April 24, 2022, will be the deciding moment on whether Emmanuel Macron will be re -elected as President of France or Marine Le Pen as the new leader.
Here are the reasons why this election is important for France, the European Union (EU) and its Western allies.
EUROPE
Macron will continue its efforts to develop European defense, technology, agriculture and energy as well as reduce dependence on other powers.
Likely to push for more regulation on U.S. tech companies and want to create a ‘European metaverse’ to compete with Facebook.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen once planned to leave the euro and pay off French debt in newly created Francs. Although the matter has been forgotten, but he promised to reduce contributions to the EU fund.
Insist French law should go beyond EU rules and want to replace the bloc with ‘Europe of nations’.
Intends to hire thousands more customs agents to inspect goods entering France including from other EU countries. The move is feared to affect the EU's single market.
ECONOMY
Macron plans to raise the minimum pension age to 65 from 62 years.
Promise to make some conditional welfare benefits at 15-20 hours of training, similar to policy in countries like the US or Britain.
In the meantime, Le Pen will implement a 'Buy French' policy for public tenders, reduce the minimum pension age to 60 for those who start working before 20, abolish income tax for individuals under 30 and reduce energy VAT to 5.5% from 20 %.
Will spend 2 billion euros over 5 years to raise the salaries of hospital workers and recruit an additional 10,000 of them. Teachers' salaries are increased by 15% in 5 years.
WESTERN ALLIANCE
Despite being united on the issue of the Ukraine-Russia war, Macron’s relations with the West were actually less good after Australia canceled a massive submarine deal with France.
Have to make a choice whether to work with the US, UK and Australian security alliances against China or try to persuade the EU to continue its own independent policy towards Beijing.
On the other hand, Le Pen’s desire to remove France from the transatlantic military alliance of NATO’s integrated command caused him to be accused of being too close to Russia.
His party received a bank loan from a Russian bank in 2014 and he had met President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before the 2017 presidential election.
He called himself a ‘Gaullist’ and said he would implement foreign policy at the same distance from the US and Russia.
To date, Emmanuel Macron has managed to top the Marine Le Pen polls and will run for a second vote on April 24th.
The decision relieved euro investors and limited losses amid the USD's strengthening.
