France’s Presidential Election Splinters the Country’s Culturatibr "I think that equating Le Pen and Macron and standing under a ‘Without Me May 7’ banner, hopingbr that other people are going to stop the National Front is totally irresponsible." But many on the left and right also see Mr. Macron as a continuation of the policies of President François Hollande and his Socialist government, which, for different reasons, they want to reject.br Sudhir Hazareesingh said that A lot of people don’t recognize themselves in either of these candidates,br Pascal Bruckner said that For French people, money and capitalism is a kind of curse,br Zeev Sternhell, the Polish-born, left-leaning Israeli political scientistbr and author of "Neither Left Nor Right," a controversial book on the rise of fascism in France in the 1930s, said Mr. Macron’s leftist critics find his economic policies closer to the right than to the left.br "We’re not on the verge of falling into Nazism or fascism at all." Some see a deep French discomfort about money as part of the left’s —br and right’s — disdain for Mr. Macron, who was an investment banker and later became economy minister under Mr. Hollande.