The most eminent question in the Presidential election in France is that will the voters — specially those who are undecided — be influenced by the recent terror attack in Champs ElyseesIJ

On the night of April 21, Friday, I had barely returned home to my apartment in central Paris when I heard on the radio that there had been a terror shootout moments ago on the city’s historic avenue, the Champs Elysees. A lone gunman had opened fire on the Champs Elysees, killing one policeman and wounding two others, before himself being killed by security forces as he fled the scene. The gunman was identified to be 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi, a French national who was carrying a note defending Isis when he shot at the officers. Isis soon claimed responsibility for the attack as well.

Within hours’ messages from political leaders flew in. Bernard Cazeneuve, France’s Prime Minister, called on the French people “not succumb to fear, manipulation, division”. He asked them not to let the attacks shift their vote in the first round of the French Presidential election vote, to take place two days later. “Another terrorist attack in Paris,” US President Donald Trump also tweeted. “The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on Presidential election!”

In what was to be a close race between the four finalists — le Pen heading the far-right leaning party, Emmanuel Macron, a political neophyte who has never held elected office and now represents a brand new centre-left party, Fillon, the centre-right candidate, and candidate Jean-luc Mélenchon on the far left — it was suddenly perceived to not be so anymore after Friday night’s shoot out. Would voters — especially those undecided — be influenced by the terror attack in France’s volatile Presidential election campaignIJ Would the election agenda now tilt heavily towards ensuring France’s securityIJ

Indeed, in the aftermath of Thursday’s attack, le Pen stepped up her calls to slash immigration to keep out terrorists from France, arguing the country was being “naive” by letting in so many foreigners. She called for France to leave the EU’s visa-free Schengen travel zone. Macron had so far focused his political campaign on France’s economy. But after the attack, he said he would concentrate on security issues, promising to set up a task force to co-ordinate intelligence efforts against Isis.

When on Sunday France went to vote, it was clear that the choice the country was to make was the following: to either move forward in a more open world with a pro-EU Macron, or retreat into a closed cocoon with any of the other three candidates. France’s march backward would go the furthest distance if its people would choose to vote the feverishly Islamophobic le Pen.

The world watched: France’s trajectory would affect the direction for Europe, and indeed also the direction for the rest of the world that has already begun to painfully taken recourse to more insular politics. Pundits kept a tab on voter turnout — were the young staying home or going out there to the polling boothIJ

The suspense was intense: The opinion poll margins between the four leading candidates had been small with Macron enjoying a slender lead. But the world has learnt to stop believing in pre-election opinion polls, as there has been a tendency for voters to not reveal their choice for right leaning parties to opinion polls. The results of the UK referendum as well as the US Presidential elections in the past year had also proven most opinion polls wrong.

We were cautious: The shocking win of right leaning political parties recently in the US, UK and not so long ago in India, has taught the liberals to not gauge the mood of the voters by their own immediate social and online networks. We tend to choose like-minded people around us, who feed us with opinions about the world that seem similar to ours, and then are taken aback at the victory of the candidate popular with the masses.   

Before the sun went down on Paris this Sunday, the results of the first round of elections were out. Approximately 77 per cent of the French voters had cast their ballot. And they had driven the victory of the globalist over the populist — Macron led with 23.7 per cent followed by le Pen with 21.7 per cent of the vote. Far-left candidate Jean-luc Mélenchon and conservative candidate François Fillon tied for third place with about 19.5 per cent each.

From terror and fear on Friday night, the mood in France was one of pride to have managed to together step forward. France’s citizens realised that to have pulled through had not been easy — in the past two years alone, France has suffered at least two dozen terror attacks; immigration has been a constant issue in French politics, with deadly riots breaking out every few years; there is heightening external pressure to yield to the political conservatives on the extreme right. And yet they put their faith in a political newbie representing a party that is less than even a year old and whose political agenda does not primarily focus on countering the relentless terror that has overturned France’s peace and order, instead of a second generation political aficionado who promises to do exactly so. Yes, this weekend the world too rejoiced at France’s enlightened choice.

However, the deal is far from done. The two frontrunners Macron and le Pen will move into round two of the elections to be held on May 7. Ironically, more people think that Macron’s win is a done deal, the less they would be bothered to vote on May 7. Further we can also expect a lot of drama until then — le Pen is trying hard to reform her image that sticks to her party known for xenophobia and anti-Semitism to herself presenting a modern populist vision of France that is admittedly anti-globalisation, anti-EU, and anti-immigrant.

There is a saying in France, that the French vote with their hearts in the first election round and with their heads in the second round. I hope that in the second round France comes out to vote in even greater numbers, with a cool head. And then let the choice of the majority prevail.

The writer is Chief Sustainability Officer for the group of companies, Jindal Steel and Power ltd. She is a Global leadership Alumna of the World Economic Forum. miniya.chatterji@jindalsteel.com