A chance for the European Union. And a concern for France, more divided than ever. Since Sunday April 24, the analyzes of the foreign press have converged after the re-election of Emmanuel Macron. “You would have to be damn cynical not to be relieved”, recognizes Nadia Pantel in the Southgerman newspaper. “Its failure would have been a catastrophe for France and for Europe”, writes the Paris correspondent of the German daily.
Against the background of the war in Ukraine, the result of the French presidential election was particularly awaited abroad. “The ballot boxes 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”, writes the Spanish daily The world.
Behind this general satisfaction, the foreign press does not hide its skepticism as to the state of France and the French people, and the room for maneuver of the re-elected president for the next five years. How to govern? Emmanuel Macron, president hated as rarely, can he continue as before? To reinvent oneself ? The first round of the election showed a deeply divided France, and it is these divisions that he will have to tackle. “Macron imposes himself in a fractured France”, advance The Newspaper of Spain. In The weather, Richard Werly, evokes, him, “a political achievement [du président sortant] in a country fractured by anger and shaken like many Western democracies by a strong wind of degagism”. But everything has to be rebuilt.
“How can France, a founding country of the EU and one of its pillars, stop playing the future of Europe at Russian roulette every five years?” wonders Politico. By restoring substance to democratic life, pleads the site in Brussels.
“Such an unrepresentative Assembly in fact feeds extra-parliamentary opposition and regular protest movements in the streets. Conversely, it discourages the search for consensus between democratic groups and negotiation between social partners.”
So everything has to be reinvented. This requires the introduction of a proportional dose, “a transformation of the legislative elections, and the creation of a sort of citizens’ assembly responsible for examining questions of society or of a constitutional order on which the government must act”, advance Politico like so many tracks for the re-elected president.
Will it be able to adapt and hear the calls to evolve on these issues? It will be necessary. As explained by Southgerman newspaper : “Macron got a second chance as the results of the first round show that his policy does not convince even a third of the French people. He owes his second mandate to people on the left, who, despite their anger towards him, did not throw the values of the Republic in the trash.”
This is the whole paradox of this election. For many headlines in the foreign press, the presidential election is a victory for Marine Le Pen, as she seems to be completing her normalization strategy. Until you can claim victory in 2027? There is a risk, explains the Flemish financial daily The time, because the evil is deep and Macron bears part of the responsibility:
“In five years, public confidence has fallen to its lowest point. The president will have all the trouble in the world to restore confidence. If he fails to do so, the chances of victory for the far right will be even greater in 2027 than this year.”
But, for the UK’s conservative British weekly The Spectator, it is on the contrary the radical left which could create the surprise in 2027. Unless Emmanuel Macron gives a helm to the left from the start of his five-year term.
How to situate oneself between the weight of the extreme right and the dynamics of rebellious France on the left? How to reconcile a priori irreconcilable positions? This is the whole question and the challenge of the campaign for the legislative elections of June 12 and 19, the famous third round towards which all eyes are now turned. Can the Republic on the move become a great rallying party capable of“welcome defectors coming from the right and the republican left”, as expected The time ? Nothing is less sure.