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President Emmanuel Macron of France.Kay Nietfeld - Pool / Getty Images

(LifeSiteNews) — The odds were heavily stacked against “nationalist” candidate Marine Le Pen in the run-off of the French presidential election on Sunday. Despite last-minute polls indicating that the outcome could be close, she lost to President Emmanuel Macron. This means five more years of Macron, who presided over some of the most restrictive and absurd COVID measures in the world.

Perhaps Macron is hoping to remain the leader of the French Republic for even longer, after he announced his plan to ask for a constitutional revision that would lengthen the presidential term to seven years (as was the case between 1958 and 2007), allowing him to run for yet another mandate.

Given that he has promised a national debate on the legalization of “assisted death” – including euthanasia – and that he has already stated that vaccine passes and other COVID measures could make their return by autumn, more culture of death and sanitary dictatorship are to be expected.

Days before the election, Macron warned in an op-ed in the Figaro that the “republican” value of liberty should not be construed as the right of anti-vaxxers to exert their “tyranny” over the rest of the population.

In fact, government data show that since February, 9 million doses of “pediatric” Pfizer COVID shots have been delivered to France where only a small fraction of 5-11-year-olds have received the experimental “vaccine.” There are less than 10 million children younger than age 12 in France, few of whom have been “vaccinated,” meaning that a government objective of widespread jabbing of primary school kids is completely in the cards.

Under Macron’s watch, homeschooling was severely attacked, and it will become next to impossible if current decrees are validated by the supreme administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat. Many fear that independent schools, where traditional pedagogical methods can be used and the curriculum is not imposed by the extremely centralized ministry of education, are next on the list to become the victims of Macron’s ideological tyranny.

Further measures in favor of legal abortion and the unrelenting deconstruction of the natural family and filiation in law are only to be expected if Macron continues in the same vein as during his first five years in office.

Much of his rhetoric is pure “UN Sustainable goals,” and he is expected to prolong his war against petrol and gas-based heating and transport, creating new, costly obligations for the middle class. Even the mainstream press acknowledged that over the last five years 400,000 more people found themselves below the poverty line (out of a total population of 68 million citizens). As public debt soars – and not only due to COVID relief –, taxes on private real estate are also set to rise.

France remains one of the most heavily taxed nations of the OECD, with an official rate of compulsory contributions of more than 43 percent of the gross domestic product (against less than 25 percent in the United States), a large proportion of which rests on families and individuals. This means less freedom of choice for families, many of whom rely totally on the state for health care, education, pensions and social benefits of many kinds. Work is very heavily taxed: Out of every 100 euro an employer pays for an employee, over 53 euro will go back to the state in taxes and “social contributions” for state-run health, pension and unemployment schemes. And this doesn’t include various local taxes, VAT and taxes on energy. “Climate” measures are expected to become more pervasive.

It was characteristic of this presidential election that, according to the polls, purchasing power was the most important electoral theme as inflation rises and government members repeatedly told the public that higher prices and food shortages linked to the Russian war in Ukraine were coming. Macron postured as the man who would “protect” citizens from the difficulties ahead. His largest single electoral group during the first round of elections two weeks ago was the over-60s, leading a mainstream magazine, Le Point, to wonder whether the elderly voters are “masochists,” considering they have already lost much during Macron’s first term.

And this is without taking into account the COVID policies that prevented the elderly from getting any kind of treatment beyond paracetamol for the infection. They were often not offered hospital treatment when their situation became serious; instead, the government made medication legal to “reduce their suffering,” but that actually hastened death.

Morale was low on Sunday evening in circles where respect for life and family, economical and medical freedom are paramount when it comes to choosing political personnel.

When Macron made his first appearance as newly re-elected president on Sunday evening, many noticed that more European Union flags than the French “Bleu-Blanc-Rouge” flag had been distributed to the crowds waiting for him at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Besides, the EU anthem, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” was played to accompany his arrival instead of the French “Marseillaise,” a clear symbol of the re-elected president’s commitment to placing the technocratic European Union over and above France’s national interests.

Emmanuel Macron is widely seen as France’s most detested president over the last 50 years. His “arrogance” is proverbial in many walks of society, especially since he presided over the brutal repression of the “Yellow Vests,” who protested against rising energy prices before the COVID crisis. He has gibed at “people who are nothing,” told people who can’t find work that he need only “cross the street” to get them a job, and favorably compared the Lutheran people of Denmark with “Gauls who are resistant to change.”

Marine Le Pen’s task of defeating Macron was very difficult. Both the institutional media and the popular press – including the glossy Elle women’s magazine – openly campaigned against her. During recent months, the more clearly right-wing and somewhat more pro-life and pro-family (although far from perfect) Eric Zemmour was denounced as an “extremist,” leaving the way free for Le Pen to obtain more votes than in the 2017 election. But as soon as she was qualified for the run-off, she was once more qualified as being of the “extreme right” and that was the main argument against her.

Nothing in Le Pen’s program was particularly “extreme;” in fact, many of her options were close to those of the social left, and she is at least clearly opposed to sovereignty grabs by the European Union and tyrannical COVID measures. This explains the hate and hostility that she faced despite being in line with an increasing number of mainstream ideas. It is remarkable that she obtained nearly 13.3 million votes against Macron’s 18.77 million.

Macron was widely elected by voters who aimed to eliminate Le Pen from the competition; many made clear that that was their only intent and that they are not on board with his political choices.

Remarkably, 13.65 million possible electors didn’t even bother to cast a vote and an additional 2.2 million left their ballot blank. Nearly 800,000 voting slips were counted as void.

This makes Macron one of the “most badly” elected presidents since the Constitution of the 5th Republic came into effect in 1958: He obtained only 38.52 percent of the vote from registered electors.

This is probably the reason why his first speech as president re-elect included a call on Marine Le Pen’s electors to believe that he will be “the president of all women and all men.” “We will need to be benevolent and respectful,” he said.

But the question most of his opponents (in particular the unvaxxed) are asking now is not if he will reinstate COVID tyranny but when: in the fall, as he has already suggested, or immediately after the legislative elections that will renew the National Assembly in June.

This will be the last chance to counter Macron’s probable power grab for the next five years.

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