Un Swissroll

On the face of it, there is no pattern in the votes in Britain, the US and France over the past year.

With Brexit, a trading nation decided to break from a bloc seen as a meddling bureaucracy, hoping to strike deals with the wider world on its own terms. In the US, voters reverted to an old tradition of isolationism and economic nationalism.

Macron, in contrast to the other two, is very much a multilateralist: he embraces globalisation and sees France’s future firmly within the EU.

But beyond these glaring differences, a common thread runs through those outcomes – and it has implications for next week’s general election in the UK.

Those who have won so far were not afraid to stand up for deeply-held beliefs, however misguided they appeared to be (or actually were), no matter against the grain to seemed to go.

You may disagree with Trump or with the Brexit lot, but you can’t accuse them of equivocating or hedging their bets.

The same applies to Macron. He was dismissed by opponents as a mushy consensus candidate.

But if he had played it safe, he would have remained inside the socialist party rather than start a movement from scratch.

If he had played it safe, he would not have embraced open trade in a globaphobic country. And he would never had spoken face-to-face to striking workers in a factory threatened with closure, and told them that as president he would not spend one euro in public money to rescue their jobs.

His campaign was every bit as daring in the context of France as Trump’s in a US context (remember: I am not comparing the campaigns themselves – for one thing Macron’s was much better organised than Trump’s – but their levels of gutsiness.)

All this supports the old adage that most voters don’t believe in anything, but they believe in people who believe in something.

Of course, there are limits to the attractiveness of sheer conviction. Beliefs that are too weird will turn people off. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders was very much a conviction politician, but he still lost to an opportunistic centrist a couple of months ago.

In the second round of France’s presidential Macron convincingly defeated a candidate whose ideas were even more iconoclastic than his, but were just too far out for most. In Britain, a generation ago, Margaret Thatcher’s willingness to stand up to the establishment eventually backfired.

But when consensus starts to break down, risk-taking will be rewarded. You’re going to piss off a large chunk of the electorate whatever you do. Candidates who stick to their guns in the face of criticism have a key advantage over those who twist in the wind in quest of wider appeal.

This augurs well for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and not so well for Theresa May’s Tories for next Thursday.

Le Monde et les belles âmes ont donc trouvé le moyen d’écarter le reproche de Macromania qui nuirait à leur marketing et à leur narcissisme. Ca peut marcher bien sûr, car il faut lire de manière critique pour ne pas se joindre à la meute et se rendre compte que les accusations portées à l’égard de Richard Ferrand ne sont guère convaincantes.

Pour l’article du Canard enchaîné de mercredi passé, il faut lire goo.gl/xY1Hk3. Le Monde, lui, s’horrifie que les successeurs de Ferrand aient passé deux commandes à la femme dont Ferrand était divorcé depuis plusieurs années… « Calomniez, calomniez, il en restera toujours quelque chose. »

Complément du 01.06.2017 à 17h30: Sur Authueil, lire l’analyse de Samuel goo.gl/UpVaRQ

V.o.: Tony Blair : «What Emmanuel Macron grasped» goo.gl/6lsm3H 

Best is the enemy of the good (especially with economically illiterate intellectuals involved): fascinating and sad story.

J'avoue avoir été soulagé (et heureusement surpris) du retrait de Bayrou. Bien sûr dans son cas ce n'est pas sans calcul, entre place dans l'histoire et espérance de poste, mais il n'y a pas de quoi faire la fine bouche.

Avec Alexandre Jardin, c'est autre chose: je le tiens pour quelqu'un de vraiment intéressant. Dans une autre configuration que cette année, sa candidature aurait tout son sens. Mais son combat est manifestement déjà incarné par Macron.

Et ce qui compte aujourd'hui, c'est que Macron soit l'un des deux premiers à l'issue du premier tour: chaque voix comptera. Et c'est aussi la responsabilité de candidats potentiels de savoir ne pas disperser l'élan progressiste et réformateur contre l'extrême droite et les conservatismes de droite et de gauche.

Et leur proposer des béquilles à base de fonds publics est le meilleur moyen de les empêcher d'évoluer.

Un intéressant article pour le public français lisant l'anglais sur le bon usage des données dans les campagnes politiques, qui avant le Brexit et Macron ont déjà largement servi à Trump et Obama. Le site du Times est sur abonnement, mais en s'inscrivant on a droit à deux articles gratuits par semaine.