A Europe between ultras and greens | In the …

PageI12 in France

From Paris

The worst and the best, nightmares and dreams mingled during a European election night that sowed seeds of hope and defeat and where environmentalists came out of the ground to partially halt the climb to the heights from the far right. In France, at least in the face of official rhetoric, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has lost the bet of being placed above the far right after the European Parliament's renewal elections held on May 26th. The National Cluster, the party of the former presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, beaten by Macron himself in the second round of the 2017 presidential election, sealed last night the crown of the party's most voted in France. The latest reported count places the RN at the head of the consultation with 23.3% of the vote, followed by the presidential party La Republica en Marcha with 22.1%. These elections transformed the pattern of the 2017 presidential election. Two years ago, Macron was first and Marine Le Pen second. Those who follow also have another profile. Where in 2017 was the Republicans right in third place and the radical left of Insumisa France in fourth place, now appear ecologists with a history of 13.1% of votes (8.9 in 2014), Republicans with a resounding 8.4% and insomnia with a no less stigma of 6.6%. The maintenance of the liberal center, the consolidation of the extreme right, the rebirth of the ecologists and the sinking of the left are the central lines of this vote.

At the European level, anti-immigrant nationalist parties have emerged stronger while the global right grouped in the EPP, the European People's Party, is the leading force in the European Parliament followed by the Socialists. The EPP would get 180 deputies (221 in 2014), the Social Democrats 151 (191 in 2014), the Liberals 105 (67 in 2014), the Greens 69 (50 in 2014), while all the Europhobic parties, of the European Parliament. far left and right, they would add 168, which equals 25% in a parliament composed of 751 seats. This 25% is a kind of salute for the European democracies because they are far from the 33% needed to create legislative chaos in the European Parliament. All options of healthy alliances were open. Although the indicator of France with the defeat of macronismo is the most notorious fact, it is necessary to emphasize that xenophobic ultranationalists have found in their path two proposals with which no one intended to stop their progress: environmentalists and the liberals. Both were a surprise dam, on all environmentalists and mainly in Germany, 20% and France. The younger voters literally fled the lists presented by the left and the huge mess and disunity that marked their proposals in 2019. In France, the left wrote and acted in the film of its own destruction. The green phenomenon also spread to Denmark or Finland, where the far right party The True Finns was replaced by the environmental proposal of 15.3%.

However, reading the results is urgent for those who, like French President Emmanuel Macron, have set the electoral scenography as a war between Europeanism and nationalist proposals. In this context, macronism, flag bearer of the liberalism of the euro, has lost dramatically in France, Italy, Poland and Hungary. The European Liberal project proposed by Macron as a plebiscite has ended. The head of the Italian League and Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, and his ally in this crusade campaign, Marine Le Pen, were last night the two stamps of the new Europe (see apart). However, at this far right that was already seen with the crown of the kingdom, he slipped in the middle an environmentalist guest who bet no euro.

Liberal Europeanism has suffered as much as the Social Democrats and the Left. Social Democracy, in the image and likeness of the SPD in Germany, is a thin ball and has once again paid the ballot the nickname that has worn for several years: the Socialists. Adepts pacts with the right and the banks after winning the elections (France 2012) with opposite rhetoric, this time the electorate has not forgotten. The German SPD, ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, has fallen 12 points from 2014. One of the few exceptions is Portugal and Spain. In Lisbon, the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Antonio Costa won 30% of the vote, while in Spain, the PSOE still reaped the fruits of the last general elections (see annex). The successive economic crises that erupted in 2007 had a destructive impact on the countries of the South, more exposed than the others to liberal regulation.

Twelve years later, the possible recomposition of European socialism begins in southern Europe while the north extreme right continues its work of vineyards pursued by environmentalists.

Overall, the political tragedy is today in socialism and the radical left. In France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Insumisa did not reiterate its results of the 2017 presidential elections and the legislative elections that followed (11%). Mélenchon's political strategy, his personalism, weighed against a movement whose ship unleashed many disenchanted young people with the course of the party. France Insumisa lost on both fronts of its objectives: it had set the goal of 11% of the votes, as in the legislative, and, moreover, to come in first position of the proposals from the left. Neither one nor the other. The penalty is all the more dense as the FI list is virtually identical to that of the Socialist Party (or what has been saved from the past), which got 6.7%. The left are already fragments of a dream. Socialist candidate in the presidential election of 2017, Benoît Hamon, barely touches 3.5%.

In Greece, Syriza, once the great hope of the radical European left, suffered a severe capitulation to the conservatives of the New Democracy. They took Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras more than nine points in advance: 33% against 24; an enormity that will lead to the promotion of parliamentary elections.

There has been no ultraconservative revolution in Europe, but rather a confirmation of trends already present for several years. A slightly browner Europe is out. The far right appeared first in France, the United Kingdom and Italy. But from nowhere, without any anticipation, the future Europe is much greener.

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