Shortly before the second round of the presidential election which gave victory to Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the [Premier ministre] Portuguese António Costa and the [chef du gouvernement espagnol] Pedro Sánchez made an unusual appeal to French voters. “The choice facing the French people is crucial for France and for all of us in Europe”, they wrote in a column published on April 21 by the daily The world [Courrier international fait partie du groupe Le Monde].
They did not name Macron or Marine Le Pen, confining themselves to recalling that it was a choice “crucial” in between “a democratic candidate, who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union, and a far-right candidate, who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy”.
The polls granted five years of relative respite for European freedom and democracy, while a victory for Marine Le Pen would have created a shock wave, with consequences much heavier than Brexit. In her program, the candidate of the National Rally (RN) proposed not only to break the Franco-German axis, the cornerstone of the EU, but also, among other promises, to regain lost national sovereignty, to introduce controls at the borders in the Schengen area and to develop bilateral alliances, in particular with Eastern European and preferably Eurosceptic countries, such as Hungary and Poland.
The Franco-German inertia issue
In Germany, the European partner that most demonized Le Pen in his race for the Élysée, Macron’s victory in the second round seemed certain. The election campaign went almost unnoticed in the media [d’outre-Rhin], focused on the war in Ukraine and the adjustments to which this conflict has forced a government coalition in power for barely four months. We have even forgotten how important it is to be able to count on a Europeanist France for the “change of time” announced by Scholz and to tackle the Ukrainian crisis.
Franco-French friendship
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Source of the article
The world (Madrid)Founded in 1989, “Le Monde” has always claimed the model of American-style investigative journalism, although it sometimes tends to favor sensationalism, to the detriment of serious information. Its editorial line leans on the conservative side.
The world acquired its reputation by revealing and denouncing all the scandals of the last years of government of Felipe González (1993-1996). The title now belongs to the Italian media group RCS MediaGroup (Corriere della Sera).
The newspaper’s site offers a host of services, including Metrópoli, a leisure guide to the Spanish capital, Madrid. It also has a travel and tourism section called Viajes. The content of the paper version is accessible on the online platform Orbyt.
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