Alwaght- With the victory of François Fillon in the center-right primary election in France, the conventional and Catholic camp of the rightists beat the moderate, secular and open-to-social-changes wing of the Republicans party.
Although rise of this part of conservative right wing, which is branded as the “legacy holder” by the French political history experts, in the past three years was stunning and surprising because of its ear-splitting presence in society, it in fact ushers in a deep transformation in the French society. This side of the rightists sees itself as the legitimate holder of the economic, political, and cultural legacy of France, seeing the past few years' developments as dangerous to the future of the country. In their viewpoint, the French society was built on the Christian and liberal foundations. François Fillon in his plan and stances has led this movement in the heart of the right wing. This win is regarded as a strategic transformation of the rightists and will boost their place in the county’s political outlook.
François Fillon is now leading the right-wing camp and is the official candidate of the Republicans, one of the three powerful political fronts in France, who after loss of Nicolas Sarkozy in the face of the current president François Hollande in the presidential election in 2012 stood up to take revenge.
Being an economic reformist, Fillon during his campaign vowed to fight bureaucracy in the country. He also pledged to revise the government budget and take the necessary measures and reforms to revitalize the French job market.
The 62-year-old politician said once he becomes president of France, he will cut the government expenses by €100 billion within five years, and will eliminate 500,000 posts in the bureaucratic state organizations.
Raising the retirement age from 62 to 65 is another program Fillon vowed to follow if elected president of France.
Shrink in popularity of the Socialist Party led by the current president François Hollande will press up the chances of the Republicans' candidate for winning the 2017 presidential election.
From now on, Fillon will focus on his battle in the presidential race. He knows some of his rivals. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the hardline National Front, is one of them. Furthermore, the official candidate of the Socialist Party will be determined in the primaries of the party scheduled for January 21 and 29 next year.
Other political parties picked their candidates through holding primary elections or using party institutions. The Greens chose Yannick Jadot as their official candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Juan-Luc Mélenchon, the Left Front's candidate, has the backing of the French Communist Party. Sylvia Pinel was chosen candidate of the Radical Party of the Left. Other parties including Workers' Struggle, New Anticapitalist Party, France Awakens, and Convergence and Development Movement have finalized their candidates for the next year’s race. Some independent candidates expressed intention to join the presidential battle.
Therefore, now that the Republicans picked their candidate and while President Hollande has no chance of re-election, the real competition will be between a rightist and an ultra rightist. In other words, although in the past few weeks the Western media grew concerns about rise of populist and hardline figures such as Le Pen, essentially the two rivals' views, particularly in cases like the Muslims, refugees, and foreign policy are not that different. The main event is that France is shifting to the rights.
The French presidential election will be held on April 23 and May 7 next year.
