World News: European Elections the Many Shades of Populism

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Category: World News - Europe

Published on Monday, 26 February 2024 09:21

Written by Olivier Longhi

As the European elections loom, which are expected to be perilous for the presidential majority, Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, and Jordan Bardella, President of the Nationalist Party, have competed in demagoguery and populism.

While each has competed with different styles, the intent has been the same. Between Emmanuel Macron's eventful visit to the Paris Agricultural Show on 24 February and Jordan Bardella's quieter visit, many observers saw in these two trips a long-distance political fight that can be explained by the upcoming European elections.

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Trailing in the polls to the benefit of the Nationalist Party, the presidential majority, starting with its first representative, has therefore decided to go out and meet the agricultural world. In an exchange bordering on hand-to-hand, almost carnal, in shirt sleeves, sometimes using trivialities intended to reinforce the proximity of the improvised meeting, Emmanuel Macron listened to the farmers who came to meet him, explained the decisions taken or to come and proposed solutions. Was it convincing? For the time being, the question remains unanswered.

Manly or Polite

So what are we to make of this meeting in which the President of the Republic showed himself at ease, because the man is very fond of this type of exercise, facing Jordan Bardella, who is also in his element in the middle of an agricultural world that is partly sensitive to his discourse tinged with economic nationalism?

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Both Emmanuel Macron and Jordan Bardella, in their own way and in very different styles, virile, for the President of the Republic, more polite for Jordan Bardella, have indulged in a full-blown populist exercise. The former, surrounded in a small area by attentive but demanding farmers regarding the expected answers, like a tribune of the plebs, flattered and teased his audience without condemning them, so as to confront them with the economic reality that the agricultural world is facing without giving them the feeling of being abandoned by promising a revision of standards or floor prices. Demagoguery will cry some out, purely political others will cry.

Easy Attacks

Promises tenable or not, the latter have had the merit, at the very least, of leaving room for maneuver to the executive while reinforcing the presidential figure of a man who is close to and aware of the difficulties of one of the fringes of the population. In another style, let us repeat it more polite, Jordan Bardella made colorful statements evoking a form of presidential schizophrenia in the heart of an audience fond of attacks that are ultimately quite easy.

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The president of the National Rally has therefore, as the nature of his party invites him to do, deliberately revealed in the disarray and despair of part of the agricultural world without putting forward any real solutions ignoring the fact that some actors in the agricultural sector are, let us remember, driven to bankruptcy, or worse.

Two forms of populism thus clashed by proxy at the Agriculture Centre in what already looks like an electoral campaign that has not yet said its name. It remains to be seen which demagogy will take precedence over the other...

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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.