In the French presidential runoff, Macron vs. Le Pen, the question is not who will win (Macron), but with whom will he govern, and what will he do?
Already after the first round of voting it became clear that Macron will become the next French president. His real rivals were the Republican Party (LR) candidate François Fillon, in November 2016 the hot favorite to become the next French president, but who stumbled over a series of affairs, as well as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the left-wing tribune of the plebs of the Unsubmissive France (La France insoumise) movement.
In all cases, against all possible rivals, Emmanuel Macron was the hot favorite in the polls. In the present day race Macron vs. Le Pen, the young, former minister of the economy leads with 60% vs. 40%, which is far beyond any margin of error, not comparable with the Brexit and Trump’s election.
However, people should remain prudent and vote! More importantly, with whom will Emmanuel Macron govern? The choice of his prime minister will be an indication of where he wants to go to. He has clearly indicated that he wants as many fresh faces as possible. At the same time, he will need some politicians with experience. On the left, Defense Minister Jean-Yves le Drian would be a credible man. Among the centrist politicians, François Bayrou, who indorsed him in February 2017 when he needed it, would be an acceptable choice, as well as Jean-Louis Borloo, the former centrist minister. On the right, one could imagine someone like the former minister of education and later minister of the budget, Valérie Pécresse, and/or the former minister of ecology, sustainable development, transport and housing, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (NKM), to join him. However, where can Macron find a dozen fresh faces, men and women, who are qualified to become ministers? It is not impossible, but it will be difficult.
As for the key choice of prime minister, Emmanuel Macron has indicated that he was thinking about a woman, without revealing yet who that would be. The composition of the next government will depend on the outcome of the June 2017 legislative election. President Macron will need a parliamentary majority. His movement, En Marche !, founded in April 2016, must win as many seats as possible. In addition, he will rely on the support of parliamentarians from the right and left ready to reform France.
Emmanuel Macron’s top priority will be a labor reform that will lower the employment rate (currently roughly 10%). He will have to implement such a reform in his first year in office to have a chance to see the numbers decrease before his first mandate is over.
Unlike Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron is not thinking about holding a “Frexit” or a “return to the French franc” referendum. In addition to her opposition to the euro and the EU, Marine Le Pen is also against Nato, which explains why President Putin welcomed her in Moscow.
Emmanuel Macron has a pro-EU, pro-euro and pro-Nato agenda. Nevertheless, he wants to change the EU. He is in favor of greater EU-integration on the level of fiscal and social policy and regulation. He even thought about Eurobonds in the long run, a total no-go for Germany (and rightly so).
Where Marine Le Pen is thinking about printing money (French francs), Emmanuel Macron is inspired by the Scandinavian model. He is dreaming about a balanced budget (France’s deficit is currently still above the Maastricht criteria of 3% of GDP), lower taxes, a €50 billion euro stimulus package and at the same time an extension of the welfare state.
Marine Le Pen is — like Donald Trump — offering the illusion that protectionism is a solution, whereas Emmanuel Macron is (rightly) in support of free trade and seems to understand the liberal case for economic globalization.
Where Marine Le Pen is playing to the left, the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Benoît Hamon (the Socialist candidate), promising not to touch the 35h-week labor laws and to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60, Emmanuel Macron has indicated that he wants more flexible labor laws, with companies and workers to negotiate specific deals on the company levels. However, he backed away from his more ambitious labor law reform originally planned as minister of the economy, which was then sabotaged not only by the left-wing of the Socialist Party, but also by Prime Minister Valls and President Hollande, which lead to Macron’s resignation as minister of the economy, the creation of his own movement and presidential ambition.
Macron rightly concluded that the French party system was finished. However, he did not indicate by what he intended to replace the outdated system. Furthermore, in addition to his less ambitious labor reform presented as presidential candidate, he is not thinking about increasing the French retirement age of 62, which is clearly to low. The alternative of lower pensions is a no-go for him.
Will Emmanuel Macron have the courage to push for the liberalization France needs? Will he have a majority to do so? In the June 2017 French legislative election, the economic reform camp of people such as Macron, Fillon, Sarkozy, Juppé, Valls, Borloo and Bayrou will have to be stronger than anti-liberal-reform-camp composed of people such as Le Pen, Mélenchon and Hamon.
The unemployment rate of 10%, the budget deficit of 3.3% and the public debt of over 97% are a miserable starting point for the next leader of the world’s sixth biggest economy.
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Emmanuel Macron in April 2015. Photo Copyright © Claude Truong-Ngoc.
Article added on May 3, 2017 at 10:21 Paris time. Added to our newly designed WordPress pages on December 7, 2021.
