La France comme prévu

 

Results are only partial as the moment I write this but the projections after the polls close in France have been very precise and no major surprises happen. As far as I know, people already accept the projections including Le Pen that has conceded, albeit considers a win the highest voting received by her party (the far-right that is now the less extreme).

This shouldn't have been a surprise, even though earlier polls suggested a closer election. But after the 1st round, where Macron got more votes than 5 years ago, to me it was much more likely. The next projections showed an increasing margin and the vote was clear. France stays in the same path and to me that is the best for us all; Le Pen would destabilise the EU and of course the current geopolitical situation in regards to the West stance on Russia and that to me could be catastrophic in some ways.

We cannot ignore that the result achieved by the far-right is the highest ever. Le Pen can claim a victory of sorts, but on the other hand the last years have been very tricky and divisive all over the world. After 2 years of the pandemic the society became more divided than ever, after that Europe was already facing a big raise of prices, brought forward by the mounting energy costs, and then Putin's Invasion happened that made things even worse.

Macron was already facing many issues and controversy in France even discounting the international crisis and Le Pen using the populist tactics so common in the far-right and other extremists took advantage of that. She also was no longer the "crazy" far-right candidate as there was an even crazier and extremist candidate further right from her. This candidate in a way normalised Le Pen, that tried to be more conventional than before. So I have absolutely no doubts that a big percentage of the votes she got were votes against Macron and not votes for her.

Compared to 5 years ago, she gained 7~8 percentual points on Macron and confirmed the predictions after the 1st round, that she had a bigger base to gain than in 2017. But I don't think this result signifies a shift to the far-right in France; I am convinced that in 2027 these parties or movementos will have a smaller result. Unless we have again some unparallel worldwide, or regional, crisis that again create lots of problems for everyone and will bring unpopularity to whoever is in charge in most of the countries.

And this is it! While I was writing this shorter than usual text, Macron made his victory speech and a new projection increased his percentage to close to 59%. I just want to clarify that there's a proper reason for me to keep a close attention at these elections: I was born in France, my parents lived there until 2015 and for many years of my life I considered France my secondary homeland.