Yabloko Deputy Chairman on the French presidential elections results
16.05.2017

The new president of France Emmanuel Macron was inaugurated at the Élysée Palace on 14 May. The youngest president in the history of the Fifth Republic will turn 40 at the end of the year. Macron, with his evident social liberal and pro-European programme, won even a more decisive victory over Marine Le Pen in the second round than the pollsters had predicted gaining over 66 per cent of votes with the final turnout estimated at about 75 per cent

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What should be noted in connection with Macron’s victory? Firstly, for the first time a social liberal advances to the forefront of the political scene in a large European country. For the first time in history this very word combination – social liberalism, sozialliberale – sounded so loudly and distinctly on the world’s leading TV channels on the night of Macron’s victory. It is a unique chance. And great responsibility.

For the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic the two largest traditional parties – the Socialists and the Republicans – were both ejected from the race in the first round. Of course, one may call it a historical accident. The center-right presidential candidate François Fillon failed to gain 1,5 per cent of votes in order to make it for the second round – corruption scandals prevented him from doing it. How can a politician, who has been paying salaries to his wife and children out of taxpayers’ money for years, promote a large-scale cutting of civil service positions? The failure of the Socialists may all the more be attributed to their unpopularity as a ruling party during 2012-2017. But these particular, specific circumstances in an individual country is part of the common situation in the western politics. And the situation is that both the left-wing forces (socialists, social democrats) and the right-wing forces (conservatives) face some very serious challenges.

The main challenge for the political left is impracticability of their promises, infeasibility of their programme. It is impossible to continue imposing higher taxes on the rich with impunity in times of globalization, free movement of people, circulation of capital, goods and services. They will simply take their manufactures and capitals to other countries. Their place will be taken by migrants [attracted by] social guarantees and the high level of life, which is becoming more difficult to maintain. The number of pensioners is growing dramatically because a large number of people, who were born after the Second World War, are retiring. The birth rate has not been very high for a long time. It means that the social burden on the economy is growing. Moreover, relocation of manufactures crates an increasing growth of unemployment, especially among young people. Maintenance of social guarantees requires getting into new and new debts – the extreme example is the situation with Greece. Actually, these are the important features of François Hollande’s presidency, for instance.

In such conditions the conservatives with their neo-liberal policy remain almost unopposed. But the lack of competition corrupts people. The corruption scandals surrounding the French right-wing politicians (Sarkozy, Fillon and others) reflect the situation with the People’s Party in Spain and the situation with Berlusconi in Italy in 2000. The growing gap between the society and the political elite, the increase of mutual alienation make the conservative parties a target for accusations of immorality and injustice, of the fact that their policy serves the interests of only the rich and big business, banks and corporations.

The first are ineffective, the second are immoral. Far-right or far-left demagogues, the opponents of peace and cooperation between the peoples of Europe, xenophobes, fans of utopias of the kind that led to a total crisis and poverty in Venezuela at the moment, are making the best of this crisis.

It is significant that there were not only the promises to “expropriate and divide everything” underpinning the sudden and significant success of the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who gained nearly 20 per cent in the first round. Re-establishment of the state, a peaceful and lawful formation of a new state system different from the Fifth Republic that exists today, with its extensive (according to the European standards!) presidential powers, lie in the centre of his programme. By the way, the Fifth Republic itself was founded this way in 1958 succeeding the post-war Fourth Republic of a purely parliamentary type.

As for the traditional parties, one should not think that it is the matter with the decline of traditional left and right-wing parties and their ideas. Social democracy and conservatism with neo-liberalism are very old ideologies, which managed to overcome crises more than once and found new answers at the new stages of development. But now it is evident that they need time in order to find these answers. And the pause that has sprung up cannot be filled with populists, who deny the values of personal freedom, human rights, tolerance within the society and democratic institutions.

This way there arises a demand for a new centre, for social liberalism. It is a creative combination of the most perspective left-wing and right-wing ideas, which is at the same time founded on reasonable compromises, it is a moderate centrist line.

Thus, for instance, Emmanuel Macron suggests giving up the constant discussions about the age of retirement in his programme, which deserves a most careful study. In the vein of liberalism, the focus on personal freedom and individual choice, Macron proposes to give a person a chance to make such an important decision as the age of retirement himself depending on his desires, opportunities, plans and pension savings which he managed to obtain while working. If a person has obtained enough, why cannot he retire at 50? But if he considers it right to continue working until he is 75 – why not?

Another innovation (however, it has already been tested by Matteo Renzi’s government in Italy) is a €500 “culture bonus” for young people that can be spent on museums, theatres, concerts and cinemas. Thus, the time when a young person is looking for a job may also became a time for self-evolution.

These are by no means all Macron’s ideas. He spoke about brilliant opportunities for France, which are possible at the moment, in his inauguration speech. He talked about the necessities of reforms in the EU that will make the idea of a European Union attractive again.

He is really facing these challenges, and they are very serious. Macron has very little time. Hollande’s rating began to crumble in about a year after he was elected. There are not too many countries, which are ready to wait for 18-19 years for a politician to fulfil his old promises. The triumph of social liberalism in the elections can easily come to grief in reality.

By the way, it is amazing that being a politician and a statesman is a very different thing. François Hollande turned out to be an unsuccessful, extremely unpopular president but he managed to provide a continuity of power during the campaign to an extent which was possible under the circumstances. He was opposed by the most popular French politician Alain Juppe, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, François Fillon, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the fronde of Benoit Hamon and Arnaud Montebourg within his Socialist Party… As a result, a candidate who owes Hollande his career and treats him with respect won the race. It was a very spectacular victory by means of parliamentary, elective policy. It was not even affected by another WikiLeaks leak, which was published, by all appearances, with the help of hackers form Russia’s Ministry of the Defence, who did a disservice to our country.

It was for this reason that on Macron’s inauguration day the leaving president Hollande, perhaps, seemed to look like a winner more than the new resident of the Élysée Palace. Macron has no time to relax in comparison with the former president. Now he is facing another challenge, which will make it difficult to bring his presidential programme to life unless he succeeds.

The two rounds of parliamentary elections which will result into formation of a new government will take place in June. Macron’s movement En Marche! and his allies from François Bayrou’s Democratic Movement liberal party are facing two more rounds of hard struggle for the trust of a voter, for opportunities, which imply great responsibility in a democratic state.