There may be revolution in the air in France, but not the Bastille kind. Winds of change are howling through the country from Calais to Cannes, and they could replace European unity with circle-the-wagons nationalism.
More so than any other election in Europe this year, France’s presidential ballot on Sunday is a referendum on the battered European Union. Though Brexit wobbled the bloc, it wasn’t the existential broadside the French election could deliver. The shadow over the EU’s future comes in the form of not one but two candidates—far right nationalist Marine Le Pen and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Melenchon.
Standing in the way of an EU meltdown: 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, an ex-investment banker who believes France’s prosperity is inextricably tied with Europe’s. Sunday’s contest is the election’s first round. If no candidate wins a majority, the top two vote-getters square off in a second round May 7. Postwar European unity has never had it this rough. The debt crisis that roiled several southern European nations beginning in late 2009 was followed by the flood of migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East and North Africa. Then last summer, the United Kingdom shocked the world by deciding to quit the EU. That, coupled with the ascent of Donald Trump, had European leaders bracing for a populist revolt at the polls this year across the continent.
For the U.S. and the rest of the West, an integrated, cohesive Europe is a stronger, more reliable partner. It was Europe working as a collective entity that sent thousands of soldiers to bolster American military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine would have had less bite without the EU joining in. Russian President Vladimir Putin pines for the day that Europe fragments into insular, self-interested nation-states that he can meddle with more readily.
We hope French voters see the bigger picture—the need for European cohesion, now more than ever. The West faces persistent terrorism and a resurgent Russia. A further fractured, weakened Europe would make the challenges more daunting.