François Fillon, the former prime minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, came from the third place in polls to win the first round of the Republican party’s presidential primary, the first ever by France’s centre-right parties. Some 4 million votes were cast, exceeding all expectations. Whoever wins the Republican party’s nomination is likely to become France’s next head of state.
All registered French voters were allowed to take part in the centre-right’s primary, provided they paid 2 euro to the cost of organising the vote and signed a non-committal statement, saying that they agree with centre-right values. This loose statement allowed leftwing sympathisers to turn out.
Mr Fillon secured 44 per cent of the vote, ending the attempted political comeback of Nicolas Sarkozy, the leader of the Republicans. To attract far-right voters, Mr Sarkozy focused his campaign on the French identity, immigration and a threat of Islam, but his decision to indulge in the populist rhetoric backfired. He came third with 21 per cent of the vote. That was another massive blow for the former president, after losing the presidential election to François Hollande in 2012. Mr Sarkozy conceded defeat and said he would back Mr Fillon in the run-off vote on November 27th, making him the favourite to secure the Republican party’s nomination. Alain Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux for nearly two decades, came second with 28 per cent of the vote, after leading in opinion polls for months.
Mr Fillon proposes a traditional centre-right platform, liberal on economic issues and conservative on social issues. He has pledged to lengthen the workweek to 39 hours from 35 hours, increase the retirement age to 65, cut 500,000 civil service jobs, curb public spending by about 100 billion euro over five years and abolish the wealth tax. As a conservative Catholic, he is against gay marriage and abortion. He supports lifting EU sanctions against Russia for the annexation of Crimea and its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. He favours EU integration. Mr Juppé appeals to centrist voters, but his platform is less pro-business than Mr Fillon’s.
A Socialist presidential nominee will be chosen in January. Polls consistently show that no candidate of the centre-left is likely to beat Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front (FN), in the first round of presidential election in April next year. Therefore, whoever emerges from the centre-right primary as a nominee will face Ms Le Pen in the second round presidential run-off and beat her thanks to moderate voters.
Ms Le Pen’s campaign is based on the anti-immigration, anti-globalisation and anti-establishment message. Her popularity reflects voters’ dissatisfaction with mainstream politicians, who have no answer to France’s economic problems. Those who are most likely to vote for the FN leader share characteristics with some of those Brits, who voted to leave the EU in a referendum in June.
Emmanuel Macron – the 38-year old former Socialist economy minister who has launched his own political movement, “En Marche” – has confirmed that he will run as an independent candidate, bypassing the Socialist primary contest. His platform is a mix of pro-business policies and an extension of the welfare state. His chances of getting to the second round of the presidential vote, however, are slim.
François Hollande, France’s Socialist president, has not announced yet whether he will seek re-election. But, with his popularity at all time low, he will almost certainly not qualify for the second round of voting.
photo: UMP Photos / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
