Keep Mme. Le Pen Away From Legitimate French Society

There are a number of reasons why Marine Le Pen should not be elected President of France, apart from the fact that she has headed a neo-Fascist political party that was founded by her father, the former military officer and parliamentary deputy, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The French are a people who respect history and tradition though there is a contradictory iconoclasm fostered by a strand of the French Revolution.

By extension, there is a French respect for families and family traditions. This is why, to my mind, it is unthinkable that a presidential candidate whose father urinated on Algerian prisoners of war during the revolt of 1954–1962, and in addition denied the Holocaust as a "point of detail" in history, should accede to the grandeur of the French presidency and live in the residence known as the Élysée Palace.

Furthermore, since the strengthening of the Presidency introduced by Charles de Gaulle, it now matters more than ever who is the French President.

So the watchword for the May 7 runoff election should be a rallying around a unity candidate, Emmanuel Macron, whose familial roots go back to rural southwest France and thus appeals to the French mythology of the virtues of peasant life, while at the same time representing what is a unique French meritocracy.

Statements and views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, the Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.