"A Le Pen Victory Would Spell A Huge Catastrophe For Maghreb"

Only days left to the final round of the presidential elections in France, the eyes are on who will come out as the winner. The political shifts in the country has a stronger impact than one may imagine. It will echo into the the EU, for sure, but also its effects will be lasting in the Mediterranean. That is the reason why this 'unusual' race, in the context of French political history, has raised higher attention in Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Morocco than ever before.

Most of the 5 million Muslims in France are from the Maghreb. Recent polls indicated that few French Muslims voted for Marine Le Pen in the first round. Language and culture continue to bond elites on both shores of the Mediterranean, with thousands of young people from the Maghreb going on to study at French univer­sities. France is a key source of invest­ment and financial support for Tu­nisia and Morocco, where hundreds of French enterprises provide jobs for tens of thousands of workers.

Even oil-rich Algeria is looking to secure more French investment and partnership ventures to diver­sify its economy, which has been traditionally dependent on hydro­carbon.

A Le Pen victory would cause the Maghreb econom­ic losses, human anguish and moral outrage on a scale much greater than what Mexico experienced af­ter the Trump election, as it was also noted that the memory of the Algerian independence war has been placed at the epicenter of the cleavage between the traditional centrist politics in France and escalating nationalism whipped up by Le Pen. Identity politics is creeping with full force, possibly to stay.

In this piece we hear a variety of voices from Maghreb, where the expectations and concerns are.