Macron or Le Pen? The French today have to choose between these two candidates for the Elysée, two political exponents who defend different values, two candidates with radically opposite programs, who do not talk about Europe, the economy, purchasing power, pensions, immigration, the two… embody, meet France differently.
EMMANUEL MACRON – At the age of 39, he became the youngest president in French history in 2017, with promises to rejuvenate political life, win votes from left and right and reform France through the La République En Marche movement he founded . which has failed to gain a foothold in the electoral territories in recent years. In his five-year tenure, marked by a series of crises from the national level of Yellow Vests to the pandemic to the war, his program has shifted to the right with promises of tax cuts, welfare benefits and raising the retirement age.
Then he wants to raise the inheritance tax ceiling from 100,000 euros to 150,000 euros and – from the liberal front – have the state recognize “how families have changed” by giving couples living together the same tax treatment as married couples. Macron, who officially entered the election campaign at the last minute, made a single rally before the first round, stressing that he was primarily involved in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, and then launched one before the runoff aggressive campaign, the big debate between the two rounds, in which Marine Le Pen accused him of arrogance. He faces today’s nomination with the polls’ majority, although the vote will not be limited to a replica of the 2017 ballot.
MARINE LE PEN – daughter of the founder of the Front National, which she renamed the Rassemblement National as part of the long process of “dédiabolizing” the party, is the 53-year-old leader of the French far-right in her third presidential bid: in The First, in 2012, she finished third with 17.9% – so he didn’t go to the election, which was between Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy with the winner being the Socialist – in 2017 he had 21.3% in the first round and 34% in the second when he was beaten by a wide margin by Macron.
All the polls are back up for vote this year and show a much smaller gap than five years ago between the two candidates, as little as 3% according to some polls. His campaign was much more measured than those of previous years, particularly in terms of anti-immigrant rhetoric, which mainly focused on interventions to support family income and purchasing power. Her historical closeness and sympathy for Vladimir Putin’s Russia — immediately after the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, the candidate would have rushed to destroy hundreds of thousands of ballot papers with a photo of her with the Russian president — didn’t seem to have hurt it in the polls.
But in an interview two days ago, Le Pen accused Macron of slandering her about her ties with Russia, insisted he got a loan from a private bank, not the Russian state, and said his positions on the arguments always are the same as Macron’s.