France’s incumbent President Emmanuel Macron’s victory over his populist candidate Marine Le Pen in the election on 24 April 2022 has attracted a lot of attention from analysists around the world. This event has a profound influence on not only France’s future but also Europe’s politics and security.
Addressing challenges to France
According to political analysts, the French presidential election on 24 April 2022 is a tough battle of wits between incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Opinion polls before the election showed that most of French voters expected their new president to unite people from all walks of life with different political trends to steer the country out of prevailing domestic and foreign policy challenges in the context of latest geopolitical upheavals in Europe and the world.
Following the release of election results, thousands of French people took to the streets in Paris and Lyon to protest Macron’s victory. More than 100,000 people went on a demonstration on May Day to urge the government to improve living standards and tackle social inequality. These moves signal considerable domestic and foreign policy challenges in President Emmanuel Macron’s second term. Nevertheless, the toughest challenge to Emmanuel Macron is voter abstention, which was put at percent, the highest in 50 years. Despite her failure, Marine Le Pen still gained popular support with 42.4 percent of vote compared with 34 percent in the 2017 election.
President Emmanuel Macron’s new five-year term will be full of hardships. To be successful requires him to unite radical parties in France to quickly adopt measures to promote social security, narrow the rich-poor gap, protect the environment, and so on. Therefore, right after being re-elected as president, Emmanuel Macron declared himself a president of all French people, not any single party. To help his ruling party (the Renaissance) to evade being defeated in the presidential election in 2027, President Emmanuel Macron admits to prioritise rebuilding of relations with those who have not had confidence in him or voted for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, president of the National Front. Statistics show that 5 percent of the poorest people are living in more difficult conditions than in previous 5 years. A vast majority of voters said that they found it hard to make ends meet as a result of rising prices. These are challenges President Emmanuel Macron wishes to tackle in his second term through policy reform.
In the short run, President Emmanuel Macron advocates maintaining limits on gas and electricity prices in the direction of reducing fuel prices, providing more support to low-income people and gig workers, gradually raising the retirement age to 65 by 2031 except for toilers, creating favourable conditions for people to access social welfare, and attracting more foreign investment through the “Choose France” programme. He also pledges to subsidise renewable energy, renovate 700,000 houses, preserve biodiversity, reform education system to devolve more powers to schools and universities, improve healthcare and services in rural areas, and increase military spending to 2 percent of GDP.
Impact on Europe’s politics and security
This year’s presidential election attracts attention from not only French people but also the entire Europe and the world as a whole because it will have an enormous influence on future of the Eurozone’s second biggest economy. Moreover, France remains the only country in the EU with an autonomous nuclear capability and veto power at the UN Security Council. Consequently, if Marine Le Pen won the presidential election of 2022, it would create a political earthquake in Europe because she is an admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin and advocates keeping close ties with Moscow, improving NATO-Russia relations, and re-establishing strategic friendship between France and Russia amid the worsening state of EU/NATO-Russia relations. Marine Le Pen has questioned the legitimacy of NATO. She even stated that this alliance existed to serve U.S. strategic goals. She also pursued France’s possible exit from the Eurozone and EU or even reaffirmed her intention to repeat France’s 1966 move of leaving NATO’s integrated military command under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle.
In addition, if she won the election, the next step of Marine Le Pen would rally right-wing groups throughout Europe. Apart from the Brexit, the recent victory of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reveals that populism is a strategy to win elections. The rise of populism means that Christian democratic parties and conservative parties, which dominated Europe in most of the previous century, would lose their support. Marine Le Pen’s vision for EU can be compared with that of British Conservative Leaders, which seeks to turn EU into an alliance of European nations and gradually take France out of EU.
Conversely, President Emmanuel Macron advocates pursuit of globalisation and deep integration in EU. He believes that France’s economic policy can be only brought into full play by cooperation with EU. Accordingly, France will deepen integration in Europe and strengthen its relations with Germany to create EU’s growth engine and facilitate EU’s response to common challenges. This position is at the top of Emmanuel Macron’s agenda during his election campaign. He continues to promote a more sovereign Europe and regard investment in EU as the best way to safeguard France’s national interests at global scale. After being sworn in for his second term, President Emmanuel Macron proposes 2 important ideas to reform EU. First, consensus is replaced by qualified majority voting. Second is the formation of a new organisation called “European political community.” According to President Emmanuel Macron, these two initiatives will enable Europe to act more effectively, unanimously, and quickly in the context of current upheavals. The “European Confederation” envisioned by late French President Francois Mitterrand was put forward with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
German public opinion show that this nation is ready to go with the second term of French President Emmanuel Macron because the next 5 years will be of significant importance to Germany. German Government will face the challenges of maintaining unity among political parties of the governing coalition and how to cooperate with France. Emmanuel Macron’s position on nuclear energy may bother German Green Party. One of Emmanuel Macron’s key projects is strengthening of EU’s capacity for strategic autonomy in defence. Therefore, Germany’s defence spending and priorities will have a certain impact on France.
As for Spain, French President Emmanuel Macron’s position in favour of Europe assures Spain because it is committed to deep integration into Europe. Emmanuel Macron’s victory, Germany’s adjustments to European finance and security in the post-COVID-19 era, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine are offering opportunities for Spain to promote many priorities, first and foremost security, defence, economic integration, and finance, creating favourable conditions for Spain’s EU presidency in the second half of 2023.
As far as Poland is concerned, Warsaw believes that French president election takes place at a turning point in Europe, which is characterised by a completely new security environment. Poland is bordered by Ukraine and increasingly dependent on NATO and U.S. for its security. Poland, therefore, expects Ukraine’s victory in the ongoing conflict. On perceiving enormous influence of French president election on Europe’s response to Russia-Ukraine conflict, Poland keeps a close look on election manifestos of French president candidates, most notably those relating to geopolitical issues such as tougher sanctions against Russia, military arms for Ukraine, the leading international organisations in addressing the crisis, France’s move of leaving NATO’s integrated military command, NATO’s effort to consolidate its eastern flank, and post-war policies on Russia.
The incumbent President Emmanuel Macron’s victory is of significant importance to the United Kingdom (UK). First of all, the UK hopes that this victory will be an opportunity for strengthening its relations with France. The UK wants to ensure that NATO remains a vital forum for any debates about future of Europe’s security. The UK used to believe that France was both an important partner and a challenge. However, the Brexit and the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (AUKUS) have led to a serious break in the relationship between France and the UK. In the face of such a context, the conflict in Ukraine has been bringing about changes and facilitating closer cooperation between the UK and France on other fields, including climate change and NATO. The UK wishes to ensure that any push for EU’s strategic autonomy will not do harm to NATO or undermine the role of the UK and U.S. in providing security for Europe. It means that the UK wants to see NATO’s more prominent role in coordinating transatlantic stance on Russia and China. Consequently, London hopes to heal the rift with Paris in the coming time when President Emmanuel Macron is re-elected.
In conclusion, although the French president election on 24 April 2022 is an internal affair of France, it has a profound influence on European politics and security in many aspects. It proves France’s position and role in the region as well as challenges President Emmanuel Macron is facing in the coming time.
Senior Colonel LE THE MAU