In a speech he delivered at the 74th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on September 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held up a poster illustrating four different maps of Israel since 1947 and asked: “where are the borders of the State of Israel? Is it the 1948 borders, the 1967 borders, or is there any other border? How can the Golan Heights and the West Bank settlements be seized, just like other occupied Palestinian territories, before the eyes of the world if they are not within the borders of this State? Does the “deal of the century” aim to eliminate the people and the State of Palestine?”, and added: “The solution is the immediate establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the basis of 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Turkey will continue to stand by the oppressed people of Palestine as it has always been until today.”

Although the superpowers of today’s world seem to ignore it, a comparison of these four maps show that the Palestinian territories gradually shrank from 1947 whereas Israel has kept getting bigger, and is likely to get even bigger still. Besides, the dwindling Palestinian territory is not recognized as a state by the U.S. and many European and Asian countries. This is the point of Erdogan’s comparison.

And like the ever expanding borders of Israel, we also face another phenomena, one that is continuously extended with the propaganda and lobbying activities of Israel: the very definition of anti-Semitism. The scope of this term has expanded from encompassing hate speech and racist acts against Jewish people to criticism of Israel itself. So, following his speech in the UN General Assembly, the Tel Aviv administration called Erdogan an anti-Semite.

The term ‘anti-Semitism’ was first used in 1879 by a German journalist, and originally means hostility to or prejudice against Jews. As Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis said, Christians saw Jews as having a dark and deadly power with skills of cosmic evil. Following numerous periods of tyranny against Jews in the history of Europe, the most systematic and scientific atrocity against Jews in history took place under Nazi Germany. Around six million people were brutally killed just for being Jewish under Hitler’s leadership, including women, children and the elderly. A genocide in the midst of Europe of which witnesses and Holocaust survivors are still alive.

Following the Holocaust, many European countries enacted laws that introduced special protection for Jews separate from other laws related to racism. Denying the Holocaust was criminalized in a total of 14 European countries, including Germany in 1979 and France in 1990. In France, the Gayssot Act made it an offense to deny the Holocaust, a crime against humanity defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of which Nazi leaders were convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945 and 1946.

Although anti-Semitism means hostility to or prejudice against Jews, new definitions of anti-Semitism have been invented by Israel and some writers starting from the 1990s. For instance, anti-Zionism was also included in the scope of anti-Semitism. Israel has been defined as the homeland of the Jews, and criticisms of Israel are associated with anti-Semitism.

In 2017, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, a centre which defines the issues related to fundamental rights for the improvement and reform of EU Law incorporated some of these elements into their definition of anti-Semitism. The Center defines anti-Semitism as: “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred of Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

This definition is followed by statements that give Israel some exceptions not made to any other state or nation in the world. The statement goes on to read that: “manifestations of anti-Semitism might also target the State of Israel, conceived of as a Jewish collectivity.” Some examples of the manifestations of anti-Semitism that are associated with the State of Israel are listed as follows: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, and drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

According to this, it looks like criticizing Israel will be considered de facto anti-Semitism. For Israeli officials, this seems to be the case already. In response to the argument that it is not even possible to criticize Israel, a test was published in Israel to reveal to what extent the country could be criticized. For Israel, it is possible to distinguish legitimate criticisms of Israel from anti-Semitism using a 3-D test of anti-Semitism developed in 2004 by the Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency. This test and an article on it were published in Jewish Political Studies Review. The test was also recognized by the U.S. Department of State.

The test consists of three main concepts: delegitimization, double standards and demonization. According to Sharansky, hiding behind the veneer of legitimate criticism of Israel constitutes a kind of anti-Semitism that is more difficult to expose. The delegitimization part of the test argues that claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor discriminates against Jews by singling them out as ineligible for the basic right for self-determination as is determined by international law. According to this discursive contention, since any discrimination against a specific ethnic, religious, racial or national group is considered a type of racism, delegitimization of the Jewish people right to self-determination is racism against Jews. (To put it otherwise, you can freely express it when other states engage in racism, but you will commit the very crime you are talking about when you accuse Israel of racism!)

According to the second part of the test, namely Double Standards, “If a person criticizes Israel and only Israel on certain issues, but chooses to ignore similar situations conducted by other countries, they are performing a double standard policy against Israel.” (This is actually a rephrasing of the first title. The criticisms of other countries are within the limits of freedom of expression but it is forbidden to issue such criticisms on Israel!) The second title reads: “The implementation of a different moral standard for Jews and Israel compared to the rest of the world discriminates against a specific group and is labeled as antisemitism,” (Then several other countries might be added on the list while criticizing Israel). Meanwhile, the test states that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movements, such as BDS, might also be the manifestations of anti-Semitism, “since any discriminatory act to isolate Israel in international arena and the rejection of equality before laws for Israel is a new anti-Semitic behavior.” (This article indicates that boycotting Israeli products is a manifestation of anti-Semitism. And it does not seem possible to avoid it even if you add some other countries on the list beside Israel).

The third D is demonization. Demonizing Jews is of course racist, but this goes for all races in the world. It would be acceptable to underline this factor in reference to the “Jewish image in Christianity”, but there is a significant difference here: portraying the State of Israel as demonic is anti-Semitic whereas it seems to be no problem to do so for other states. Moreover, expressing conspiracy theories about Jews, referring to the power of Jews as a collective, and stating that the Jews control the media, economy, government and other societal institutions are also defined as anti-Semitic actions. Among the 3Ds, this title seems to be the only one that could be handled within the scope of a traditional definition of anti-Semitism.

The perspectives and criteria that form the basis of this test have been included in some legal regulations for the past few years, and is reflected in the anti-Semitism definition of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in 2017. In Germany, anti-Zionism was included in the scope of anti-Semitism, and discussions in France are ongoing. Calls to boycott Israeli products have been recognized as illegitimate anti-Semitic actions in Germany and in some U.S. states.  

According to the 3D test, the limits to the criticisms against Israel’s policies and actions are as narrow as today’s Palestinian territory. For instance, in his 2006 book entitled Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé seems to have breached most of the conditions of elements of the 3D test when discussing the gradual genocide in Gaza and depicting what has been done to Palestinians in the region. After the book was published, Pappé was subjected to pressure in the University of Haifa, where he was employed at the time, and finally left Israel after being subjected to diatribes and serious accusations by various circles in the country. He is currently a faculty member in the history department of the University of Exeter in England.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is a phenomenon that is still present in the world. Today, we increasingly confront many different kinds of racism against Muslims and various other minorities. But Israel has reached such an extreme point that it even regards Jews who criticize the Israeli state as anti-Semitic, a stance which is supported by several other countries, particularly by the U.S. The absurdity of the situation is best portrayed by this anecdote:

“-The weather is cloudy, I think it might rain.

-Did you just call me a duck?”

Of course, Israel labels almost every critic as anti-Semite not because it is excessively resentful or paranoid in demeanor, this is a propaganda technique that has become a major power play and is at least as important as weapons in today’s post-truth world. What is required is to speak in the name of truth and justice against Israeli crimes undauntedly and to emphasize the truth across every platform as Israel does. As President Erdogan lately expressed, the best possible solution is “the immediate establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the basis of 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Germany has a pre-contaminated history with regard to the religious freedom of Jews. The centuries-old prejudices and conspiracy theories against this minority group would eventually end up with the cruel genocide, the Holocaust. Following the horrors of the persecution of Jews under the Nazi rule, the Federal Republic of Germany took over the duty of recognizing Israel unconditionally and to protect Jewish life. Since then, political education in the country has been dominated by the education about the crimes committed by the Nazis. Despite these, in Munich for example, the “capital of the NSDAP,” a document centre on Nazi crimes was not opened until 2015.

Demands for a Government Commissioner for Anti-Semitism were sporadic even before. However, the office only came into being in the course of a debate on anti-Semitism in January 2018, following an attack on a young person wearing a kippa in Berlin. The incident was filmed by the victim and attracted a lot of media attention.

In retrospect, it became known that the attacked person himself was not a Jew, but an Arab citizen of Israel, who described his wearing of the kippa as an “experiment”. The attacker stated in court that he had previously been insulted and provoked by the victim in an anti-Arab manner. The 19-year-old Syrian was sentenced to four weeks imprisonment under juvenile criminal law.

The debate about anti-Semitism at that time was characterized by narrative, with the dominant anti-Semitism coming from immigrants, especially Arab immigrants, or even Muslims in general.

There is no doubt that there is a widespread hostility among Arabs and Muslims towards the State of Israel, which can also lead to hostility towards Jews in general. In Germany, however, the phenomenon is very rarely researched and statistically not clearly verifiable.

Is the danger for Jews growing in Germany? Equally important, from whom actually does the danger emanate?

After the anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein, an experienced lawyer and diplomat who is not Jewish himself, warned against wearing the kippa in May 2019, a public debate broke out which again featured anti-Semitism by migrants prominently. Klein said literally, “I cannot recommend that Jews wear the kippa anywhere in Germany at any time. Unfortunately, I have to say that.” It is a statement that can at first be understood as an example of cold German diplomacy. It is an inconvenient statement. And as such it was also critically discussed. The prominent Jewish publicist Michel Friedmann reacted indignantly to the statement. According to him, it was a failure of the state not to be able to guarantee security and to openly admit this.

The chairman of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, on the other hand, regards the statement as a necessary indication of a problem that Jews want to see discussed. “It is therefore to be welcomed if this situation also receives more attention at the highest political level”. The fight against anti-Semitism must be adopted by the whole society, he stressed. “It is about time.” He affirmed that it is indeed not certain for Jews in some parts of Germany to be recognizable as Jews. In 2015, Josef Schuster also mentioned districts with a majority of muslim residents. The term “No-Go-Areas” developed. As such, regions in East Germany were also discussed in which right-wing extremist positions are widely represented

Is the danger for Jews growing and from whom does the danger actually emanate? The later is indeed difficult to determine. The annual statistics of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) recorded an increase in anti-Semitic crimes by 20% to about 1,800 crimes. Also in general the number of hatecrimes, including racist and islamophobic hatecrimes rose. According to the statistics, 90% of crimes against Jews were committed by right-wing extremists and only a fraction were committed by foreign or religious ideologies that are not further defined.

Anti-Jewish tradition of the West did not disappear

An EU-wide survey found that a majority of Jews were more likely to perceive anti-Semitism by immigrants. This is often used as an argument by “Islam critics”. However, it should be mentioned that this is not a scientific study, but a survey of perception. It should be discussed to what extent the questionable high media and political focus on “imported anti-Semitism” may contribute to a distorted perception. 

Contemporary anti-Semitism in Germany is a rarely researched phenomenon.

Josef Schuster, who repeatedly spoke out clearly against Islamophobia and racism in general, explicitly addresses the “aggressive political climate” when he discusses the causes of the growing hatred against Jews.

One must probably also ask the question to what extent the strengthening of the right-wing populist party AfD has contributed to this climate. After all, it is politicians of that party who regularly relativize the crimes of the Nazis. Alexander Gauland, one of the party’s leaders, described the Nazi era as “a shit of a bird in 1000 years of German history”. For critics, this is a clear downplaying of the deeply rooted anti-Semitism in German nationalism.

The AfD politician Wolfgang Gedeon wrote in one of his books: “As Islam was the external enemy, so the Talmudic ghetto Jews were the internal enemy of the Christian West”.

And this is an interesting narrative. Right-wing populists, whether in Germany, Austria or France, are trying to instrumentalize a supposed danger by Muslims at the same time. Apart from such clearly anti-Semitic statements, this often happens by ascribing the responsibility for anti-Semitism specifically to Muslims or immigrants and by washing away one’s own nationalism, which is historically as well as currently sociologically clear breeding ground for anti-Semitism.

The Jewish author and liberal Rabbi Armin Langer sees this as a systematic approach and opposes the thesis of “imported anti-Semitism”. “Anti-Semitism does not need to be imported because it has always been here. The centuries-old Christian anti-Jewish tradition of the West did not disappear even after the Holocaust,” he writes in SPIEGEL. Langer is also explicitly critical of the narrative that there is a traditional “Christian Jewish Occident”.  According to him, serving such a narrative is historically wrong, negates anti-Semitism throughout and aims to exclude Muslims from the idea of Europe. 

Do somebodies ascribe the responsibility for anti-Semitism specifically to Muslims and wash away their own nationalism, which currently breeds ground for anti-Semitism?

After the attack on the Kippa bearer in Berlin in 2018 and after Felix Klein’s warning, there were nationwide solidarity campaigns with Jews in which society was called upon to demonstratively wear Kippa. High-ranking politicians and public figures took part. BILD offered cut-out kippas in its newspaper. Armin Langer also takes a critical view of this.  “Solidarity with Jews and resistance against anti-Semitism is to be welcomed, but the Kippa is not suitable as a symbol for it”, he wrote on Facebook. This garment stands for the expression of one’s own Jewish faith.

The Kippa is not a “neutral” symbol of German democracy, he explains. “Moreover, in our German context we should also consider the aspect of cultural appropriation: Especially among the successors of perpetrators, it is common to appropriate the cultural characteristics of formerly oppressed minorities and deprive them of their original meaning.” Instead, he recommends showing solidarity in a different way, e.g. by supporting prevention work.

The AfD politician Wolfgang Gedeon wrote: “As Islam was the external enemy, so the Talmudic ghetto Jews were the internal enemy of the Christian West”.

The Central Council of Jews, on the other hand, welcomed the actions. There was also clear solidarity from the Muslim side. The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims, Aiman Mazyek, stressed that standing up for anti-human hostility of any kind, including explicitly anti-Semitism, was one of the deepest Muslim convictions.

A country like Germany, with its historical responsibility and its multi-cultural and multi-religious society, faces an outstanding challenge in protecting the lives of minorities. That these minorities are not played off against each other is part of this responsibility.

One actually hesitates while reacting to the latest manifesto signed by 300 French intellectuals and politicians published in Le Parisien since it is hard to take it seriously. It is an absurd and odious call, but the individuals who have signed it are neither ordinary nor marginal figures. Contrarily, the list includes former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, chief rabbis, former prime ministers, ministers, intellectuals and artists from all political spectrums. The manifesto reads: “We demand that the fight against this democratic failure that is anti-Semitism becomes a national cause before it’s too late. Before France is no longer France.” For this, they suggested Muslims to delete some verses of the Quran!

They do not need to panic since France is obviously still France, as the manifesto demonstrates. France is a country abetting Germany in anti-Semitism and the massacre of six million Jewish people 77 years ago. As already known, France is not a Muslim country. And the European continent is a place where such racist tendencies are occasionally ignited across the countries, especially in France.

On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire was a Muslim country while it welcomed the Jews deported from Spain 526 years ago. Also, the Republic of Turkey, a Muslim country again, is known to have hosted Jews who fled the Holocaust perpetrated by Germany and France. Whereas Turkey is a secular country, the Ottoman Empire was governed with Islamic sharia laws. The Quran, the Holy Scripture of Muslims, rules that the downtrodden should be helped regardless of their faith.

The 11 Jewish people who were killed in France in the recent period were shown as the justification of this manifesto. It is known that those killing ten of these 11 people were terrorists. For a terrorist, the victim’s religion does not matter. Also, it is a fact that Daesh mostly killed Muslim people up until now. Besides, the two people who were taken into custody on suspicion of killing 85-year-old Mireille Knoll are ex-convicts involved in petty offenses. But the victim of the attack was a woman who could barely escape from labor camps during the time when France was collecting and sending Jewish people in its territory to the camps.

Of course, representing a petty crime as an anti-Semitic crime by manipulation is a major political offense. There are different versions of this. For instance, while Palestinians are considered “terrorists,” the Israeli state is regarded as democratic, and its acts such as murdering and displacing Palestinians and occupying Palestinian territory are named “operations.” Although it does not apply to all the French, we know that those signing this manifesto do think exactly that way.

According to these 300 French people, “French Jews are 25 times more at risk of being attacked than their fellow Muslim citizens.” They go on to suggest that ten percent of Jews were forced to move out of their neighborhoods, which constituted a “silent ethnic cleansing” according to them. This calculation is not accurate since societal phenomena cannot be reflected through numbers and arithmetic. The danger is alarming. Across the European continent, racist tendencies led by France awakened again. Far-right ideas came into prominence in every political spectrum, including both left and right. The 300 influential French figures consider 1.5 billion Muslims potential murderers. Also, the Muslim people in France, who comprise the greatest Muslim population in a country across Europe, do not consist of the converted. Most of them originally came from the French colonies in Africa during the 1970s, where France has exploited the resources for years.

According to the ones signing the manifesto, alongside Muslims, some French intellectuals regard such anti-Semitism as a societal revolt in the name of anti-Zionism. They claim that a similar mindset is prevalent in some far-left groups aside from far-right anti-Semitism, which are implemented with populist motifs since the Muslim electorate decuples the Jewish electorate.

Undoubtedly, this manifesto is the product of a provocative, authoritarian and fascistic mindset, as can be viewed from every aspect of the text. Considering that the people signing the manifesto do have a power of representation, then it means that both Jews and Muslims in France are in jeopardy along with the rest of the population. Certainly, there is an atmosphere reminiscent of the 1930s. The same old mindset has been altered and tailored to the current conditions.

Just as France did not act with religious motifs while colonizing Africa, it also did not employ such motifs in recent history, for instance while overtly supporting the Rwandan genocide during the 1990s. But still, French people are very fond of making references through religion. If this is the case, then they can get to the roots of this problem by looking at their “religion of Enlightenment.”

The French are getting more used to far right by the day. The enemies and targets of the far right movements change, but their ideas are the same. It could be said that after a couple of decades of inactivity, they are full of life now. As they’re no longer contained in the far right parties but exist within both right-wing and left-wing party, this wasn’t a challenge. There are other variables, of course; during Edgar Morin’s childhood Jews were the target of the far right, now it’s Muslims. For instance, when Jean Marie Le Pen had overtaken Socialist Party Leader Lionel Jospin in the presidential elections and ascended to the second round with Chirac on April 21 2002, it took France by surprise.

At that time, Jean Marie Le Pen was the representative of Front National’s both anti-Semitic and xenophobic streaks, while the former was more dominant. On May 1 2002, the French public took to the streets to protest in masses; with the call of all unions in France, 1.5 million people went out to the streets, 400,000 of them being in Paris, and newspapers ran headlines like “No!” 15 years later, according to the French Ministry of the Interior, there were a little bit more than 140,000 people who went out on the streets to protest Le Pen on May 1.

In the first round of Presidential elections, Jean Marie Le Pen had garnered 16.86% of the votes, while Chirac took 19.88%. Receiving the lowest support of the Fifth Republic, Chirac received 82.21% of the votes as a result of the mobilization of all voters; therefore, he was elected president with an unprecedented percentage since the time of the Soviet Union need to oppose Le Pen. Today, his daughter Marine Le Pen made it to the second round of elections with 21.3% of the votes and, according to recent polls, there is around 40% support for her.

There are two important factors explaining this. Firstly, Marine Le Pen, unlike her father, didn’t say anything that might sound anti-Semitic; she targeted Muslims rather than the Jewish minority. Secondly, Islamophobic discourses, which used to be associated with the far right, were embraced by reputable figures in both the right and the left, who have started to utter them with impunity. As a matter of fact, it was normalized. We have to give Marine Le Pen her due; whatever discriminatory statements she made while campaigning were already surpassed by numerous figures of the right and the left a long time ago.

Muslims have been exposed to the foul statements of many: Alain Finkielkraut, Elizabeth Badinter, Plantu, former prime minister Manuel Valls, Sarkozy and so on. However, if Jewish lifestyle and belief was to be boycotted and protested today, all hell would break loose in France! Think about what would happen if the kippa, or Jewish clothing became an issue, or the long beards of Jewish men; or if Jewish children were forced to receive an extremely Orthodox education at kindergarten; or if Jean Pierre Chevenement’s “advice” to Muslims, to make themselves less apparent in the public, was intended for Jews… However, it’s not possible; you cannot replace Muslims with Jews in these kinds of situations. It’s not allowed, because anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity. For something to be a crime against humanity in France, it has to be tried at Nuremberg. What was tried there? Genocide. Therefore, without genocide and a trial on genocide, nothing is a crime against humanity, at least in the Old World. Returning back to Edgar Morin’s childhood, when Jews were being targeted but the Holocaust wasn’t committed yet, anti-Semitism wasn’t considered as a crime against humanity; therefore, by this logic, today Islamophobic statements and acts are not a crime against humanity.

We have seen the most recent instance in a statement by Phillippe Moreau Defarges, a professor of International Relations. On the show on BFM, Defarges, referring to the recent referendum on the change in system of government in Turkey and 51.41% yes vote, said “after this point, the only way to get rid of Erdoğan is either a civil war or an assassination.” The moderator didn’t signal to take the show off the air, nor did he say that Defarges was committing a crime and that they were becoming an accessory to it; the moderator only said “this is an illegitimate proposition.” Defarges even said more: “This is a method that has been discussed since Ancient Rome and religions have even discussed it.” There weren’t any reactions towards Defarges’ statement about a president who was elected in the first round with 51.79% of the total vote. Let me tell you why: Islamophobia.

Marine Le Pen has been updating the extreme right ideology since her father’s departure from the party, and she has been doing this in accordance with the “zeitgeist.” Therefore, in the context of “zeitgeist,” neither Marine Le Pen’s success in the first round, nor her projected score in the second round, nor the possibility of Front National having 50-60 seats in the parliament after June elections is creating the kind of ripples seen in the past. When talking about her Islamophobic and anti-immigrant statements, at least… Although her statements about Frexit, leaving NATO, having a Russia-friendly foreign policy and return to French franc concerns the majority. If you examine it, the understanding of the majority is also disputable; if you consider leftist presidential candidate Jean Luc Melenchon has a similar outlook on the same issues and he had 19% support in the first round, the concerned “majority” doesn’t surpass 50%.

On the other hand, now that the two largest political formations of the country, the Socialist Party and the Republicans, were eliminated in the first round, the race is not between the traditional left and right. French people will make their choice among two different world views rather than two candidates about whom they know nothing of. An economic, cultural and social liberalism, which is in favor of the EU and globalization, versus a hegemonic French nationalism that is against the EU and globalization – these are the choices. For some this is a cartoon, while for others a sci-fi film; however, it’s very real.

One of the candidates is a deputy of the European Parliament, a parliament of the very EU she is against; while the other served as the former minister of finance and economy under François Hollande and is competing for the first time in the elections. If we are to think that one of every two French votes was cast in protest, it could be seen that Macron’s vote in the first round was not that high. What’s worse is that Macron isn’t expected to garner around 80% of the votes against Le Pen; it will be considered a triumph if he can merely surpass 60%. Yet, this is problematic, as support to Madame Le Pen is around 40%.

Moreover, there isn’t any consensus between the right and left in terms of supporting Macron who is already being supported by big business. It’s not that easy anymore. There is an increasing indignation towards global capitalism and the cost of the 2008 financial crisis by the people of both the Old and New World. While more than 20 high schools in Paris marched against Marine Le Pen, there were as many high schools, which did the same against Macron. When CFDT, the most prominent union of the country, called people to vote for Macron, their headquarters were vandalized. “Collabo” (Collaborator) was written on the building. Another union, Force Ouvriere, on the other hand, didn’t make any statement about which candidate they support. Some called to “destroy” both of the candidates. Regardless of their political disposition, there are politicians and voters who won’t hesitate in voting for Le Pen. Furthermore, parliamentary elections are to follow the presidential elections. For this reason, Melenchon, who is aiming to form a powerful group in the parliament, didn’t call for support to any candidate; he just expressed that he wasn’t going to vote for Le Pen.

Despite all odds, if Macron is able to garner more than 60% of the vote on Sunday, he will be able to administer the country with a strong mandate. However, if the opposite happens, he might have to cohabitate as Mitterrand and Chirac have done. Either way, it seems that Macron will be the 7th president of France after De Gaulle, Giscard, d’Estaing, Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy, and Hollande. On the other hand, there are no obstructions that can halt Marine Le Pen’s progress. Even if Le Pen loses the presidency, her ideology will prevail in both the right and left wing politics.