What do the French regional election results mean for Macron?

After a disappointing result for the French president, Sean O’Grady considers the 43-year-old’s chances of winning another term in the Élysée Palace

Macron leaves his family home in Le Touquet, after he voted in the first round of the French regional elections (AFP via Getty Images)

What does France want? Judging from the results of the first round of the regional elections, the answer would appear to be (to use a British phrase); “None of the above”. Two out of three of those eligible to vote didn’t bother to do so, and even for those who did venture out, the results were far from conclusive, at least for the front runners for next spring’s presidential contest. As things stand, Emmanuel Macron is still on course to win his second term, despite plenty of misgivings about him and a general sense of malaise in the land. But things are as volatile as ever, and Marine Le Pen has certainly not gone away.

For the president, the past five years have demonstrated three things. First, he has proved that you can build a party, or “movement” as he likes to style his La République En Marche (LREM) grouping, from scratch, and take power on the back of it. Less welcome, the latest elections confirm that LREM is little more than a Macron fan club that put down few roots in French political culture, scoring just 11 per cent or so of the poll (though that will improve when MLEM goes into the next round of voting next Sunday, with tiny parties eliminated).

Third, President Macron has shown that you can be a divisive, even hated figure in some quarters, but still retain a surprisingly robust level of public backing as an incumbent – more like 40 to 50 per cent in the polls, a multiple of the derisory support his party currently attracts. Thus, while the results are certainly disappointing for any ambition the president might have had to realign French politics, for the moment that seems not to affect his prospects of hanging on in the Élysée Palace. That is, in part, due to the pandemic incumbency effect observed in elections across the world, but also to the paucity of the personalities competing for power around him.