According to the Global Network report, late at night on April 24, local time, the results of the 2022 French presidential election were officially released, and the current president Macron defeated the far-right party candidate Marina Le Pen with 58.5% of the vote and successfully won re-election. This is the first French president to be re-elected in 20 years since the 2002 French presidential election. In 2002, Chirac, then president of France, defeated Le Pen Sr. to win re-election; in 2007 Sarkozy was elected president of France; in 2012 Sarkozy lost to socialist Hollande in his re-election campaign and was not re-elected; in 2017, because Oflande's domestic support plummeted, Hollande gave up his search for re-election, and Macron won the election.
The 2022 French presidential election is a rematch of the 2017 French presidential election, and Macron and Le Pen are once again running for the presidency. However, this election is more intense than the 2017 presidential election, Macron and Le Pen have shuttled around the country in two weeks to solicit votes, and the results of the 2022 French presidential election have conveyed many important messages.
1. Macron won not easily
Although Macron beat Le Pen with 58.5% of the vote, it was a sharp decline compared to the 66% of the vote in 2017, which also highlighted the fierceness of the 2022 French presidential election. At the time of the victory announcement, Macron's supporters gathered at the Champ de Mars under the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, but it is worth noting that the celebration was significantly low-key compared to macron's 2017 victory. Although Macron won 58.5% of the vote this time, this foundation is based on the helpless choice made by the majority of voters who are more disapproval of Le Pen, and they adhere to a "lesser of two evils" principle in macron and Le Pen's final election. In fact, this French presidential election is not a voter who really likes and supports Macron to defeat the voters who support Le Pen, but the French voters who hate Le Pen defeat the French voters who like Le Pen.
Left-wing voters who can't identify with Macron or Le Pen are bitter about Sunday's choice. Some reluctantly came to the polling station, only to stop Le Pen and cast a helpless vote for Macron. Stephanie David, a logistics transport worker who supported Méron-starring in the first round of the campaign, said in an interview with The Associated Press: "It's the worst option, I'm not against Macron, but I can't stand him." Marianne Abrey, who voted in Paris, voted for Macron, said it was just to avoid a government in France where fascism and racism mingled.
In his victory speech under the Eiffel Tower, Macron also acknowledged that "countless" voters voted for him only to keep out radical nationalism , the far-right Le Pen , promising to reunite the country " full of doubts and divisions " , and said his second term would not be a continuation of his first term, but a fresh start he would commit to solving all of France's current problems.
In addition, according to the French Ministry of the Interior, the voting abstention rate in this election is 28%, the highest number of vote abstentions since 2002.
2. There is a temporary sigh of relief for the whole of Europe
After the results of the French presidential runoff, if the victor Macron was the most excited, then it was Europe. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: "Democracy wins, Europe wins." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media: "Together we will push France and Europe forward." Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called Macron's victory "good news for europe as a whole" and would propel the EU to be the protagonist of the war in Ukraine, the biggest challenge of the era.
In the past, Le Pen has always advocated the withdrawal from NATO, the European Union and the eurozone, although in this election, Le Pen has downplayed these remarks, but the entire West is very uneasy about the Euroscepticism and far-right remarks rooted in Le Pen's heart, especially Le Pen's relationship with Putin and the previous frequent overtures to Russia, which have made Europe more vigilant in the context of the current war in Ukraine.
Macron, on the other hand, is clearly different. Over the past 5 years in office, Macron has proven himself to be a pro-European leader, and macron has continued to push for Europe's strategic and defensive autonomy, calling himself "a president who believes in Europe" and seeing the EU as a way for France to become stronger in the global world. This 2022 French presidential election means Europe can breathe a sigh of relief over the next 5 years.
But Europe is only temporarily relaxing, and from the fierce election of the French presidential election and Le Pen's nearly 41.45% approval rating, it can be seen that this anti-EU, anti-Western sentiment is still very active in France, the eu's most important member state.
3. Le Pen is not a complete loser, she is very close to the Elysee Palace
Although Le Pen ultimately lost to Macron in the April 24 final, 41.45% of the vote and more than 12 million people supported her closer than ever to the Elysee Palace. In 2002, Le Pen's father, Le Pen the Elder, received less than 20% of the support when he challenged then-President Chirac; when Le Pen ran for the French presidential election in 2012, she failed to break through the first round of the election; in 2017, Le Pen broke into the final election and lost Macron with 34% of the vote; this election, breaking the 40% threshold is unprecedented for the French far right. Le Pen called her result a "shining victory" and said " In this defeat, I can't help but feel a sense of hope." ”
If you refer to Le Pen's candidacy, you will find that she is approaching the Elysee Palace step by step. Compared with Macron's 58.5% vote, most of the 41.45% of the votes are really supported by Le Pen from the bottom of her heart, which can be described as her basic set. And Le Pen also found a correct campaign strategy in this campaign, she gradually diluted her previous controversial speech policy, focusing on the economic field of common concern of French voters, and encouraged by this breakthrough of the 40% threshold, Le Pen is likely to continue to run in 5 years.
4. The competition is not over, and all parties are actively preparing for the election of the National Assembly
Speaking to supporters gathered in a pavilion in the Boulogne Forest in western Paris after the defeat, Le Pen said the match was not over and that this glorious victory would put her party in a "strong position" in the parliamentary elections in June.
There is no doubt that the French National Assembly in June will be a new challenge period, and this parliamentary election will be a better platform for voters to express their views, unlike the French presidential run-off, which can only choose one or the other. France's far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemor, who was eliminated in the first round of the election, hinted at a potential coalition that could further strengthen Le Pen's party, calling for the formation of a "patriotic bloc" that would unite him and Le Pen's supporters. The French left-wing representative Mélang-jong, who was out of the first round of the election, is also sharpening his knife and preparing for the June National Assembly elections, and according to the proportion of votes in the first round of the election, the far-left and far-right candidates won more than 57% of the vote. This also somehow hints that the June campaign for the National Assembly will be more intense. Although the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic has enhanced the powers of the president, parliament still holds the legislative power of the country, and Macron's elections in the National Assembly in June are still crucial if he is to push for change in the next five years.
5. The collapse of traditional mainstream politics in France and the rise of far-right or far-left ideologies have become a trend
The 2022 French general election marks the downfall of the two parties that have dominated politics in the French Fifth Republic since 1958, the center-right Charles de Gaulle party and the center-left Socialist Party, and there is currently only a single, loose pro-European centrist bloc left in France, with high support for the far right and far left indicating that anti-globalization, anti-EU, anti-immigrant nationalist and protectionist forces are exploding. Since 1958, the political scene of the French Fifth Republic has been dominated by the center-right Charles de Gaulle Party and the center-left Socialist Party in turn, but since the 2017 election, this has changed, the far right and the far left are rising rapidly, it shows the strong dissatisfaction of the French people with the status quo, a strong disappointment in traditional politics, although macron's successful re-election has given France and Europe a 5-year buffer time, but if combined with Trump's victory in 2016, The successful re-election of Hungary's Orbán in 2022 will show that the trend of globalization and populism is constantly expanding, and the traditional mainstream politics of the West may have reached a bottleneck.
So while Macron won the 2022 French presidential election and Europe rejoiced, the crisis is not over, and an even bigger crisis may be yet to come.