Purchasing power, the main board in the dispute between Macron and Le Pen

The economy is a pillar for Macron’s candidacy, but less solid than it seems. The outgoing president boasts of good macroeconomic data. The French GDP grew by 7% last year (in 2020 it fell by 8%) and unemployment fell to 7.4%. “France is doing well,” say the Macronists.

“The great success of Macron’s mandate has been the decrease in unemployment“, emphasizes the journalist François-Xavier Bourmaud, great political reporter in The Figaro and author of the book Macron, I invited surprise, in statements to EL PERIÓDICO. The current government vehemently highlights this decrease of 2% compared to the situation in 2017, after the mandate of the socialist François Hollande. So, the percentage of unemployed was 9.6%. “France was suffering from a problem with massive unemployment and it was partly solved during the last five years,” Bourmaud stresses.

Despite this improvement with respect to unemployment, not everything is shiny in Macron’s economic balance. As the ‘yellow vests’ revolt at the end of 2018 already reflected, the main focus of unrest in France is found in all those people who work, but have trouble getting to the end of the month. Truck drivers, supermarket cashiers, waiters, teachers, nurses, health assistants… The list of poorly paid professions in a country where life is very expensive and half of the population earns less than 2,000 euros a month. Their situation has deteriorated further with current inflation of 4.5% in March.

The fight between Macron and Le Pen consists, in part, of a competition to seduce this popular electorate. After a minimalist campaign before the first round, the centrist leader multiplied his trips and interviews in the media after coming first on April 10, with the 27% of the votes. In his speeches he tried to clarify some of his most controversial proposals, such as the fact that increase the retirement age to 65 years (after having contributed for 42 or 43 years). She now opened the door to extend it from the current 62 to 64 years. Or even organize a referendum on this reform, a promise perceived with some mistrust.

The Macronist Executive also highlights the 30,000 million euros spent in the last six months to deal with the energy price crisis. For example, a fuel price subsidy to reduce it by 18 cents per liter. In addition, he criticizes the simplistic but electorally effective measures of the ultra Le Pen. “Reducing VAT to 0% (…) on the prices of products that already have a reduced VAT is taking people for an idiot,” Macron criticized one of the star measures of the National Regrouping (RN, extreme right), which promises to abolish VAT on a hundred basic necessities.

The president “is not aware that there are millions of French who arrive at the end of the month with less than 5 euros in their current account,” Le Pen replied. Benefited by her own adversary -the centrist leader presented on March 17 a program clearly anchored in the right and thus resurrected his reputation as “president of the rich”-, the ultra candidate has provided herself throughout this campaign with a ( false) candidate image defender of the common people. This is reflected in the 32% of the votes -for a national average of 23%- that he obtained among the French who earn less than 1,000 euros per month, while Macron only achieved the support of 14% of this segment of the population.

The ultra leader does not exactly defend a leftist program in economic matters, but she does have the advantage of proposing simple and effective measures in the face of the current anguish over purchasing power. In addition to the abolition of VAT for a hundred products, she defends lower it to 5.5% in the case of energy. In this way, they will return “10,000 million to the French”, insist the leaders of the RN. His opposition to extending the retirement age beyond 62 years and cutting aid to the unemployed also led to the RN earning the label of a party “social-populist”. Or, rather, a supporter of a “chauvinist welfare state”since it proposes to abolish all aid to foreigners.

Despite this reputation, nurtured by the same debater Eric Zemmour, who branded Le Pen a “trotskyist”, the reality of his measures is different. In fact, the leader of the extreme right defends a conservative economic program. I don’t only know opposes raising the minimum wage, but also proposes a reduction of 10,000 million in taxes on companies. In this sense, Le Pen and Macron seem like twin brothers.

According to the latest polls, the French president would win the second round on Sunday with 55.5% against 44.5% of the ultra candidate. Le Pen would receive the support of less than 20% of voters in the first round of Jean-Luc Mélenchon (socioecologist), whose electorate (22%) represents a coveted treasure. Despite her simplistic proposals, the ultra candidate does not obtain considerable support from the left-wing people. Nor by those concerned about the lack of purchasing power.