Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: French Elections 2017

Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in France between April and June 2017. François Hollande, the Socialist incumbent, did not seek reelection. The Atlantic Sentinel endorsed the liberal Emmanuel Macron, who defeated the far-right Marine Le Pen with 66 against 34 percent support. His party won a majority of 350 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly.

  • After Landslide, Macron’s Challenge Lies in Forgotten France

    Emmanuel Macron
    Emmanuel Macron arrives at the Elysée Palace in Paris for his inauguration as president of France, May 14 (Elysée/Nathalie Bauer)

    French president Emmanuel Macron has won a comfortable majority for his centrist party, La République En Marche!, but low turnout points to the difficult task ahead: convincing the less prosperous half of France to give him a chance.

    An estimated 43 percent of voters turned out in the second round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, an historic low.

    Macron’s victory was in little doubt, which may be why so many left- and right-wing voters chose to stay home.

    The once-mighty Socialist and Republican parties were decimated. They are projected to win 49 and 125 out of 577 seats, respectively, against 355 for Macron.

    The far left and far right lack the mass appeal needed to prevail in France’s two-round voting system. (more…)

  • Macron Projected to Win Comfortable Majority in France

    French parliament Paris
    Night falls on the Bourbon Palace, seat of the French National Assembly, in Paris, June 8, 2007 (J.R. Rosenberg)

    France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, is projected to win a comfortable majority for his centrist party, La République en March, in the legislative elections this weekend and next.

    Most polls have En Marche hovering north of 30 percent support for the first voting round on Sunday.

    The center-right Republicans are in second place with around 20 percent support, followed by the far-right National Front at 18 percent. (more…)

  • After Presidential Defeat, French Parties Divided

    Neither of France’s two major political parties was able to get their candidate into the second voting round of the presidential election last week. That failure, without precedent in the history of the Fifth Republic, has plunged them both into a deep crisis.

    The situation is worst in the Socialist Party, which has lost the presidency and is almost certain to lose its majority in the National Assembly next month.

    The party’s failed candidate, Benoît Hamon, has announced the start of a new left-wing “movement” despite winning just over 6 percent support in the first presidential voting round.

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who placed fourth with 20 percent support, has called on Hamon to join him.

    The two leftists failed to do a deal during the presidential contest. Two things have changed: Hamon may no longer feel he owes loyalty to a party that failed to unite behind him and Mélenchon has lost the backing of the French Communist Party. It is fielding candidates against his La France insoumise in the legislative elections in June, splitting the far-left vote. (more…)

  • French System Encourages Temporary, Not Permanent, Polarization

    French parliament Paris
    Night falls on the Bourbon Palace, seat of the French National Assembly, in Paris, June 8, 2007 (J.R. Rosenberg)

    Matt Yglesias of Vox points out on Twitter:

    You see in Trump vs Le Pen once again that authoritarian nationalist movements only win with the support of the establishment right.

    There are two particular reasons why this may be the case. (more…)

  • British See French Election Through Prism of Own Politics

    London England
    Skyline of London, England, June 13, 2016 (Unsplash/Fred Moon)

    While we in United Kingdom do not have a vote in today’s presidential runoff, the election in France has dominated conversation and news. Which is somewhat remarkable, given the state of Britain’s own politics.

    Despite this unusual attention for a French election, the British do not appear to have a strong preference for either Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen.

    One or two years ago, the choice would have been simpler. Macron stands for a liberalism that is familiar to Britons: he advocates free trade, privatization, deregulation and cuts to bureaucracy and welfare. David Cameron won the 2015 election on just such a platform. Macron would have been the favorite.

    But much has happened in the last few years. Britain’s imminent departure from the European Union has changed everything. Le Pen is seen as part of the same populist backlash that prompted a majority of British voters to support Brexit last year. (more…)

  • Emmanuel Macron Wins Election in France

    • Emmanuel Macron, France’s former economy minister, has defeated far-right leader Marine Le Pen with 66 to 34 percent support.
    • Macron is slated to be inaugurated as the eighth president of the Fifth Republic next week. He will serve a five-year term.
    • His next test will come in June, when France holds parliamentary elections. Macron’s centrist En Marche! has no seats in the National Assembly. (more…)

  • France Likely to Dial Down Relations with Qatar After Election

    The cozy relationship enjoyed between France and Qatar may come to an end after the election on Sunday. Both Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have bashed the Persian Gulf state on the campaign trail.

    “I will put an end to the agreements that favor Qatar in France,” Macron, the frontrunner, said last month. “I think there was a lot of complacencies, during Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term in particular.”

    Sarkozy, a conservative, intensified cooperation with Qatar. His left-wing successor, François Hollande, did not reverse the policy.

    Macron, a former economy minister under Hollande, has pledged to demand that Western allies in the Middle East, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, show a “new transparency as to their role in financing or other actions regarding terrorist groups that are our enemies.” (more…)

  • Mélenchon Supporters Could Make Same Mistake as American Left

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon
    Jean-Luc Mélenchon makes a speech in the European Parliament in Brussels, November 11, 2015 (European Parliament)

    Supporters of the far-left presidential candidate in France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, are about to make the same mistake as some of Bernie Sanders’ supporters when they sat out the most recent election in the United States.

    Of those who backed Mélenchon in the first voting round last month, only 29 percent intend to support Emmanuel Macron, the center-left candidate who defeated him, a survey has found. (more…)

  • French Presidential Election Reveals Divided Nation

    Paris France
    Night falls on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in downtown Paris, France, March 13, 2011 (Flickr/Aeror)

    The first round of the French presidential election on Sunday laid bare many of the same cleavages that have opened up in other Western democracies recently.

    Emmanuel Macron, the centrist former economy minister and the favorite to prevail in the second voting round in May, drew most of his support from the big cities and the prosperous west of the country.

    Marine Le Pen, the leader of the nativist National Front, came in second overall but placed first across the economically depressed north of France and in the socially conservative southeast.

    Five years ago, Le Pen split support in those areas with the mainstream conservative candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, whereas the Socialist Party’s François Hollande triumphed in the cities and the west. (more…)

  • French National Front Could Emerge Stronger from Defeat

    Marine Le Pen
    French National Front leader Marine Le Pen listens to a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, July 1, 2014 (Wikimedia Commons/Claude Truong-Ngoc)

    From a European point of view, the French have avoided the nightmare outcome of a presidential runoff between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen. But Europe’s political elite should not celebrate too soon.

    It is more than probable that Emmanuel Macron will beat Le Pen in the second voting round, yet this might be the best possible outcome for the leader of the National Front.

    As Donald Trump is discovering in America, it is often more fun to be the populist outsider than to be in power. A President Le Pen would have limited scope for causing foreign-policy chaos, but, with a massive majority against her in the National Assembly, she would have little prospect of delivering on her electoral promises. Her administration would almost certainly end in failure and the Front National would once again be relegated to the fringes of French politics. (more…)

  • French Parties Collapse as Voters Flock to Blue and Red Extremes

    Paris France
    View of Paris, France from Montmartre, October 2, 2016 (Unsplash/Colin Maynard)

    Three of the top four contenders in the French presidential election on Sunday come from outside the country’s two major political parties. The Socialists’ Benoît Hamon isn’t even in contention anymore while the Republicans’ François Fillon may not qualify for the runoff in May.

    The frontrunner, Emmanuel Macron, left the Socialist Party last year to start his own progressive movement.

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen lead the far left and the far right, respectively, which have so far played a minor role in French politics.

    Their popularity says more about voters’ disillusionment in the two-party system than it does about their own appeal. (more…)

  • France Eyes Macron-Le Pen Runoff After First Voting Round

    • The French voted in the first round of their presidential election on Sunday.
    • The centrist Emmanuel Macron placed first with 24 percent support, followed by nationalist party leader Marine Le Pen at 21 percent.
    • The center-right François Fillon, the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the ruling Socialist Party’s Benoît Hamon were eliminated from the contest.
    • A runoff between Macron and Le Pen is scheduled for May 7.
    • Surveys have Macron ahead by 20 to 30 points. (more…)

  • Jean-Luc Mélenchon Is Not the French Bernie Sanders

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon
    Jean-Luc Mélenchon makes a speech in the European Parliament in Brussels, November 11, 2015 (European Parliament)

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s late surge in the French presidential election has invited comparison with the unexpected success of Bernie Sanders in last year’s Democratic primary in the United States.

    The comparison is not altogether off in the sense that Mélenchon’s rise is largely due to the unpopularity of technocratic socialism under the incumbent president, François Hollande. Sanders’ candidacy similarly reflected a disillusionment in the centrist incrementalism of Hillary Clinton.

    But there is no comparing the policies of the French candidate, who is backed by the Communist Party, to those of the senator from Vermont, whose views would be mainstream in France. (more…)

  • Elect Macron to Move France Forward

    Emmanuel Macron
    Former French economy minister Emmanuel Macron changes his tie on a train, December 31, 2016 (En Marche!)

    For once, the French are spoilt for choice.

    Their presidential elections used to be a battle for the center between the mainstream left and the mainstream right. Now there are five candidates with a reasonable chance of qualifying for the second voting round in May, including a big-government socialist, a small-government conservative, a nationalist of the left and a nationalist of the right.

    Our sympathies lie with the fifth man in the middle: Emmanuel Macron. Comfortable with neither the statist inclinations of the Socialist Party nor the social conservatism of the Republicans, he launched his own progressive movement last year for the rejuvenation of France. It represents the best alternative to the anti-globalism of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen. (more…)

  • Another Anti-EU and Anti-NATO Candidate Rises in France

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon
    Jean-Luc Mélenchon makes a speech in the European Parliament in Brussels, November 11, 2015 (European Parliament)

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France’s far-left presidential candidate, has pulled within striking distance of qualifying for the second voting round in May.

    Mélenchon shares third place with the center-right Republican candidate, François Fillon, in recent polls.

    But whereas Fillon’s support has been stable for months, Mélenchon’s has surged from a low of 12 percent a few weeks ago to just under 20 percent today.

    The centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-left Marine Le Pen are still in the lead with around 23 percent support each. (more…)