After Trump and Brexit, Macron election provides EU with much-needed boost

Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election has been seen as a vital fillip for the European Union at a time when the bloc’s unity has been under strain.

Mr Macron’s opponent, Marine Le Pen, had promised to extricate France from the EU if she won. In a speech in February, Ms Le Pen, who frequently referred to herself as “Madame Frexit”, said: “It’s time for us to put an end to this bureaucratic monster that is the European Union.”

The EU is “not the solution, it’s the problem”, she added, saying it had left France “diminished” and “isolated”.

The prospect of a Le Pen victory clearly unnerved leaders who support the EU and its vision. Michael Roth, Germany’s minister for Europe, warned it would be “the end of the EU as we know it”.

In contrast, Mr Macron has been an advocate of a stronger Europe, and he was quick to emphasise this position after his win on Sunday.

When he walked out to deliver his victory speech, it was not to France’s national anthem but to the EU anthem, based on the “Ode to Joy” movement from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

“I’ll defend France, I’ll defend Europe, and I’ll strengthen links between Europe and its people,” he said.

Among the flood of congratulatory messages to Mr Macron was a tweet from Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission. “Happy that the French have chosen a European future,” Mr Juncker wrote. “Together for a stronger and fairer Europe.”

Mr Macron “carries the hopes of many people in Germany and many people across Europe as a whole”, said a spokesperson for Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

“Hurrah President Macron,” tweeted Paolo Gentiloni, the Italian prime minister. “There is hope for Europe.”

Currency markets responded with relief as well, as the euro touched a six-month high against the US dollar.

Mr Macron’s win will soothe nerves in Brussels, which has been unsettled over the past year by a number of geopolitical events that rocked the carefully constructed dream of a united Europe.

Foremost among them was the result of the Brexit referendum last June, which will see Britain pull out of the EU. On Sunday, the official Twitter account of the one of the UK’s leave campaigns tweeted “RIP France” and compared Mr Macron’s win to France’s surrender to Germany in 1940.

The EU has been beset by other worries too: a new American president who once said that the break-up of the EU would be in the best interests of its member states; an influx of refugees; the economic weaknesses of Greece and Italy; and Russian meddling in European politics.

These developments contributed to growing support for right-wing populism across Europe, said Gauri Khandekar, deputy director of Global Relations Forum, a Brussels-based think tank. Indeed, even though Ms Le Pen lost on Sunday, her Front National (FN) party won more votes than it ever has before.

In 2002, when the FN last reached the presidential run-off, Ms Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, won 17.8 per cent of the vote. On Sunday, Ms Le Pen won 33.94 per cent of the vote.

But the result of the French presidential election is the second significant electoral event to boost the EU this year. In March, a pro-EU coalition in the Netherlands beat the Party for Freedom, which championed the country’s departure from the EU.

Ms Khandekar said the reason the Party for Freedom and the FN failed to win might have a lot to do with Donald Trump, who seemed to share their sentiments as he won the US presidency last year.

“Many in Europe find the idea of Trump and his policies revolting,” she said, adding: “The daily scandals unfolding in the US seem to make Europeans realise that what Trump promised is not really working out, and is not sustainable either.”

Mr Macron’s win also bodes well for the truly crucial European election in September this year, when Mrs Merkel – the EU’s linchpin – will seek a fourth term in office.

Amid the noise and celebration of the French election result, Mrs Merkel would have found further satisfaction and hope in another election on Sunday: in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost state.

The chancellor’s party, the Christian Democrats, won 32 per cent of the vote. The far-right Alternative for Germany, which has called for a referendum on the country remaining in the EU, won only 5.9 per cent of the vote – another sign, perhaps, that the surge of Euroscepticism triggered by Brexit is now fading.

ssubramanian@thenational.ae