Waiting For Le Pen
As the 2022 campaign begins, I've been thinking about 2017 when I had the thankless job of keeping vigil at Marine Le Pen's election night reception.
For the second round of France’s presidential vote on May 7, 2017, I flew to Paris for the Los Angeles Times. The idea was to scope out the mood of voters across the city. I was tasked with the duty of attending the evening reception for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen who polls insisted was almost certain to lose to Emmanuel Macron. Still, the duel shocks of Brexit and Trump’s election were fresh, and so everyone’s stomach was in knots, fearing the unexpected.
After the joyless hour-long train ride from the airport, I arrived in the city center to begin hunting voters.
Naturally, it was raining.
Voting is held on Sundays, so the morning was quiet. The French are not early risers as a rule, and then there is church, and then the marché. On top of that, this was a holiday weekend because the following Monday, May 8, celebrated the official announcement that the Germans had been defeated in World War II. On top of unthinkable amounts of vacation, France recognizes 11 national holidays. There are three in May alone making it rare that there is a week when kids are in school all five days, leaving parents to silently curse the month. As such, the Paris streets were fairly subdued under grey skies and gave little hint of the drama unfolding across the country that was being so closely watched around the world.
A voting station near the Paris City Hall was largely deserted through the morning and lunch hour. Julien Landel, the first assistant mayor of the 4th Arrondissement, and the director of this voting station told me requests for "procuration," which lets someone else cast a ballot in their name, were up 40 percent this time compared to the first round two weeks ago. No need to choose between national duty and vacation! He expected turnout out to be a bit down from the first round when voters chose between 11 candidates. "People were more mobilized to come out and support their candidate," he said. "Now more people are feeling disappointed and that there is not a choice for them."
Standing outside the voting bureau, Joël, who declined to give her last name, was a cultural event planner who backed the conservative François Fillon in the first round. She voted for Macron today. But for her, it was more motivated by a fear of Le Pen than a sign of support for Macron. "It's an obligatory choice," she said. "Abstaining was not a choice because we risk letting Le Pen get into power. And that would be a disaster for France, for Europe, for the whole world."
Still, she said she was already looking forward to the legislative elections the following month, where she hoped the Republican Party could be more successful, and at least create a situation where Macron's power would be limited by a divided government. While Americans are accustomed to such divided governments, in France this is referred to “co-habitation” and only rarely happens. Joël said she’d be watching to see how Macron reacts should he win. But she echoed many of his critics who felt he had a tendency to come off as arrogant and elitist. "Well, he chose the Louvre (Museum) for his assembly tonight," Joël said. "He could have gathered people at the Bastille, a real symbol of a revolution. The Louvre, that's a symbol of royalty. What does that say about him?"
By contrast, Anaïs Hegron, who worked in the fashion industry, was feeling a bit more optimistic after voting for Macron, whom she also backed in the first round. Hegron, a supporter of the Socialist Party, said her first vote for Macron was a strategic one as it became clear the Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon had no chance to survive the first round. She was waiting to see if Macron wins, and if so, if the Socialist Party could regroup and mount a credible challenge in the legislative elections. For now, she felt the most critical issue was blocking Le Pen's path to power. "Never Le Pen," she said. "Never."
In the city center, Macron’s camp was indeed planning a massive celebration at the Louvre, which another Times colleague had been tasked to cover. Eventually, I made my way to the southeast Parisian neighborhood of Saint-Mandé, which is adjacent to the Bois de Vincennes, a sumptuous 2,500-acre park that is the city’s largest. The park is home to Chalet du Lac restaurant, the former hunting lodge of Emperor Napoleon III. That’s where preparations were underway throughout the day by Le Pen's camp for an election evening reception of 500 people.
If there was possibly a moment that my rapprochement with Paris began, it was on this day strolling around Saint-Mandé. Lying just outside the périphérique, it felt like a village within the city. I remember texting my wife that this was perhaps the first place in Paris that I had visited where I could imagine living, should such a fate befall us. This despite the incessant drizzling and the hive of activity as international journalists packed the surrounding roads in anticipation of Le Pen's arrival later in the evening.
As the sun set and the light dimmed, attendees began navigating the intense security. During the campaign, Le Pen and her people had taken on a combative attitude toward the press, often ejecting or banning journalists from events. That sparring continued election night, with the Le Pen campaign choosing this small location that couldn’t accommodate most journalists who arrived and found themselves stuck outside, including me. Several campaign officials had verbal sparring matches with journalists furious about not being allowed inside. Eventually the scene outside devolved into journalists interviewing other journalists about the situation, the saddest of all media spectacles.
Finally, at 8 p.m. the results were announced. Macron won handily with 66.10 % against Le Pen’s 33.9%.
Surprisingly, the atmosphere at Le Pen’s reception was far from the feel of a funeral one might expect for a candidate that had been so badly beaten. Inside, Le Pen hugged and kissed supporters, who cheered and waved the blue flowers that symbolized the Front National. Videos of her dancing floated around social media. Outside, supporters said that while they were disappointed with the result, they still felt proud that Le Pen had come so far against a system they considered to be stacked against them. Several supporters said they felt the political establishment, the media, and many religious institutions were aligned against her and were responsible for distorting her positions and labeling her a “fascist” with no evidence to support the claim.
They also made clear that they felt this was the beginning of her movement, and far from the end. They pointed to the looming legislative elections the following month and said they felt optimistic about the future of the Front National Party under Le Pen. As he entered the Le Pen party, an older man named Jean-François Perier said he still supported her and felt she had run a strong campaign, despite criticism that sometimes came even from the right. “Am I disappointed? Yes,” he said. “But she is still the best voice to challenge the EU.”
Following her concession speech, supporter Jean Messiha, an economist at Paris’ Science Po university and a top campaign advisor, said Le Pen and the Front National had overcome tremendous odds. “We ran against the country’s political system,” he said. “And now the Front National is the primary opposition party in the country.”
Attendees included some faces that may have seemed surprising, including Roula Talj, 45, of Lebanon. Talj said she met Le Pen a few years ago through friends and felt they shared mutual positions regarding terrorism and the treatment of women in the Middle East. She couldn’t vote for Le Pen, but she wanted to be there to cheer her on. “We have both been on the front line in the war against terror,” she said.
Anne Lavernier D’Havernel, a short, elderly woman from Brittany, walked out of the event carrying her blue flower, the party’s symbol, and a smile. Saying the FN had “lost the battle, but not the war,” she said the press and the establishment had misrepresented people like herself, who had hosted refugees at her home and believed in respecting all races and countries. By the same measure, she felt that many new immigrants were not respecting France’s culture and that the country needed someone like Le Pen to protect its culture and value. “France is the most welcoming country in the world,” she said. “But when someone comes to your house and sleeps on your couch, they have to respect the rules of your house.”
Across town, the images at Macron’s event were even more joyful. Music blasted from the stage as a relatively young crowd danced through the night. They were his unabashed fans, many of them overjoyed that Macron, their candidate, the candidate of entrepreneurs and the future, had triumphed. The candidate himself arrived as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the European Union anthem, blasted from the speakers. “What we have done for the last many months has no precedent or equivalent,” Macron said in a sober address to the crowd. “Everyone said it was not possible, but they didn’t know France.”
Macron’s rivals may have been beaten, but they were already gearing up for the National Assembly elections the following month. Each party believed this would be their chance to put Macron in his place and begin their comeback. Giving them some hope was the record abstention of 25.4% of all voters, in the second-round vote, a staggeringly high level for France. It seemed to leave open the possibility that Macron’s critics would dog him for the five years to come with accusations of illegitimacy. And because they were sure En Marche!, the party Macron had created the previous year, was a paper tiger, a vehicle solely for Macron’s ego, he probably wouldn’t even be able to round up the hundreds of candidates he would need to gain a majority in the Assembly.
It was a bad misreading of what En Marche had become, how deep its roots had already spread across the country. In just a couple of weeks, the party, now called La Republique En Marche had registered 511 candidates to run in 577 Assembly races. The candidates were split evenly between men and women, many coming from outside politics having never worked for the government or run for office, and about 15 years younger on average than members of the current Assembly.
Over two rounds of voting, candidates loyal to Macron won 350 seats, a historic majority of about 60% of all seats. Les Republicans managed to gain about 19% of the seats but would largely be powerless. As for France Unbowed, the Socialist Party, the Front National, they were virtually smashed out of existence at the national level.
Four years later, the Socialist Party still seems lost in the woods as France’s left remains divided. The Republicans are having a hard time carving out an identity distinct from Macron’s LREM. Instead, polls are pointing to another Le Pen - Macron rematch, with many polls showing Macron just barely beating her in a second-round vote.
This week, Le Pen was on BFM TV for 2 hours, answering questions about her plans and campaign and doing her best to look like someone who was electable:
“I think I will win the presidential election,” Le Pen said. “It is my immense responsibility to reassure the French. The French have heard a lot about me, often things wrong, often a cartoonish description. I have one year left to explain what I intend to do. I want them to be reassured because I deeply believe that the project I am carrying is not only reasonable, but it is a project which will give back meaning to politics, and above all which will connect to the French people.”
So the year before the 2022 presidential vote will be a long one. But about the only prediction from that 2017 election night that seemed on target was the one about her future. At this moment, her support and prospects seem stronger than ever.