Battered and bruised, France’s “republican front” did its job once more in Sunday’s presidential election runoff. Faced with the prospect of a far-right takeover of the Élysée, a sufficient number of voters put aside their reservations regarding Emmanuel Macron and made him the first president to win a second term in office for 20 years. In the end, Mr Macron’s 58%-42% victory over Marine Le Pen was much more comfortable than seemed likely a few weeks ago, when some polls predicted a knife-edge contest.
For France – and the rest of Europe – the alternative outcome would have been disastrous and destabilising. Ms Le Pen’s authoritarian, nationalist and xenophobic vision would have led to civil strife domestically and undermined solidarity between western democracies at a vital time. That Mr Macron successfully averted this worst-case scenario is a cause for celebration. But as his victory speech on Sunday night tacitly acknowledged, an election won with the help of the fear factor has delivered an exceptionally fragile mandate. Describing France as riven by doubt and division, Mr Macron pledged to be “not the candidate of one camp, but the president of all of us”. Such assurances are commonplace from victorious political leaders, but it is vital that Mr Macron makes good on them during a second term, which looks challenging to say the least.
As the election laid bare, France is dangerously divided along economic and generational fault lines. A majority of blue-collar workers – and more than four in 10 voters overall – opted for Ms Le Pen. This, the best score in the history of the French far right, allowed Ms Le Pen to declare her share of the vote a “victory in itself”. Disturbingly, it indicates that the normalisation of her movement is all but complete. Mr Macron’s core vote, by contrast, came from wealthy business people, middle-class professionals and retired people. Younger, well educated but economically precarious voters who supported the radical left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in the first round were left without a dog in the fight.
Reflecting widespread disillusionment with the choice on offer, particularly among the young, the rate of abstention was the highest for a presidential runoff since 1969. Among potential voters under the age of 25, more than 40% failed to cast a ballot. Enough voters on the left lent their support to Mr Macron to keep the far right out of power, but in fewer numbers than in 2017. Hostilities on the right and the left will now be resumed ahead of parliamentary elections in June.
If he is to successfully navigate this volatile political landscape, Mr Macron will need to adopt a radically different playbook from the one that characterised his first five years in the Élysée. During that time, he acquired a reputation as the “president of the rich” after watering down a wealth tax, pursuing unpopular pension reforms and imposing a fuel tax that sparked the gilets jaunes movement. An autocratic style contributed to the widespread impression that Mr Macron’s declared intention to transform and liberalise the French economy would be accomplished at the expense of the less well-off.
To make good on his aspirations to reach out across the divides, Mr Macron will need to do far more to address such concerns and insecurities. During a campaign that became unexpectedly close, there were signs that this was being recognised. In an encouraging early statement of intent, it has already been signalled that there will be full consultation with unions and other bodies over proposals to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. As the cost-of-living crisis bites, in a still fragile post-Covid economy, Mr Macron should also recognise that more needs to be done to protect and improve the living standards of blue-collar workers and the youthful precariat, which voted en masse for Mr Mélenchon. As he contemplates five more years in office, Mr Macron must realise that he has been given not so much a mandate as another chance.
