SEmmanuel Macron dedicated a second election victory to Europe. On election night he moved to the stage in front of the Eiffel Tower for Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. This was the musical response to Marine Le Pen, who had hounded the European flag at the Arc de Triomphe and promised to remove the flag from her official portrait. It was also a signal to the EU partners that they can count on France over the next five years. The first foreign caller to congratulate Macron was Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to the Elysée Palace. Macron will now be able to complete the French EU Council Presidency. He clearly won the “referendum on Europe”, which he spoke about during the election campaign, with more than 58 percent of the votes.
Five years ago, the European anthem accompanied Macron’s first steps to power. At that time he went alone on the stage in front of the Louvre. This time he had the offspring of his volunteers and campaign workers escort him to Field of Mars. The youth at his side – that’s how he would like to see himself. 61 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for him. But according to the opinion research institute Ipsos, the number of non-voters in this age group was also particularly high at 41 percent.
The election result has confirmed old suspicions that Macron is the president of the nearing and retiring generations. 59 percent of voters over 60 and 71 percent of those over 70 voted for him. It’s not just a generational conflict that’s smoldering in France. Income conditions have determined voting behavior like never before. Macron has proven to be the candidate of the higher earners. His best results came from senior executives and managers, known as cadres, who voted 77 percent for him. 68 percent of pensioners, most of whom have generous pensions in France, also voted for him.
France has a new workers’ party
The picture is very different for workers. 67 percent voted for Le Pen. The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is France’s new workers’ party. Even lower-level employees voted 57 percent for Le Pen. From then on, the gap between rich and poor also marked a political boundary. One of Macron’s challenges is to narrow this gap.
His speech on election night was unusually short and modest. He knows that many of his countrymen voted for him “not to support my ideas, but to build a dam against the extreme right”. He thanked them: “I am aware that your choice obliges me in the next few years.” He did not say what this obliges him to do. But it is obvious that there will be high expectations, especially on the left, that the French welfare system will take its time in adapting to international competitive pressure.
According to Sopra-Steria, 42 percent of voters for left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon voted for Macron, 17 percent for Le Pen Migration in favor of Macron is even clearer at 53 percent. 18 percent of their voters voted for Le Pen in the second ballot. Green candidate Yannick Jadot (4.6 percent) voted 65 percent for Macron and 6 percent for Le Pen.
Gradually raising the retirement age from 62 to 65 remains a highly explosive proposition. Many French people refuse, as Macron suggested, to “work more”. Economics and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire spoke of a “nice victory” on Monday. At the same time he admitted on the radio station France Info that he could not rule out that the pension reform would be enforced with Article 49.3. Article 49.3 is the “manslaughter article” of parliamentary democracy. It allows the government to link the vote of confidence to a bill without a parliamentary debate and thus get it through. Part of the controversial labor market reform was decided in this way. The fact that Le Maire is already not counting on winning a majority for the pension reform in an open parliamentary vote says a lot about the condition of the election winners.
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