Five years on,
Le Pen became a headache for Macron
Number one opponent.
Author: Xu Ye
Editor: Rui Su Lingyun
In 2017, the 39-year-old Macron was full of vigor and took his wife's hand and ascended to the throne of the French president.
Fast forward five years, and the election is here again.
On April 11, local time, the results of the first round of voting in the general election were released. The top 2 candidates received 27.85% of the votes: the current president Macron, 27.85%, and the candidate of the far-right "National Union" Marina Le Pen, 23.15%.
Old rivals meet in a narrow way.
Five years ago, Macron had a clear advantage over Le Pen; however, it is difficult to say who will die in the second round of voting.
But apparently, Le Pen has become the number one contender for Macron's headache.
Make Macron regret preparing too late
A month ago, many people felt that Macron's re-election was basically "stable".
At that time, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict had just broken out, and affected by the "flag gathering effect" (referring to the rapid increase in the poll support rate of the head of state in the event of a major crisis), his support rate rose significantly, once more than 10 percentage points ahead of le Pen, who ranked second.
However, this advantage did not last. As election day approached, his approval ratings fell, while Le Pen's approval ratings climbed.
What exactly did Le Pen do during these critical 30+days?
Perhaps it can be summed up in eight words: focus on the domestic people's livelihood economy.
As we all know, after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the prices of energy and food in European countries have risen, and the cost of living of the people has increased a lot.
At this time, Le Pen stood up and said: If I come to power, I will reduce the value-added tax on fuel, gas and electricity from the current 20% to 5.5%; if the company raises the minimum wage for employees by 10%, it can enjoy tax relief; and provide a monthly relief of 150-200 euros per family...
Regardless of whether this is a blank cheque, there are always voters who will be moved to hear it.
Le Pen casts his ballot at a polling station on April 10. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
When canvassing, Le Pen did not forget to step on Macron twice:
"If purchasing power issues are bothering you right now, it's because the politicians of the past made you poor, broke public accounts, and left our children in debt for a long time."
"If Macron had made the country richer, we wouldn't be talking about purchasing power today."
Meanwhile, what is Macron doing?
He is busy dealing with the Russian-Ukrainian crisis -
On February 25, he announced that France would impose sanctions on Russia;
On February 28, he spoke to the President of Russia and Ukraine.
On March 7, the leaders of the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom held a video call;
On March 12, he had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Schoelz;
On March 13, he had phone calls with U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Zelenskiy;
On March 18, 22, and 29, he spoke to Putin on several occasions.
In the meantime, he also sent a set of his own "haggard photos of work", and as a result, the French not only did not buy it, but also complained that he was "overstated".
Macron's "gaunt work photos".
Former US President Clinton once famously said during the campaign: "Stupid, the problem is the economy." ”
For the French, although they are concerned about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, they are more concerned about their own lives.
Macron has been on the international diplomatic scene, rarely participating in domestic election rallies, and even absent from the presidential candidate's live televised debates, which naturally allowed Le Pen to seize the opportunity to make a big fuss.
Not to mention that Le Pen came prepared and began to prepare for the election campaign, and Macron officially announced his candidacy the day before the election registration deadline.
Some criticized him for being "overconfident" and others complained that he was ill-prepared. On April 8, Macron also realized the problem, regretting that his campaign had started too late.
Macron attends campaign rallies.
Somewhat surprisingly, Americans are also anxious.
The American Political News Network called Le Pen a "Putin supporter" and quoted three senior Biden administration officials as saying that Washington feared that Le Pen's election might shake the "Western anti-Russian alliance" and even make other NATO leaders retreat.
On the eve of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Le Pen expressed "understanding" of Putin's various methods, believing that the United States and the West should "integrate Russia into Europe" rather than "push Russia to China", saying that this is the "biggest danger".
After the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, although she alienated Putin to a certain extent, AMERICAN politicians were still "uneasy" about her.
Of course, it's too early to say anything. On April 24, she and Macron will have a final showdown.
He expelled his father from the party
Le Pen, 54, is an old face in politics.
Her father was Jean-Marie Le Pen Sr. (Jean-Marie Le Pen), the former president of France's far-right national party.
Le Pen Sr. and his daughters, the left one is Le Pen.
Le Pen the Elder had a bad reputation in France and was dubbed the "Demon of the Republic" by the mainstream media. He has frequently made discriminatory remarks against women, and has been ambiguous about the crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II, even saying that "the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews only a small part of history."
Just as the so-called curse comes out of the mouth, the extreme remarks of the old Le Pen have caused trouble -
Late one night in 1976, someone put 5 kilograms of explosives on the steps outside his apartment, and the explosion nearly cut the apartment building in half.
Bombed apartment buildings.
The explosion caused no casualties, but it had a huge impact on Le Pen, who was only 8 years old at the time.
Afterwards, the children listened to their parents and stopped playing with her, and the school teachers did not hide their dislike for her father.
She later wrote in her autobiography: "It was at that age of playing with dolls that I began to realize something that was both terrible and incomprehensible to me: my father would not be treated equally compared to everyone else; so would I, and we were all family." As members of the Le Pen family, we will never be treated like normal people. ”
Some media believe that this explosion marks Le Pen's "political awakening".
Le Pen. (Source: Xinhua Net)
At the age of 15, Le Pen encountered another obstacle in her life - after her parents separated, her mother eloped with the person who wrote her father's biography.
The divorce lawsuit that followed was even more ugly, and her mother exploded that her father was a Nazi admirer and secretly called Hitler "uncle". In order to humiliate her father, her mother also shot a very large cover for the French version of Playboy...
These things made Le Pen very painful.
Old Le Pen had the heart to cultivate his daughter, so he took her with him and participated in various activities. He said the Le Pen family tradition was that "politics is thicker than blood."
Under such an education, Le Pen slowly grew into a "ruthless man": he joined the National Front at the age of 18, obtained a lawyer's license at the age of 24, took charge of the party's legal affairs at the age of 30, and became the executive vice chairman of the National Front at the age of 35.
Le Pen (center) was a lawyer for a time.
In 2011, Le Pen, 43, took over the staff of the President of the National Front from his father, 82.
She wanted to lead the National Front into the mainstream of politics, but her old father had been less at ease.
In a radio interview in 2015, Le Pen Sr. said that the Holocaust of Jews in Nazi Germany and the gas chambers in concentration camps were only "a detail of history", causing another uproar.
This time, Le Pen was not polite and directly expelled his father from the party.
The elder Le Pen was angry and went to the hospital, scolding his daughter for being a "traitor" and "stabbing her in the back", "worse" than other political enemies. He also asked his daughter not to follow his last name.
Le Pen (infographic).
However, the British "Guardian" said: The break between father and daughter actually began as early as September 2014, when the old Le Pen's Doberman dog bit Le Pen's cat, and then Le Pen moved out of the family mansion.
Whatever the cause, after Le Pen expelled his father from the party, the two did drift apart, ignoring each other for several years and speaking only through intermediaries.
He has run for election three times in 10 years
Le Pen has participated in three French elections in the last 10 years.
The first time was in 2012, when "newmen came down the road" and had a lot of twists and turns.
According to the regulations, presidential candidates must be supported by the signatures of 500 elected representatives from at least 30 regions and confirmed by the French Constitutional Council before they can run. It wasn't easy for Le Pen at the time, and it wasn't until three days before the deadline that she gathered 500 signatures.
But in the end, she ended her campaign trip with a "round trip".
Le Pen. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Five years later, Le Pen launched another assault on the presidency.
The national front's slogan was "In the name of the people", and its new symbol was a blue rose appearing on the horizon. Le Pen said the meaning of the blue rose is to "make the impossible possible."
She tried to convince voters that she was different from le Pen Sr. But no matter how carefully packaged, she actually inherited her father's political genes, and also emphasized "French first", anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and anti-globalization.
In a speech, she said: "If the Nazis during World War II were an occupation, then we can now also call this situation [Muslims gathering in the streets] an occupation." Although there were no tanks and no soldiers, it was still an occupation that placed great psychological strain on the native French. ”
Le Pen. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Le Pen has always had a far-right label on his body.
As early as a 2015 poll, many people thought she was "a parochial female politician", and some even called her a "female devil". Even within the National Front, there are not a few people who hold this view.
Because of this, at the time of the 2017 election, no French bank was willing to lend her money as campaign funds. She publicly "cried poverty", saying she would seek funding from foreign banks, but denied receiving financial support from the Russian side.
That time, Le Pen walked to the second round against Macron, who ran for the first time.
In the end, Macron won 66.1% of the vote, almost twice as many as Le Pen, and won a big victory, becoming the youngest president in French history.
Le Pen. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
In 2018, Le Pen renamed the National Front to the National Union in an attempt to attract more supporters in a relatively moderate manner.
Still, her position on issues such as immigration and economic nationalism has not changed. She still said she wanted to "save" France from globalization and reshape "economic sovereignty."
In February, she also said at a campaign rally that If she is successfully elected, France will withdraw from NATO.
After the first round of voting in this election, a number of presidential candidates, including Méroncheon, Yado, Roussel and Pécrés, expressed the hope that voters would "not vote for Le Pen" in the second round.
This scene is familiar.
In the 2002 French election, le Pen the elder unexpectedly "reached" the second round, dueling with then-President Jacques Chirac, and France and even the whole of Europe were shocked.
Half a month later, candidates from 14 political parties, including France's left, center, right and far left, called on supporters to vote for Chirac "for France." In the end, Chirac won 82.1% of the vote, and some media described the situation as "shocking".
Next, will Macron become "the first French president to win re-election in nearly 20 years", or Le Pen will become "the first female president in French history"?
The answer may still be variable.
But what remains unchanged is that whoever comes to power will face many challenges at home and abroad. The real test is yet to come.
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