Today the French go to the polls to vote for a new president. French media are reporting what is to them a shockingly low turnout but which to us would be astonishingly high. We’ll see if that holds when the polls close.
Yesterday my wife pointed out that for the French election day is a Sunday. I responded that reflects the difference between secularist France and the culturally Calvinist U. S. The French want to maximize the likelihood that people will actually turn out and vote. We think or at least used to think that people should be in church on Sundays.
When the votes are tallied we’ll learn whether the conventional wisdom—that Macron is a shoe-in—is right or wrong, that is, whether there is a reason it is the conventional wisdom.
Eurocrats must be anticipating the vote’s result as a man anticipates his own execution. Will they receive a reprieve?
Macron won but it isn’t nearly the consensus victory we’ll see hailed in the international press. Maybe up to two-thirds of the votes he received were to keep Le Pen out of office rather than as an approval of Macron himself. When he fails (almost a certainty given there’s very little difference between himself and Hollande) the French will find themselves back here again in five years.