MACRON!!!!

The Meaning of Macron

A member of the Establishment brands himself as an outsider and wins an election. Does this sound familiar?

When Trump did it he was a lifelong member of the Democratic Party who engineered a take-over of the Republican Party to become President of the United States.  He sold himself as a populist, anti-Establishment outsider.

When Macron did it, it was as a former Socialist minister of the economy who branded himself a centralist, and who has ridden the coats of "En Marche!" which is a new party that he has created to victory.  He beat a despised outsider and populist in the first round of the French presidential election by ALSO branding himself as an anti-Establishment outsider.

So far, so good, but please consider carefully what just happened.

The French people just rejected the purported Establishment in a way that the Americans did not even come close when they elected Donald Trump. On Sunday, the French Republicans - conservatives, and the party of Chirac and Sarkozy - got less than 20% of the popular vote. The Socialists, who are in power now in the form of President François Hollande - got slightly over SIX percent of the popular vote! What just happened in France is absolutely unprecedented - it is the equivalent of a non-Democrat and non-Republican winning the US presidential election.

Macron is being sold as the salvation of Europe. In fact, his victory may turn out to be far more disturbing than Trump's. It signals that those who have run Europe's second most important country since the end of the Second World War are trusted by only slightly over 25% of the French population (...the most important country is, of course, Germany.) It also suggest that those people may support a brand new French policy regarding Europe.

And what may that new policy be?

Macron says he supports "sugar, and spice and all things nice". As a "free range" politician, not bound to any particular party or tradition, I suggest that he may be a complete wild-card, with a very strong French nationalist bias that no true Frenchman could oppose, especially as he will have to respond to Le Pen. He is from the Establishment, but he is not actually beholden to anyone.

The key issue here is obviously the future of the European Union. Marine Le Pen wants to take France out of the European Union in order to preserve the French nation outside of that organization. Macron wants France to stay in - but the price may be that Europe has to largely become the French nation in order for France to stay.

For example, Macron is on record complaining about Germany's unfair trade surplus within Europe. Questioning this is the equivalent of questioning what is almost Germany's entire rationale for being in the European Union - it is the equal of Trump's questioning of NAFTA. Pushing this issue can only lead to very significant tension between the two countries that are absolutely essential to the union itself. Those who expect "sunny ways and sunny days" from a President Macron may be in for a rude surprise.

Macron is also on record demanding a European Commissioner who would run Europe, the European Parliament and a common budget. That's all good and well, but did he implicitly mean that this person would obviously have to be a Frenchman? The French see the Germans as the economic power behind Europe, where they are the defacto political power behind it. Implicit in this is a very powerful French nationalism - in other words, an appreciation that Europe IS France. What if Macron represents, not a laissez faire attitude to European membership, but what may become a French power-grab within the Union as the obvious answer to its chaos, especially Greek bankruptcy and Brexit?

Finally, he is very liberal on immigration and the question of Muslims in France. But he has also clarified, on many occasions, that obedience to the law of the French Republic is not optional. In other words, you can be Muslim in your home, but when you are in public, you must be French! Implicit in this is a very deep chauvinism.

He has been compared to Napoleon by some Frenchmen. Would a Napoleon play second fiddle to anyone? Would a Napoleon not try to entirely dominate EVERY situation?

Demanding that Europe become France may be even more disturbing than demanding a Europe without France. As Le Pen rises in the polls in the next week with her rabidly pro-nationalist/anti-Establishment message, I think Macron will have to respond with some traditional French chauvinism of his own. Stay tuned...we are in entirely uncharted waters here.