Macron winning the French presidential election

This year was filled with political conflict and polemic decisions made by world leaders, such as Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the Muslim ban proposed by Donald Trump. However, a highlight of the year was Emmanuel Macron’s win in the French presidential election.

Macron was running against Marine Le Pen, a candidate of the far-right party with very conservative ideas, such as committing to a massive reduction in legal immigration because, in her words, French citizenship should be, “Either inherited or merited”. Her view on illegal immigrants is very rigid and immutable, saying that they, “Have no reason to stay in France, these people broke the law the minute they set foot on French soil”. She intended to end free education for the children of undocumented immigrants and favoritize ‘French natives’ by giving them jobs, welfare, housing, schools, or any area of public provision before “foreigners”.

The New York Times was accurate when it described Le Pen against Macron as being, “Globalization against nationalism. Future versus the past. Open versus closed”. With Macron, a much more liberal leader, the European Union will not go into a crisis as it would have with Le Pen. Macron has a very unique characteristic, needed due to the turbulent current political scenario nowadays: his cool mastery for handling critical issues confronting France.