By Dimitris Kazakis
Global Research, April 27, 2017
Macron won 23.75% of the votes, while his opponent Le Pen won 21.53%, according to official results. Republican Francois Fillon and independent left-candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon won 19.91% and 19.64% respectively. While the former Socialist party candidate, Benouit Hamon has accrued just 6.35% of the vote. The remaining 8.82% of the votes were shared by the remaining 6 candidates for the French Presidency.
The collapse of traditional bipartisanism
What do the results show? First of all, an impressive collapse of traditional bipartism, of the two alternating parties which dominated the presidential power for decades. On the one hand, the center-right party, which originated from the formerly de Gaulle right, and in 2002 formed under the then president Jean Chirac the UMP (Union pour un mouvement populaire). After Sarkozy’s defeat to Hollande in 2012 presidential race and the spree that suffered the center-right thanks to this petit Napoléon – as Sarkozy liked to be characterized by the media and his friends, without perhaps knowing that it was Louis Bonaparte who used to be called with the same nickname by those who mocked him when he was self-proclaimed Emperor Napoleon the 3rd in 1852 – this party changed its name to Les Républicains (Republicans), in order to be rescued. But in vain. For the first time, since the time of De Gaulle, the center-right party could not even get into the second round of the presidential election.
On the other hand, the Socialist Party, which – let us not forget – had brought this grotesque figure, François Hollande, to the French Presidency in 2012, with 28.63% of the votes in the first round. In these presidential elections its candidate, Hamon, managed to collect only 6.35% of the votes. Less than Mélenchon, who in 2012 had again come fourth with 11.10% of the votes.
