Gilles Lermet has had enough: enough of spending his life working for forty-five years; enough of this endless political duel between the left and the right in France, which is about to be played out again in the presidential election in April; enough of the cars set on fire by criminals; enough of the shortage of doctors, the decline of public services, and immigration.
“There are too many migrants”, he says, standing behind the counter of his bar, in La Ricamarie, in the industrial valley of Ondaine, near Saint-Étienne. “It’s not that they take our jobs, because there aren’t any jobs. The real problem is that we have to pay for them”, he adds, echoing the complaints of the French far right.
Here in La Ricamarie, people live with poverty, unemployment and dilapidated housing left over from the closure of coal mines and factories since the 1970s. This is precisely the kind of post-industrial town where President Emmanuel Macron and the other representatives of the political establishment on the left as well as on the right arouse contempt.
Today, all the polls give Macron the winner. Still, given the resentment of the Parisian elite in towns like La Ricamarie, its victory is unlikely to appease the anger of French society – the very anger that gave birth to the movement of “yellow vests”. Nor will it disarm the extremities of the political spectrum, which are surfing on this discontent.
The President, War and Abstention
Since the end of February and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron has taken an even further lead in the polls. The conflict indeed grants Macron the status of warlord, as he regularly talks with Putin in order to find diplomatic solutions. Moreover, the political issues that Macron’s campaigning opponents are pushing – immigration, especially Muslim, and crime – suddenly seem less important when European cities are thus besieged and ransacked by Russian troops. and that millions of Ukrainian civilians seek refuge with their EU neighbours.
Moreover, the diversion created by the conflict gives the incumbent president an excuse not to debate with his rivals on questions of economic and social policy, or the rising cost of living. However, this risks reinforcing the already widespread impression that Macron is an arrogant man, a thousand leagues from the concerns of ordinary French people.
The fact is that many citizens simply think they will abstain in this election; according to polling institutes, about a third of French people do not intend to go to the polls. If so, the abstention rate would reach a record high. This could undermine Macron’s legitimacy over the next five years, despite France’s relatively strong economic performance since taking office.
If the abstention is strong and the candidates of the extremes achieve a good score, France will remain one of the great fields where the world battle between “liberal internationalism” and the forces of nationalism and populism is being played. These same forces that triggered Brexit in the United Kingdom, catapulted Donald Trump to the White House in the United States and installed “strong men” in power from Brazil to the Philippines.
Liberal democracy hangs by a thread
In today’s France, which still passes for a high place of liberal democracy, liberal democracy hangs by a thread. And a victory for Macron would mask this reality, believes Julian Jackson, British historian and biographer of Charles de Gaulle. He recalls that, in France, the far right entered the post-war political scene in the 1980s and that it has continued to gain ground ever since.
“Macron is holding on, but for how much longer? The problem is that if he is re-elected, it will be for lack of anything better. There will be no tidal waves like last time.”
In 2017, La Ricamarie’s 4,800 voters contributed little to Macron’s triumphant victory – which promised a government “neither right nor left”. In the first round, they shunned the center to give their vote to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen, who came in first and second position respectively.
In his bistro in the main square of La Ricamarie, Gilles Lermet does not hide his preference for Marine Le Pen and his National Rally. It’s been thirty-six