No political system on earth sucks quite as much as the French one – which will end up crowning ‘king’ Macron
EVERYBODY thinks that their own political system sucks. But almost no system actually sucks quite like the French one.
In the French system the vote for President has not one, but two rounds.
The two candidates who win the most votes in the first round must go head-to-head in the second round.
In voting this weekend the current President, Emmanuel Macron, got almost 28per cent of the vote, while hard-right leader Marine Le Pen came in second place with just over 23per cent of the vote.
So they will both go through to the second round.
This means that millions of French voters are left without a candidate in the next vote.
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For instance, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the Jeremy Corbyn of French politics, got 22per cent of the vote.
So he doesn’t make the final round.
Which means that, right there, a fifth of the French electorate don’t have anyone they can vote for.
It turns out to be Groundhog Election Day again in French politics.
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When France went to the polls in 2017 voters ended up with Macron versus Le Pen in the final round.
On that occasion Macron easily trounced Le Pen with almost two thirds of the final vote tally.
Slow-forward five years and it is going to be Macron versus Le Pen again.
Which is precisely the run-off that Macron will have hoped for.
He had more interesting challengers this time.
In France the major parties of left and right diminished to almost nothing in recent years.
The main party of the right (the equivalent of our Conservative Party) didn’t even make five per cent of the vote this time.
Nor did the French equivalent of the Labour Party.
There has been a radical hollowing out at the centre of French politics.
The French right-wing author Eric Zemmour looked capable of upsetting the race at one point.
He produced a challenge to Macron from the right, but ended up with a respectable (but still not enough) seven per cent of the vote.
Macron would have hated to go against someone such as Zemmour, who is whip smart.
SINISTER FAMILY
Marine Le Pen, by contrast, will be a relatively easy challenge for Macron.
In French politics the Le Pen family has a sinister, dynastic grip.
Marine has done much to distance herself from her father, even expelling him from her party.
But the father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is the ogre of French politics.
His own views are laced with anti-Semitism and excuses for France’s role in World War Two.
He represents an ugly strain in French politics. But that strain will not die out with him.
It sits there still, and the fact that the party he founded always seems to have to be led by a member of his family — even one he has fallen out with — is troubling.
But it is fantastically helpful for the political left and political centrists such as Macron.
When Macron came into office five years ago he did so as a genuine populist.
He came through the centre of French politics, with a party of his own invention, La République En Marche.
So fast was his rise that he didn’t really even have a party structure or candidates in place until after he had won the election.
But he won the Presidency in part because he said he wanted to shake things up.
In particular he said he wanted to unleash the dynamism of France.
You might say it is because of events outside of his control like coronavirus and global price rises.
WEAK OPPOSITION
Or you might say it is because Macron’s game isn’t as good as his talk.
But nobody could honestly say that the five years in which Macron has been in office have done anything more than tread water for the country.
All the deep-seated economic and social issues that Macron promised to address remain.
Terrorist attacks have not stopped in the country.
There have been passionate, often violent, protests from the yellow-vest movement of forgotten workers.
And none of the issues raised have actually been solved by Macron.
He could have — and should have — had a serious reckoning this time at the polls.
But he won’t.
Far-left Melenchon has already told his voters not to transfer their votes to Le Pen in the next round.
And it looks almost certain that Macron will manage to get a lacklustre left and right to back him once more.
All because he will say that a vote for Le Pen is a vote for extremism.
Whether it is or not, he will almost certainly win that argument.
Because it is the most comfortable argument you can make in French politics.
He’ll win it again.
And all the while forget that he speaks for an ever smaller section of the French electorate. While ruling over them.
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You might have thought France got rid of its monarchical system centuries ago.
Not quite.