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Why the French presidential election will have consequences far beyond its borders?

为什么法国总统选举将产生远超其国界的影响力？

It has been many years since France last had a revolution, or even a serious attempt at reform. Stagnation, both political and economic, has been the hallmark of a country where little has changed for decades, even as power has rotated between the established parties of left and right.

法国自上一次革命以来，或甚至上一次严肃的改革尝试以来已经过去很多年了。 政治和经济的停滞一直是几十年来鲜有变化国家的一个标志，即使权力在左右两党派之间不断轮换。

Until now, This year's presidential election, the most exciting in living memory, promises an upheaval. The Socialist and Republican parties, which have held power since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, could be eliminated in the first round of a presidential ballot on April 23rd. French voters may face a choice between two insurgent candidates: Marine LePen, the Charismatic leader of the National Front, and Emmanuel Macron, the upstart leader of a liberal movement, En Marche! (On the Move!), which he founded only last year.

直目前为止，今年的总统选举预示着一次颠覆，将成为大家鲜活记忆中最令人兴奋的一次。 自1958年第五共和国成立以来一直拥有权力的社会党和共和党可能在4月23日的第一轮总统选举就失败退出。法国选民可能要在两个新崛起的候选人之间做出选择：国家阵线的有魅力的领导人勒庞女士（Marine LePen）和，自由运动新崛起的领导人马克龙（Emmanuel Macron）！这个组织去年才刚刚成立。

The implications of these insurgencies are hard to exaggerate. They are the clearest example yet of a global trend: that the old divide between left and right is growing less important than a new one between open and closed. The resulting realignment will have reverberations far beyond France's borders. It could revitalise the European Union, or wreck it.

这些新势力崛起的意义很难夸大。 他们是一个全球趋势最明显的例子：左右派别之间的旧分歧与开放，封闭之间的新分歧相比变得越来越不重要。 其重新调整的结果将远远超出法国国界。 它可能重振欧洲联盟或破坏它。

The revolution’s proximate cause is voters’ fury at the uselessness and self-dealing of their ruling class. The Socialist president, François Hollande, is so unpopular that he is not running for re-election. The established opposition, the centre-right Republican party, saw its chances sink on March 1st when its standard-bearer, François Fillon, revealed that he was being formally investigated for paying his wife and children nearly €1m ($1.05m) of public money for allegedly fake jobs. Mr Fillon did not withdraw from the race, despite having promised to do so. But his chances of winning are dramatically weakened.

革命最近的原因是选民对他们统治阶级无能和假公济私行为的愤怒。（无能是指Francois Hollande的无所作为；而假公济私指Francois Fillon利用发空饷的方式支付妻子孩子上百万美元。在检查机关正式立案的情况下，他不愿履行先前的承诺，而是决定继续参选。目前，Fillon已经内外交困，几乎肯定不能胜选。）社会党总统弗朗索瓦·奥朗德非常不受欢迎，所以他不再竞选连任。已成立的反对派-中右共和党，感觉到了失败的可能性。3月1日，它的旗手弗朗索瓦·菲永透露，他已被正式立案调查，原因是公款支付空饷给他的妻子和孩子，金额接近100万欧元（105万美元）。 菲永先生没有退出竞选，尽管曾经答应过要这样做。他的获胜机会已大大削弱。

Further fuelling voters’ anger is their anguish at the state of France (see pages 15-17). One poll last year found that French people are the most pessimistic on Earth, with 81% grumbling that the world is getting worse and only 3% saying that it is getting better. Much of that gloom is economic. France’s economy has long been sluggish; its vast state, which absorbs 57% of GDP, has sapped the country’s vitality. A quarter of French youths are unemployed. Of those who have jobs, few can find permanent ones of the sort their parents enjoyed. In the face of high taxes and heavy regulation those with entrepreneurial vim have long headed abroad, often to London. But the malaise goes well beyond stagnant living standards. Repeated terrorist attacks have jangled nerves, forced citizens to live under a state of emergency and exposed deep cultural rifts in the country with Europe’s largest Muslim community.

给选民们的愤怒火上浇油的是他们对于法国现状的痛苦。去年的一次民意调查发现，法国人是地球上最悲观的人-81％的人抱怨世界变得越来越糟糕，只有3％的人反应世界越来越好。这种沮丧情绪主要来自于经济因素。法国经济长期不振;占57％国内生产总值的大州，已经削弱了该国的活力。四分之一的法国青年失业中。有工作的年轻人也很少能找到他们父辈享受过的那种永久性工作。面对高税率和严格的监管，具有企业家精神的人早已投身国外，更多去了伦敦。但是让人心神不宁的原因远不是停滞的生活标准可以解释。反反复复的恐怖袭击折磨着大家的神经，使他们生活在应激状态下。这个有着欧洲最大穆斯林社区的国家暴露出了深深的文化裂痕。

Many of these problems have built up over decades, but neither the left nor the right has been able to get to grips with them. France’s last serious attempt at ambitious economic reform, an overhaul of pensions and social security, was in the mid-1990s under  President Jacques Chirac. It collapsed in the face of massive strikes. Since then, few have even tried. Nicolas Sarkozy talked a big game, but his reform agenda was felled by the financial crisis of 2007-08. Mr Hollande had a disastrous start, introducing a 75% top tax rate. He was then too unpopular to get much done. After decades of stasis, it is hardly surprising that French voters want to throw the bums out.

这许多问题已经成型了几十年，但左右两派都没有能够解决它们。法国最后一次认真地尝试野心勃勃的经济改革-改革养恤金和社会保障，是在90年代中期由雅克希拉克总统领导的。面对大规模的罢工，改革很快失败了。从那时起，就很少有人再做尝试。尼古拉斯·萨科齐倒是说要下一盘很大的棋，但他制定的改革时间表由于2007-08年的金融危机沦为空谈。奥朗德先生则有一个灾难性的开始-引入75％的最高税率。随后他就由于太不受大众欢迎而无可作为。经过几十年的停滞，法国选民想要与无能之辈说再见就不足为奇了。

Both Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen tap into that frustration. But they offer radically different diagnoses of what ails France and radically different remedies. Ms Le Pen blames outside forces and promises to protect voters with a combination of more barriers and greater social welfare. She has effectively distanced herself from her party’s anti-Semitic past (even evicting her father from the party he founded), but she appeals to those who want to shut out the rest of the world. She decries globalisation as a threat to French jobs and Islamists as fomenters of terror who make it perilous to wear a short skirt in public. The EU is “an anti-democratic monster”. She vows to close radical mosques, stanch the flow of immigrants to a trickle, obstruct foreign trade, swap the euro for a resurrected French franc and call a referendum on leaving the EU.

马克龙先生和勒庞女士都利用了这种挫败感。但他们对于法国的病因有不同的判断和根本不同的救治方案。 勒庞女士指责外部力量作祟，并承诺保护选民，比如更多壁垒和更好社会福利的组合拳。她有效地和她所在党的排犹过往划清了界限（甚至把她父亲驱逐出他亲手创建的政党）。但她吸引了那些想和世界其他地方隔绝开来的选民。她谴责全球化对法国工作机会的威胁；以及充当恐怖煽动者的伊斯兰教徒，这些人使得在公众场合穿短裙成为危险；欧盟是“反民主的怪物”。她发誓要关闭激进的清真寺，将移民的洪流变为滴水，阻挠对外贸易，用法国法郎替换欧元，并呼吁为脱离欧盟全民公投。

Mr Macron’s instincts are the opposite. He thinks that more openness would make France stronger. He is staunchly pro-trade, pro-competition, pro-immigration and pro-EU. He embraces cultural change and technological disruption. He thinks the way to get more French people working is to reduce cumbersome labour protections, not add to them. Though he has long been short on precise policies (he was due to publish a manifesto as The Economist went to press), Mr Macron is pitching himself as the pro-globalisation revolutionary.

马克龙先生的天性正好相反。他认为更开放会使法国更强大。他坚定地促进贸易，推动竞争，欢迎移民和赞颂欧盟。他拥抱文化变革和技术颠覆。他认为，让更多法国人有工作的方式是减少繁琐的劳动保护，而不是增加它们。虽然他一直缺乏精准的政策（他曾答应准备一份宣言，因为“经济学人”想要付印），马克龙先生自称是支持全球化的革命者。

Look carefully, and neither insurgent is a convincing outsider. Ms Le Pen has spent her life in politics; her success has been to make a hitherto extremist party socially acceptable. Mr Macron was Mr Hollande’s economy minister. His liberalising programme will probably be less bold than that of the beleaguered MrFillon, who has promised to trim the state payroll by 500,000 workers and slash the labour code. Both revolutionaries would have difficulty enacting their agendas. Even if she were to prevail, Ms Le Pen’s party would not win a majority in the national assembly. Mr Macron barely has a party.

仔细观察，你会发现没有一个革命者是令人信服的新人。 勒庞女士的一生献身于政治生活;她的成功使得一个极端主义政党在社会上得以接受。马克龙先生是奥朗德的经济部长。他的自由化计划可能不及菲永的那么大胆。他承诺将削减50万国企员工，放宽劳动法。两个革命者要执行其计划都不容易。即使勒庞占了上风，她的政党也不会在国民议会中赢得多数。 马克龙先生则几乎没有什么政党。

Nonetheless, they represent a repudiation of the status quo. A victory for Mr Macron would be evidence that liberalism still appeals to Europeans. A victory for Ms Le Pen would make France poorer, more insular and nastier. If she pulls France out of the euro, it would trigger a financial crisis and doom a union that, for all its flaws, has promoted peace and prosperity in Europe for six decades. Vladimir Putin would love that. It is perhaps no coincidence that Ms Le Pen’s party has received a hefty loan from a Russian bank and Mr Macron’s organisation has suffered more than 4,000 hacking attacks.

然而，他们都代表了对现状的否定。 马克龙获胜将证明自由主义仍然吸引着欧洲人。 勒庞获胜将使法国更加贫穷，更加孤立和更加令人不快。 如果她把法国拉出欧元区，这将引发金融危机，并会结束联盟，尽管这个联盟有着这样那样的缺点，它毕竟促进了欧洲和平与繁荣的六十年。 弗拉基米尔普京会乐见这样的结果。勒庞女士的政党已经从俄罗斯银行获得了巨额贷款，这可能不是巧合；而与此同时，马克龙的组织遭受了超过4,000次黑客攻击。

With just over two months to go, it seems Ms Le Pen is unlikely to clinch the presidency. Polls show her winning the first round but losing the run-off. But in this extraordinary election, anything could happen. France has shaken the world before. It could do so again.

只有两个多月的时间，似乎勒庞女士不太可能成为总统。 投票显示她会赢得第一轮，但决选时会败北。 然而这次选举非比寻常，任何事情都可能发生。 法国以前曾震撼世界，这次可以再来一次。