A chara, – Commentators such as Stephen Collins ("Macron victory shows the value of embracing EU", Opinion & Analysis, May 11th), who are pushing the line that the victory for Emmanuel Macron is a searing mandate for his pro-EU centrism, should recall that in the first round, where voters had a wide choice of candidates from across the spectrum, Mr Macron polled less than a quarter of the vote.
In fact, he and the other three front-runners were separated by less than 5 per cent of the overall vote.
A couple of points either way and France could now have either conservative François Fillon or hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon as president. Mr Macron’s victory was based on people voting to ensure that there could be no chance of a far-right Marine Le Pen as president. – Is mise,
CHRIS MacMANUS,
Sligo.
Sir, – Mr Macron’s candidates for the French legislative elections might be termed the Macaroons– easy to make and they keep for ages. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK O’BYRNE,
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Emmanuel Macron’s victory intensifies and pushes the EU problem further down the road. The EU is in self-destructive mode – pumping trillions into trying to keep old economic ideas of always producing more with continual “growth”, despite overproduction already being out of control while expecting “work” to generate sufficient employment and despite the ravages of automation.
Old economics serves one purpose only – to concentrate wealth into fewer hands while abandoning the ever-increasing numbers who lose business and security of employment and are trapped into dependency and despair.
New technological economics requires new thinking capable of restraining gross overproduction; of managing sufficiency, which has replaced growth; and of generating sufficient employment from less work realizing employment as primarily a method of distributing wealth rather than an historical imperative in the creation of wealth.
A La Pen victory would have forced these matters to the fore and forced us to face the inevitable.
Now we must endure further years of illusory growth and recovery bringing us closer to the abyss while revolution ferments among those abandoned by policies of trying to run new economics with old ideas. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIC NEARY,
Tubbercurry,
Co Sligo.