Apr 24
Who Won the French Election? Democracy Did, And Fascism Didn't
What the French Election Really Means, And Why it Matters
Today, Macron — whew — won victory in the French Presidential elections. These are tough times. The far right is ascendant around the world. So much so that for a nation like France to elect a centrist candidate like Macron made the world — which feels like its on a razor's edge — sigh in sweet relief. Thank God for a little bit of sanity.
What does this victory really mean? If all you want to do is celebrate, go right ahead. If you want to think, though, read on.
American pundits are already — in their breathless style — painting this is a "crushing" blow. They seem to think — not knowing nearly enough about French or even global politics — that this was a death blow to the far right. It emphatically wasn't that.
What this was was a mixed victory. Let's put things in perspective — and this is going to be painful to hear if all you want to do is celebrate. The far right in France has doubled — or more — its share of the vote since 2002. Then, Jean Marie Le Pen — Marine's father — faced Jacque Chirac. Chirac won 82% of the vote, and Le Pen just 18%. That's a gap of more than 60%. French people famously took to the streets in 2002 chanting, "Vote for the Crook, not the Fascist."
Today, Macron won — but by a far, far smaller margin, just 10–20%.
So this is a mixed victory. Yes, Macron held the line. But the far right made shocking, stunning gains. It is now a mainstream political force. It wasn't that in 2002. The results of 2002 were a rejection of the far right — almost a mockery of it. But this is different. This is a legitimation of the far right. Enough of the French public counts it as a valid political force — not just a fringe minority.
When I say that the far right is ascendant around the globe, do I just mean that it "wins" everywhere? Of course not. The world is not homogeneous. What it means is that even in a country like France, the far right's vote has surged over the last few decades.
Why "even in a country like France"? Because France is one of the world's great social democracies. These are precisely the places where we should expect the far right to find the least footing — and footing last, too. France isn't America. America has no social protections — none. No public healthcare, retirement, affordable education, transport, media, at a national scale. It is therefore far, far more vulnerable to social collapse by way of demagogues. When hard times arise, then without social protections, people fall into poverty and despair — and scapegoat minorities.
Social democracies have far more protection from this vicious cycle of social collapse. That's not a coincidence. It's by design. What happened after World War II? Europe was rebuilt on the explicit idea that giving everyone a decent life, rich in public goods, would prevent precisely the death spiral of poverty and despair that set in in Weimar Germany, and led to Nazi Germany igniting World War II. The Marshall Plan literally was made for this purpose. That is why Europe's great social democracies offer people these generous social contracts — and ironically, America doesn't. The explicit idea of the modern social contract in nations like France is to defend against fascism.
What Macron's victory shows is that social democracy guardrails still work. For now. They're bent and battered, metal twisted out of shape. But still, they prevent society from going off the rails entirely. All those public goods — think of them. Education, media, transport, housing, income. What do they do? They protect against fascism. They keep people educated, aware, enlightened, informed, not completely desperate and ignorant and hopeless — at least enough of them to prevent a death spiral into fascism.
And yet the guardrails are battered and bruised — and buckling. That the far right has managed to halve the gap — or less — in just two decades, and go from a fringe minority to a legitimate political force tells us that the guardrails will not work forever. They will break, because they are breaking. The far right's potency isn't suddenly going to vanish — France is part of a larger trend, a far right planet, a world moving far right at incredible speed, and though it's a mature social democracy, and it has protection, thanks to the wisdom of the post-war age's brightest, most humane minds, that protection won't last forever.
All of that brings us to what this election really was. Who is Macron? Americans think of him without thinking at all. He's just…a guy. His politics are besides the point to American pundits.
There is a reason for that. Macron is an American style neoliberal, essentially. A little softer than Sarkozy before him — but in the same mold. His governance platform would be signed off on by every American pundit in DC — the same ones who made the Washington Consensus.
And there is a very, very big problem there, for Macron, and for France. Like the rest of the world, France is moving far right for a reason. Living standards are stagnant — and in decline amongst the working class. The middle class feels like it struggles. The lower stratum of society is losing hope and confidence and faith in institutions. Elites on the right, meanwhile, at least some of them, have discovered that demagoguery can be used to turn all this rage at scapegoats.
Macron's answer to all this is that he doesn't have an answer. He wants to effectively begin gutting France's generous public goods. Raising the retirement age, to begin with, then probably privatising the system, maybe moving on to healthcare, financializing what used to a rich set of goods owned by and for the public — it's a familiar enough formula, tried and tested in Britain and America among other places.
Do you see the problem here? These are precisely the guardrails set up to protect against fascism, at the end of the last World War, by the world's brightest minds.
Macron's paradox is this. Does he try to "fix" France's stagnant living standards and its declining social structure by gutting the very public goods which defend against fascism? It's a little bit like selling off the guardrails. Sure, then you have some money. And you can buy dinner for a week. But you also don't have…much protection left for tomorrow.
Do you see the problem? In the long run, this is no answer at all. It only makes things worse.
But so far, Macron doesn't have an answer to France's woes beyond this.
And that is why the French left gave him the cold shoulder. Turnout was historically low in this election. Young people were particularly tepid. That is because young people in France, who lean left, understand precisely the process I've described to you above, even if they don't know it. They have internalised it by living it. They understand through experience that the key to defeating fascism is a social contract rich in public goods, which promotes trust, confidence, investment, the common wealth. For them, to sell of the guardrails is no good at all — yes, it might buy you time, but only at the price of a having a functioning society tomorrow.
American pundits see this as a resounding victory for Macron — and a vindication of neoliberalism. It wasn't. It was a rejection of fascism. Much of France said to itself, holding its nose — well, if the choice is neoliberalism or fascism, we'll have to take the former, even if we don't like it. It's the lesser evil.
But make no mistake, this is no vindication of neoliberalism — turnout was low, enthusiasm was low, and Macron's side was badly, badly split, because many, many people in France understand that Macron has no real vision or agenda for the dilemma he now faces, and selling off, weakening, diluting the Fifth Republic's great institutions isn't much of an answer.
Now. I want to add a note of context. You might think all this is critical, but I don't mean it that way at all. France is one of the world's truly great societies. To be able to resist a tsunami of fascism that has literally drowned nations from America to Russia to China to India in rage and hate and stupidity — that is a major, major accomplishment.
It tells us something. That we should study and learn from France. What makes it such a successful society? Remember, that's relative. At this point, America, for example, would be lucky to have a voting population that was "just" 40% far right, as would Russia, China, and India, Turkey, Hungary, or many others. France is swimming and surviving in the tide of fascism that is drowning the world.
That is a major accomplishment, just to do that. We should all be looking at it and learning.
Learning what? That social democracy still works. It is the most successful political system in human history — you've often heard me say that. What just happened in France is stark evidence of it. This wasn't a victory for Macron or Le Pen. It was a victory for social democracy — as a political form.
Because it is still standing. On the one side, one candidate wants to openly destroy it with hate. On the other, one wants to slowly deconstruct it and sell it off. But there it is, still rising above them both. If anything, this election tells us that while the center is still shift far right, the principles and guardrails of social democracy still defend it. And it tells us, too, that there is only way out of this mess for Macron, which is to ally with the left, if he wants to govern, which is his next challenge, forming a parliamentary majority. In that sense — which is the crucial one — social democracy still works.
For now, at least, that is something very, very important, and to take heart in.
Umair
April 2022
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