over 6,5 million people, equal to 10% of the population, mostly deriving from migration from overseas territories and former colonies. They are therefore citizens and voters to all intents and purposes: theirs is a weighty vote which in the past has seen the first generation of immigrants face off against that of the "newcomers". Today, with the diffusion of the phenomena of radicalization and Islamization of increasingly large portions of the territory, these people benefit from funds from Qatar and other Gulf countries aimed also at the construction of mosques and in support of sports associations and cultural centers closely monitored due to the recurrence of terrorist attacks in the country. The case of the island of Mayotte, then, where the Islamic judges have obtained the opportunity to express themselves on cases of civil justice at the expense of the State and in defiance of the laws of the Republic, represents another cause of great discontent on the part of those who supported the other candidates and now he does not see a clear decision-making attitude in Macron's policies on securing the country.
The first data will arrive for dinner on Sunday evening but already in the afternoon if abstentionism were to exceed 30% the risk of overtaking Le Pen is concrete, as is that of a head-to-head 55-45%, which in any case would not please the European markets, where the result of the ballot was celebrated ahead of time.
The latest scandal made public in the run-up to the vote concerns a loan by a Russian bank (FRCB First Csech Russian Bank) for over 9 million euros guaranteed to the Front Nationale since 2014 as state funding for the period 2015-2019. credit required according to Le Pen due to the reluctance of French banks to financially support the Front National.
After the swearing in of the President and the appointment of the Prime Minister scheduled for May 14, there will be general elections on June 11 and 18, where the eventual victory and reappointment of Macron will collide with the reality of defining support and alliances with the parties for the formation of a new government. The European Union, caught between Brexit and the French duel, awaits Trump's official trip next week and therefore surprises will certainly not be lacking, as well as a good dose of volatility in view of an upcoming Fed rate hike in June, right to bring us back to the reality of a situation that is in any case more favorable to the equity markets than ever.
If alongside Theresa May and Merkel we were to find the First President in the history of France, any correction will not be dramatic, because the bizarre ideas on Frexit and the restoration of the French franc, the true Achilles heel of the leader of the FN, they cannot be implemented according to French law except through a path fraught with obstacles and possible falls in the face of an unavoidable parliamentary vote. And on the lust for power of both candidates, who are equally inclined to stay in the saddle for as long as possible to set a record as the first woman and/or youngest man in government, the dispute over the prestige of a France in search of a redemption still far away.
