French elections: Emmanuel Macron, a Pyrrhic victory?

The relief is enormous not only in France, but also in Europe, as well as on the other side of the Atlantic, at a geopolitically critical juncture.

Emmanuel Macron prevailed over the far-right Marine Le Pen - the first President in France to secure a second term in the last 20 years.

But their difference is half of the 33 percentage points Macron had secured against Le Pen again in the previous presidential election in 2017.

And his victory is not purely personal, in recognition of the political work of his first term- not coincidentally, the abstention was over 28%.

This is mainly due to the fact that most of the citizens voted, this year, having in mind the philosophy of the "lesser of two evils",  a philosophy that gave victory to Macron over the French far right.

This is a choice made for the third time in the history of the French Fifth Republic (with the first time being in 2002 between Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen political showdown and twice between Macron and Marine Le Pen showdown, in 2017 and this year), but is now becoming more and more dangerously fluid and marginal.

The responsibility lies with whom?

Under Marine Le Pen, the far right sees its percentages steadily rising, reaching unprecedented levels, this year.

More and more voters do not consider Le Pen being an extremist politician.

Her far-right National Rally party (as, in 2018, the National Front was renamed, which was founded half a century ago by her father, who was an admirer of Vichy and a Holocaust denier) seems to be legitimizing for a significant part of the electorate - and in particular for those under 60 years.

This is not only due to the pre-electoral rhetoric of Marine Le Pen, with which she tried to cover up...