Ī 5 BL saturday, may 13, 2017 know

What it takes ’s party, floated less than a year before the race for the President’s office began, has no deep political doctrine afp/patrick kovarik EnSTATES OF MATTER marche to uncertainty

The French election was fought within a narrow spectrum of nationalist anxiety

or embattled western liberals, it was tion this year, three of the top six performers through to the second round by what was a like emerging into a new dawn of chose to contest under newly-fashioned statistical fluke. The top three candidates all Fhope. On May 7, Emmanuel Macron, names that were exhortatory rather than ideo- had vote shares clustered around the 17 per deftly deploying the image of an un- logical. Macron’s En Marche! led the field with cent mark, and Jean-Marie narrowly beat a sukumar muralidharan sullied outsider, won the French presidential its urgent call to resume the historical for- popular Socialist candidate to qualify. His luck election by a decisive two to one advantage ward march of the French nation. Then there ran out by the second round: he barely man- over his Right-wing opponent, was the Left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon un- aged to increase his vote share and was out- of the National Front (NF). Key to Macron’s der the banner of , or “Un- voted nearly five times by Jacques Chirac. success was the distance he managed to estab- bowed France”, who finished fourth in a The daughter has done considerably better, lish from the discredited political establish- tightly contested first round, where the first increasing her vote share by a substantial 12 ment, through the artifice of launching his four candidates were clustered around the 20 per cen between the first and second rounds. own party hardly a year before the presiden- per cent vote share mark. Mélenchon, also a In the ideological flux and turmoil of France tial race. With the rousing, but ultimately former Socialist, broke to the Left, essentially today, substantial numbers of voters are rather vacant title of En Marche! (or “For- charting his own course and winning the late breaking for the far-Right. That could become ward!”) , the party revealed no deeper political and rather reluctant endorsement of main- a stampede if the Macron formula for restora- doctrine, except an intent to efface older dis- stream communists. tion of French glory fails to gel. tinctions in a new synthesis. The mainstream party of the Right, with the Macron sees France’s economic future tied With national assembly elections in June scandal-plagued François Fillon as its stand- to a reinvigoration of the faltering European being the first test of the new politics, the ard bearer, had rebranded itself the “Republic- project, an enterprise in which German en- former Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls, ans” in 2015, and finished narrowly ahead of dorsement is essential. Modesty is out of place has already pronounced the demise of his Mélenchon. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who here. High European Union officials are hint- party and vowed to line up behind the newly- swept up the Right-wing fragments that ing at an autonomous course in world affairs, elected President. A bloc of Right-wing politi- stayed away from the Republic- stepping into the void caused by cians and voters too could presumably rally to ans, fought under the banner of the regime of clownish in- Macron’s flag by then. Debout la France, or “Arise eptitude in the US and rescind- Macron comes to the powerful French pres- France” and came in sixth. ing the privileges enjoyed by the TheQ French party idency with the briefest of résumés in public In the deep political and eco- British financial services in- service: four years as minister for the economy nomic malaise that prevails in system has always dustry in the continent. under his deeply unpopular predecessor, France, ideology has been re- been more fungible Other plans that Macron François Hollande. His effort then to shed placed by inchoate appeals to than elsewhere brings to the table include a com- older political orthodoxies, was seen to under- national loyalty, largely indistin- mon budget for the Euro cur- mine key premises of the compact which kept guishable in formal terms rency area and a mutualisation France’s labour unions active and involved. across the . R of debt that would enable the Despite widespread scepticism within the rul- This genuflection before an ab- lesser economies to overcome ing , the Macron reforms were stract ideal of French national glory pays un- sovereign debt issues by leveraging the credit- pushed through parliament using a rarely in- witting homage to the xenophobia that has worthiness of the more solid performers. Ger- voked procedural manoeuvre. been the NF’s unique appeal. The NF seeks to many is sceptical but has to sustain a strong Shortly afterwards, Macron announced his turn the perceived erosion of national glory partnership with France to prevent the frag- parting of ways with the Socialists, embracing on a vulnerable immigrant population and mentation of Europe. The road ahead is uncer- an ideological neutrality and a posture of France’s partners in the European project. tain, but the European project will continue to pragmatism that placed the “nation” at its Others seek routes towards national aggrand- flounder if it stays within the halfway house of core. The French party system has always been isement that preserve newly-acquired embel- monetary union devoid of fiscal coordination. more fungible than elsewhere. Socialists and lishments of civility and liberalism. “Fortress Europe” may well be the continental communists, with nominal identities that Those embellishments are clearly of less response to the gathering Brexit momentum have remained stable over the years, are now value when economic anxieties are becoming across the channel and cries of “America first” in a state of electoral irrelevance. Parties that the main determinant of voting behaviour, across the ocean. have survived have had to reinvent and and this shows in Le Pen’s electoral perform- rebrand themselves. ance. In a very crowded field in the 2002 pres- sukumar muralidharan teaches at the school of In the first round of the presidential elec- idential election, her father Jean Marie won journalism, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat