France matters

Emmanuel Macron's New Year

Victor Angelo

With this first day of the new year, the six-month French presidency of the European Union begins. Is it the time to make vows of renewal or to expect more of the same? For Emmanuel Macron, this should be an exceptional period, in many ways. In the coming months, two of his great ambitions will be at stake: being re-elected president of the French Republic and shaping the future of the European Union. For the moment, neither is guaranteed.

The easiest to achieve will perhaps be his re-election. There may be eight candidates in the presidential race, but what counts is the passage to the second round, and then, the decisive voters’ decision. In recent years, it was taken for granted that the final would be between Macron and Marine Le Pen, a kind of repeat of what happened five years ago. And that the French would once again say no to the far-right candidate. That would make Macron's victory almost certain.

But politics, in a society as socially fragmented as France's, has its surprises. In recent months, Éric Zemmour, a television commentator with xenophobic and radical nationalist views, and who has made the fight against Muslim immigration and influence his main hobbyhorse, has upset the game. His entry into the field has reduced Marine Le Pen's chances. And although the radical right as a whole represents around 30% of the national political opinion, the current prediction is that neither Le Pen nor Zemmour will be able to make it to the second round of the presidential race. They will neutralise each other.

If it happens, that will be good news for France, but sad news for Macron. Even worse for him, however, is the emergence of Valérie Pécresse as a centre-right candidate, by choice of the Les Républicains party, a grouping of conservatives of various shades that has its roots in the Gaullism of old. Pécresse, a former minister under Nicolas Sarkozy and currently president of the region that encompasses Paris, attracts the same kind of electorate as Macron. She is a woman who has a modern, elegant, and calm image that goes over relatively well on television.

As the left does not carry any weight in France today - the socialist candidate, Anne Hidalgo, is credited by the most recent polls with only 2%-3% of voting intentions - the big contest will occur in the centre as well as in winning, in the second round, a share of voters from the ultra-right.

It is in such a context that Macron will start leading the EU. The central theme he proposes for the period of the French presidency is the strengthening of European sovereignty. In his view, this objective should be based, as a priority, on stricter border controls in the Schengen area. By emphasising this issue, he aims to kill two birds with one stone: he addresses the concerns of leaders like Viktor Orbán - with whom he recently held talks in Budapest; and he captures votes on the right, and even the extreme right, as far as the electorate in his country is concerned. These voters are against anything that might appear to be easy on migration issues.

The second dimension, he tells us, would be based on what he calls "a Europe of defence", something pointed out as the other fundamental pillar of European sovereignty. A subject often mentioned by the French president, but which remains a vague issue that divides member states. It is also based on an outdated notion of international power projection, essentially based on military force. In the European case, what may effectively counts is the vitality and modernity of its economy and the quality of its democracy, combined with a diplomacy of peace, cooperation and conflict mediation. In saying this I do not wish to belittle the function of the European armed forces. But above all they must try to refocus their strategic and operational role within NATO. It is above all there that the defence of Europe begins, consolidating, within the organisation, a wider area of decision-making autonomy for European member states.

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper. Edition dated 31 December 2021)