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France's Future Course Hangs In Balance Of Presidential Election

Pete Baumgartner May 06, 2017

French voters will choose a new president on May 7 in a runoff that could determine whether their country embraces its status as a leading member of the European Union or sets it on the path to a "Frexit."

Centrist Emmanuel Macron (say Mah-kro) has campaigned on a pro-EU platform while anti-immigration nationalist Marine Le Pen wants France to leave the EU and abandon the euro currency.

The election is the culmination of a polarizing campaign in which Le Pen, 48, has portrayed Macron, 39, as an elitist who is soft on Islamic fundamentalism and other potential threats to her vision of the French state.

"Le Pen's only strategy is to harm Macron, to paint [him] as a globalist candidate whose political approach and policies are dangerous for France," Martin Michelot, deputy director of the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, told RFE/RL.

Macron has enjoyed a lead in opinion polls since the first round of the presidential election on April 23, with the former investment banker holding a 62 percent to 38 percent lead over his rival in the polls on May 5 -- the last day of campaigning.

"As a matter of fact, the polls haven't moved that much, which indicates the fact that Marine Le Pen has never been able to...impose her themes in the campaign,... the themes that would carry voters towards her," Michelot said.

Macron called Le Pen "the high priestess of fear" at a fiery May 3 debate between the candidates in Paris that the daily Le Monde labeled "brutal" and "violent from start to finish."

Accused of being overly emotional during the debate, Le Pen told RTL radio that "my words were nothing but the reflection of the anger that will explode in this country."

Macron countered: "Madame Le Pen speaks for no one. Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred."

Le Pen, the head of the National Front party founded by her father, has advocated abandoning the euro for the French franc, saying the euro is "the currency of bankers, it's not the people's currency."

Macron called his opponent's euro policy "the big nonsense of Marine Le Pen's program."

While differing on almost every domestic policy, the two candidates also have very divergent views on foreign policy.

"Le Pen would want to have a much closer cooperation with Russia on fighting terrorism in the Middle East and also...would reopen lines of political negotiation with Iran which, for example, goes completely counter to the goals of the United States...[and] could lead to a clash with the United States and President [Donald] Trump," said Michelot.

"[She] would want to take France out of NATO's military command and she would largely put an end to the French military operations in Africa."

Macron's foreign policy would largely be a continuation of the course set by current President Francois Hollande, a Socialist in whose government Macron served as economy minister from 2014-16.

"Macron is a politician who has never in his career dealt with [foreign policy] issues...so you can expect lots of predictability on the Macron team," Michelot said, ticking off a list of EU points of emphasis vis-à-vis security and Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine and continuing support of separatists there prompted Western sanctions: "the same strong position on Russia, the importance of respecting the Minsk agreements, on not recognizing the illegal annexation of Crimea," and a strong commitment to NATO.

He added that if Le Pen wins the election, "you would have a France that is more shriveled up on itself...which would largely take France outside the liberal world order in which Macron believes."

Since the first round of the election -- in which Macron edged Le Pen by 24 percent to 21.3 percent -- the leader of the Forward! (En Marche!) political party has accused Russia of meddling in his election campaign with cyberattacks and has refused to accredit Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik, accusing them of issuing fake news stories.

Moscow has rejected accusations of interfering in the election campaign, as it has rejected similar charges out of Berlin and Washington.

Le Pen, whose National Front party received a multimillion-dollar loan from a Russian bank in 2014, has defended Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and has met several times with Russian President Vladimir Putin -- most recently in Moscow in late March.

Macron has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of French politicians, many European leaders, and by former U.S. President Barack Obama.

Though claiming not to have endorsed her, Trump has called Le Pen the "strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France."

Polls showed some 18 percent of French voters were still undecided in the days leading up to the May 7 election.

On May 5, dozens of students protested outside of 10 high schools in Paris, holding signs that read, "Neither Le Pen nor Macron, neither the fatherland nor the boss," a reference to the nationalist stances of Le Pen and the pro-business Macron.

The French president is elected to a five-year term. There are nearly 48 million eligible voters and turnout is expected to be high, as 77.8 percent of the voters cast ballots in the first round.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/france-presidential- election-macron-lepen/28471903.html

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France's Future Course Hangs In Balance Of Presidential Election