Emmanuel Macron and the new political game

Emmanuel Macron: his and our challenges

Victor Ângelo

 

This Sunday and next Sunday the legislative elections are taking place in France. Emmanuel Macron needs a presidential majority in the next National Assembly. In other words, a victory for Ensemble, the coalition of centrist parties that supports him. Bearing in mind the fractures in France, the country's weight in European politics and economics, and the complexity of the international situation, I hope he can achieve this. But above all, because the alternative would be a coalition dominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a narcissistic lunatic and demagogue who proposes an unrealistic programme. Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale, Nupes, is the name of the amalgam that Mélenchon has managed to build, and which has more than three hundred candidates from his party in the elections. The other partners are there like sidekicks: a hundred ecologist candidates, sixty from the old Socialist Party, and fifty from the communists.

It is a coalition in which the extremists dictate the rules of the game and define the programme. The moderate left is limited to an opportunistic collage to try to avoid shipwreck and save a few seats in the National Assembly. Nupes is exactly the opposite of what has happened in Portugal in recent years. Here, the socialists handled the agenda, and the radicals were invited to clap, when necessary and without the exercise of executive power. If Mélenchon and his people got the parliamentary majority, France would enter a phase of populism that would lead to the explosion of public debt and end in bankruptcy. Note that at the moment, still far from the fanciful policies that Nupes proposes, the country already spends more than 60% of its GDP on public spending. With Mélenchon, the financial crisis would be followed by a political crisis, with serious repercussions in Europe, given the central role France plays in the EU.

I repeat: for the good of France and the peace of mind of those who believe in the European project, it is essential that the movement supporting Macron obtains an absolute majority. But as I have already said here, Macron has to be seen as a reformist close to popular concerns. That is a dimension that any leader has to project, in the complicated context in which we live.

On the external front, Macron's ambition is a mix that is not always easy to understand. It combines good intentions, a broad vision with nationalism and a lot of personal presumption.  On the one hand, he wants a more sovereign EU. On the other, he acts as if France and himself should take the lead in achieving that goal. It is obvious that he sees in António Costa an important ally. But it is also well known that he has recently created some resistance in Eastern Europe. The insistence on talks with Vladimir Putin and the ambiguity of his recent statements run counter to his dream of European leadership. Moreover, they must be seen in the context of a competition between Macron and Erdogan, for whom he harbours deep personal antipathy and total political mistrust.

The French election comes at a time when Europe needs to remain cohesive. And not just in relation to Vladimir Putin's Russia, although that is the most immediate challenge. Indeed, the EU has managed to preserve a good level of coherence in responding to Putin. I say this, but I also recognise that in the future it may be more complicated to maintain European unity. The sanctions packages approved so far are by and large the most appropriate. They combine immediate impacts with fundamental long-term consequences. They have some costs for us, but that is the price to pay for creating a new European order.

The big question, beyond sanctions, is to define what political role Europe can play in finding, as promptly as possible, a solution that guarantees the legitimate defence of Ukraine and recognises its sovereignty, its right to live in peace and to make its own political choices. This is where Macron and others must focus their foreign policy efforts. For now, nobody knows how this war will evolve and how it will be possible to find, urgently, before the situation slips even further, a just peace. And that is very worrying.

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper. Edition dated 10 June 2022)