François-Xavier Bourmaud is a senior reporter for Le Figaro. Charles Sapin follows the National Rally for the political service of Figaro. Together, they published
Macron-Le Pen, Le tango des gravediggers
at the Archipelago editions.
FIGAROVOX. - Why did you use this image of the "gravedigger's tango"?
François-Xavier BOURMAUD and Charles SAPIN. -
First the gravediggers because Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen want to bury the right and the left. Shortly after the 2017 presidential election, both made a common observation: to maintain and survive in the medium term, we must overcome this historical divide, certainly tired, but which has existed for two centuries, to succeed in replacing it with another. cleavage all to their advantage. Both have a presentiment that they embody the perfect political antithesis for each other.
As for the tango, it is an improvisational dance in which the steps are not fixed in advance. However, during the five-year term, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have continued to adapt their positions to each other with a single objective: to strengthen the new cleavage that they have theorized to anchor it in the French political landscape. Everything must be defined according to their opposition, to better suffocate the other political forces. At the start of the health crisis, for example, Marine Le Pen calls for the closure of the borders and Emmanuel Macron ensures that the virus does not have a passport. When she denounces the loss of French sovereignty to the detriment of Europe, assures her that only European sovereignty will allow French sovereignty to be regained. And itis so on all subjects.
With this "
tango of the gravediggers
", we wanted to explain a paradox: 70% of the French do not want the Macron-Le Pen duel to be repeated in 2022, yet in all the polls, without exception, the two opponents are given the lead of the first round.
Nothing and no one manages to unbolt them because they do not give them the space to do so.
Many have sought to define this new cleavage… How would you qualify it?
One of the peculiarities of this cleavage is that it does not yet have its own terminology. In the book, we use the terms “
progressive front
” and “
populist front
”, some oppose rather pro-European and Eurosceptic; globalist and sovereignist; political scientist Jérôme Sainte-Marie, for his part, opposes “
elite bloc
” and “
populist bloc
”. This absence of a fixed definition indicates that this new cleavage is not stabilized.
However, it has circulated quietly in the country since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With the end of the USSR, the capitalist model loses its counterweight.
With the single market and the common currency, Europe is committed to economic liberalism.
From 1992, doubts appeared with the timid “yes” of the French to the Maastricht Treaty.
The right is starting to be divided on the issue.
Jacques Chirac represents the pro-European camp, while a nationalist camp emerges with Philippe Séguin.
In 2005, the “no” won in the European referendum.
This time it is the Socialist Party that is tearing itself apart.
To read also
Macron-Le Pen, the tango of the gravediggers
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At the same time, we see over this same period that the lines are blurring between the right and the left. After the failed dissolution of 1997, Jacques Chirac finds himself with Lionel Jospin in Matignon. For five years, a five-year term, a right-wing president will cohabit with a left-wing prime minister. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy made the opening to the left from the start of his mandate. After him, François Hollande who was elected by proclaiming
"my enemy is finance"
, will wait two years before appointing Emmanuel Macron to the Ministry of the Economy ... All this gives substance to the criticism formulated by Jean-Marie Le Pen and taken up by Marine Le Pen on the “UMPS”, this merger between a part of the right and a part of the left. In 2017,Emmanuel Macron candidate will deliberately embody this "
at the same time
”, thus allowing the president of the National Rally to pose as an ideal adversary.
So much so that in the last presidential election, these two movements will end up revealing themselves and being embodied in this exclusive confrontation between them two.
In the book, we use the terms “progressive front” and “populist front”, some oppose rather pro-European and Eurosceptic;
globalist and sovereignist;
political scientist Jérôme Sainte-Marie, for his part, opposes “elite bloc” and “popular bloc”.
This absence of a fixed definition indicates that this new cleavage is not stabilized.
François-Xavier Bourmaud and Charles Sapin
How do the social movements that have punctuated the five-year term illustrate this cleavage?
It already appears in the background during the 2017 campaign at the Whirlpool factory in Amiens where workers demonstrated in the parking lot to denounce the closure of the site. What is germinating on this parking lot is everything that will be expressed in a resounding way with the yellow vests a few years later: the fear of downgrading, the expression of a feeling of abandonment on the part of the State, the impression of being ostracized from society, of being "
those who are nothing
"... But these five-year social movements, yellow vests yesterday and health passes today, can also be explained by this new opposition between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. These two blocs confiscate the debate and stifle any other political outlet. A logical frustration emerges from people who, because they do not recognize themselves in it, decide to express themselves differently. That is, to choose the street rather than the ballot boxes. It was long considered that the yellow vests would be a fuel for the National Gathering. On the contrary, it tipped some of his voters into abstention. It is the pitfall of this new cleavage. By suffocating oppositions, it can push French people to break with the electoral system. In any case, to lose interest in it.This may explain the galloping abstention observed during the last polls.
What relationship do Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen maintain?
It is an ambivalent relationship which reveals as much aversion as mutual fascination. Marine Le Pen sees Emmanuel Macron as a spoiled child for whom everything was very easy. For her, he is part of an uprooted caste who cannot understand the ills of the country, because he does not share its identity. But she told us that she had a certain respect for the capacities of the Head of State, for his “talent” and even for “his incredible self-confidence which is at the same time his strength and his weakness. “For his part, Emmanuel Macron is wary of Marine Le Pen. He knows it to be formidable. He first observes that it could have disappeared from the political landscape after the presidential election. After the second round, she suffered an assault of incredible violence but she recovered which is far frombe the case with all those who have known that. The resistance of Marine Le Pen provoked a surge of vigilance in Emmanuel Macron. Although on the merits, he remains convinced that if the debate happened again today, he would beat her in the same way as in 2017.
While the day after the presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was presented as the best opponent to Emmanuel Macron, the president of the National Rally will ultimately succeed in becoming the perfect embodiment of anti-macronism.
François-Xavier Bourmaud and Charles Sapin
In this regard, what is Marine Le Pen's view today on this failed debate in the second round?
She assumes her failure.
After the debate, she did not give any sign of life for months.
Our book dissects how, during this time, she will actually get up by holding on to the young president.
In order to become the perfect negative, the best opponent.
She analyzed it and dissected its ideology.
The Fifth Republic is such that when one manages to be the best opponent, one attracts the light to oneself and one forces others to place themselves in relation to their positions.
Read also Presidential 2022: Macron and Le Pen still remain favorites
In March 2018, Marine Le Pen organized a congress and castigated Macronia by drawing the contours of the cleavage that separates them: "
We are the sedentaries, they are the nomads, it is a multi-century opposition and Mr. Macron is the latent product of an ideology called attalism and which has no homeland
”.
While the day after the presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was presented as the best opponent to Emmanuel Macron, the president of the National Rally will
ultimately
succeed in becoming the perfect embodiment of anti-macronism.
An Ifop Fiducial survey for
Le Figaro
and LCI, confirms your analysis, affirming that the two finalists of 2017 retain their lead in the first round. Where are the other oppositions, however?
The polls published since the start of the school year reflect the work of destruction put in place by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen since the start of the five-year term. But if the left does not need anyone to divide, on the right it is necessary from time to time to give an “
ice ax
”, as Édouard Philippe says, to make sure. The Élysée blows on the embers to fuel tensions between Valérie Pécresse and Xavier Bertrand. What if they both show up? The main question for the right is that of union. If they fail to do so, failure is guaranteed.
Today, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are waiting for only one thing: that the right arrives at the presidential election as fragmented as the left. The parties are looking to find who can loosen the Macron-Le Pen pincers. Everyone tries to preempt a niche but, in doing so, they all position themselves in relation to this new cleavage. If it ratifies the disappearance of the right-left cleavage and enshrines the "gravedigger's tango", the presidential election of 2022 can have a historic character.
