THERE is a huge feeling of relief as I write this column the morning after the first round of the French elections. Relief in that Emmanuel Macron is in pole position against Marine Le Pen in next week’s decider. Relief that the nightmare scenario of a Jean-Luc Melenchon/Le Pen face-off did not come to pass.
Relief that Le Pen’s nasty, xenophobic bile was rejected even if, for the moment, not as crushingly as one hoped.
And yet, underlying it all there is a disquieting anxiety; a fear that all may not go to plan.
Perhaps that is the legacy of the Brexit referendum and the Trump win, and the whirlwind of madness that now engulfs politics.
It has led us to believe that nothing, nothing, is guaranteed any more – that there is a force loose seemingly bent on self-destruction.
For me it’s never over until the fat lady sings and Le Pen’s siren song does call to the disaffected, the resentful and the knuckle draggers of hate.
And, seemingly, to the increasingly right wing pro-Brexit British press, too. That is a problem UK voters have to address in making decisions for the forthcoming General Election.
It seems bizarre that I can cast my vote in that, and yet here, where I live as ‘fiscally resident,’ and pay my taxes and social charges, I can have no say in the presidential elections.
But there we are.
As expected, my village and virtually all others in the canton are Front National.
Tarn-et-Garonne as a whole is now a Front National fiefdom, although the cities and more prosperous towns of the region are firmly in Macron’s camp.
I have yet to meet a villager around here who admits to voting FN.
Perhaps, despite all the whitewashing and appeals to patriotism, the stench of her father’s old party still lingers, though not quite enough to prevent their handing over of the paper printed with the Le Pen name.
At the latest count this morning Marine had attracted 7.6 million voters, 60 per cent more than her father did in 2002 when he shocked the country by getting to the run off.
To keep him out the other parties rallied around Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s heure de gloire was over.
Francois Fillon and Benoit Hamon have appealed for their supporters to now get behind Macron as are other politicians as the hours pass in an echo of that other election.
If/when Macron becomes president there will be a price to pay and, as an independent with no party machinery of his own, the trading will began immediately.
After the follow-up parliamentary elections he’ll have to form a core with an uneasy melange of right and left so effectively rejected by the people yesterday.
Around 8.5 million voted for Macron but for me the most telling figure of all is the abstention rate. Ten million of them failed to vote at all.
The second round gives them another chance – that is the beauty of the system. All well and good if they go for Macron; if there are more stirred from their lairs by Le Pen’s song, then we’re in trouble.
And instead of going forward with a young, determined, socially liberal European leader committed to the ideals of the EU, we’ll slide backwards into a rancid pot of hatred, jingoism and inward faux patriotism.
Sounds familiar? Indeed.
Fillon, once the favourite in this race until mired in financial scandal around his family, was never more statesman like than in his acceptance of defeat.
Urging his conservative voters to follow the maverick, he said: "Extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to France. There is no other choice than to vote against the far right.
"I will vote for Emmanuel Macron. I consider it my duty to tell you this frankly. It is up to you to reflect on what is best for your country, and for your children."
Perhaps, as I said at the beginning, my underlying uneasiness amidst the euphoria is simply a hangover from the past few months when the unthinkable became fact.
And a fear that the rightful heir could be undone at the crossroads by the fascist witch.
But then I think of the way the French work – protest without real change. Yes, Macron is an unknown and a centerist but the voters have stuck it, as they see it, to both right and left this time.
They have played their own part in the so-called populist movement sweeping the world but they’ve done it their own sweet way.
Even here, in FN heartland, rural France where farmers seethe at any perceived injustice, there may be no stomach in the end for a President Le Pen.
And if a percentage of those abstainers crawl from under their rocks for Le Pen next week, I have equal hopes that having satisfied their need to bloody the Establishment nose, even my neighbours will go for "the boy."’
Then he will carry the heaviest burden of all: The knowledge that if he fails there will be no next time for us – the Front National will be through the gates.
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