It would be a political earthquake as disruptive as the UK referendum vote for Brexit in 2016 and the election of Donald Trump as US president later that year.
Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s extreme right Rassemblement National party, is doing so well in the polls that she threatens to foil Emmanuel Macron’s re-election bid and could win next year’s presidential vote to become the country’s first far-right leader since the second world war.
Only last week, she likened herself to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the UK’s Brexiters — and by implication former US president Trump — as a politician who could triumph with the support of all kinds of voters. “There’s no more split between left and right, there’s a split between the globalists and the nationalists,” she said.
But is a Le Pen victory really likely next spring? The arguments among French politicians, so fevered that they have sometimes even displaced the deadly Covid-19 pandemic as a topic of debate, suggest there is at least the possibility of a political shock in France akin to Brexit and Trump.
“There are lots of ingredients that are the same,” says Chloé Morin, an analyst at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès think-tank. “A rejection of elites. Feelings of injustice. The desire to ‘take control’ of one’s country’s destiny.”
The consequences of a far-right victory in the EU’s second-biggest economy would be momentous at home and abroad.
Le Pen has successfully “detoxified” her party and moved it towards the centre since she succeeded her anti-Semitic father Jean-Marie Le Pen as leader a decade ago. But she and her nationalistic supporters remain hostile to immigrants and free trade. They are short of economic experience, friendly towards populist autocrats such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and highly critical of the EU, even if she has withdrawn her threats to leave the bloc and abandon the euro. Most of these positions are the direct opposite of those adopted by the liberal, internationalist Macron since he took office in 2017.
There are other factors that might help to put Le Pen, who has called Macron “the last gasp of the old system”, within reach of victory. One is his handling of the pandemic, which has been marred — in the eyes of doctors at least — by his own recent reluctance to follow the advice of scientific advisers and impose a more stringent lockdown to curb a third wave of infections.
He finally extended restrictions on movement to the whole country from Saturday. But more than 96,000 people have already been killed by the virus in France, and the latest surge accelerated by the spread of new variants is overwhelming hospital intensive care units in Paris and in the north of the country.
Another problem for Macron is his reputation among many of the French as an arrogant know-it-all. With between 34 and 41 per cent approval for his performance as president in recent weeks, Macron is more popular than his Socialist and centre-right predecessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy at the same point in their terms, but anecdotal evidence suggests he is a divisive figure who has alienated many of those who voted for him and his “neither right nor left” message in 2017.
“She [Marine Le Pen] will win,” says Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist who was Macron’s predecessor as economy minister under Hollande. “It’s like the Trump phenomenon or the Brexit phenomenon.”
Montebourg says it is Macron’s character and his “oligarchic” policies that have boosted Le Pen’s popularity, and that the president is fooling himself and France by trying to persuade people to vote for him as a “rampart” against Le Pen and the far right in a putative second round Macron-Le Pen runoff in the presidential race.
“Macron is hated because he’s arrogant,” says Montebourg. “So he’s not the ‘rampart’. He’s the one who will put Madame Le Pen in power.”
Morin agrees that Macron is seen as “arrogant, scornful, haughty” and says support for his administration at a time of national crisis has masked his underlying unpopularity. Even though Le Pen is just as divisive, “there’s a whole bunch of people who detest Macron as much as they hated Sarkozy”, she says.
Yet it is not just Macron’s character that has thrown up obstacles to his re-election. The deep economic recession triggered by the pandemic is also likely to reverse his administration’s earlier achievements in reducing France’s perennially high unemployment rate, although jobs have so far been sustained by a massive, deficit-financed economic rescue plan designed to stop businesses such as restaurants and hotels from failing by paying both owners and employees.
Macron’s signature economic reforms, for example to the costly state pension and unemployment benefits systems, have also been stopped in their tracks by the pandemic. Those reforms had already been challenged by the sometimes violent anti-government gilets jaunes protests that erupted across the country in 2018 and persisted for more than a year, but they had appealed to many of the country’s centre-right voters.
By keeping the reforms on his to-do list, Macron alienates many working-class voters, and by failing to follow through with them he alienates entrepreneurs and much of the middle class. Significantly, many gilets jaunes protesters at the start of the movement were Le Pen supporters from outside Paris, even if some of the later demonstrations were taken over by anarchists and supporters of the far left.
Nor has Macron much to show for his intense efforts in foreign policy, including his repeated attempts to court Putin and persuade Russia to make peace with Ukraine, and his abortive drive to reconcile Iran and the US under Trump to help resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.
Macron was the victorious insurgent candidate in the 2017 election partly because he championed what seemed like non-partisan economic reform and a vigorous sort of internationalism, but neither has produced the results he would have liked.
“Right now he has no foreign policy triumphs that he can point to in an election campaign and claim that France has more grandeur as a result,” says Nicholas Dungan, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. “In the domestic sphere Macron does have political accomplishments such as pension reform, but what he is missing is something where individual French people are likely to say ‘Here’s how he’s changed my life for the better’.
“In some ways Macron comes across as a French version of Obama, polished, cerebral, self-assured, highly intelligent and thoroughly professional,” adds Dungan. But the former US president “found it more natural than Macron does to convince people he feels their pain”.
The latest opinion polls suggest Le Pen has a real chance of winning, representing a significant threat to the French establishment and the unity of the EU. When her father shocked France by eliminating the Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin in 2002 to challenge Jacques Chirac in the run-off for president, he lost by 82 per cent of the votes to 18 per cent. The front républicain, the defensive system under which voters choose a candidate they dislike to keep out the one they hate, showed its value: the left voted en masse for the centre-right Chirac.
Fast forward to 2017, and the gap had narrowed. In the second-round battle, Macron beat Le Pen by 66 per cent to 34 per cent. Next year, according to the latest opinion polls, Le Pen could lead in the first round and therefore be assured of a place in the final, and if it is Macron that makes it through as well then he is currently forecast to win by as little as 53 per cent to 47 per cent, according to a Harris Interactive-L’Opinion poll in March. The front républicain system is crumbling because many leftwing voters say they will abstain. Some may even vote for Le Pen, whose strongholds are in the industrial towns of the north once dominated by communists.
“Is it too early to start talking about this?” asks Dungan. “No it’s not. The polls right now show Le Pen and Macron pretty well neck-and-neck. It’s not that people are hostile to Macron. It’s that they’re not certain he understands them.”
The way the voting system works in France’s Fifth Republic — “in the first round you choose the candidate you like, and in the second round you eliminate the one you don’t” goes the political axiom — explains the unpredictable nature of its elections and the importance of the front républicain. While Le Pen can rely on a solid far-right support base, votes for her rivals risk being wasted if there are multiple competing candidates from the centre-left and centre-right in the first round.
It is this system which in 2017 almost delivered a run-off between Le Pen on the extreme right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the extreme left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party. No less than four candidates achieved first-round scores of around 20 to 24 per cent of the vote — although in the end the two finalists were Macron and Le Pen.
Macron himself has benefited and continues to benefit from the weakness of the traditional parties. The once powerful Socialist party is particularly enfeebled and increasingly eclipsed by the greens. The centre-right movement has repeatedly changed its name in recent years — it is currently called Les Républicains — which suggests it has an identity problem, and several politicians are presenting themselves as possible candidates, including Xavier Bertrand, now president of the Hauts-de-France region, and Michel Barnier, who was the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator.
The question now is whether Macron can rely on voters from the centre to get him through the first round and then attract enough additional supporters to back him against Le Pen in a run-off.
The president has yet to declare his candidacy for re-election, but his strategy is clear: to present himself to voters once more as the person most likely to beat Le Pen. This infuriates politicians such as Montebourg on the left, who say the French are weary of Macron and do not want another Macron-Le Pen showdown.
Macron retorts that he is simply dealing with the political reality of France today. “I’m not the one who put Marine Le Pen there,” he told MPs of his governing La République en Marche party recently. “It’s the voters. She and her father before her have been there for 25 years. She was there before us.”
Battle for hearts and minds
Gérald Darmanin, Macron’s hardline interior minister, is leading the charge to appeal to far-right and centre-right voters — as well as old-fashioned secular republicans of the left — by trying to crack down on crime and restrict immigration, and by highlighting the president’s campaign against Islamist terrorism and “separatism” in Muslim-dominated suburbs.
In an FT interview in March, Darmanin said the danger for France was “to let Madame Le Pen become president of the republic because we’ve shown ourselves to be too naive, too soft”.
For Macron, some tricky months lie ahead as he seeks to navigate France through the pandemic, prepare for the French presidency of the EU in the first half of next year and consider his political future.
A Macron-Le Pen confrontation in the second round, let alone a Le Pen victory, is far from certain, even if each has chosen the other as their preferred opponent. There are other uncertainties too. It is possible that either Le Pen or Macron or both will fail to get through the first round of the election. Nor is the eventual winner of the presidency guaranteed to secure a parliamentary majority in the National Assembly elections that follow, a scenario that could condemn him or her to ineffectual “cohabitation” with a hostile government.
Business leaders who were once largely supportive of Macron and his economic reforms have started to wonder whether they should hunt for an alternative candidate — perhaps Edouard Philippe, the once loyal prime minister replaced by Macron last year and now mayor of Le Havre, who is believed to be biding his time for the following election cycle.
“The thought I hear from some fellow bosses is that ‘too many people hate him [Macron]; the handling of the pandemic, especially in the past two months, has been poor; Macron has lost it’,” says a senior French executive.
Macron’s electoral challenge, says Dungan, is that he needs to win the hearts and minds of the people. “He’s not a career politician: schmoozing is not his strong suit. His risk is not that Marine Le Pen wins; it’s that he loses.”
As for Le Pen, her weaknesses are evident, not least her poor performances in television debates, which sealed her fate when she confronted Macron before the final round of voting in 2017. And although she promises a “return to common sense”, “lower taxes” and “economic patriotism” as well as curbs on immigration, she has yet to convince voters that she or her government would manage the economy competently.
“When you see the opinion poll numbers, nothing is inevitable,” says Morin. “For the first round Macron and Marine Le Pen are ahead . . . but the others are not far behind.”
And surely Le Pen’s scepticism towards the EU and her recipe for economic sovereignty is too incoherent for pro-European voters to choose her as president? Dungan is not so sure: “Trump and Brexit have shown that’s a great way to get elected — not on the facts, but on the feelings.”
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
Americans and Canadians are cousins that is true. Allies today but long ago people were at loggerheads mostly because of the British Empire and American ambitions.
Canadians appreciate our cousins down south enough to visit them many millions of times over the year. America is Canada’s largest and most important trading partner. As a manufacturer, I can attest to this personally. My American clients have allowed our firm to grow and prosper over the past few decades. There is a problem we have been seeing, a problem where nationalism, both political and economic has been creating a roadblock to our trade relationship.
Both Democrats and Republicans have shown a willingness to play the “buy only American Made product” card, a sounding board for all things isolationist, nationalistic and small-mindedness. We all live on this small planet, and purchase items made from all over the world. Preferences as to what to buy and where it is made are personal choices, never should they become a platform of national pride and thuggery. This has brought fear into the hearts of many Canadians who manufacture for and service the American Economy in some way. This fear will be apparent when the election is over next week.
Canadians are not enemies of America, but allies and friends with a long tradition of supporting our cousins back when bad sh*t happens. We have had enough of the American claim that they want free trade, only to realize that they do so long as it is to their benefit. Tariffs, and undue regulations applied to exporters into America are applied, yet American industry complains when other nations do the very same to them. Seriously! Democrats have said they would place a preference upon doing business with American firms before foreign ones, and Republicans wish to tariff many foreign nations into oblivion. Rhetoric perhaps, but we need to take these threats seriously. As to you the repercussions that will come should America close its doors to us.
Tit for tat neighbors. Tariff for tariff, true selfish competition with no fear of the American Giant. Do you want to build homes in America? Over 33% of all wood comes from Canada. Tit for tat. Canada’s mineral wealth can be sold to others and place preference upon the highest bidder always. You know who will win there don’t you America, the deep-pocketed Chinese.
Reshaping our alliances with others. If America responds as has been threatened, Canadians will find ways to entertain themselves elsewhere. Imagine no Canadian dollars flowing into the Northern States, Florida or California? The Big Apple without its friendly Maple Syrup dip. Canadians will realize just how significant their spending is to America and use it to our benefit, not theirs.
Clearly we will know if you prefer Canadian friendship to Donald Trumps Bravado.
China, Saudi Arabia & Russia are not your friends in America. Canada, Japan, Taiwan the EU and many other nations most definitely are. Stop playing politics, and carry out business in an unethical fashion. Treat allies as they should be treated.
