Macron, Emmanuel (1977- )

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Éric Zemmour, French Far-Right Candidate, Convicted for Inciting Racial Hatred

      by

      Éric Zemmour, a pundit whose presidential run has upended French politics, had called unaccompanied migrant children “assassins” and “rapists” on television.PARIS — Éric Zemmour, the anti-immigrant far-right pundit who is running in France’s presidential elections, was convicted on Monday on charges of inciting racial hatred after saying on television in 2020 that unaccompanied child migrants were “thieves,” “rapists,” and “assassins.”Mr. Zemmour, who had stood by his comments and said courts should not police political speech, was fined 10,000 euros, or $11,400, by a criminal court in Paris.The verdict represented the third conviction and fine for Mr. Zemmour, who has a long history of incendiary comments, mostly about immigration, over the past decade, though he has been acquitted on other occasions.Mr. Zemmour has repeatedly run afoul of French laws that punish defamation or acts provoking hatred or violence on the basis of race, religion and other factors over the past decade, and he still faces several trials on similar charges.In a statement announcing that he would appeal Thursday’s conviction, Mr. Zemmour said that the court had issued an “ideological and stupid” ruling against a “free spirit.”“We want the end of this system that tightens the noose around freedom of expression and democratic debate a bit more each day,” he added.Mr. Zemmour surged in the polls before even announcing his presidential bid in November, and he has scrambled mainstream French politics with his fiery nationalist rhetoric and apocalyptic tone, but his campaign has lost momentum in recent weeks.With the elections about three months away, Mr. Zemmour has struggled to get the official backing of at least 500 elected representatives — a requirement to appear on the ballot in the presidential election. He now stands at about 13 percent in the polls, in fourth place, while President Emmanuel Macron, who was elected in 2017 and is widely expected to run to stay in office, is polling first.Mr. Zemmour has explicitly fashioned himself as a French-style Donald J. Trump, with inflammatory comments and attacks against the news media and French elites that have repeatedly drawn outrage and have fueled his rise to prominence.The case was rooted in comments that Mr. Zemmour made in September 2020. Appearing on CNews — a Fox-style television network that has grown by giving airtime to right-wing pundits to rail on issues like crime, immigration, climate and Covid — Mr. Zemmour was asked about minors who immigrate to France from Africa or the Middle East without parents or guardians and often end up isolated as they face the hardships of city streets or squalid camps.“They don’t belong here, they are thieves, they are assassins, they are rapists, that’s all they are,” Mr. Zemmour said. “They should be sent back, they shouldn’t even come.”Politicians and antiracism groups quickly condemned the comments, and prosecutors opened an investigation based on the laws that prohibit defamation and provocation.Mr. Zemmour’s lawyer had moved to dismiss the charges, arguing during the trial, held in November, that unaccompanied children migrants were not an ethnic or racial group.Arié Alimi, a lawyer for the French Human Rights League, a plaintiff in the case, told reporters at the courthouse that Mr. Zemmour’s politics were based on “hatred” and the stigmatizing of people “because of their origins, their religion or their race.”“It’s an important ruling, because he has to understand that we won’t let it stand,” Mr. Alimi said.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Marine Le Pen, Kicking Off Her Campaign, Tries to Embody Credibility

      by

      Ms. Le Pen has bet that sanitizing her far-right party’s image will finally bear fruit in the run-up to France’s presidential election in April.PARIS — Marine Le Pen has long used fiery rhetoric and hard-hitting proposals to fight her way to power in France. But for her third presidential bid, she has struck an unusual tone: serenity.On Saturday, Ms. Le Pen, a far-right leader, used social media to kick off the final stretch of her campaign with a 3.5-minute video speech intended to portray her as a credible and composed stateswoman. A large white scarf tied around her neck, she is pictured in the video strolling around the Louvre’s glass pyramid and speaking in a reassuring tone, her words accompanied by soft piano music.“Faced with the dangers that await us and the challenges that lie ahead,” Ms. Le Pen said, “I call on you to follow the path of reason and of the heart.”Her speech’s peaceful overtones were a direct response to the violent messaging put forth by Éric Zemmour, another far-right candidate, whose campaign launch video was riddled with clips of crumbling churches, burning cars and violent clashes with the police that projected an image of a chaotic France.Mr. Zemmour has said he is running for president to “save” his country, which he portrays as assailed by Islam, immigration and leftist identity politics. By contrast, Ms. Le Pen’s video showed her surrounded by smiling people as she toured France, visiting businesses and port cities.The stakes are high for Ms. Le Pen less than 100 days before the presidential election. After finishing in third place in the 2012 campaign and being defeated in the 2017 runoff by Emmanuel Macron, she hopes her third bid will be the winning one. To try to make that happen, she has bet on dropping the populist messaging that once characterized her, and has instead redoubled efforts to “un-demonize” her party, the National Rally, which has often been associated with flashes of antisemitism and xenophobia.But fierce competition among right-wing candidates has eroded Ms. Le Pen’s early lead in the polls and has led many to wonder if she will always remain a long shot.Ms. Le Pen’s video — set at the world-renowned Louvre museum, which was once the main residence of France’s kings — was also a way for her to revive a confrontation with Mr. Macron, who is widely expected to seek another term. In 2017, when he was president-elect, Mr. Macron delivered his victory speech in front of the same glass pyramid at the Louvre.“Macron is the opponent,” said Philippe Olivier, a close aide to Ms. Le Pen and a member of the European Parliament. “That’s what the symbolic act of being at the Louvre is about.”Until a few months ago, Ms. Le Pen was expected to be Mr. Macron’s main challenger, in a rematch of the 2017 vote. She has spent the past four years trying to foster her credibility and has worked to rebrand the National Rally’s extremist ideas as respectable.Éric Zemmour, at his first campaign rally, last month in Villepinte, near Paris.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockEven as she has hewed to her party’s harsh nationalist, anti-immigrant vision, Ms. Le Pen has softened her longtime populist economic agenda by dropping a proposal to exit the eurozone and advocating more orthodox debt policies. She has also broadened her platform to include more day-to-day issues like energy prices, the theme of her campaign stop on Friday in Saint-Malo, in western France.But two dark-horse candidates have emerged and have made the prospect of reaching a runoff with Mr. Macron more uncertain: Mr. Zemmour, a polarizing far-right polemicist who has seen a meteoric rise in the polls, and Valérie Pécresse, a center-right politician whose hard-line messaging on national security and immigration issues step on some of Ms. Le Pen’s own favorite campaign themes.Recent polls show Ms. Le Pen and Ms. Pécresse running neck and neck in the first round of April’s election, with each expected to get about 17 percent of the vote. But that still puts them about 10 points behind the incumbent, Mr. Macron.The biggest threat to Ms. Le Pen’s ambitions is Mr. Zemmour. Studies have shown that his full-throated promotion of reactionary ideas has cost her many potential voters, and some have said that the two far-right candidates could sabotage each other’s chances.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      In a France Fearful of Immigrants, Another Candidate Tacks Hard Right

      by

      Valérie Pécresse, the center-right candidate in April’s presidential election, has adopted the vocabulary of the far right when discussing immigration.PARIS — As president, the candidate said, she would “eradicate zones of non-France,” or neighborhoods with high crime, where “the little old lady is told to stay home” because there is a drug deal underway outside her apartment.She would send in the army to help in the “Republican reconquest” of these areas where, she promised, offenders would be punished more severely under the law.“We have to eradicate them,” she said during a prime-time debate, referring to the areas, “and that’s what I would do as president of the republic.”It was not Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, who was speaking, but Valérie Pécresse, the center-right candidate in April’s presidential election.Ms. Pécresse recently won the nomination of the Republicans — the successor to parties once led by Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac — by tacking hard right. She adopted the far right’s vocabulary, with its racial and colonial undertones, while proposing harsher penalties in high-crime zones for the same offenses as elsewhere, a policy that experts said would violate France’s bedrock principle of equality before the law.But with the primary behind her, Ms. Pécresse — an otherwise moderate conservative who has often been compared to President Emmanuel Macron — now faces the difficult task of enlarging her support base. Pulled right by her own party and the far right, she must also speak to moderates and traditional conservatives less interested in the themes of immigration and national identity that have dominated the political campaign.Ms. Pécresse in 2018 with President Emmanuel Macron, to whom she has often been compared.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinStill basking in her primary victory two weeks ago, Ms. Pécresse, the current leader of the Paris region and a former national minister of the budget and then higher education, has risen to second place behind Mr. Macron in the polls among likely voters in the election. For Mr. Macron, a challenge by an establishment figure like Ms. Pécresse could prove far more formidable than one by Ms. Le Pen, whom he easily beat in 2017.The rise of Ms. Pécresse, 54, comes at an unsettled time in French politics. Until this past summer, most experts had expected a rematch of 2017, pitting Mr. Macron against Ms. Le Pen in the second round of France’s two-round voting system. But the emergence and rapid rise of Éric Zemmour, a far-right author, television pundit and now presidential candidate, has turned things upside down.By severely weakening Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Zemmour’s candidacy has created a path for Ms. Pécresse to move past the first round and face Mr. Macron.Like the president, Ms. Pécresse is a graduate of France’s top schools and is at ease speaking English in international settings. She, too, is regarded as pro-business and pro-Europe, even though she has criticized Mr. Macron for his spending and recently proposed cutting 200,000 government jobs. On social issues, though, she is considered more conservative than the president. She opposed gay marriage when it became law in 2013, though she has since changed her position.Like others on the right and far right — who have railed against a supposed invasion of France by immigrants, even as arrivals have grown less in France than in the rest of Europe or in other rich nations worldwide in the past decade — Ms. Pécresse has taken a tough stance on immigration. Describing it as “out of control,” she said there was a link between immigration and the rise of Islamism, terrorism and crime. She has proposed putting quotas on immigrants by country of origin and category, and cutting social benefits for them.Migrants warming themselves by a fire at a makeshift camp in Paris. Ms. Pécresse has taken a hard line on immigration, calling it “out of control.”Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe first woman nominated by the Republicans as a presidential candidate, Ms. Pécresse has mentioned former Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain in speaking about her own leadership.Alexandra Dublanche, the vice president of the Paris region, who has worked with Ms. Pécresse for a decade, said the candidate was inspired by Ms. Thatcher as a “reformer and for her courage to get things done.” In Ms. Merkel, Ms. Pécresse admired “a long-term vision and the capacity to unite people behind her,” Ms. Dublanche said.Ms. Pécresse’s victory in the primary was widely considered a surprise to political experts and to her opponents, including allies of Mr. Macron. She defeated four men, including two who had been described as clear favorites. Ms. Dublanche said Ms. Pécresse was “clearly” underestimated because of her gender.In the first days after Ms. Pécresse’s victory, Mr. Macron’s allies scrambled for a strategy to counter her candidacy, but they are now emphasizing her positions during the primary.“On issues like immigration, she is on the hard right or close enough to the extreme right,” said Sacha Houlié, a national lawmaker of Mr. Macron’s party.Ms. Pécresse’s proposal to cut 200,000 government jobs was an example of the kind of austerity that would harm an economy recovering from the pandemic, Mr. Houlié said.Ms. Pécresse at a televised debate for her party’s presidential primary last month in Paris. She defeated four men, including two who had been considered clear favorites.Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSome of Ms. Pécresse’s supporters say her gender could prove an asset against Mr. Macron, who despite emphasizing equality at the workplace during his presidency, has been criticized for governing with a small circle of men.Female candidates of other parties made it to the second round of elections in 2007 and 2017, Mr. Houlié said.“So I think it’s hype,” he said. “Yes, she’s a woman, and maybe it’s new for the right, which reflects their backward vision of French society. It’s normal for everyone else that women are in politics.”But for now, Ms. Pécresse’s greatest challenge will be to manage the divergences within her own party and potential supporters, experts say.Like the rest of French society, her party has moved further right in recent years, said Emilien Houard-Vial, an expert on the party who teaches at Sciences Po university in Paris.“She is facing a stronger pressure on the right,” Mr. Houard-Vial said, adding that she would be expected to “give pledges” on issues like immigration, crime, national identity and “cancel culture.”Traditionally, party leaders have drawn a clear line between their organization and the far right led by Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally, formerly known as the National Front.Ms. Dublanche said that for Ms. Pécresse there was a “complete barrier” between her party and the far right.Barbès, one of the poorest districts in Paris, is home to the city’s largest Muslim community. Ms. Pécresse recently linked immigration to the rise of Islamism, terrorism and crime.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut in recent years the lines separating the party from the far right have increasingly blurred. Eric Ciotti, the runner-up in the Republicans’ primary, said that in a hypothetical showdown between Mr. Macron and Mr. Zemmour, he would back the far-right television pundit and writer.In fact, Ms. Pécresse quit her party in 2019 — coming back only in October — because she said at the time that she disagreed with its orientation under its leaders at the time.“She herself quit the party because she disagreed with the growing shift to the right,” said Gaël Perdriau, a longtime Republican who was forced to step down as vice president a few days after Ms. Pécresse’s victory because of his criticism of the party’s tilt further right. “So I don’t understand why she would return to the party and promote the same kind of ideas she criticized in the past.”During a prime-time debate during the primary, Ms. Pécresse adopted a studiously ambiguous position on the “great replacement” — a conspiracy theory that was popularized by Mr. Zemmour and that argues that France’s white Christian population is being intentionally replaced by African Muslims. The expression has been cited by white supremacists in mass killings in New Zealand and the United States.“If she’s not clear on this theory of the great replacement, I can’t vote for someone who supports those ideas,” Mr. Perdriau said. He added that instead of “offering concrete solutions to social problems,” his party found a “scapegoat in the foreigner.”“We can be representatives of authority, law and justice,” he said, “without lapsing into words that flirt with racism and hatred of the other.” More

    • 75 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      New Caledonia Says ‘Non’ to Independence

      by

      The vote on the Pacific island territory comes as France’s president has prioritized shoring up the country’s international profile, seeing its military as a bulwark against China.NOUMÉA, New Caledonia — New Caledonia, a tiny scattering of islands in the South Pacific, will not mark the new year by becoming the world’s newest country.In a referendum held on Sunday, voters rejected independence overwhelmingly, with 96 percent electing to stay part of France, according to provisional results released on Sunday evening by the French High Commission in New Caledonia.But while the referendum failed, prompting those who voted “non” to fly the French tricolor in the capital, Nouméa, the result does not signal an end to dreams of New Caledonian sovereignty.“We are pursuing our path of emancipation,” Louis Mapou, New Caledonia’s president, said in an interview, brushing aside any results of the referendum. “That is what is essential.”Mr. Mapou is the first pro-independence leader to hold the official title of president in New Caledonia and the first from the Indigenous Kanak community which makes up about 40 percent of the population. He refers to the territory as a country. (He is also the kind of president who chauffeurs himself in a Subaru Forester.)Volunteers handing out a pro-independence newsletter called for people to boycott the referendum.Adam Dean for The New York TimesResidents at a meeting this month calling for a “non” vote.Adam Dean for The New York TimesA large portion of the Kanak pro-independence bloc boycotted Sunday’s vote after its plea for a postponement was rebuffed, leading to worries that the referendum’s legitimacy was undermined by nonparticipation. President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has made shoring up the country’s international profile a cornerstone of his campaign for re-election in April, refused a delay.“France is more beautiful because New Caledonia chose to stay,” Mr. Macron said in a televised statement on Sunday.With its far-flung island outposts — such as French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna in the Pacific Ocean, as well as Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean — France boasts one of the world’s largest maritime profiles. But the recent collapse of a French submarine deal with Australia, a result of the United States and Britain swooping in instead, embarrassed Paris. Mr. Macron had positioned France as a bulwark against China, which is expanding its clout in the Indo-Pacific.“Woe to the small, woe to the isolated, woe to those who will be influenced and attacked by hegemonic powers who will come to seek their fish, their technology, their economic resources,” he said in a speech in July in French Polynesia.Although the “hegemonic power” remained unnamed, the meaning was clear: China.A ceremony in Nouméa last week honored those killed in Algeria, a former French colony. Adam Dean for The New York Times“We are pursuing our path of emancipation,” President Louis Mapou of New Caledonia said in an interview.Adam Dean for The New York TimesSunday’s vote was the third of three independence referendums promised by Paris after years of conflict in New Caledonia in the 1980s, an uprising known simply as “the Events.” In the second vote last year, 47 percent chose independence, up from 43 percent in the first referendum in 2018.By 5 p.m. on Sunday, voter participation had fallen to 42 percent, down from 79 percent during the 2020 referendum. While lines of voters snaked out of polling stations in French loyalist areas of Nouméa and its environs on Sunday morning, they were virtually empty in pro-independence strongholds.Kanak leaders had urged the French government to reschedule Sunday’s referendum for next year because a late-breaking coronavirus wave had disproportionately affected their people. Lengthy Kanak mourning traditions, they argued, made political campaigning impossible.“The French state is disrespecting the relationship between the Kanak living and dead,” said Daniel Goa, the head of a pro-independence political party. “The decolonization process is going ahead without respecting the people who must be decolonized.”A traditional Kanak wedding. Concerns over losing Indigenous customs have played a role in the independence movement.Adam Dean for The New York TimesAn intensive care unit for coronavirus patients in Nouméa. For some residents, the pandemic has highlighted the benefits of remaining a part of France.Adam Dean for The New York TimesThe history of empire is one of centuries of subjugation, but there are few places left in the world where colonization endures. After annexing New Caledonia in 1853 and establishing a penal colony, the French forced the Kanaks off their fertile tribal lands and onto reservations. The French brutally crushed Kanak efforts to repel them.With the discovery of nickel, the French administration brought in laborers from Asia and other parts of the Pacific to work the mines, which remain the territory’s biggest economic driver. Conflict and foreign diseases exacted a deadly toll on the Kanaks, whose population plunged by about half within three-quarters of a century. Today, with an influx of French crowding Nouméa — civil servants can earn salaries double that of back in France — the Kanaks are a minority in their homeland.A nickel mine in Goro, New Caledonia.Adam Dean for The New York TimesA wealthy neighborhood popular with recent arrivals from France and tourists in Nouméa.Adam Dean for The New York TimesTo prepare for the referendum on Sunday, thousands of French security forces descended on the territory of 270,000 people. The aftermath of the last referendum devolved into violence, with Kanak youths setting fire to nickel mine facilities and blockading major thoroughfares.“Half the country is for independence and half is against it,” Charles Wea, a presidential adviser, said before the votes were counted. “We have to rebuild a new social contract. Otherwise, we will always be divided.”New Caledonia is the only place in Melanesia, an arc of islands that stretches from Papua New Guinea to Fiji, that remains under colonial control. Neighboring Vanuatu gained independence in 1980, the Solomon Islands two years before that. French loyalists argue that New Caledonia’s privileged economic position — its per capita G.D.P. would rank it among the top 20 richest countries if it were considered a country — is afforded by its status as a French territory. Subsidies from Paris fill New Caledonia’s coffers, and the territory’s wealth doubled over the past three decades.To prepare for the referendum on Sunday, thousands of French security forces descended on the territory of 270,000 people.Adam Dean for The New York TimesVoters rejected independence overwhelmingly, with 96 percent electing to stay part of France, according to provisional results released on Sunday.Adam Dean for The New York TimesShould New Caledonia eventually become independent, the territory would trade France’s geopolitical influence for that of China, which has extended its reach over Melanesia, French loyalists say. Last month, fatal riots shook the Solomon Islands, with the prime minister blaming the violence on the switch of diplomatic allegiance to China from Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that is Beijing’s political rival.“When you look at France and China, it is totally different when it comes to human rights,” said Christopher Gygès, an anti-independence politician who also serves as New Caledonia’s minister for the economy, foreign trade and energy. “France’s presence will protect us from China’s appetite and efforts to take control of the region.”Mr. Mapou, the president, has held open the possibility that an independent New Caledonia would entrust its defense to France, allowing Paris to maintain a regional stronghold.“We can balance,” he said. “We can be in the Pacific, defend our interests, and maintain a link with France and Europe because of history and culture.”Drawn by New Caledonia’s climate and comfortable living, the population of Métros, as recent arrivals from France are known, has increased sharply in a generation. The center of Nouméa is largely a white town of baguettes and leisurely games of pétanque. New Caledonia’s wealth is concentrated in the Southern Province, where Nouméa is. Even the New Caledonian government gets its office space from the province, which is governed by a white leader.A young adult smoking cannabis outside a subsidized housing unit in Magenta, a neighborhood in Nouméa.Adam Dean for The New York TimesA couple unpacking a donation of food, which included products close to their expiration dates.Adam Dean for The New York TimesDespite New Caledonia’s prosperity, income disparities yawn wide. Kanaks make up the vast majority of the territory’s impoverished, unemployed and imprisoned. Despite government efforts to help Kanaks pursue higher education in France, there are few Kanak doctors, lawyers and engineers.In a sprawl of dilapidated subsidized housing in Magenta, a neighborhood in Nouméa, Jeremy Hnalep, 25, said he drew little hope from politics. The buildings’ lobbies reeked of urine; clumps of young people passed around cannabis, which is illegal in New Caledonia.“The only choice is to live outside the system because the system will not change even if there is independence,” Mr. Hnalep said.Kanak politicians estimate that unemployment among Kanak youth exceeds 40 percent.In villages outside Nouméa, the colorful flag of Kanaky, as Kanaks call the land, flutters from market stalls and fishing boats. It flies over funerals and weddings, Catholic feast days and labor strikes. The French flag is rarely seen.Yet on the eve of the vote, even as she acknowledged the colonial burden on the Kanaks, Anne-Marie Kourévi, the 81-year-old wife of a Kanak tribal chief in southern New Caledonia, said she would vote “oui.”“I am French,” she said, “and I have been for more than 80 years.”Kanak families gathering for a Sunday picnic at a beachside park in Nouméa.Adam Dean for The New York TimesAurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      As French Election Looms, Candidates Stake Out Tough Positions on Migrants

      by

      With a presidential election looming, French presidential hopefuls are hardening their positions against immigration even as other countries compete for migrant workers.PARIS — An out-of-control influx of immigrants. A threat to French identity and stability. A reason to urgently close France’s frontiers.The issue of immigration is dominating political debate in the country five months before presidential elections, as candidates on the right as well as the left harden their positions. The drowning last week of 27 migrants off France’s northern coast has only added to the argument that migration must be checked.Despite the fierce words on the campaign trail, the reality is far different: Nearly all of France’s neighbors have a greater proportion of immigrants in their populations. In the past decade, immigration has grown less in France than in the rest of Europe or in other rich nations worldwide.The figures show that the migration situation in France is “rather ordinary, rather moderate,’’ said François Héran, a leading expert on migration who teaches at Collège de France. “We’re really not a country overrun by immigration,’’ Mr. Héran said.That has not stopped pledges by politicians to impose a moratorium on immigration, hold a referendum on the issue or simply close the borders — in contrast to moves by other wealthy nations, like Germany and Australia, to attract migrant workers to fill labor shortages exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. As French restaurants, hotels, construction companies and other services face a shortage of workers, politicians across the ideological spectrum have proposed raising wages — but not the number of immigrants allowed into the country.“In France, we never talk about the economy when we talk about immigration,’’ said Emmanuelle Auriol, an economist at the Toulouse School of Economics and the co-author of a recent government-sponsored report that described how France’s growth has been hampered by its immigration policies. “All the talk is about national identity.’’As French restaurants, hotels and other services face a shortage of workers, politicians across the ideological spectrum have proposed raising wages — but not loosening immigration policies.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesFears that traditional French identity is threatened by Muslim immigrants from Africa — fanned for decades, either openly by the extreme right or with winks and dog whistles by others — have long consumed discussions about immigration. A series of terrorist attacks in recent years, some perpetrated by children of immigrants who grew up in France, have heightened those fears.These concerns have had a cumulative effect in France — making any embrace of immigration political suicide, obstructing badly needed reforms to attract qualified workers from abroad and pushing inward a country once known as a global crossroads.“We’re in a new phase,’’ said Philippe Corcuff, an expert on the far right who teaches at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon. “What we’re seeing is the result of what has been happening in France for the past 15 years: the collapse of the left, which is now silent on immigration, and the rise of the extreme right, which ultimately may not win the elections but is setting the terms of the debate.”Candidates among the Republicans, the main party of the center right, are agreed on the need to “retake control” of the borders and to tighten immigrants’ eligibility for social benefits. One candidate, Michel Barnier, who served as the European Union’s negotiator with Britain during the Brexit talks, even proposed changing France’s constitution to be able to impose a “moratorium on immigration” for three to five years.On the left, while most candidates have chosen to remain silent, a former economy minister pledged to block remittances sent home by migrants via Western Union to countries that he said refused to repatriate citizens who are in France illegally. The proposal followed President Emmanuel Macron’s recent announcement that he would tackle the problem by slashing the number of visas issued to citizens of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.Michel Barnier, a center-right party presidential primary candidate, proposed changing France’s constitution to be able to impose a “moratorium on immigration” for three to five years.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersOn the far right, Éric Zemmour, the writer and TV personality who on Tuesday announced a run for the presidency in next year’s elections, has said France’s very survival is at stake because immigration from Muslim nations threatens its Christian heritage.“We won’t allow ourselves to be dominated, turned into vassals, conquered, colonized,” Mr. Zemmour said in a video announcing his candidacy. “We won’t allow ourselves to be replaced.”With Mr. Zemmour’s candidacy, the previously taboo topic of the “great replacement” — a conspiracy theory accusing politicians like Mr. Macron of using immigration to replace white, Christian people — has become part of the election discourse. Mr. Zemmour accused successive French governments of hiding “the reality of our replacement’’ and has said that Mr. Macron “wants to dissolve France in Europe and Africa.’’During a recent prime-time debate, while center-right candidates hesitated to embrace the expression — which has been cited by white supremacists in mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Tex. — they indicated that the threat of replacement represented a real problem facing France.According to a recent poll, 61 percent of French respondents said they believed that Europe’s white and Christian population would be subjected to a “great replacement’’ by Muslim immigrants.The intensity of the election rhetoric stands in contrast to the recent elections in Germany, where immigration was not an issue — even though Germany has led Europe in accepting refugees in recent years.“Immigration was missing from the campaign in Germany,’’ said Jean-Christophe Dumont, the head of international migration research for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D.A regional training hub in Dortmund, Germany. To deal with a labor shortage, Germany is trying to improve how it integrates both asylum seekers and migrant workers.Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times“There is a French obsession with immigration issues,’’ Mr. Dumont added. “In reality, France is not a major country for immigration.’’In 2020, France’s share of immigrants in its population — 13 percent — was below the average of O.E.C.D. nations. That proportion grew 16 percent between 2010 and 2020.By contrast, immigrants made up 16 percent of Germany’s population — a 30 percent increase during the same period.France stopped taking in huge numbers of workers from its former colonies in northern Africa as a long period of economic growth came to an end in the mid-1970s — a few years before the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant National Front, now known as the National Rally, which helped make immigration a radioactive subject in French politics.Since then, migrant workers have accounted for only a small share of new immigration, which has been dominated by foreign students and family-linked arrivals.“We take in immigrants, not to work, but to join their spouses,’’ said Ms. Auriol, the economist.The result is that France’s immigration population is much less diversified than in other rich nations. In 2019, more than 40 percent of all arrivals came from Africa, especially Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, according to government data.That lack of diversity — coupled with the concentration of new immigrants in urban areas like Paris — fuels anxieties related to immigration, said Patrick Weil, a historian of immigration who teaches at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris and at Yale.While anti-immigrant sentiments played a role in former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign in 2016, immigration in France — closely linked to its colonial history, especially in Algeria and other Muslim nations — makes it an even more combustible topic, Mr. Weil said.“In France, there is a link between immigration and religion, whereas in the United States they are separate,” Mr. Weil said.Éric Zemmour, center, who is running for the presidency in next year’s elections, said that France’s very survival is at stake because immigration from Muslim nations threatens the country’s Christian heritage.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockFanned by the right, the fears surrounding immigration and a supposed threat to France’s Christian heritage make it extremely difficult to hold any discussions about reforming to attract qualified foreign immigrants, said Ms. Auriol, the economist.Current immigration policies, she added, stifles economic growth and the economic recovery from the pandemic.Modest changes have been carried out in recent years. But they are insufficient to attract the kind of motivated, skilled immigrants that France desperately needs to bring innovation and fresh thinking, Ms. Auriol said. Given the anti-immigrant climate, France also attracts relatively few citizens of other European Union nations, who can move freely to France, and suffers from a low retention of foreign students after graduation, she said.“In the 20th century, all the world’s talented people came to Paris,’’ she added. “Immigrants who contributed to France’s economic greatness, its scientific greatness and its cultural greatness. We were an open country. What happened to us?”Léontine Gallois More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      How Éric Zemmour Is Turning French Politics Upside Down

      by

      Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant writer and TV commentator, is surging in opinion polls before presidential elections next year — and he is not yet a candidate.PARIS — He is the anti-immigration son of parents from Algeria. He styles himself as the great defender of France’s Christian civilization, though he himself is Jewish. He channels Donald J. Trump in an anti-establishment campaign. And he is now scrambling the battle lines before France’s presidential election in April.The meteoric rise of Éric Zemmour, a far-right author and TV pundit, has turned France’spolitics upside down.Until a few weeks ago, most had expected France’s next presidential elections to be a predictable rematch between President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen that, polls showed, left voters who wanted alternatives deeply dissatisfied.Though still not a declared candidate, Mr. Zemmour, 63, shot to No. 2 in a poll of likely voters last week, disrupting campaign strategies across the board, even beyond those of Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen.“The French want to upset a political order that hasn’t won them over, and Éric Zemmour appears to be the bowling ball that’s going to knock down all the pins,” said Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po University specializing in elections and the right.Mr. Perrineau warned that voters were not seriously focused yet on the elections and that polls could be volatile.Yet candidates are not taking any chances.Mr. Macron’s campaign has focused on winning support on the right and forcing a showdown with Ms. Le Pen, in the belief that the French would reject her party in the second round of voting, as they have for decades.Now it is far less clear whom he would meet in a runoff: A strong showing in the first round could propel Mr. Zemmour into the second one, or it could split the far-right electorate to allow a center-right candidate to qualify for the finals.After weeks of ignoring Mr. Zemmour, Mr. Macron is now criticizing him, though not by name, while government ministers and other Macron allies have unleashed a barrage of attacks.Mr. Zemmour is the author of several books, and a star on the right-wing CNews network. Nicolas Tucat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Zemmour’s rise has been most unsettling for Ms. Le Pen, who is plummeting in the polls — so much so that her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party founder, said that he would support Mr. Zemmour if the writer were in a stronger position.Ms. Le Pen has for years tried to broaden her base with a so-called un-demonizing strategy of moving her nationalist, anti-immigrant party from the most extreme xenophobic positions that it was known for under her father. Now she finds herself in the unusual position of being outflanked on the right.Mr. Zemmour became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fueled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a “great replacement” of white people, a conspiracy theory that has been cited by gunmen in multiple mass shootings.As the child of Algerians who settled in metropolitan France, he has presented himself as the embodiment of France’s successful system of assimilation. He has said that the failure to integrate recent generations of Muslim immigrants lies with the new arrivals, who hate France, and not with a system that others say has not kept up with the times.Mr. Zemmour’s influence rose to an entirely new level in the past two years after he became the star of CNews, a new Fox-style news network that gave him a platform to expound on his views every evening.His supporters include voters most deeply shaken by the social forces that have roiled French society more recently and that they now lump into “wokisme” — a #MeToo movement that has led to the fall of powerful men; a racial awakening challenging France’s image of itself as a colorblind society; the emergence of a new generation questioning the principles of the French Republic; and the perceived growing threat of an American-inspired vision of society.“In its history, France has always had a strong cultural identity, but now there’s deep anxiety about that identity,” Mr. Perrineau said. “People feel that their culture, their way of life and their political system, all is being changed. It’s enough.”Mr. Zemmour at a book promotion event in Nice last month.Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Éric Zemmour plays on that very well, on this nostalgia for the past, and this fear of no longer being a great power, of dissolving in a conglomerate that we don’t understand, whether it’s Europe or globalization or the Americanization of culture,” he added.In the 2017 election, Mr. Macron was the new face who overturned the existing political order. But during his presidency, “the new world of Emmanuel Macron has come to look a lot like the old world,” disillusioning voters, Mr. Perrineau said.Philippe Olivier, a close aide to Ms. Le Pen and a member of the European Parliament, said that French voters seek a larger-than-life figure in their president.“In the United States, a president could be a movie actor like Reagan or a carnival performer like Trump,” said Mr. Olivier, who is also Ms. Le Pen’s brother-in-law. “In France, we elect the king.”But the two-round system compels much of the electorate to vote in the runoffs against candidates — and not for someone of their liking.“In the second round, the point is who is more repulsive,” Mr. Olivier said. “I believe Macron would be more rejected than Marine, but Zemmour would be much more rejected than Macron.”As France has grown more conservative in recent years, Mr. Macron has tacked right on many issues to try to grab a bigger electoral slice, especially among voters in the traditional center-right Republicans party.The Republicans, who have yet to select their presidential candidate, are now facing a new threat themselves, because Mr. Zemmour draws support from them as well as from the far right.In their own bid to attract far-right voters, many leaders on the traditional right have flirted with Mr. Zemmour in recent years, excusing or overlooking the fact that the writer has been sanctioned for inciting racial hatred.“The traditional right made a serious mistake that is now exploding in their face,” said Jean-Yves Camus, director of the Observatory of Radical Politics. “Because it’s long been in competition against the far right on issues like national identity, immigration and sovereignty, it kept winking at Zemmour.”A fan taking a photo with Mr. Zemmour at a book signing in Toulon last month.Eric Gaillard/ReutersNow the traditional right is looking for ways to distance itself from the TV star without alienating his supporters.Patrick Stefanini, a Republican who ran President Jacques Chirac’s successful 1995 campaign, said Mr. Zemmour was benefiting from divisions within the traditional right on issues like immigration.“Mr. Zemmour has turned immigration into the single key to understanding the difficulties facing French society,” said Mr. Stefanini, who is now leading the presidential bid of Valérie Pécresse, the head of the Paris region. “The Republicans are having a little trouble positioning themselves because the tendencies aren’t the same within the Republicans.”Mr. Stefanini attributed Mr. Zemmour’s rise partly to the traditional right’s failure to quickly decide on a candidate, and said he felt confident that the TV star’s ratings would peter out.But for now, many voters appear to be taking a look at Mr. Zemmour, who has been attracting huge crowds at campaign-like events across France as he promotes his latest book, “France Has Not Said Its Last Word Yet.”Last week, three residents of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a wealthy suburb of Paris, came together to attend an event with Mr. Zemmour in the capital.Françoise Torneberg, who said she was in her 70s, said she liked Mr. Zemmour because “he gives a kick in the anthill,” she said.Her friend Andrée Chalmandrier, 69, said, “We love France but not the France of today.”“We’re not at home,” Ms. Chalmandrier said, adding that often when she shops in her suburb, “I’m the only French representative. There are four or five veiled women around me, who furthermore are extremely arrogant.”“And yet it’s a good neighborhood,” Ms. Torneberg said. “It’s not at all a working-class neighborhood.”Léontine Gallois contributed reporting. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Europe’s Social Democrats Show Signs of Life, but France Poses a Roadblock

      by

      Center-left parties have won a string of victories, capped by Olaf Scholz’s win in Germany. Yet, France’s struggling Socialists threaten hopes for a broader social democratic revival. PARIS — For France’s venerable Socialist Party, languishing at 4 percent support ahead of next year’s presidential elections, news of a surprise win last Sunday by its center-left counterpart in Germany offered a glimmer of hope.The slim victory by Olaf Scholz and Germany’s Social Democratic Party, along with the expected return to power of Norway’s Labor Party following a recent win, have underscored the recent success of Europe’s long-embattled social democrats. If Mr. Scholz succeeds in forming a government, social democrats in Europe’s most powerful nation will join center-left governments in Spain, Portugal and the Nordic nations of Sweden, Denmark and Finland, as well as Norway.Attention will then turn to France, where presidential elections are scheduled for next April. But in France, experts say, the social democrats’ hopes of a continent-wide revival are likely to dim.Socialist Party officials were nevertheless quick to seize on the German results as a sign that Europe’s political tides may be turning.“Never assume the battle’s already lost,’’ the Socialists’ leader, Olivier Faure, said in a Twitter post. The party’s presidential candidate, Anne Hidalgo, noted that Mr. Scholz “had beaten the odds’’ thanks to policies common to both social democratic parties.But it will take more than that to reverse the fortunes of a party that not so long ago utterly dominated French politics.After months of hinting that she would run for president, Ms. Hidalgo, 62, the second-term mayor of Paris, finally announced her candidacy in mid-September. But instead of getting an expected bounce in the polls, her approval ratings have drifted lower.Her polling is now far below not only the two favorites to meet in a showdown — President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, of the far-right National Rally — but also well below candidates from the center-right and Éric Zemmour, a writer and TV star known for his far-right views, who is not yet an official candidate.Ms. Hidalgo and President Emmanuel Macron of France in Paris this month. Mr. Macron has tried to draw voters from the left, weakening the Socialists’ position. Pool photo by Ludovic MarinOn the other side of the political spectrum, she trails the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and is neck and neck with the newly designated presidential candidate of the Greens, Yannick Jadot, polls show.The Socialists’ collapse is even more noteworthy because, less than a decade ago under the Socialist President François Hollande, the party controlled the Élysée Palace, both chambers of Parliament, a majority of big cities and nearly all the regions.“Nine years ago, this party held all the cards,’’ said Pascal Delwit, a political scientist specializing in social democracy at the Free University of Brussels. “Nine years later, it has none.’’In what became a symbol of its fall, the Socialist Party had to abandon its longtime headquarters, in one of the toniest neighborhoods of Paris, for cheaper real estate in a suburb, or banlieue, that many members never bothered visiting.Alain Bergounioux, a historian who is an expert on the Socialist Party, said that beyond crumbling at the ballot box, Socialists seem to have lost the ability to push forward their ideas and themes in a fast-moving political landscape.“They really don’t influence the national debate any longer, as public opinion has shifted to the right,’’ Mr. Bergounioux said.He added, “If it was premature to say that social democracy was dead, it would be overstating it to say that there is a renaissance.’’Seven months before the presidential elections, issues dear to the right — like immigration, crime and national identity — are dominating the political discourse. While Mr. Macron ran as a centrist in 2017, he has tacked right in a bid for the biggest slice of the electorate.The focus on these themes has only increased in recent weeks, with the intense news media attention on a possible candidacy by Mr. Zemmour. Styling himself as a Trump-like populist outsider, he has been visiting different regions on a book tour that has doubled as a campaign. A poll released this week showed that his support among potential voters in the first round of the elections has kept climbing, to 13 percent, or just three percentage points below Ms. Le Pen.Marine Le Pen at a National Rally event in Frejus in September.Daniel Cole/Associated PressFrance is an extreme, though revealing, example of the problems afflicting social democratic parties across Europe, experts say.While social democratic parties have lost support nearly everywhere amid the political fragmentation on the continent, France’s Socialist Party was also decimated by Mr. Macron’s successful creation of his centrist La République en Marche party. Some Socialist leaders abandoned their old party to join Mr. Macron, who had served as Mr. Hollande’s economy minister. In forming his government, Mr. Macron also poached from the center-right, which was less weakened than the center-left and remains a force in French politics.For decades, social democratic parties appealed to a core base of unionized, industrial workers and urban professionals with a vision of social justice and an equitable economy.But many longtime French supporters felt betrayed by Mr. Hollande’s business-friendly policies as French Socialists, like their counterparts elsewhere, were unable to protect their traditional base from globalization.While French Socialists hark back to their traditional values and now emphasize their commitment to the environment, their vision for society lacks a “strong spine,’’ Mr. Bergounioux said. In France, like elsewhere, the constituencies supporting social democratic parties tend to be made up of “aging, loyal voters who have voted for them their entire lives,’’ Mr. Delwit said.In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, the recent success of social democratic parties rested on successful jockeying — and not on the attraction of a fresh social democratic vision, experts said.Ernst Stetter, a member of the Social Democratic Party in Germany and former secretary general of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, an umbrella group of social democratic think tanks across the continent, said the party’s victory last Sunday was “first and foremost a strategic victory” by Mr. Scholz.As vice chancellor and finance minister in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Scholz offered “change in continuity by offering a little bit more social programs, a little bit more on the environment and continuity in European and international affairs,’’ said Mr. Stetter, who is also an analyst at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute in Paris.Narrow as it was, Mr. Scholz’s victory represented “the center of the Social Democratic Party, not the left,’’ said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a French-German politician and former Green member of the European Parliament.Olaf Scholz and Ms. Hidalgo at a campaign event for Germany’s Social Democratic Party in  Cologne, Germany, this month. The French Socialists have been reassured by Mr. Scholz’s victory in last month’s election, but their chances of matching his victory appear slim.Uta Wagner/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSocialists in Spain, Portugal and the Nordic nations also owed their success to responding to local needs, not a common vision of social democracy, Mr. Cohn-Bendit said.“On immigration policy, social democrats in Denmark are to the right of many centrist parties,’’ Mr. Cohn-Bendit said, referring to a series of hard-line immigration measures adopted by Denmark’s Social Democrats.Following years of a rise in right-wing parties, social democrats now lead governments in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and are poised to do so in Norway. But their hold on power is far more tenuous than in the past.In Norway, the Labor Party, led by Jonas Gahr Stoere, came in first in last month’s parliamentary election, but won only a little over a quarter of the total seats, one of the party’s lowest scores on record. After talks to form a broad center-left coalition failed in recent days, Mr. Stoere is now expected to become prime minister of a minority government.“There isn’t a new definition yet of what social democracy could be in today’s world,’’ Mr. Cohn-Bendit said.Mr. Stetter said he, too, was skeptical of a broad revival of social democracy. Over the past decade, social democrats had worked unsuccessfully for a revival under the banner of the “Next Left,’’ he said.Still, Mr. Stetter said he hoped that last Sunday’s election results in Germany could presage positive developments for social democrats in Europe.“If Scholz succeeds in forming a government as a social democratic chancellor, there would be a dynamic force at the heart of Europe, and that could give energy to the French Socialist Party in the campaign period before the presidential elections in April,’’ Mr. Stetter. “We have to remain optimistic.’’Members of Jeunes Socialistes, the youth organisation of the Socialist Party, at an event in August. European socialist parties tend to rely heavily on aging voters, putting them on the wrong side of the demographic tide.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Can Macron Lead the European Union After Merkel Retires?

      by

      Emmanuel Macron, the French president, would love to fill the German chancellor’s shoes. But a Europe with no single, central figure may be more likely.PARIS — After Germans vote on Sunday and a new government is formed, Chancellor Angela Merkel will leave office after 16 years as the dominant figure in European politics. It is the moment that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has been waiting for.The German chancellor, though credited for navigating multiple crises, was long criticized for lacking strategic vision. Mr. Macron, whose more swaggering style has sometimes ruffled his European partners — and Washington — has put forward ideas for a more independent and integrated Europe, better able to act in its own defense and its own interests.But as the Anglo-American “betrayal” in the Australian submarine affair has underscored, Mr. Macron sometimes possesses ambitions beyond his reach. Despite the vacuum Ms. Merkel leaves, a Macron era is unlikely to be born.Instead, analysts say, the European Union is heading for a period of prolonged uncertainty and potential weakness, if not necessarily drift. No one figure — not even Mr. Macron, or a new German chancellor — will be as influential as Ms. Merkel was at her strongest, an authoritative, well-briefed leader who quietly managed compromise and built consensus among a long list of louder and more ideological colleagues.That raises the prospect of paralysis or of Europe muddling through its challenges — on what to do about an increasingly indifferent America, on China and Russia, and on trade and technology — or even of a more dangerous fracturing of the bloc’s always tentative unity.And it will mean that Mr. Macron, who is himself up for re-election in April and absorbed in that uncertain campaign, will need to wait for a German government that may not be in place until January or longer, and then work closely with a weaker German chancellor.“We’ll have a weak German chancellor on top of a larger, less unified coalition,’’ said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “A weaker chancellor is less capable of exerting influence in Europe, and then with the Macron election, the political cycles of these two key countries will not be in sync.”Campaign posters this month in Berlin showing the top candidates for chancellor: Olaf Scholz, Armin Laschet and Annalena Baerbock.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockThe uncertainty is likely to last until after the French parliamentary elections in June — and that’s presuming Mr. Macron wins.Mr. Macron has argued forcefully that Europe must do more to protect its own interests in a world where China is rising and the United States is focusing on Asia. His officials are already trying to prepare the ground on some key issues, looking forward to January, when France takes over the rotating European Union presidency. But given the likelihood of lengthy coalition talks in Germany, the window for accomplishment is narrow.Mr. Macron will need German help. While France and Germany together can no longer run the European Union by themselves, when they agree, they tend to bring the rest of the bloc along with them.So building a relationship with the new German chancellor, even a weaker one, will be a primary goal for Mr. Macron. He must be careful, noted Daniela Schwarzer, executive director for Europe and Eurasia of the Open Societies Foundations, not to scare off the Germans.“Macron’s leadership is disruptive, and the German style is to change institutions incrementally,” she said. “Both sides will need to think through how they make it possible for the other side to answer constructively.’’French officials understand that substantive change will be slow, and they will want to build on initiatives already underway, like the analysis of Europe’s interests called “the strategic compass” and a modest but steady increase in military spending on new capabilities through the new European Defense Fund and a program called Pesco, intended to promote joint projects and European interoperability.After the humiliation of the scuttled submarine deal, when Australia suddenly canceled a contract with France and chose a deal with Britain and the United States instead, many of his European colleagues are more likely now to agree with Mr. Macron that Europe must be less dependent on Washington and spend at least a little more in its own defense.Few in Europe, though, want to permanently damage ties with the Americans and NATO.“Italy wants a stronger Europe, OK, but in NATO — we’re not on the French page on that,” said Marta Dassu, a former Italian deputy foreign minister and director of European affairs at the Aspen Institute.Troops from a European tank battalion that consists of Dutch and German soldiers.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesMario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, whose voice is respected in Brussels, believes strongly in the trans-Atlantic relationship, she said, adding: “We’re closer to Germany than to France, but without all the ambiguities on Russia and China.’’France also wants to become more assertive using the economic and financial tools Europe already has, especially trade and technology, the officials say. The point, they say, is not to push too hard too fast, but to raise the European game vis-à-vis China and the United States, and try to encourage a culture that is comfortable with power.But France’s German partners will themselves be going through a period of uncertainty and transition. A new German chancellor is expected to win only a quarter of the vote, and may need to negotiate a coalition agreement among three different political parties. That is expected to take at least until Christmas, if not longer.The new chancellor will also need to get up to speed on European issues, which barely surfaced in the campaign, and build credibility as the newcomer among 26 other leaders.“So it’s important now to start thinking of concrete French-German wins during a French presidency that Macron can use in a positive way in his campaign,” Ms. Schwarzer said. “Because Berlin does not want to ponder a scenario in which Macron loses” to the far-right Marine Le Pen or in which Euro-skeptics like Matteo Salvini take over in Italy.Whoever wins, German policy toward Europe will remain roughly the same from a country deeply committed to E.U. ideals, cautious and wanting to preserve stability and unity. The real question is whether any European leader can be the cohesive force Ms. Merkel was — and if not, what it will mean for the continent’s future.“Merkel herself was important in keeping the E.U. together,” said Ulrich Speck of the German Marshall Fund. “She kept in mind the interests of so many in Europe, especially Central Europe but also Italy, so that everyone could be kept on board.’’Ms. Merkel saw the European Union as the core of her policy, said a senior European official, who called her the guardian of true E.U. values, willing to bend to keep the bloc together, as evidenced by her support for collective debt, previously a German red line, to fund the coronavirus recovery fund.“Merkel acted as mediator when there have been a lot of centrifugal forces weakening Europe,’’ said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, head of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “It’s less clear how the next chancellor will position himself or herself and Germany.’’Still, Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that “whoever is the chancellor, Germany is still responsible for more than half of Chinese trade with Europe.’’ Germany is “vastly more important than the other countries on all the big issues, from how to handle China to the tech wars and climate change,’’ he said.President Xi Jinping of China, upper left, and European leaders discussing an investment deal last year.Pool photo by Johanna GeronThat means Mr. Macron “knows he has to channel German power behind his vision,’’ he said.But French and Italian positions will be crucial, too, on important pending financial issues, like fiscal and banking integration, trying to complete the single market and monitoring the pandemic recovery fund.Ms. Merkel’s departure may provide an opportunity for the kinds of change Mr. Macron desires, even if in vastly scaled-down version. Ms. Merkel’s love of the status quo, some analysts argue, was anachronistic at a time when Europe faces so many challenges.Perhaps most important is the looming debate about whether to alter Europe’s spending rules, which in practical terms means getting agreement from countries to spend more on everything from defense to climate.The real problem is that fundamental change would require a treaty change, said Guntram Wolff, director of Bruegel, a Brussels research institution. “You can’t have fiscal and defense integration by stealth,’’ he said. “It won’t have legitimacy and won’t be accepted by citizens.’’But the German election debates ignored these broad issues, he said.“The sad news,” Mr. Wolff said, “is that none of the three chancellor candidates campaigned on any of this, so my baseline expectation is continued muddling forward.” More