⏰ TODAY at 13:00  Moscow time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host a panel discussion on the results of the presidential elections in France.

❓Macron is the most energetic of European leaders to have attempted to resolve the military-political crisis in Ukraine. Will this help him in the domestic political context?
❓How will relations between France and Russia develop if either frontrunner of the presidential race wins, and what will remain constant?
❓What will be the role of France amid a rapidly changing situation?

Participants in the discussion will answer these and other questions.

A link to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online-platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, on Telegram and Twitter.

#France #Macron

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

UPD: The livestream is over. The video of the discussion is available via the same link. Stay tuned!

🎥 LIVE: at 13:00  Moscow time (GMT+3), Valdai Club panel discussion on the results of the presidential elections in France will start.

https://vk.com/video-117768947_456239349

#Norms_and_Values #France #Macron #LePen

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇫🇷 Macron as President of Crisis and Three Frances

On April 25, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion on the results of the presidential elections in France.

Discussion moderator Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, invited the participants to discuss the victory of Emmanuel Macron. He noted that this time, unlike in previous elections, Macron's rival Marine Le Pen won by a wide margin in a number of regions, and this makes the picture "more fragmented" and more interesting than it was five years ago.

🔹 Alexander Orlov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the French Republic and the Principality of Monaco in 2008-2017, analysed the situation in which the newly elected President of France found himself following the elections. He called Macron's victory convincing, but stressed that his relatively weak results in the first round make it difficult for the winner to carry out the previous policy. This reflects the difficult situation in which France finds itself, the diplomat said. Speaking about French foreign policy, Orlov stressed that Macron focuses on the theme of France’s independence, and with regard to Russia, he tried to remain politically correct, avoiding harsh rhetoric so as to “not burn bridges.”

🔹 Evgenia Obichkina, Professor of the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), called Macron's main difficulty his lack of reliance on any strong political party or basic political electorate that would hold certain views for generations. Analysing the situation in France as a whole, the expert emphasised that if earlier there were two Frances - right and left, with a predominance of the centrist spectrum in both, now there are three of them, with a comparative radicalisation of the right and left and the separation of the centre into a selected force. Thus, Macron will probably reflect, in implementing his programme - republican, humanistic, European and ideological values - to constantly reckon with powerful pressure from both flanks.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/macron-as-president-of-crisis-and-three-frances/

#Norms_and_Values #France #Macron

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇫🇷 The 2022 election in France is not a repeat of the 2017 election, whatever one might think.

We have seen significant changes in the French political space over the past five years through the events that marked Emmanuel Macron’s first term, whether it be the mobilisation on the issue of pensions, the “Yellow Vests” movement or the health crisis. The brutal management of the latter thus explains why Marine Le Pen is ahead of Emmanuel Macron in almost all the overseas departments.

Emmanuel Macron now clearly appears as the “centre-right” candidate and Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, has solidified an electorate around her. Le Pen remains popular, showing that the momentum of her 2017 campaign ran deeper than one might think. She can no longer, if ever, be called a “far-right” candidate.

The “Elitist-bourgeois” and Europeanist bloc that has gathered around Emmanuel Macron is both solid AND a minority in the country. The “social-populist” bloc, in other words the combination of a vote of conviction regarding a structured social programme and a vote of exasperation structured around a populist-social discourse of real effectiveness, is in fact in the majority in France, writes Valdai Club expert Jacques Sapir.

🔗 Elections Day in France

#Norms_and_Values #France #Macron

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇫🇷 Emmanuel Macron will face no less important tasks not only on the internal, but also on the external circuit.

According to the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, it is the head of state who determines the nature of the country’s foreign and defence policy, and since 2017 Macron has repeatedly proved that he is ready to use these powers with great pleasure.

He has demonstrated an emphatically active diplomatic style, a desire to go beyond the established framework of thinking, and he has proposed bright concepts (like “NATO’s brain death”). He has attempted to involve France in various groupings of nations, initiatives and processes, if not as a leader, then at least as a noteworthy participant.

The preservation of the status quo in France has caused understandable relief in the European establishment, as well as among most of the media: the staunch Europeanist Macron looks to them like a clearly more advantageous figure than Marine Le Pen, who has proposed reformatting the EU into a union of nation states while weakening common institutions, writes Valdai Club expert Alexei Chikhachev. However, today the situation is such that the ideas of the French leader and his colleagues about the near future of the EU are noticeably different.

🔗 France After the Elections: Foreign Policy Horizons

#Norms_and_Values #France #Macron

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club