Le Pen Loses in French Regional Elections and That is Bad News for Macron

      It is a given in English academic and media coverage of France that the nation is poised to move hard right as voters disappointed with President Macron’s performance and opposed to the left or to left-overs from the party of Nicolas Sarkozy who faces a possible jail sentence over election finances turn to Marine Le Pen.

            A Guardian headline “Marine Le Pen poised to make gains in France’s regional elections” yesterday summed up the conventional London elite media view of France.

            But not for the first time the voters of Europe let down the London commentariat. According to French pollsters three out of four Le Pen voters who put her into the second round run-off with Macron in 2017 could not be bothered to turn out yesterday to lend her some support.

            Le Pen was hoping for a major boost from the regional elections and didn’t get it.

            68 per cent of French  voters stayed at home enjoying the eased lockdown restrictions especially the end of compulsory mask-wearing.

            The 13 regions of France are an artificial administrative structure with limited power. They are in charge of infrastructure spending, business support, cultural activities but purse strings are firmly controlled in Paris ministries.  Mayors of cities like Paris, Marseilles, or Lille have far more political status and power.

            Nonetheless the regions are the focus of  intense political competition and Marine Le Pen’s failure to make any gains is a set back for her party and hopes of ousting Macron next May.

            As Robert Menard, Mayor of Beziers, once on the left but who  campaigns against immigration and Islamism to keep control of his city told French radio the problem with Marine Le Pen is that there is no-one in her party who looks or sounds like a politician who can run anything.

            Under Le Pen the father and now Le Pen the daughter the Front national now renamed the National Rally though everyone still calls it the National Front there have only been three mobilising issues. Anti-immigrant racism; anti-European xenophobia; and rancid anti-Muslim hate with now and then an outbreak of anti-semitism which Jean Marie Le Pen made an NF stock in trade.

            Since Brexit, Marine Le Pen has dropped all calls to hold a referendum on the EU or to replace the Euro with the French franc. The French look at all the problems associated with Brexit since 2016 especially British citizens losing their right to live in France or the endless fishing wars and say “Non merci” to the idea of copying England.

            Many of the stars of French football, culture and on-screen TV personalities  have a North African Muslim background. Macron has been as tough on ideological Islamism and Islamist terrorism as anyone else including all centre-right politicians or François Hollande when he was socialist president of France.

            In short Marine Le Pen is running short of Unique Selling Points. The foetid, crude style of many of her associates are not seen as those France wants in her ministers.

            Does this spell good news for Macron? Not necessarily. His LREM party scored 11%, finishing bottom of all main parties in yesterday’s regional elections. But the last time they were held – 2015 – Macron was just an ex-banker who François Hollande had hired as an economics minister not realising he was taking a cuckoo into his nest.

            The LREM is Macron. It is a one-man movement not a party with a base in small towns, cities, regions and a network of supporters to get out votes.

            In a presidential contest Macron would see off Le Pen is she made it to the second round. But there is now a spring in the step for the main centre-right party, Les Républicains. Ex-Sarkozy ministers like Xavier Bertrand, Laurent Wauquiez, or Valerie Pecresse who head major regions all did well yesterday.

            They are all “Moi, Moi, Moi” politicians and getting them to stand down in  favour of a single LR candidate against Macron will not be easy.

            But if they can show some discipline and unity and dog-whistle  to Le Pen voters on identity and culture war issues the centre-right can be the vehicle to get rid of the hated liberal Europhile Macron and thus Le Pen may not get a far as the second round.

            In that case Macron while not quite being a croque monsieur will face a much tougher challenge. Many on the left, green politics, centrist-liberal voters who would support Macron against Le Pen will not be certain to vote against a traditional centre-right candidate.

            All French presidents since de Gaulle have lost the first election after their entry into the Elysée especially since the presidential term was reduced to 5 years. Macron has alienated too many centrist, liberal and the massed battalion of socialist and other left party voters who haven’t gone away. If Marine Le Pen is not in the second round of the presidential election next June stand by for a shock.