A consequential choice for France—and an uncertain one

FRANCE is not just deeply unhappy, it is at war with itself. The first round of the presidential election, on April 23rd, could send any two of four candidates into a run-off on May 7th. They range from the odious right to the vicious left, with two pro-market reformers in the middle. Seldom has a European democracy been so torn between progress and disaster.

After votes for Brexit, Donald Trump and, last week in Turkey, for a constitution that cements Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s power (see article), the battle over liberal internationalism has moved to the cradle of the Enlightenment. The fate of France is not all that is at stake. The European Union will stall if one of its driving forces is in chaos or hostile. It may even fail, wrecking the organising principle of an entire continent.

Outright victory on May 7th for Marine Le Pen, on the far right, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on the hard left, would be a catastrophe. On that count alone, either of the two pro-market candidates would be a blessing. But choosing between them involves a trade-off and a gamble (see Briefing). Emmanuel Macron is untested and lacks the support of an established party; François Fillon is a social conservative tarnished by scandal. On balance, we would support Mr Macron.

Un coup de rouge

Whoever is president will inherit a discontented country. Unemployment has been stuck above 10% since 2012; for young people, it is still above 20%. The economy is growing slowly and does not yield enough tax to pay for the public services that voters believe are their right. Racial and religious tensions run high, exacerbated by jihadist attacks. Dislike of the EU is even stronger than it was in pre-referendum Britain.

France used to be governed by a cadre of brainy officials, who enjoyed privileges and power to match. But that contract is dead. The approval rating of today’s president was at one point as low as 4%. The people believe that the elite has failed.

Ms Le Pen and Mr Mélenchon echo their fury. In their own ways, both hold out the promise of a return to an idealised past when the state was generous and life more secure. They say that protectionism can make France richer; that less involvement with NATO and more with Russia would make it safer; that by renegotiating or leaving the EU it can prosper; and that earlier retirement and more welfare would increase solidarity. All this would make France only weaker and more indebted.

To such incoherence, they add their own kind of venom. Ms Le Pen would put a moratorium on immigration. She says the French state bore no guilt for the detention and deportation of Jews from a Paris velodrome in the second world war. Mr Mélenchon would raise taxes on those earning more than €400,000 ($430,000) a year to 100% and join a “Bolivarian Alliance” with Cuba and Venezuela.

Instead of strife in the Elysée, France needs a president to carry through reform. Unlike most EU countries, it has never taken genuinely painful steps to free the labour market, trim the state and tighten benefits. Its labour code is longer than the Bible. Measured against GDP, government spending is higher than Sweden’s. It has its share of world-class firms, but its public unions are world-class, too—in seeing off change.

Mr Fillon thinks he can break this impasse with shock therapy. He wants to cut 500,000 jobs from the civil service and €100bn from public spending. He would end the 35-hour work week, raise the retirement age by three years, to 65, and junk 95% of the labour code. An avowed fan of Britain’s former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in a country where she is loathed, he is pro-business. As important, he has the stomach for the protracted fights that reform will surely demand.

Unfortunately, his claim to lead France through divisive change has been weakened by his own misconduct. One of those protracted fights has been over the €900,000 in parliamentary salaries that he got the state to pay his wife and two of his children, allegedly for doing nothing. In this he is not alone among French politicians, but he is running for president on a ticket of unimpeachable probity. Mr Fillon is asking his compatriots to make sacrifices and to sign up to a new social contract when he himself embodies the arrogance of the old one.

Mr Macron is untainted, if only because he is a political outsider. He has never held elected office, though he was the appointed economy minister in the present government. His plans are less bold than Mr Fillon’s, cutting only 120,000 public jobs and €60bn in spending, but an independent study rates them as equally free-market. Mr Macron is pro-business, but more subtle about it. Instead of abolishing the 35-hour week, he would help companies work around it. Rather than raise the retirement age, he would unify the country’s 35 pension schemes, eventually doing more to enhance labour mobility.

Mr Macron is more outward-looking, too. He backs recent EU free-trade deals that Mr Fillon rejects. He is more likely to be able to work with Germany to strengthen the governance of the euro. He is socially liberal, whereas his opponent, close to Roman Catholic traditionalists, opposed gay marriage and wants to limit gay adoption. Mr Fillon would impose immigration quotas and end sanctions against Russia; Mr Macron exhorts the French to live up to their values.

Macron the mould-breaker

The worry is that Mr Macron will not get his reforms through the legislature. Though En Marche!, the party he founded, will run in every constituency in elections to the National Assembly in June, it will struggle to win a majority, unlike Mr Fillon’s Republicans. But do not write off his political skills. In rallies and on TV he has more than held his own. En Marche! is barely a year old, but it has 250,000 members—more than twice as many as the Socialists.

His critics say Mr Macron is wishy-washy. But he is the only candidate who has made a full-blooded case for the open society and economy this newspaper believes in. That takes courage—the courage to step outside France’s party system, to defend complex arguments against polarising sound bites and to stand for optimism in an age of identity politics. That is a message all democracies need to hear.