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Will Macron’s moves regain him popularity in France?
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
Will President Macron, with his new government, succeed in relaunching himself in terms of popularity? It remains to be seen, but I think the odds are there. He clearly faces an uphill battle against the more nationalist forces in Le Pen prior to the European Parliament elections in late May, early June. And that is critical for him. His opinion poll standing is fairly low right now. He really needs to do better in European Parliament elections. And I think, yep, he might do it, but it remains to be seen.How is European support for Ukraine coming along?
That was, of course, a problem with the summit in December where Hungary, Viktor Orban, blocked the expected decision to give 50 billion Euros to Ukraine over the next few years. There's now I wouldn't say white smoke as of yet, but white puffs of smoke at least coming out of the discussions and rather hard discussions in Brussels. And I would expect that at the next summit on February 1st there will be an okay, a green light, for the 50 billion Euros for Ukraine. That is very much needed. And now the question is, of course, what will happen with American money with the mess in the US House of Representatives?
French President Emmanuel Macron at a polling booth during the first round of French parliamentary elections
What We're Watching: France's final round, ISIS leaders caught
Voters decide Macron’s future
On Sunday, France’s election season comes to a close with the final round of parliamentary elections. The big question: Can President Macron’s Ensemble! Party win a majority of the National Assembly’s 577 seats? If so, or if it gets close enough that a few willing partners from other parties can lend votes on individual pieces of legislation, then he’ll have a chance to advance his ambitious reform agenda. If not, his second-term plans will quickly stall. Macron’s best hope is that a few right-wing voters fearful of potential victory for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftist coalition will limit the number of seats it’s able to win, and that a few leftist voters who adamantly oppose far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen will back Macron’s centrists for control of seats since there’s no left-wing candidate. Macron has long pledged to boost the government’s financial health by pushing the standard retirement age from 62 to 65. But without at least a near-majority, Macron and his prime minister will struggle even to pass basic reforms meant to cut government spending and help businesses weather tough economic times.ISIS leaders captured, but threat grows in Africa
We don’t hear as much these days about ISIS in Syria, where the jihadist group’s clout and territory have significantly diminished since 2019. But the militant group continues to recruit new personnel in the Levant. That’s why the Pentagon continues to keep track of the group’s movements there. On Thursday, U.S. Central Command reported that it had captured Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi – a top ISIS leader and “experienced bomb maker and facilitator” — who was planning ISIS attacks. The US operation – which took place in northwestern Syria close to where former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died amid a daring raid by US special forces in 2019 – was a risky move for the Pentagon because it took place far away from US military bases in the country’s east. While ISIS has been somewhat dormant in Syria, its ISIS affiliates in Africa are grabbing the attention of counterterrorism experts, having gained momentum in nearly a dozen countries on the continent, including Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Cameroon. France, which reportedly also captured a senior ISIS militant in Mali in recent days, is set to pull out of the west African nation at a time when Islamist violence is on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. The region was reportedly home to half of the ISIS-related deaths worldwide in 2021. France’s counterterrorism efforts, meanwhile, continue in the Sahel, where it “neutralized” 40 militants in Niger on Thursday.
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People participate in the March for Our Lives on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
What We're Watching: US gun-control deal, Indian protests, Macron's majority, Biden goes to Saudi
US Senate reaches compromise on guns
On Sunday, a group of 20 US senators announced a bipartisan framework on new gun control legislation in response to the recent wave of mass shootings. The proposal includes more background checks, funding for states to implement "red-flag" laws so they can confiscate guns from dangerous people, and provisions to prevent gun sales to domestic violence offenders. While the deal is much less ambitious than the sweeping ban on assault weapons and universal background checks President Joe Biden called for after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, it's a rare bipartisan effort in a deeply divided Washington that seeks to make at least some progress on gun safety, an issue on which Congress has been deadlocked for decades. Biden said these are "steps in the right direction" and endorsed the Senate deal but admitted he wants a lot more. The announcement came a day after thousands of Americans held rallies on the National Mall in the capital and across the country to demand tougher gun laws. Will the senators be able to turn the framework into actual legislation before the momentum passes?
Prophet protests grow violent in India
Protests across India over the government's failure to punish two officials from the ruling BJP party for making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad turned violent over the weekend, with two demonstrators shot dead by police in Jharkhand state. In Uttar Pradesh, cops razed houses belonging to Muslim protesters as hundreds were arrested and mass gatherings were banned. Although India has seen communal tensions for decades, the new wave of protests is growing, with Muslims clashing with police, Hindu mobs, or both, ranging from as far east as Bengal to as far west as Kashmir. Why? Because the BJP handled the controversy like just another day at the office, suspending one official and firing the other after almost all Islamic countries in the region — including Saudi Arabia and Iran, which rarely agree on anything — demanded corrective action from the government. PM Narendra Modi's foot-dragging on this issue is deeply resented by many of India's 200 million Muslims, who feel they've been marginalized under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, and by many Islamic countries that trade with India.
Vote throws Macron's parliamentary majority in danger
French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) Party looks set to win the most seats in parliament after the first round of voting on Sunday, but projected results show it might fall short of an outright majority. Ensemble was tied at 25.2% of the vote with Nupes, the resurgent left-wing coalition led by firebrand candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron's party is projected to secure 260-310 seats in the National Assembly, where the magic number is 289. The French president needs a parliamentary majority to carry out his ambitious reform agenda. Without it, his government will have to form ad-hoc parliamentary alliances to win votes on individual proposals like raising the retirement age from 62 to 65, which Mélenchon strongly opposes. Far-right leader Marine le Pen, who lost the presidential election to Macron in April, called on her supporters to abstain wherever Ensemble candidates are running against Nupes challengers in the second round of voting next Sunday, when voters will have another go in constituencies where no one candidate got 50%.
Risks and rewards await Biden in Saudi Arabia
The White House, after changing the itinerary, is expected to announce President Joe Biden’s first trip to Saudi Arabia as early as Monday. What an about-face for Biden, given his earlier rebukes about the Saudi human rights record and not giving dictators blank checks. The trip includes a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, who an American intelligence report says was the signing authority on the Jamal Khashoggi murder (this obviously hasn’t gone down well with Khashoggi’s widow). But there’s an element of realism at play here: MBS is likely to rule Saudi for decades, and Riyadh needs to sign the Abraham Accords in order to really stabilize the Middle East. The groundwork has been set by friends: the Israelis have been lobbying for the trip, while British PM Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have already met MBS and encouraged Biden to do the same. In a big get for Washington, the Saudis might have some welcome gifts: ousting Russia from the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries led by Riyadh or perhaps announcing the normalization of ties with Israel. But don’t expect anything to change on the Saudi human rights front.
In 1992, supporters of abortion rights mingle with abortion opponents at a State House rally marking the 19th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
What We're Watching: Roe in trouble, Russia Victory Day, ISIS-K terrorizes Afghanistan, Macron vs the left
US Supreme Court reportedly set to overturn Roe vs. Wade
The US Supreme Court is set to overturn the landmark abortion rights decision of Roe vs. Wade, according to a leaked draft of the decision reported by Politico late Monday. The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, explains the court’s apparent plan to reverse the 1973 ruling, noting that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” and that it’s time to “return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” If true, this means the court is siding with Mississippi in its push to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. While SCOTUS drafts do not always reflect final decisions, Eurasia Group’s lead US political analyst Jon Lieber believes the draft is a sneak peek of what’s to come. “Court watchers seem to think the document is a legitimate draft, and given the makeup of the court it sure reads like the majority decision I expected to see,” Lieber says. “So I think this is both real and reflects the reality that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned this year."
Victory Day in Russia
How will Vladimir Putin use this year’s May 9 Victory Day celebration, which commemorates the Soviet triumph over Hitler’s legions in 1945? He can’t announce the capture of Kyiv and the installation of a Kremlin-compliant president there. The Russians may eventually take another run at Kyiv, but not next week. Putin might announce the “liberation” of the Donbas and the territories that connect it to Russian forces in Crimea. But there’s also growing speculation that Russia’s president may use the May 9 event to make an announcement that’s far more dangerous, both for the West and for Putin personally. Britain’s defense minister has speculated that Putin might finally set aside his “special military operation” to declare “war” on Ukraine – and that his next steps could include the large-scale conscription of young Russian men into the military. That would instantly up the political stakes for Putin inside Russia. He might even declare a kind of “war” on NATO. That need not mean World War III, but it would be a statement of Russia’s intent to intensify economic pressure, military provocations, and cyber harassment of Ukraine’s Western backers.
ISIS terrorizes Afghanistan
Things in Afghanistan are going from bad to worse. Over the past few weeks, more than 100 Afghans have been killed in terror attacks, most of which have been claimed by ISIS-K, an offshoot of the Islamic State movement that expanded to Central Asia in 2015. While mainly Shiite areas have been targeted, last week the group also bombed a Sufi mosque, so the widespread attacks no longer appear to have sectarian motives. So what is ISIS’s game plan? It clearly wants to antagonize the Taliban, which it says insufficiently enforces Shariah law. The two groups have clashed over territory in the past, and several disillusioned Taliban members have defected to ISIS-K. While the Taliban is striving to gain international legitimacy and unlock frozen foreign funds, ISIS-K is sewing chaos and undermining the ruling regime’s authority. The Taliban, which vowed to ensure Afghanistan's national security upon assuming power last summer, recently arrested one senior ISIS leader. Still, blood continues to flow, with one Afghan academic warning of “a spring and summer of destruction.”
Macron’s problem on the left
In a big shakeup to French politics, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who heads the far-left France Insoumise Party and came a close third in the first round of the presidential election, has struck a deal to join forces with the Green Party. The bloc said it wouldn’t push for France to leave the EU, but it was “ready to disobey European rules.” This is bad news for President Emmanuel Macron, who needs his La République en Marche Party to gain a majority in legislative elections in June in order to pursue his pro-business, pro-EU policy agenda. Mélenchon is currently also courting the Socialist and Communist parties to join his anti-Macron coalition, hoping that if he gains enough votes this summer, Macron will be forced to tap a far-left PM to steer the legislative agenda. Still, Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman says this is unlikely given that centrists and right-of-center voters will now be more energized to come out and vote to quash the far-left’s potential rising influence.
French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he arrives to deliver a speech after being re-elected as president.
Can Macron unite a divided France?
Reflecting on Emmanuel Macron’s victory in France's presidential runoff, Tom McTague, writing for The Atlantic, referred to British PM Winston Churchill’s disdain for another French leader: Charles de Gaulle. Churchill was asked if de Gaulle was a great man. “He is selfish, he is arrogant, he believes he is the center of the world,” Churchill replied. “You are quite right. He is a great man.”
“Something similar might be true of Emmanuel Macron,” wrote McTague.
Macron can afford to be smug about some of his achievements. After all, he is the first French president to win a second term in some 20 years – the French are famous for rejecting incumbents. The 44-year-old centrist, a former banker, has only run for elected office twice – for the presidency in 2017 and 2022 – and he clinched the top job both times.
Still, Macron embarks on another five-year term while facing a host of domestic challenges, chief among them being collective public loathing. So what will be the main impediments for Macron during his second term at the Élysée?
French society is deeply divided. This speaks to the main challenge plaguing the Macron presidency: many French simply don’t like him. In the first round of voting on April 10, some 52% of voters opted for three anti-establishment candidates, while Macron reaped 27% of the vote.
Public disillusionment with the incumbent was also reflected in the fact that over a quarter of eligible voters opted to stay home this past Sunday rather than cast a vote for Macron or for Marine Le Pen, his provocative far-right rival. And when all is done and dusted, with abstentions and spoiled ballots taken into account, Macron will have triumphed with just 38.5% of the vote.
Macron knows that bitter divisions make it very hard to govern. In 2018, a year after the political novice came to power, he was forced to scrap a fuel tax – a key part of his ambitious climate agenda – after the widespread Yellow Vest protests against economic injustice brought Paris to a standstill.
Macron’s recent victory is notable for having kept France’s anti-establishment tide at bay. But the ideological chameleon still has the daunting task of convincing large swaths of the French population that he’s not a bad guy.
President of France … or Europe?
Macron has long been viewed by the French as aloof, arrogant, and detached from the plight of ordinary people. This has been reinforced by his unabashed attempt to assert himself as an international statesman and Europe’s distinguished leader, a brand he’s tried to further burnish since Angela Merkel left office and Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
But with cost of living pressures intensifying, French voters have made it clear they want a president who puts their distinct interests first. That’s why Le Pen’s bread-and-butter message resonated with voters, particularly in the French rust belt, where incomes have dried up along with the once-lucrative coal basins.
These voters are neither impressed by Macron posing as the leader of a unified Europe nor by his claims that the uber-regulated European Union is the solution to their problems. Macron’s government says its pro-EU advocacy is helping put France at the center of Europe’s “industrial transformation” by rehabilitating France’s ailing industry. But it’s unclear whether voters outside of major cities are buying it.
Avoiding “cohabitation.” Macron’s La République en Marche Party is vying to win a parliamentary majority in June’s legislative elections. Things look good for the president, according to early polls. But if he and his allies fail to win an absolute majority – he needs 289 seats to avoid “cohabitation" (meaning avoiding having to appoint an opposition member as prime minister) – Macron’s legislative powers will be significantly diluted.
That’s exactly what Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left candidate who reaped 22% of the first-round vote, wants to ensure. He’s trying to unify France’s fractured left-wing and is lobbying hard to be voted in as prime minister, which would make him the head of government and allow him to largely steer France’s legislative agenda. Le Pen, meanwhile, also wants to garner enough votes for her party to help form a strong parliamentary opposition to Macron.
Macron’s gift. Most French voters backed candidates who vowed to upend the status quo. Macron says the system can – and should – solve ordinary people’s problems. He still has a lot of people to convince, and that’s a mammoth task at a difficult time for the country and for the continent. But if anyone can pull off the near unthinkable in French politics, it’s Emmanuel Macron.Emmanuel Macron et Marine Le Pen
What We're Watching: Le Pen-Macron debate, round two in Ukraine, China's big Pacific move, Israel-Hamas flare-up
France’s moment of truth: Le Pen and Macron go head-to-head
Ahead of the second round of voting in France’s presidential elections on April 24, President Emmanuel Macron and his rival Marine Le Pen will go head-to-head in a live TV debate on Wednesday. Le Pen, head of the far-right National Rally, won 23% percent of the first-round vote on April 10, just five points behind the incumbent. (Macron’s lead in the polls is now believed to be as much as 12 points.) Indeed, the debate will be a crucial moment in the tighter-than-expected race for the Élysée. Le Pen is vying for a comeback: last time the two candidates debated in the 2017 runoff, she was accused of being light on policy and heavy on insults. Le Pen will want to emphasize her populist, anti-establishment credentials that have proven popular with the electorate – particularly young voters – while playing down claims that she is chummy with alleged war criminal Vladimir Putin. Macron, on the other hand, will try to play up his progressive bonafides to appeal to younger voters who cast their first-round vote for far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon – who reaped 22% of the vote – but are inclined to stay home on Sunday.War in Ukraine: Round Two
Russia and Ukraine agree the war has now entered round two. But what did they learn from round one? Having downscaled its ambitions to an aggressive assault on the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east, the Russian army has massed tens of thousands of troops along a 300-mile-long semicircle and launched a fresh assault. Experts say Russians can grind their way toward gains by training more firepower on a smaller range of targets. But Ukrainian soldiers know the terrain. They’ve been dug into these same positions since Russian-backed separatists began their fight with Kyiv in 2014. Even if they can’t win, they might inflict enough damage to force Vladimir Putin to rethink his broader ambitions in Ukraine. According to a report published on Monday by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, Russian weaknesses exposed in round one may continue in round two, including low Russian morale and logistical challenges that “indicate the effective combat power of Russian units in eastern Ukraine is a fraction of their on-paper strength.” In fact, a US official estimated on Tuesday that Russia has lost 25% of its combat troops since the war began.
China makes a big Pacific move
Hours after US officials rushed to the South Pacific to stop the Solomon Islands from inking a landmark security pact with China on Tuesday, Beijing suddenly announced that the deal had been signed. The Americans don't like a clause in the draft agreement that would allow the Chinese to deploy their armed forces in the country, which has experienced political and social unrest in recent months. China, for its part, insists that it'll only do so at the request of the government. The Solomon Islands are now firmly in China's camp after un-recognizing Taiwan in 2019, although the government denies it'll let China establish a military base there. Still, the US and its allies Australia and New Zealand worry that the deal creates a dangerous precedent that'll enable China to gain a military foothold in a region that's become the latest and a rather unexpected flashpoint for US-China competition in the wider Indo-Pacific.
Israeli-Palestinian clashes risk flare-up
Israel struck a Hamas weapons facility in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday after Palestinian militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, the first launched from the Hamas-run enclave in four months. While no group has officially claimed responsibility, Islamic Jihad, a militant group based in Gaza, is believed to have been behind the attack. This could suggest that Hamas, which has long restrained its junior partner to avoid devastating escalations like the one in May 2021, might be loosening its reins or even condoning a flare-up. This follows recent clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli police at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which left dozens injured. Amid the violence, Hamas has been trying to position itself as the “protector” of Jerusalem and the West Bank to undermine its rival, the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, tensions are also high in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has conducted a series of raids after a recent spate of Palestinian terror attacks in several Israeli cities left 14 people dead. Neither side appears to want a serious escalation, but that’s no guarantee it won’t happen.
Campaign posters of President Emmanuel Macron and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
What if Le Pen leads France?
The results are in from the first round of France’s nail-biter of a presidential election. Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Rally, has come in four points behind the incumbent, President Emmanuel Macron, reaping 23.3% percent of the vote, according to Ifop, a pollster.
Meanwhile, France’s far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came in third with 20% of the vote, while center-right candidate Valerie Pécresse, the first woman to head the party of Charles de Gaulle, flailed.
The world is now anxiously waiting to see what happens in two weeks’ time, when the French return to the polls for the second and final round of voting to decide whether Macron or Le Pen should be sent to the Élysée.
Le Pen, a veteran politician, has run for the presidency twice before, but her political career, it seems, has all been leading up to this moment. Indeed, she trails Macron by a few points, but the momentum is very much on the side of the 53-year old, whose “France first” message has resonated not only with tear-it-down populists, but with ordinary families angry about the soaring cost of living.
What would a Le Pen victory actually mean for France, Europe – and the world?
Le Pen: not great for French unity. Le Pen has worked hard to moderate her far-right sensibilities. She’s talked less about Muslims and banning headscarves in recent months, focusing more on the increasing price of milk and eggs.
Still, her domestic political priorities remain unchanged. Mujtaba Rahman, head of Eurasia Group’s Europe desk, says Le Pen "is no more moderate or reasonable today than she has been historically. She remains an extreme right force in French politics.”
The immediate stakes are extremely high for the European Union, which has experienced a renewed sense of purpose since the UK left the bloc in 2020 and especially in response to Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine.
Le Pen, a long-time euroskeptic, has tried to moderate her views to appeal to a Russian-weary French electorate that overwhelmingly supports EU efforts to aid Ukraine. Still, Le Pen is no fan of Brussels and maintains that the bloc’s central power should be diluted.
While she seems to have abandoned her previous call for France to leave the EU – dubbed Frexit – some believe Le Pen may be gunning for a more digestible overhaul of the relationship. Ben Judah, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, says Le Pen may pursue something similar to what the Poles have been doing. “What Poland is doing is attempting to renegotiate its relationship with the EU by insisting that national law is supreme over EU law,” he says.
What’s more, the stakes for the European single market are mammoth. The prospect of a Le Pen victory is a big blow for EU champions who have been buoyed by the EU’s renewed financial cohesion amid the pandemic, having overcome longtime sticking points to approve a robust economic recovery fund.
However, European heavyweights, like Germany, might reject sharing meaningful common debt with a France run by Le Pen, whose economic policy Judah describes as “gibberish.” If Le Pen gets in and implements her economic plan – which includes renegotiating a slate of free trade deals – this would mean that “making the euro a really strong, efficient currency is just going to be off the table” he says.
More broadly, a Le Pen victory in France, the world’s sixth-largest economy, would send a worrying message to the world about the country’s commitment to liberal values.
Le Pen comes from a xenophobic tradition established by her father Jean-Marie, a prominent racist and antisemite. Many members of her party are racist, and she has been accused of harboring anti-Muslim sentiments. Even though Le Pen has tried to detoxify her image, many older voters – and global observers – aren’t buying the rebrand.
A Le Pen presidency would have a big impact on how France “is seen by American liberals, by Arab and non-white countries, and across the Muslim world,” Judah says. This, he adds, could destroy the credibility built up by Macron, who has tried to position himself as Angela Merkel’s successor as the leader of Europe in recent months.
The Ukraine factor. Macron has long been a proponent of greater European strategic autonomy and in recent months has called for a united Europe to engage with Russia separately from the broader US-NATO dialogue. His shuttle diplomacy with Vladimir Putin has boosted his image as an international statesman.
Le Pen, on the other hand, is avowedly anti-NATO and says she wants to pull French troops and planning personnel away from the alliance.
This potential shakeup in the EU’s second-wealthiest country also comes as Washington and Brussels are trying to intensify the sanction campaign against Russia. Macron, for his part, has called for fresh sanctions targeting Russian oil and gas imports. But would a President Le Pen, a long-time Putin sycophant, refuse to implement these sanctions? Would she try to undo existing sanctions? Will she cease France's military aid to Ukraine?
Given Le Pen’s insistence that France must resume its alliance with Moscow, it’s fair to assume that the answer to at least some of these questions is “yes.”
France's presidential election tightening as first round begins
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Delphi, Greece:
What's happening with the sanctions and help to Ukraine?
Well, it's moving forward quite heavily, both with now deliveries of more substantial weapons systems, and the key thing, of course, is going to be what happens with the imports of gas if that is stopped. Coal, oil, that's less important, but gas, that's the key thing. And I think we are moving in that direction.
What about the French presidential elections?
Well, we got the first round coming up on Sunday. I think Macron is going to win, but it looks like it's going to be tight. And the drama is going to be more substantial prior to the second decisive round on 25th of April. It's still likely to be Macron, but less money on that than was the case a month ago.