Although Emmanuel Macron now seems to be the likely winner against Marine Le Pen, there are still many uncertainties in the French election race, writes Anne-Elisabeth Moutet.
French politics has never been this fun – or this hard to keep up with. Back in January, everyone was bemoaning the shambles of the Left. Meanwhile, uncharacteristically, the Right seemed to have their act together. That was then, this is now.
Eight weeks ago, the political satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné revealed that Mrs Fillon had received more than half a million euros over 12 years, without ever being seen in the corridors of the Assemblée Nationale. The effect of all of this on François Fillon’s poll numbers was disastrous. His clear lead vanished overnight. The Right had no Plan B and seven weeks after making an enviable show of competence running a well-attended primary with uncontested results, they were back to has-been, terminally uncool, unelectable status.
To outside observers, Fillon’s vow to fight on is incomprehensible. To his core voters, though, his cry that he was being “politically assassinated” is believable. Whether the Fillon affair came as a complete surprise or not to Emmanuel Macron, his belief was that it worked to his benefit. Others are not so sure. Fillon has raged against the judges, but also the media, changing the tenor of what had until then been a civilised race into the angry tones heard during the campaign that elected Donald Trump. A sizeable minority of Fillon’s core voters could very well find themselves so enraged that they might brave the shibboleths and do the unthinkable – and vote Le Pen, feeling that their candidate was unfairly done in by dirty tricks.
Worrisome too for Macron is that some of Le Pen’s voters are reluctant to tell pollsters they support her. The commitment of those who do is unwavering: 81 per cent of them say their vote will not change between now and polling day. By contrast, Macron’s voters are the least committed: only 38 per cent avow their vote cannot change.
And here we come to Macron’s fundamental problem. He is, officially, no party’s candidate, even though he was a minister in a Socialist Cabinet. He is not a card-carrying Socialist and you don’t need to be an MP to become a minister. He is loathed by part of the Socialist base — now reduced in numbers but more radical — for his Macron Bill, which allowed for mild deregulation of labour and company taxes.
Right-wing voters see a man supported by a third of Hollande’s government and a lot of Mitterrand-era luminaries. That said the likelihood, at state of play right now, is that Macron will defeat Marine Le Pen. But given the unpredictability of the race so far, it is still anyone’s guess who will make it to the Élysée.
Anne-Elisabeth Moutet is a columnist for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and a frequent contributor to the BBC and the Weekly Standard. She is also a regular guest on France Info radio and BFM News television and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Gatestone Institute.
Published in April 2017