French Elections
Who am I to discuss the first round of the elections in France? I'm not a politician. I am a mere observer from the side-lines. But France is an important country and Europe a most important region. I know that the European Union has its faults, that it hasn't always been firm enough in its support of human rights, that it hasn't known how to cope with the wretched economic crisis so that citizens feel they have hope, that many consider themselves under fire from terrorist attacks and our only reaction is to drop more bombs in one or another of the already scarred areas of the world instead of doing more to integrate people from other nations. I know all that, but I still believe in the EU despite its faults. Europeans have never lived as well as they have over the past 40 years or so, despite the current crisis, and that is due to the fact that they belong to this vast entity - for some perhaps too large and nebulous. Yet the last thing we need is to go backwards, to abandon the Union just because of its present difficulties, return to a land mass of petty nation states. No, no and a thousand times no.
Obviously I speak of Europe because of the dangerous undercurrent of extremist politicians and their followers who adopt a retrograde attitude concerning the EU. They want out. And Marine Le Pen, although perhaps less inflammatory than her father Jean-Marie, has very definite opinions on following in the steps of Nigel Farage and the British Brexiters, nearly all old-fashioned nostalgics who hanker after the grand imperialist Britain and who consider that Britain is pushed around by Europe. These people are cringing, turning in on themselves instead of opening outwards towards a world of solidarity and diversity. National barriers are a plague in these times. Surely we should have learnt something from our chaotic history?
And so because of Le Pen's programme, where she seeks to inflame petty sentiments of French nationalism promising, like Britain, that all will be well "once we have our nation back", I am overjoyed that, at least in this first round, Emmanuel Macron has managed to raise his head above his rivals. We have yet to get to know him - a man who proclaims to be neither left nor right wing, therefore centre. His success has meant the defeat of the old bi-party system that seems to be stagnating in many other countries too. It remains to be seen if his promises will bear fruit for his voters and for others. At least, however, he will keep France within the EU!
