Parisian election posters showing candidate for the 2017 presidential election Emmanuel Macron, March 23, 2017. Apaydin Alain/Press Association. All rights reserved.Macron won the 2017 election with more than 65% of votes against Le Pen. He became the new president on May 7 after starting a new political movement just over a year ago. Sidelining the traditional political leaders and parties, Macron wants to push for a new way of thinking outside of the traditional left/right political spectrum. His political convictions are mainly liberal and he has called for a strong country within the context of globalisation. But does two-thirds of French voters choosing Emmanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s presidential elections mark the beginning of a stalemate in France’s participatory democracy? So far the newly elected president has offered few paths to citizen empowerment.
The 2017 election has brought a period of instability where a political majority will be hard to come by. Macron’s victory over Le Pen was only a partial success as he needs a majority in parliament to be able to govern. His charisma will not be sufficient for his candidates to win next month’s election for the legislature, and he needs to show a clear political profile.
His En Marche (“On the Move”) slogan is a tool created to win the presidential race, but it does not come with a network in parliament.
