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So the results are in and as it turns out, France is not the United Kingdom nor is it the United States.
Whereas the pollsters all had it wrong when the UK voted to leave the European Union and they likewise were incorrect in predicting Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump, they did not fail this time, as the expected result of Emmanuel Macron defeating Marine Le Pen for the French presidency came to fruition.
Less interesting than the actual result – which was predicted by more or less everybody – was the breakdown of who supported the two candidates.
Macron got a huge percentage of highly educated, upper-income people and did especially well with older voters. Le Pen, on the other hand, saw her best results among the young, the working class, and the poor.
For years, the school of thought has been that the left-leaning candidate is a champion of the poor and the youth while the right-leaning candidate is more interested in helping the older and more financially secure. But remarkably enough, these results show that people in France believe the exact opposite to be true.
We saw some of this dynamic shift in the election of Donald Trump as president with how well he did with white working class voters and states he won that Republicans usually lose. But with the French election, we saw that the traditional “left-right” paradigm may be shifting significantly.
To be sure, part of the reason for this is the fact that neither Trump nor Le Pen represent traditional right-wing thought – or at least what we generally consider right-wing in the United States – as their campaigns tended to focus far more on positioning themselves as champions of those who were left behind by globalization rather than extolling the virtues or laissez faire economics.
What’s funny is that while many believed Trump and Le Pen to be kindred spirits ideologically – though Le Pen is undoubtedly far more nationalist than Trump – while the youth in the United States overwhelmingly did not support the president’s election, that did not carry over to France, where Le Pen was unusually popular with a demographic that is normally reliably left-leaning.
In fact, the success Le Pen had with young voters has been touted as something she can build on for the future, with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage even going so far to predict that she will win the French presidency in 2022.
Maybe he’s right. Or maybe not.
But the fact that both Le Pen – even though she lost overwhelmingly - and Trump shook some electoral norms is interesting to say the least. It could be a sign that many people worldwide are taking a harder look at individual issues and are less concerned with party labels and pre-conceived narratives.
Many have opined on the dangers of populism and while they may have a point, I will say I do enjoy the fact that more and more people seem to be thinking independently and are less obedient to machine politics than they have been in past years.
If nothing else, THAT is an encouraging trend I’d like to see continue. I may not always agree with the leaders selected here and abroad, but voting on the candidate rather than being a slave to party and ideology is an interesting shift for the electorate writ large.
Ultimately, that could be good or bad. After all, if the political matrix eventually breaks wide open, it will certainly be a fun spectacle, but if it doesn’t produce better results, then it will be nothing more than an entertaining disaster for everybody involved.