Ten of eleven candidates for the upcoming presidential election. Pool/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
On 21 April, 2002, France’s voters unveiled the full and shocking extent of their political disenchantment by sending the veteran far-right leader Jean Marie Le Pen through to the second round of presidential elections to face the outgoing Jacques Chirac. This unexpected success was the most staggering election result in European politics in years. It signed the death warrant of the Fifth Republic. If French voters send Marine Le Pen into the second round of the presidential elections on 23 April and her opponent is Emmanuel Macron, a further nail will have been driven into the republic’s coffin. Fifteen years ago, the socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was eliminated and his party humiliated. If the candidate of the conservative Republican Party and former Prime Minister François Fillon is eliminated, the run off will be between two outsiders.
The Fifth Republic is France’s third longest political regime after the monarchy which was destroyed by the Revolution of 1789 and the Third Republic (1879-1940). It functioned well until 2002 because it was predicated on the existence of two solid coalitions - one built around the Socialist Party the other around the Gaullist one - and delivered, until the early 1980s, solid economic growth. If both coalitions collapse now, the way in which French politics are conducted will have to be recast. Its constitution will have to be rewritten.
