My comment on the French presidential election

In November, just two days before the US election i wrote a short comment in anticipation of what i then believed to be a likely Hillary Clinton win:

"If Donald Trump looses there is no reason to be jubilant for Hillary Clinton. There needs to be mobilisation that brings together both environmental champions and social activists in order to create a just and inclusive future. We need both the grassroots, the science geeks and the innovators and we need them now”

Tonight, after Marine le Pen has been thoroughly defeated by Emanuel Macron in the French election, it is time for a moment of relief. The populist and rightwing tide that we saw in both the Brexit vote and in Trumps unjustful promotion to the US presidency (he did after all loose the popular vote) seems to have been rolled back. Luckily, the kind of involvement by obscure actors that we saw in the US election, with smearing campaigns and hacker attacks seems to have had little influence in France. The result was partly due to Macrons attractiveness as a young and fresh politician, not burdened by the failures of both the socialist and the republican parties in France. But the outcome of the election was also to a large extent a "No" vote agains Le Pen and her nationalist and xenophobic agenda. 

The immediate fear of a Frexit can be put aside and the EU is likely to prevail with France and Germany continuing as the core of the union. But the challenges are still there and while the angry nationalists come up with all the wrong answers some of the symptoms they try to exploit needs to be addressed. Leaders in many of our liberal democracies have failed to grasp the effects of globalisation and likewise failed to provide a vision of future that is fair, equitable and truly sustainable. And with sustainable, I mean something that really addresses the profound climate crisis we are in, not some kind of superficial green makeover that lulls us into thinking all is well.  

So for the moment let’s pin our hopes for Europe to Macron and the visions he pointed to in his victory speech, on a future for both France and the world where the old french slogan “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” can be revitalised in a way that is benign to our environment. But what we must understand is that democracy is not about voting every 4th or 6th year. Neither is it about the kind of quasi-democratic and dumbing “yes or no”, “in or out” type of referendum that seems to be so popular with the right-wing nationalists. 

No, if we want a just future in a world with a liveable climate we better start thinking about what we can do and how we can contribute to a better future. It was encouraging that Macron actually talked about our joint responsibilities. But it is up to us as citizens to understand that is better if our politicians underpromise and overperform, rather than listen to and be attracted by the lure of snake oil salesmen and women like Erdogan, Le Pen and Trump. The track record if we are fooled to put theses people in office is horrifying as we can see in the now “illiberal” democracy in Hungary. We deserve a better future, we will not get it without efforts.