The election of Emmanuel Macron is showing that our system is threatened. He is the first president reelected since Jacques Chirac in 2002, but the extreme right got a historic score. Anyway he negociated pretty well the second round, and especially the debate. This is important. Anyway the extreme right risks to go to power at the next election if important problems are not tackled during this mandate.
Emmanuel Macron may be a good president in international affairs. His Investment plan 2030 is going to the right direction in my opinion, even if the sums might not be sufficient and the detrimental focus on education is neglected. The race on space, rare metals, submarine funds and so on, are necessary issues to deal with. France needs to position itself as a great economic power and participate to the competition on these themes. This aspect is on many ways detrimental.
However on social issues we lack too much vision again. The reform of the high school system is detrimetnal to mathematics, as companies complain more and more for the lack of mathematicians, and our vision of education is lacking long term impact. The yellow vest movement is, in my opinion, a movement of « losers » of globalization, the victims also of the lower level of educational system. This is very serious. The fact also there are less and less teachers will be a major issue.
Concerning society, the question of communitarism is less on the news today. The war on terrorism is on the second plan, as the cold war between the west and China is more and more on the top of the news. Anyway communitarism is rising in the suburbs, and Emmanuel Macron tends to be too laxist on those themes. As usual, there is a compromise between the state and some dealers to buy social peace. Of course the idea of rising the level of education, which is one of the most efficient way to fight poverty (have a look at China) is the great victim of the equation.
It looks that France is in a pretty explosive situation. It would be a good point our reelected president doesn’t repeat his sentences about « those who succeed and those who are nothing », it could prevent some big riots. Anyway, even if I’m not personnally very enthousiastic about him, I wish him every success in his mandate. Let’s hope he will ; if not it could be the turn of the extreme right to win in the next elections.
The observer 