'Things are serious': Update on the French Presidential Election

Details: Published on Monday, 01 May 2017 22:45; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1406 .... May 2, 2017
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'Things are serious':
Update on the French Presidential Election

Stefan Kipfer

"C’est grave," (things are serious) said the monsieur who sells me the papers every morning. A resident of Mantes-la-Jolie (a working class town at the western edge of the Paris region), he laments a lack of clarity on the dangers of the Front National (FN) not only among colleagues and neighbours but also parties and politicians.

The situation in France is indeed serious. A week before the second-round vote, Marine Le Pen has made progress in the polls but still trails Emmanuel Macron by a margin of about 18 per cent. However, analysts have pointed out that mass abstention could bring her within winning range. There is no need to be alarmist to... make a sober observation: a defeat of Le Pen is not a foregone conclusion.

As we speak, a number of dynamics favourable to Le Pen are unfolding. In 2002, father Le Pen's presence in the second round of the Presidential election produced a ground swell of anti-FN mass mobilization. As I write these lines, days after a round of high school student street protests against Le Pen and Macron, and hours before the May Day marches, no such mobilizations have happened so far. There are a number of reasons for this.