Hi’.
So the French presidential election ended its first turn and Macron (at 24%) will face Le Pen (21%) for the second turn. Polls say it will be a 60-40 in favor of Macron, great. Thus far, nothing new.
However, French people are a bit disturbed each time you say Macron is either left or center-left.
Look.
We have to go back to 2012 and Hollande. Hollande, current French president, is a left-wing politician, member of the socialist party, the main leftwing party in France. Within that party, Hollande was on the right. He replaced Strauss-Kahn (due to a scandal) who was even more on the right, and he won because at the time everyone hated the rightwing president Sarkozy. Hollande offered a leftwing agenda, like keeping Florange’s factory open or closing Fessenheim, the oldest nuclear power plant in the country.
And he did rule like a leftwing politician. I wish people would give him credit for the reforms he did, the fights he fought. It’s under his presidency, notably, that gay people got the right to marry. Administrative reforms, etc… and he did work to close Fessenheim. So at best, it’s a case of “too little too late”, right? Well…
Long story short, in 2014 he changed his government, replacing Montebourg with Valls. That’s notably when Macron entered the government, as minister of the economy. Once in place, they offered the CICE, also called “tax breaks for big companies” or “trickle-down theory” to try and restart the economy. Then they reformed working rights (the famous “El Khomri law”) to give companies more flexibility, roughly. You know what “flexibility” means for workers. Leftwing stuff.
So Hollande governed on the center-left. At best.
Macron is on his right.
On that El Khomri law, that is, working rights? He wants to keep going in that direction. The CICE? Making it a permanent tax break, period. On the administration? He wants to shed 120’000 public jobs. That’s literally the rightwing’s program with a lower number. Unemployment? He wants more controls and more sanctions. You know, “welfare fraud”.
That doesn’t mean he is straight up rightwing. You’ll find plenty of good soundbites in his program. Automatizing access to certain social subsidies for example. He is not a bad candidate. I also reject the “he is a corrupt banker who wants to eat your children” ludicrousness, for as much as a bad impression he gives me. No, I just want to point out all the rightwing ideas and rhetoric in his program. My point is that during the campaign, Macron went from 20% to 25% because moderates on the right fled the rightwing candidate and took refuge under him.
And now, Le Pen.
And again, Le Pen is terrible. The Melenchon of the right, a Trumpette, a disaster in the making. Everything you want. On immigration, it’s either xenophobia or nonsense. On the economy or even justice she is nuts. She wants to leave the EU, NATO and so on.
I’m just pointing out that, in her program, she is offering direct democracy (proposal 5) and the proportional (proposal 3). Renewable energies (proposal 133) with the funny anecdote of hydrogen (135), fighting trade deals ‘f course (proposal 127), ending Hadopi (proposal 115, it’s an internet law, as popular as the El Khomri one), by the way ending El Khomri (53), fighting fiscal fraud (proposals 43 and 79), tax breaks for the lowest revenues (75, I wouldn’t call it leftwing but eh), raising the wages of public workers (86) and I hope you’re starting to get what I mean.
Macron isn’t offering a tenth of that.
When people say he is the “footboard” for the extreme-right, it’s not a joke to make him look bad. It’s basically what has been happening for ten years and what’s expected to happen five years from now. If not two weeks from now.
I know many of you are fine with voting for rightwing candidates, because it’s what wins, and objectively it is. I know many of you are fine with keeping the status quo to avoid, you know, the end of a country and a continent. And I’m very the joy that the EU might survive 2-5 more years. But for workers in France, for the youth, for rurals, for many? The left has lost. Their life will keep degrading slowly. Slow is good. Just, understand that they are not overjoyed.
tl;dr
Of course people need to vote for Macron to avoid the worst. Goes without saying. But please, don’t make it as if Macron was great. He is not. And don’t try and paint it as a victory for the left. It’s not. Be pragmatic. This is a loss to avoid a greater loss.
The more you paint it as the best news ever, the more you will actually push people towards Le Pen.
So please don’t. Thank you.