Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential elections is a breath of fresh air in European politics.
His audacity in taking risks and seizing opportunities is a breakthrough in a France locked into sterile oppositions of traditional left and right. The new political movement he is creating taps into a public mood of fatigue with existing parties and a more optimistic renewal of citizen engagement in a younger generation. And his decision to put European issues centre stage in debates with Marine Le Pen politicises them beyond French borders for Europeans made more aware of possible disintegration by Brexit and Donald Trump.
One does not have to support Macron’s politics to recognise these facts. He says himself his goal is to ensure Le Pen is not in the second round of the 2022 elections.
Sceptics say his brand of social liberalism or extreme centrism cannot achieve that goal because the changes in labour market and welfare structures he champions in France will exacerbate not resolve conflicts between the winners and losers of globalisation this vote represents.
European integration
So will their linkage to his ideas for the reform and deepening of European integration which will reinforce left-wing critiques of his neoliberalism and right populist attacks on his treacherous abandonment of French sovereignty.
But Germany too must choose between dealing with Macron’s demands and seeing Le Pen win in five years’ time.
Angela Merkel says the French domestic reforms should come before pooling of resources and control in the euro zone; but if her party refuses to engage with Macron’s plans for European reform it will lose an opportunity to rebalance existing policies away from their definite tilt towards German interests. Macron needs to find allies for that task and has the legitimacy and the democratic mandate to seek them.
As he does so there is an opportunity to revive a constructive politics at European level capable of confronting the challenges thrown up by the populist movements which have so shocked conventional forces.
Elections in Austria, the Netherlands and now France have seen off that challenge from the right-wing ones. On the left Syriza, Podemos and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement in this election are still seeking a role and arguably should not be classified as populist anyway. They differ a lot on national sovereignty and have yet to define a common approach to the EU’s future.
Speech at Humboldt university
Macron set out his ideas for European reform in a speech at Humboldt university last January, delivered in English and available online. It is an ambitious and upbeat presentation, paying tribute to Jacques Delors, Joshka Fischer, the German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel and his foreign policy adviser the MEP Sylvie Goulard as influences.
His own experience as an EU sherpa for François Hollande on Greece when economics minister and his énarque training give him a grasp of the EU’s technocratic aspects. His philosophical background in political theory, writing his doctoral thesis on the common good and working with Paul Ricouer gives him an unusual perspective as a political actor.
He asks what is the unicity of the EU and defines it as a unique political body without hegemony, sharing sovereignty and uniting people democratically. But it has lost ambition and trust in the four crises which have transformed the world since the early 2000s: on security. migration, economics and the financial crisis from 2008.
Defining sovereignty as the “capacity of acting in concrete terms to protect ourselves and defend our values”, he says it is no longer confined to the nation-state but must be asserted at European level on security and defence, a common currency, trade, sustainable development and digital policy.
He supports a European security council to oversee those policies; if necessary it could be a smaller group of the willing. He wants a common defence financed by common bonds. The euro needs a budget, mutual bonds and a parliament.
Unemployment and social security policies should be co-ordinated. He wants to see an Erasmus scheme for 200,000 students and apprentices a year. To engage with citizens he calls for a series of national and European democratic conventions meeting over six to 10 months to draw up a road map on the EU’s future actions, policies and priorities. That should be a 10-page document not a long treaty.
Macron knows there is a large gap between the desirable and the possible. At present the political will does not exist to narrow it. But his victory reopens these questions and they certainly merit European debate.
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