Emmanuel Macron has a difficult task ahead say international experts

Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the May 7 French presidential election was a relief for many in France and around the world who feared the prospect of the far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen leading the country.

But Macron’s victory is only the first step. The novice politician has no parliamentary support and his plan for reforming the European Union may be out of his reach.

The Conversation Global asked scholars from around the world what they thought of Emmanuel Macron’s victory, and what means for their country.

Donatella Della Porta - The end of the “republican monarchy”

France is a semi-presidential system. The “semi” is most important part as it means that the actual powers of the president are strongly affected by the results of the legislative elections which have, at times, given a parliamentary majority to the president. But, at other times, it has imposed what the French call “cohabitation” - when the president and the prime minister belong to opposing parties .

This uncertainty is all the more important now as:

1) Macron is a president without a party. It is very unluckily that he can count on a strong and stable majority in parliament.

2) Macron is president in a situation in which it will be quite difficult to negotiate a compromise with mainstream parties, which have been the main victims of these elections.

3) Macron has been voted, by many, as the lesser evil to the face to the xenophobic radical right.

4) Notwithstanding the perceived risk of a victory of the radical right, the abstention rate in this election has been extremely high.

5) With his image as a banker and his support for neoliberal reform, Macron is likely to face strong opposition by a radical Left that has found energy in the protests of the citizen-led “Nuit Debout” movement. Its power was demonstrated last year against a far-reaching reform of the labour code in France - as well as in the extremely successful electoral campaign of the far-left firebrand Jean Luc Melenchon.

In a sense, the Macron’s presidency is a signal of the end of the “republican monarchy” in France.

Luis Gómez Romero - From fraternity into effective legislation and policy

Emmanuel Macron’s victory with 66.06% of the votes in the second round of the French presidential election has been met with relief across Europe and much of the rest of the world – including Mexico.

French voters have thrown Mexicans a lifeline in their own struggle over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the Trump administration.

President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted that Mexico is keen to “strengthen its strategic alliance with France, now under President Emmanuel Macron”

It will be easier for Mexico to diversify and boost its international trade by renegotiating its free trade agreement with the European Union having Macron – who saluted the nations of the world in the name of “fraternal France” in his victory speech – in the Élysée, rather than Marine Le Pen – who has vowed to reform the Front National into a political force representing French “patriots” against cosmopolitan “globalisers”.

But there are still many reasons for concern. Over 10 million French voters favoured Le Pen. And almost a third chose neither Macron nor Le Pen – 12 million abstained and 4.2 million spoiled their ballot papers.

Voter turnout was the lowest recorded since 1969.

In the last presidential debate, Le Pen labelled Macron the candidate “of globalisation gone wild, of Uberisation, of precariousness” and “social brutality.” These accusations may be exaggerated, but Macron himself acknowledged in his victory speech the legitimacy of the anger and anxiety over the waning of the welfare state that has pushed millions of voters to embrace the Front National.

We are yet to see if Macron – a former investment banker – will actually transform his call to fraternity into effective legislation and policy. There is too much at stake both in France and the rest of the world for him to neglect the outrage of those who have been forgotten by the very globalisation whose continuity he advocates.

Simon Watmough - What about EU-Turkey relations?

Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the May 7 presidential election is unlikely to dramatically shift French–Turkish relations in the immediate future. The vote itself has attracted little media or popular interest in Turkey in the final week of the race, with Turkish news headlines dominated by fractious domestic politics and the Syria conflict.

At the same time, while the Franco–Turkish minority in France is significant, there has been no reporting in French media to suggest that this group has polled any differently to the overwhelming majority of French voters on Sunday: namely, against Le Pen.

Nevertheless, it is certainly possible that in the run-up to the all-important French parliamentary elections in June, Macron will offer some conciliatory gestures towards Turkey.

The new president’s new and politically untested En Marche! movement faces an uphill climb in the National Assembly. He will be keen to do all he can to win support from France’s generally conservative, AKP- and Erdogan-supporting French–Turkish electorate, which, like the French–Muslim electorate more generally, is highly diverse but generally united in opposition to Islamaphobia.

The key issue now is how Macron’s victory will affect the broader EU–Turkey relationship, which is at a low point in the wake of Turkey’s April 16 constitutional referendum. German chancellor Angela Merkel has signalled a renewed Franco–German partnership in the wake of Macron’s win in support of an open, tolerant Europe and this may portend a reset in relations with Turkey.

In the end, EU–Turkish relations seem hostage to broader forces – including the ambitions of Turkey’s truculent president and concern in Brussels over Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism and declining human rights record – that neither Macron nor Merkel are capable of meeting.

More to come

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.