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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Macron’s Unusual Marriage Is OK—But NOT What His Type Are Doing to France (And America) The April 23 first round of the presidential election in France came with a human-interest sidebar. Emmanuel Macron, the Establishment stalking horse who placed first under the banner of a party that he himself created out of whole cloth last year, is 39 years old. His wife just turned 64. She was his high-school teacher of French literature. They were an item back then, when he was 17 and she was 42. She has three kids by a previous marriage. Would this even be legal in the U.S? Nevertheless, my personal position on this is: Jolly good luck to both of them. My view, heartfelt and frequently stated, is that love is a precious gift, to be cherished and celebrated wherever it may be found. In my study, there hang portraits of my two literary heroes. One of them, Samuel Johnson, at age 25 married a woman twenty years his senior—a widow who, like Mrs. Macron, brought three children to the marriage. Johnson loved his wife dearly, to the bafflement of his friends. After she died seventeen years later, he mourned her for the rest of his own life. My other literary hero, George Orwell, lost his wife Eileen after nine years of marriage, then remarried on his death bed to the prettiest girl in the office. So don’t look to me to second-guess Mr. Macron’s choice of wife—nor anyone else’s. I say again: Good luck to them. My objection is what the Macrons of the world are dong to France—and to America and to Western civilization in general. Marine Le Pen polled second. Her National Front party has been around for 45 years, but until recently dwelt on the electoral fringes. It’s as if voters in a U.S. presidential election were to say “No” to both the Republican and the Democrat candidates. (Although, come to think of it, it’s not too much of a stretch to construe last November’s U.S. election like that.) Conventional wisdom says that people who voted for the other nine candidates will mostly swing behind Mr. Macron in the runoff election May 7th—although. after last year, conventional wisdom has lost some of its sheen. If you’re not actually French, this election is all a bit distant and academic. But In fact there are penetrating things to say about it, of direct relevance to the United States, and to the Western World as a whole. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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