An Upset in Search of Characters

The French TV series Baron Noir (often compared to Netflix’s House of Cards) recently gave credibility to the theory of a total upset. Baron Noir’s showrunners, far from being political novices, have worked in French politics and had imagined in a previous season that a Macron-like figure hailing from the Socialist Party would win the presidency on a centrist platform even before Macron announced he would run for the 2017 election.

Their impressive feat put everyone on notice, and when they imagined in their last season (spoilers ahead!) that a populist YouTuber running on a pure populist and anti-elite platform would win the presidency, everyone paid attention. The candidate was loosely inspired by Etienne Chouard, a YouTuber that wants France’s officials to be randomly drawn and no longer elected. In the series, he wins against a scandal-ridden centrist pro-European president.

Macron’s presidency has not been plagued by major financial and political scandals, unsurprising given Macron and his party’s relatively short political history. But the Benalla scandal, where Macron’s bodyguard and inner circle advisor Alexandre Benalla beat up a protester while illegally wearing police gear, provides the framework for how a relatively minor affair could chip away his credibility in a presidential election. Macron’s incapacity to deal with the scandal cleanly—Benalla was fired only after considerable media pressure applied towards what should have been an obvious decision—was a serious warning shot, with Macron’s then flamboyant polls dropping precipitously. Another scandal, or a resurgence of the Benalla affair—some aspects of Benalla’s role as Macron’s advisor remain murky—could well pop up again in 2022.

On the RN’s side, while Le Pen has a strong base of support, she proved in 2017 that she was a subpar campaigner. She started with over 30 percent in polls yet only gathered 20 percent of votes during the first round. Her incompetence and unpreparedness became further apparent in her debate with Macron ahead of the runoff. While these debates usually have a muted effect on the final results, her woeful performance sank her campaign. Her current strong showing on the polls might melt under similar pressure in the 2022 campaign.

Any reasonable French analyst will tell you that the election, in theory, is in the bag for Macron if it were held today. But eighteen months is a long time in politics, and a Baron Noir scenario is far from impossible. French society has been put under considerable tension from the coronavirus pandemic, the economic difficulties that followed, and the recent repeated terrorist attacks. Such upheaval could easily transform the political scene. Macron has done a good job at evolving from a quasi-Blairite candidate largely focused on economic issues who wanted to build a “start-up nation” to a more well-rounded president with a better grip on national security and foreign policy.

And yet the political realignment he helped catalyze in 2017 is far from over. The unipolar moment of the “elitist bloc” seems to encourage the creation of a powerful “popular bloc” in response. This “providential” man could take different shapes. The popular comedian Jean-Marie Bigard was tempted to emulate Ukrainian comedian turned president Volodymyr Zelensky. Other possible contenders could include a military officer, like Macron’s former top general Pierre de Villiers, a best-selling author and polemist like Eric Zemmour, a GJ figure like Eric Drouet…

In November 2015, you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who believed Macron would be president. Maybe in 2022, he will be upset by someone this article has failed to even mention. À suivre?

François Valentin is the co-host of the Uncommon Decency podcast on European affairs and a master’s student at Sciences Po’s school of Public Affairs.

Image: Reuters