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‘Globalist’ Versus ‘Localist’
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and center-left candidate Emmanuel Macron. (Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centre-left candidate Emmanuel Macron have trumped in the first round of the French presidential elections. The two will now compete against each other, in the final round on 7 May.
According to updates from French Interior Ministry (as of 11.30 pm local time, over 40 millions votes have been counted which is roughly 85 per cent of those who voted), Macron polled 23.61 per cent and Le Pen was at 22.20 per cent.
The stunning rejection of the candidates of both the two mainstream parties — Benoit Hamon representing the Socialists on the left and Francois Fillon of the Republicans on the right — signals a tectonic shift in the political landscape of France. Both Hamon and Fillon have now urged voters to consolidate their support for Macron in the second round.
Thirty-nine-year-old Macron is a political novice who had never fought an election before. A graduate from École Nationale D’administration, a bastion of the French elite and an ex-banker with Rothschild & Co, Macron is seen as an europhile centrist though his manifesto seem to be fanciful mix of ideas borrowed from both right and left. For instance, he promises to bring France’s budget deficit below the European benchmark of 3 per cent while at the same time advocating Keynesian economic approach of heavy government spending.
He is heavily favoured to win a direct fight with Marine Le Pen. Couple of surveys indicate that Macron has a winning chance of 64 per cent as against Le Pen's 36 per cent. Macron promises a fresh-faced, middle-of-the-road neo-liberalism and globalism: a France “open to all” is his slogan.
Le Pen on the other hand seen as a far-right populist, has campaigned for a ‘Frexit’ referendum seeking to pull France out of the European Union and the euro-based common currency market. She has also promised drastic reductions in the number of immigrants. Her campaign plank focused on what she describes as the “twin totalitarianisms” of globalisation and “Islamic fundamentalism.”
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