The results of the first round of France’s presidential elections on Sunday have demonstrated that the political earthquake of the elections in 2017, when Emmanuel Macron arrived in office, was no passing aberration. Instead, the voting last weekend confirmed the endurance of a new electoral landscape in France, with the old mainstream socialist and conservative parties of government left in tatters, replaced by a centre-right behind Macron, a strengthened far-right and a Left dominated by its ‘Green-and-red’ movements. This analysis by Fabien Escalona and Donatien Huet.
The presidential elections of 2017, and the election of Emmanuel Macron, caused a veritable upheaval in the history of French politics. The question then was whether this was about a momentary fluctuation or whether the balance of political forces that it had established would be an enduring one, concluding a chaotic decade notably marked as never before by issues of immigration and national identity, and a centre-right electorate that had become autonomous.
