Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

The French unwilling willingness

Éloi Laurent 11th April 2022

The renewed polarisation between Macron and Le Pen in the presidential election conceals a pas de deux.

France,presidential election,Le Pen,Macron,Mélenchon
Déjà vu—the second round will be a rerun of the 2017 presidential duel (Radu Razvan / shutterstock.com)

For the last 20 years, French politics has been an unforgiving puzzle, whereby democratic votes result in neoliberal and xenophobic policies the French say they resent. Sunday’s presidential election first round is no different.

The clear winner, the incumbent Emmanuel Macron, is offering an even harsher version of his ‘progressive’ agenda, pushing forward with the dismantling of the social model the French overwhelmingly support, starting with a financially unnecessary and grossly unfair reform of the public pension system. The other finalist, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, is offering a rhetorically softer than before yet still relentlessly racist and authoritarian platform, using ‘national preference’ as a discriminatory weapon against ethnic minorities in all public spaces. This would be contrary both to the French constitution and its social fabric: 20 per cent of the population is immigrant or of immigrant descent.

Sorry state

There are at least three possible explanations for this sorry, and paradoxical, state of affairs. The first is that Covid-19 fatigue has frozen the political landscape and prevented a true debate on Macron’s mandate and record. After all, the two participants in the second round are the same as in 2017, with essentially no new ideas. And all emerging figures, including from the once-dominant political families, have been hammered: the Socialist Anne Hidalgo and Valérie Pecresse on the centre right were humiliated.

The second explanation is that polarising media, increasingly owned by a handful of oligarchs, have managed to divert the campaign from the real concerns of the population. The amount of attention and airtime devoted to the far-right radical Eric Zemmour—who ended with a meagre 7 per cent—before Russia’s aggression on Ukraine effectively ended his campaign is a sign of an increasingly dysfunctional democracy. Hence the disconnect between aspirations and outcomes.

The third explanation is that the enduring strength of Macron and Le Pen comes from an objective alliance: their political offers are in fact not substitutes but rather complements. On the one hand, Macron embodies the culmination of neoliberal ideology: he is a an elite public servant using the state to attack the social model, dismantling unemployment benefits, weakening public services (education and health), outsourcing key policies including national defence to consulting giants and so on. But by convincing a large chunk of the population that the social model is about to collapse, he has breathed life into a social-xenophobic ideology, which aims at reserving the remaining social protection for the ‘good’ French and protecting the welfare state from undeserving ‘foreign’ profiteers. Social xenophobia is the monster child of neoliberalism.

Conversely, neoliberalism needs a credible threat to impose unpopular reforms and the truly frightening far right happily fits the bill. This odd couple of 21st-century French politics has nothing good to offer: Le Pen pretends to fight insecurity by waging civil war while Macron pretends to embody rationality by breaking the backbone of the French economy. Oh, and neither has anything substantial to say about the climate crisis nor biodiversity and ecosystems destruction, which in France as elsewhere is visibly degrading human wellbeing.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



Social-ecological bloc

Fortunately, Sunday’s results carry a promise amid a sea of disappointment and anger—the constitution of a social-ecological bloc, able to counter neoliberalism and social xenophobia. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran politician who parted ways with the Socialist Party decades ago over the European project, has reinvented himself as an ‘eco-socialist’.

His programme, widely recognised to be the most structured and consistent in this political cycle, has the goal of ‘building a mutual aid society with the aim of achieving harmony among human beings and with nature’. He has put forward bold ideas such as ‘ecological planning’ and the ‘green rule’, whereby not more should be taken from nature than can be replenished. Reaching 22 per cent, he fell short by 500,000 votes (out of 35 million) of beating Le Pen and qualifying for the second round, which takes place on April 24th.

While there has been a lot of talk, and time wasted, over the last two years on left unification, Mélenchon has managed de facto to bring together social issues and ecological challenges and proved this social-ecological alternative to be politically viable by winning the support of a large part of the French population. He should now display the wisdom of Moses and let a new generation cross the Jordan river.

For the time being, the French puzzle remains: Macron will win and the French will waste no time voicing their discontent about their enduring unwilling willingness.

Éloi Laurent
Éloi Laurent

Éloi Laurent (eloi.laurent@sciencespo.fr) is a senior research fellow at OFCE, the Centre for Economic Research at Sciences Po in Paris, and a professor in its School of Management and Innovation. He is author of The New Environmental Economics: Sustainability and Justice (Polity Press).

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834dafae1dc3 2 EU’s New Fiscal Rules: Balancing Budgets with Green and Digital AmbitionsPhilipp Heimberger
u42198346d1f0048 1 The Dangerous Metaphor of Unemployment “Scarring”Tom Boland and Ray Griffin
u4219834675 4ff1 998a 404323c89144 1 Why Progressive Governments Keep Failing — And How to Finally Win Back VotersMariana Mazzucato
u42198346ec 111f 473a 80ad b5d0688fffe9 1 A Transatlantic Reckoning: Why Europe Needs a New Pact Beyond Defence SpendingChristophe Sente
u4219834671f 3 Trade Unions Resist EU Bid to Weaken Corporate Sustainability LawsSocial Europe

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp