President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election is a welcome result for France, the EU, the western alliance and the cause of liberal democracy worldwide. On all four counts a victory for Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, would have been nothing short of disastrous. However, Macron’s second five-year term promises to be even harder than his first, which was marked by angry resistance to his domestic reforms, the pandemic and, in its closing months, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With his 58.5 to 41.5 per cent victory on Sunday over Le Pen, Macron became the first French president to secure re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002. It is a tribute to the political skills and administrative competence he has shown since 2017 that he did not lose the confidence of voters in the manner of Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, his immediate predecessors. In his first term, he achieved some notable successes that eluded them, such as reducing unemployment, passing well-designed pro-business measures and giving France a more dynamic and constructive role in EU affairs.
Yet Macron also owed his victory to the weaknesses of Le Pen and her superficially attractive but misguided and even dangerous plans. To a degree, her campaign’s emphasis on cost-of-living issues paid off. Her share of the vote was much the highest of any anti-establishment candidate since the Fifth Republic’s birth in 1958. She received her strongest support from voters between the ages of 25 and 59.