Le Pen: the second French revolution?

What was once seen as impossible is becoming more credible by the day as the French election draws closer.

Emily Hohler
By
published
in Features

17-2-17-Pen-1200

Marine Le Pen is on course to win the first round
(Image credit: This content is subject to copyright.)

"Is France on the brink of a political revolution?" asks Robert Tombs in The Spectator. With Franois Fillon "on the ropes", the contest is being taken over by outsiders in the shape of a 39-year-old former banker, Emmanuel Macron, and the Front National's Marine Le Pen. Few are prepared to rule out a Le Pen victory, but France, because of its turbulent political history, has a voting system designed to defend it from "radical change".

Le Pen is expected to win the first round on 23 April, but opinion polls suggest she is unlikely to win the second round on 7 May, when she needs to secure more than 50% of the popular vote (the second round is a run-off between the top two candidates).

The idea of Le Pen as president does sound "incredible", says Bruce Anderson on Reaction.Life, but Fillon is unlikely to reach the second round, and Macron is far from a dead cert. He is "able, young and glamorous, a French Tony Blair", but the French "do not want a Tony Blair". Macron used to work for Rothschild's; he belongs to the Parisian elite; his "left-wing credentials are little better than Mitterrand's resistance credentials and his private life is fascinating".

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

He is married to a woman 23 years his senior and, adds Michael Sheridan in The Times, was recently forced to deny that he was having an affair with a male broadcasting executive. Meanwhile, Le Pen has turned a far-right party into a populist one, "downplaying its racist roots and focusing her fire on globalisation, an undefined elite' and the EU".

Political analysts are increasingly subscribing to the "domino theory", which is that the anti-establishment mood has such "unstoppable momentum that it might sweep even the likes of Le Pen to power", says Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph. However, her commitment to leave the euro will ruin her chances.

Although she is correct in saying that the single currency limits France's ability to tackle its economic woes, transitioning back to the franc would be chaotic and hardly anyone "buys" her idea of parallel currencies, including the markets. Well, Le Pen doesn't seem worried, says Sheridan. She and her allies are delighted at the prospect of a run-off against Macron, whom she once described as "my ideal opponent".

Emily Hohler
Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.

Latest