World News: Can Macron's Victory Repair The Fractured Nation

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Parent Category: News

Category: World News - Europe

Published on Tuesday, 26 April 2022 20:18

Written by Olivier Longhi

Emmanuel Macron's overwhelming victory does not mask the fractures of a country divided into blocs too hermetic to ensure in the future the concord of a nation that seeks to extinguish the social fire lit by the extreme right.

A few days after the re-election of Emmanuel Macron as President of the Republic, many comments are already dwelling on the difficulties that await him in the exercise of power.

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From international tensions to national and international economic consequences, to the resurgence of inflation that reduces the purchasing power of the French and to the political opposition that his previous and future mandate arouses, the obstacles seem perilous in their crossing.

However, beyond that, and in the run-up to the general elections (12 and 19 June), it is really the political opposition that remains the most worrying. Thus, clearly, the re-election of Emmanuel Macron opens the way to a possible cohabitation which, in essence, would risk hindering the action of the president. What for the moment is only a hypothesis that will be invalidated or confirmed, does not detract from the social tensions that prevail today in France.

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Unstable Landscape

It is now clear that the country is now fractured into three blocs, which, to summarize it in broad strokes, would revolve around social and economic elites satisfied with the policy pursued by President Macron, a refractory bloc openly inclined to indulge in right-wing extremist theses and a third set, perhaps more diffuse, composed of individuals anxious to preserve democracy without defending the action taken by the President of the European Union.

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Republic, but which by democratic and libertarian conviction, voted for the outgoing president. This fragmented landscape, unstable, difficult to apprehend because moving and undecided for the third, is therefore the electoral soil that prevails before the general election which promises to be risky for the executive. In six weeks, the old and new tenant of the Elysée, will have to show boldness, dear to Danton, by holding an economic course capable of satisfying his base, by launching a package of social and ecological reforms capable of seducing the most progressive fringe of the electorate without forgetting those who have chosen the extreme right.

It will certainly be the most difficult component of the electorate to conquer as Emmanuel Macron embodies the anti-thesis of the values defended by the supporters of a France convinced of being despised, abandoned, victim of the avatars of globalization and an immigration more fantasized than really founded. Difficult again because this fringe of the population, lulled by an approximate discourse and tinged with sophistry, proposals, and reforms seductive but impossible to implement, does not grant any confidence to the institutions of the Republic.

Political Force

Between victimization and conspiracy, these porous voters with the Manichaeism of the extremes, little versed in culture, by choice, for lack of time or lack of habit, constitutes today a political force all the more dangerous because not only is it increasing, (42% of voters who went to the polls on Sunday, April 24 claim it), from one presidential election to another but it could easily grow even more if nothing were committed in the years to come, and not only during the five-year period that is opening, to try to contain it.

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Several solutions naturally exist, starting with education, which in the school context must again and again explain the meaning of democracy and not trivialize it as a given fact. Economically, by reviving the social elevator often praised but more often broken. Politically, by dismantling extremist theses point by point in a rational way.

Will it be enough? Nothing shows this because if the adherence, which is the will, of these voters to these few solutions is not complete or acquired, then the project will prove to be very difficult. Faced with these social and political realities, the five-year term that opens will see the Head of State exercise his mandate on the razor's edge. At the risk of not seeing the tomorrows that sing and cut themselves off.

Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist, recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, a press and publishing consultant, and a communications consultant.