Introducing the Oedipus election

With the result of the snap election already looking to many like a done deal, can the election taking place across the English channel offer more excitement? That was the question asked at The Spectator‘s ‘French Revolution: Le Pen vs Macron?’ panel debate, at the Royal Geographical Society, this week.

While Emmanuel Macron is on course to become the next president of France, Dominique Moisi — founder and senior advisor at the Ilfri — said there was still reason to mark the French election out as particular dramatic. Moisi told Andrew Neil that thanks to its two protagonists — Le Pen and Macron — the election race had taken on the character of the Oedipus myth. The reason? Le Pen had ‘killed’ her father by ousting him from the party he founded, and Macron is ‘sleeping with his mother’ given that his wife Brigitte Macron is 23 years his senior:

‘And of course you know the famous picture of Freud that is circulating on the web since yesterday discussing the French election in Oedipian manner.