Who Will Win 2nd Round of French Presidential Election?, Op-ed

As I write these lines, the results of the French presidential elections have shown that Emmanuel Macron led the results of the first round by a few percentage points over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, accordingly, the two will meet in a run-off on April 24.

After the results came out, Marine Le Pen urged all those who did not cast their votes for Macron to "join her", while the losing candidates of the right-wing Republican party, as well as ‘The Green’, ‘The Communist’ and ‘The Socialist’ parties called on their supporters to vote for Emmanuel Macron.

On his part, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left candidate, who came in third place in the first round of France's presidential vote said, "Do not give a single vote to Marine Le Pen," without saying, "Vote for Emmanuel Macron."

Eric Zemmour, ‘The Redemption’ party candidate, called on his supporters to vote for Marine Le Pen.

While I was following up the presidential elections on the French television station (TF1), I was drawn to the analysis of the French philosopher Luc Ferry, who had served as Minister of Education in France during the era of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin between 2002 and 2004; he is one of the new philosophers, who made a profound transformation, in the prevailing philosophical circles, with its well-known symbols such as Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Foucault.

Luc Ferry blamed the French electorate who, for the second time, had removed from the first round the representatives of the far-right and hard-left parties, which, in his opinion, was not good for the political and economic life of France; Moreover, Macron with these results has become almost represents the fifth of the French population, and if Marine Le Pen wins, this means porce with Germany and the European Union (EU) and economic recession in France.

If we go back to the 2017 French elections, we could remember that during that period, President Macron's party caused two major earthquakes: the first was related to the traditional parties. The two traditional parties were eliminated: the Socialist Party and the Far-Right Party, which led the country in most periods of the 5th  Republic.

As for, the second earthquake, which France is also experiencing nowadays, is related to political science, as its rules teach us that political parties are not successful unless it has a historical stock that enables them to realize their ideology.

The two factors of time and legitimate protracted conflicts are what give the party its position within the public political sphere... This rule is established in political science books and refuted with the first and then the second political experience of Macron's party...

In 2017, the French scene was unfamiliar, but today it has begun to be institutionalized, with one difference, Macron’s rival, in the second round of elections, is Marine Le Pen, from the Far-Right Party, and the difference between them is small and everything is possible in the world of politics.