Le Pen - Macron 2: Electric Bugaloo
Poppin' 'n lockin' their way through a 2-week campaign to see who ends up in the presidential palace for the next 5 years.
We are now coming to the end of the inartfully named period in French politics known as The Between Two Rounds (l'entre-deux-tours). Honestly, after all these years someone couldn’t come up with a phrase just a touch less literal and a bit more creative?
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the sequel to Le Pen-Macron 2017 has not lived up to the original. This is no Godfather II, or even Rocky II for that matter. Storylines and characters are being recycled and it seems like everyone is just going through the motions.
Take the student protestors. They dusted off the Ni Macron, Ni Le Pen slogan from 2017 and staged some half-hearted protests perhaps just to say that they did. This is France and the only time to be really worried about the country is if someone, somewhere isn’t protesting something.
Perhaps the only touch of originality here came from the satiric newspaper Le Canard Enchainé:
In terms of campaign messages, the two candidates have generally been trying to smooth down the rougher edges of their policy platforms. Macron hinted that he might not try to push the retirement age all the way to 65 (from 62), and indeed might be willing to negotiate details of the plan.
Meanwhile, Le Pen insisted her views on the veil are fluid in an attempt to seem a touch less racist than she is. Her goal in this campaign is to appear to be a kinder, gentler fascist. As one supporter, former Miss France Delphine Wespiser had the misfortune to put it on national TV, Le Pen is like the mother of all French people (une maman des Français). Or at least the ones with the right skin tone who were born in the right place.
Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left candidate who finished a surprisingly strong third in the first round, is trying to make the most of his moral victory by claiming the mantle of Dear Leader Of The Left. With many of his followers still threatening to abstain from voting, Melenchon is positioned as a kind of kingmaker.
Following the presidential vote on Sunday, we move into the prologue for the legislative elections. Historically, the party of the winning presidential candidate wins a majority in the National Assembly, but there is nothing structurally that guarantees that.
So the vanquished on the left and right are scrambling to organize coalitions that could get a majority against either Macron or Le Pen. In the case of Melenchon, much of his support came from last-minute votes on the left rallying to his side knowing he was the only chance to see a left candidate in the second round. It was less about Melenchon, who is widely disliked personally (even on the left) though he remains defiantly unaware of this.
So, in typical Melenchon fashion, he has invited the French to elect him “prime minister” by putting him at the head of a majority legislative coalition. This is not a thing, by the way. The president appoints the prime minister. But Melenchon chews the scenery like no other French politician.
Of course, before they are accorded the honor of joining a left coalition led by Melenchon, the losers from the Greens and Socialist Party must meet his conditions. Those start with publicly apologizing for all the nasty things they have said publicly about him in the past and for leaving his party out of previous anti-Le Pen coalitions, according to a letter obtained by Le Monde. “For this, you must commit to stopping the attacks. We believe that you must explain yourself to the voters, who believed what you said,” reads the letter. Not a magnanimous start.
Once they are done groveling, they simply must swear fealty to Melenchon’s platform. Only then will they be allowed to get on bended knee and kiss his ring.
Meanwhile, attempts by the writers’ room to introduce plot twits have mostly fallen flat. For instance, the EU issued a report accusing Le Pen’s nationalist party in the European Parliament of misusing public funds for personal expenses. Shocking, but the original version of Le Pen - Macron featured the same accusations in 2017! This is the laziest of plotting and the writers should be fired.
Fortunately, amid the uninspiring slog toward the second-round vote, we have been treated to some moments of comic relief by internet meme generators who were no doubt called in to punch up the lackluster script.
Thanks to Macron’s official photographer, we got to view this glorious shot of a Macron who is more hairy-chested than anyone could have ever guessed. I’m guessing he’s playing to the Marseille vote.
Macron is also more like Michael Scott than anyone would have guessed.
The Main Event
All of this lack of drama built up to the obligatory debate between Le Pen and Macron on Wednesday night. Starting at 9 p.m. (giving the candidates time to eat a proper meal and finish their digestif, I suppose), the debate lasted +2.5 hours (!!!!). For whatever their foibles and relative shortcomings, as an American in France, it is remarkably impressive to see two humans engaged in this marathon of exchanges and discussions of policy in such eye-melting detail.
In terms of format, there were theoretically 2 moderators, Léa Salamé and Gilles Bouleau. But as happened in 2017, they were cast aside and forgotten for the most part as the two candidates just barrelled through.
In 2017, Le Pen basically self-immolated during the debate as Macron calmly marshaled an army of facts from his Wikipedia-like brain to make his points while she frantically shuffled through papers to find her talking points. Le Pen has since called this one of her greatest failures, and she won’t get many arguments. So the bar for the rematch was remarkably low: Don’t set herself on fire on national television.
By all accounts, Le Pen cleared that bar, appearing better prepared and less frenzied. Macron still had a deeper grasp of policy details, though he frequently interrupted Le Pen and displayed a touch of arrogance at times. Honestly, he could barely hide his disdain for her, finding 1,000 different ways to condescendingly pronounce Madame Le Pen, Muhdammme Le Pen, M’daaaame Le Pen, Madame Luhh Pennnn…And his facial expressions will keep meme-makers busy for years to come.
Macron also dropped some Old School French Vocabulary bombs on Le Pen, using the word “ripoliner” (to put a lacquer finish on something to make it appear shinier) to describe her political makeover, and “rabougrissement” (to diminish the standing of one thing compared to another) to highlight her attempts to critique his record in office, and “outrecuidance” (to be overconfident in one’s self) to attack her attacks on his policies. He also dropped a reference to an old-time French magician, Gérard Majax.
All these phrases had the French googling their brains out trying to understand WTF their president was saying.
For her part, Le Pen came prepared to defend herself against criticism that she was too cozy with Putin and not sufficiently supportive of Ukraine…with a tweet she printed out from five years ago. It is for people like this, by the way, that you still see at the bottom of some emails admonishments to save trees and the environment by not printing out the email you are reading.
In the end, polls gave a clear edge to Macron.
At the very least, Le Pen didn’t seem to do anything that would change the momentum of the campaign. And since the first round, that momentum has slowly but steadily been going against her. One poll on the night of the first vote put her at 51-49 behind Macron, within spitting distance. Others put it closer to 53-47. But each day, Marcon has been gaining .5 points or so and many aggregate poll trackers have him at almost 56-44.
Because the entire planet has PTSD following Trump and Brexit, no one is going to feel any relief until the vote is counted on Sunday. And even assuming Macron wins, he becomes a lame duck (limited to 2 terms). And as noted above, the legislative elections await on June 12 and 19. So 2 months of scrambling and campaigning to see if Macron can regain a majority, is forced into a coalition or faces a majority led by an opposing party. Pick your flavor of chaos.
And then, we mercifully get a well-deserved break until local elections in 2026, and regional and presidential elections in 2027.
