Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh explores the campaigns of French presidency candidates Macron and Le Pen

Sudhir has written an article for Times Literary Supplement online (9 May – and currently on their front page) exploring the success and appeal of the new President of France: Emmanuel Macron.

Sudhir writes, 'I experienced this fervour at one of Macron’s final Parisian rallies at Bercy in mid-April. The hall was crammed with 20,000 enthusiasts, with thousands watching on giant screens outside. Many were carrying copies of his pamphlet Révolution, the En Marche! version of the Little Red Book. The peuple Macronien is overwhelmingly young, urban, employed and educated. In conversation, they express their severe disillusionment with “the system”, but also their real sense of hope: for many, this is their first ever engagement with politics, and they are brimming with confidence both about themselves and France’s future; the safeguarding of European unity in the post-Brexit context also comes up repeatedly.'

The full article can be read here: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/emmanuel-macron-man-of-the-people/

Sudhir also appeared in a video interview for Le Monde online (6 May), in which he discusses another aspect of the presidential race that he touches on in the above article: the lack of coherence and focus in the campaign of Macron’s rival, the extreme right wing candidate Marine Le Pen. Specifically, he talks about how late it was in the campaign that the Front National moved to associate itself with the Gaullist tradition.

This video can be watched (in French) here: http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/video/2017/05/06/marine-le-pen-est-elle-gaulliste-le-regard-d-un-specialiste-du-general-de-gaulle_5123584_4854003.html#