Macron - Le Pen: two divergent opinions among our editors

A l’entre-deux tours de l’élection présidentielle française, Le Regard Libre est divisé. Si l’ensemble de la rédaction reconnaît qu’il s’agit là d’un vrai choix entre deux candidats que tout semble opposer, deux de nos journalistes ont choisi de soutenir ouvertement leur favori. Nicolas Jutzet, pour sa part, est enthousiasmé depuis le début par la candidature d’Emmanuel Macron. Loris S. Musumeci, qui espérait voir François Fillon arriver au second tour, a décidé quant à lui de soutenir Marine Le Pen. Voici leurs réflexions.

Macron, the quiet force

By Nicolas Jutzet

But where will he end up? Three years ago, he was still a complete unknown to the general public. Now he's the man to (a)beat. The prodigal son is at the gates of power. We've come a long way! To get to this point, the young provincial had to convince and take courage in both hands. Fate makes men, but some know how to force it. He's certainly one of those.

Emmanuel was made by the Education Nationale. This is a prime example of what used to work in France, and is now the source of much frustration. Thanks to his hard work, he was able to «move up to Paris», make his mark and give back to France what it had offered him. But for the next generation, the social elevator has broken down. House arrest in all its violence. His personal story explains the central place given to education in his program. Today, 20% of elementary school leavers cannot read, write or count properly. What's more, the various international rankings demonstrate the glaring inequality of a system that was supposed to achieve the exact opposite. To remedy this situation, the candidate proposes to give priority to primary education, especially in priority areas.

Second essential project: freeing work and entrepreneurship. If France finds itself today in this explosive social situation, it is also because of a mistaken vision of the logic that an open market community must follow. Only Macron proposes to change this logic. Cementing the rights of insiders, baisser le temps de travail, avancer l’âge de la retraite, rien de tout cela ne crée de l’emploi, au contraire. Libérer le capital pour qu’il puisse enfin être investi dans le pays, fluidifier le marché du travail pour cesser avec cette ignoble assignation à résidence qui brise des chances et faciliter l’accès à la formation continue. En voilà des mesures qui doivent permettre à la France de relever la tête. Beaucoup ne voient pas le changement systémique que souhaite installer le candidat: il souhaite faire passer la France d’un pays qui réfléchit par l’Etat et par la rente à un pays compétitif dans lequel chacun peut, s’il le souhaite, rêver de devenir millionnaire. Ce n’est peut-être pas une société «idéale», mais c’est une société de possibilités. Une société qui prépare ses membres aux bouleversements à venir.

Europe is another issue that divides the two contenders head-on. Once again, a fundamental divide is perceptible. The former wants to reform and strengthen the EU, particularly in military terms, while the latter wants to leave it. It would be a serious political and historical mistake to go back on the achievements of this construction. The EU postulates that freedom must be the norm, and that only exceptions can confirm this rule. Marine Le Pen wants to pull the plug and de facto kill this ideal. Despite its many current flaws, it's the only way for us to compete on equal terms with China and the USA. Unplugging Europe - and a «Frexit» would do just that - would condemn the continent to a dwarf role in the future. France is a great lady, but without its allies, its 68 million inhabitants will be the cackle of the negotiations.

Voting for Macron means choosing a vision and not simply opposing your opponent. It means voting for a France that is ambitious, open, that decides to face up to others, without hiding, while respecting its historical role. Saying no to globalization, as her opponent promises, means putting up barriers not between two products as in the past, but directly on the production floor. Most of the world's production comes from collaboration between countries. Increasing the cost of this collaboration won't help anyone, and certainly not the underprivileged classes the heiress claims to defend. To vote for Macron is to show pragmatism, to reward the search for dialogue and the coming together of people of good intelligence. France is sick of its artificial dogmatism, which imprisons alliances of ideas on the altar of partisan logic. En Marche! offers us a way out, the way to a new world.

On the other hand, choosing Macron also means choosing to take a leap into the unknown. Who knows what the outcome of the legislative elections will be? How will he get his plans through a divided National Assembly? How will he manage the heterogeneous currents that make up his movement? Electing this literate technocrat is not without risk. In the words of one of his predecessors, «Giscard at the helm, Macron on the waterline». Between two waters, the fishing is good?

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Pour que vive la France

By Loris S. Musumeci

«Cultural relativism and guilt-tripping have succeeded in insinuating doubt about our values and our history. On the contrary, we must be a united and self-confident nation. We must not deny our heritage and our roots. We are a country with a history, with traditions, with a French culture.»

These few moving words are not from Emmanuel Macron. Nor from Marine Le Pen. It's part of a love letter to France from François Fillon, who is no longer in the race. Where can his supporters take shelter from now on? Follow in the master's footsteps by voting Macron? Fall into the useless and pathetic «ni ni»? Dare the vertigo proposed by the extreme right?

My decision is made. Her name is Marine. She is not the salvation of France; Marine is not Saint Joan of Arc. And Macron is not the Rothschild candidate. Nor is he the devious banker with the big nose and hooked fingers. Caricature prevents an honest look.

The fact remains that the characters speak in spite of themselves, even against themselves. This is what makes Macron my choice for France. His ambiguity doesn't raise questions, it directly causes anxiety. Macron the young, the handsome, the winner naturally pleases, like a new commercial product; one whose usefulness we don't yet know, but which we absolutely must have. Macron is a manipulation. A lie in his constant compromises. In his promise of renewal, when all he's got is the old progressive libertarians. In his false compassion, when he regrets «the humiliation against the Manif pour tous», and announces «at the same time», in a cleverly biased way, that he would legalize GPA. «Let women lend their wombs, as workers lend their arms», declared our lord Pierre Berger, Macron's supporter and master of ideology in France.

Marine, on the other hand, is a woman of integrity. At the risk of frightening people, of calling everything into question, but also of restoring hope to the smallest and the most suffering. Economically, the Front National's protectionist program is more likely to inspire doubt than confidence.

And yet, what a relief it is to read, at the heart of his campaign leaflet, the profound desire for a radiant France, through the promotion of the French-speaking world, the strengthening of French schools around the world, and the absolute priority given to mastery of the language in primary school. What intelligence to tackle the subject of culture by supporting small local associations and companies.

How sweet it is also to understand the importance of republican assimilation, so that no one is excluded. No more communitarianism, «I'm talking to French people, whatever your origin, skin color or religion.» That's true unity.

How moving to see workers in tears embracing their candidate on the tragic Whirpool site, seriously threatened with relocation to Poland.

Family, the elderly, farmers, the disabled and the unemployed are all part of Marine's heart.

Marine Le Pen is by no means perfect, nor is her program, but against Macron, she is the animated flesh against the phantom spirit, the protective mother against the estranged son, the violent sincerity against the tepid moralizing, the pride against the indifference, the people against the elite. So that France may live.

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