Eurasia Group | Macron’s Presidential Victory: The Honeymoon Will Be Short
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Macron’s presidential victory: the honeymoon will be short

Eurasia Live
9 May 2017
Macron.on.victory.night_866x600 French President-elect Emmanuel Macron celebrates on the stage at his victory rally near the Louvre in Paris, France May 7, 2017. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
Emmanuel Macron has won the runoff of France's presidential election with 65 percent of the vote, beating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen by a slightly better-than-expected 30-point margin.
 
While many in Europe and around the world are breathing a sigh of relief, Macron's wide margin of victory doesn't tell the whole story. The rate of abstention (25.3 percent) is the highest France has seen in a presidential election since 1969. And Marine Le Pen nearly doubled the number of total votes received by her father in the second round of the 2002 election. 

A convincing victory but an unconvinced electorate

Macron has only been the clear favorite to win since he attracted the largest share of the first-round vote and his election marks a significant departure from past leaders. When elected, Macron's predecessors were all established politicians with a strong party base. The new President was propelled to national fame when he was named Economy Minister in 2014 without ever having served an elected mandate. His political movement “En Marche!” was founded just over one year ago and, excepting the presidency, does not have an elected official in any part of France.
 
Sunday's result shows that the “Republican Front” against Le Pen's FN still carries some weight, although it has frayed since her father made the runoff in 2002. While Le Pen's presence in the second round was long predicted, the biggest surprise of this election has been the humiliation of the center-right and the center-left candidates, who failed to make the runoff. This suggests a deep resentment of how politics has been conducted for the past decades. So far, this has clearly benefited the political neophyte Macron. But the new President still needs to prove himself to the 48 percent of voters who voted for an even more radically “different” candidate in the first round, as well as the 20 percent of center-right voters who feel they have been robbed.

No rest for the weary: up next, parliamentary elections
 
Macron's success in attracting well over 60% of the vote exceeds the expectations created by the latest polls but doesn't remove the challenges faced by EM ahead of the 11 and 18 June parliamentary elections. The center-right Les Républicains (LR) party will argue that it only lost this election because of the failings of its nominee François Fillon, who was embroiled in a scandal. Still, Macron continues to lack credibility on terrorism and security issues and individual EM candidates, when running in LR constituencies, will often be regarded as left-wing.
 
The race between LR and EM to be the biggest party in the lower house (Assemblée Nationale) will be tight. Some LR politicians have signaled that they would be willing to work with Macron but despite Macron's strong win, we do not expect a significant number to abandon LR and try to run as potential members of the “presidential majority.” Our call: EM will fall short of an absolute majority and therefore have to rely on this moderate wing of LR to govern. 
 
It is important to note that most LR MPs will prefer to remain in the opposition if EM is close to a majority. Their fear is that the “new FN” which Le Pen hinted at in her concession speech could captivate their core electorate. As a result, they will try to maintain the sense of a strong center right, which could be getting more done were it in power. They will make sure that Macron's honeymoon is short-lived.
Lichfield
Charles Lichfield is an associate for Eurasia Group's Europe practice, focusing on France, Germany, and the UK.
Ragot
Cloe Ragot is a researcher for the Europe practice.
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