Insights from Time, Jacobin, Politico and The Financial Times
The news
French president Emmanuel Macron warned on Monday that a far-left or far-right victory in the country’s upcoming elections could trigger a “civil war”, with both Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally accused of stoking sectarian tensions.
Left and right leaders condemned Macron’s comments, saying they reflected political desperation. His centrist alliance Ensemble is currently trailing in the polls, behind the left-wing National Popular Front and the right-wing National Rally.
SIGNALS
Macron’s attempts to confront the far right may have backfired
If the National Rally wins the French elections, this could prove “destructive‘ for the post-war liberal world order, argued Politico’s John Lichfield. The National Rally has largely “cosmetically cleansed” itself of its more extreme ideological roots, but remains sympathetic to Russia, hostile to NATO and deeply xenophobic, Lichfield said. Macron may share some blame: Macron had tried to defeat far right in its own game by adopting some of his talking points on immigration and multiculturalism, but instead he has “encouraged voters to take a chance on the real thing,” The Guardian wrote in a recent editorial.
Is there a third option?
Macron presents himself as the only alternative to the extreme right, but his own A quick election gamble may have revived the far left, argued a columnist in Time. Macron’s Ensemble party trails the left-wing New Popular Front in opinion polls, and France’s electoral system means most voters will choose between left-wing and far-right candidates, which completely ignores the ‘macronists’. That reality could offer a “glimmer of hope in a Europe traumatized by the unstoppable rise of the far right,” wrote a columnist in the left-wing magazine Jacobin. But the NPF and the National Rally have more in common than meets the eye: both promise “dangerous fantasy economies” that endanger the country’s EU obligations, the Financial Times noted.
