There may be revolution in the air in France, but not the Bastille kind. Winds of change are howling through the country from Calais to Cannes, and they could replace European unity with circle-the-wagons nationalism.

More so than any other election in Europe this year, France’s presidential ballot Sunday was a referendum on the battered European Union. Though Brexit wobbled the bloc, it wasn’t the existential broadside the French election could deliver. The shadow over the EU’s future came in the form of not one but two candidates -- far right nationalist Marine Le Pen and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Standing in the way of an EU meltdown: 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, an ex-investment banker who believes France’s prosperity is inextricably tied with Europe’s. Sunday’s contest was to be the election’s first round. If no candidate won a majority, the top two vote-getters were to square off in a second round May 7.

Postwar European unity has never had it this rough. The debt crisis that roiled several southern European nations beginning in late 2009 was followed by the flood of migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East and North Africa. Then last summer, the United Kingdom shocked the world by deciding to quit the EU. That, coupled with the ascent of Donald Trump, had European leaders bracing for a populist revolt at the polls this year across the continent.

In national elections in the Netherlands last month, the defeat of ultra-nationalist Geert Wilders was a victory for advocates of continued European integration. Still on tap: elections this fall in EU powerhouse Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats face a challenge from the anti-EU party Alternative for Germany, though that group’s popularity has dipped in recent weeks. 

On Wednesday, Parliament approved British Prime Minister Theresa May’s call for early elections in June -- a bid to grow the number of lawmakers who prefer a smooth Brexit to a more sudden, economically disruptive one.

For the US and the rest of the West, an integrated, cohesive Europe is a stronger, more reliable partner. It was Europe working as a collective entity that sent thousands of soldiers to bolster American military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. US sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine would have had less bite without the EU joining in. Russian President Vladimir Putin pines for the day that Europe fragments into insular, self-interested nation-states that he can meddle with more readily.

Le Pen, who flew to Moscow to meet Putin earlier this year, speaks the Kremlin’s every-country-for-itself language. “The European Union will die!” she recently exhorted at a campaign rally in Lille. “The time has come to defeat the globalists!” 

The 48-year-old daughter of nationalist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who once called Hitler’s use of gas chambers a “detail of history,” Le Pen is staunchly anti-immigration, supports abandoning the euro and ultimately the EU, and touts protectionism to strengthen the French economy. Polling had her as a safe bet to make it to the second round: She was buoyed by strong support from French millennials frustrated with 25 percent youth unemployment.

Ideologies aside, in many ways Melenchon’s positions mirror Le Pen’s. He also wants out of the EU and envisions France as a protectionist state. His advisers paint him as a French Bernie Sanders, though commentators have dubbed him a “French Chavez,” and for good reason -- he has spoken admiringly of the late Venezuelan socialist leader. Melenchon’s Robin Hood pledges included slapping a 100 percent tax on income earned over $425,000, lowering the official retirement age to 60, and trimming back the work week. Early on, he was at the back of the pack, but he’s surged to compete with Le Pen and Macron.

Macron, a former economy minister for Socialist President Francois Hollande’s government, offered voters a distinct alternative: expansion of health services and vocational training for youth, support for an open door immigration policy, and an embrace of European unity. At a campaign speech earlier this year, he told the crowd France needs Europe “because Europe makes us bigger, because Europe makes us stronger.”

We hope French voters see the bigger picture -- the need for European cohesion, now more than ever. With Le Pen or Melenchon at the helm, the idea of France’s exit from the EU becomes real and frightening. It would leave the bloc without any nuclear weapons, without a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, and without one of its heftiest economies. An EU collapse could follow.

The West faces persistent terrorism and a resurgent Russia. A further fractured, weakened Europe would make the challenges more daunting.

Editorial
Chicago Tribune

(Tribune Content Agency)