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Macron poses with members of the IOC (Chesnot/Getty Images)
“Paris became a place of celebration once more, and France found itself again.” Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games organising committee, could be forgiven for indulging himself during his speech at the weekend’s closing ceremony. Even the French police had a good Olympics. An institution much maligned in recent years, especially after the bloody crackdown on the Gilets Jaunes insurrection of 2018 and 2019, the gendarmes mingled with tourists and locals in an atmosphere largely free of acrimony.
These Games, however, also served as a curious political hiatus: unexpected legislative elections, held just before they began, failed to result in the formation of any government. Instead, President Emmanuel Macron ordered the outgoing government to remain in place in a caretaker role. The composition of a government, and most significantly the choice of a new prime minister, was deferred until after the Games.
For this reason, the end of the Olympics in France signals not only the end of a big party, and the inevitable hangover that follows. It also means the end of the political truce and a return to the tawdry question of running the country. Though time can do many things, it cannot solve the impasse which exists at the French national assembly. The Left-wing coalition — the Nouveau Front Populaire — did relatively well in July’s elections but it did not win enough seats to form a government on its own. Neither did the far right Rassemblement National, nor Macron’s party, which lost 73 seats, bringing its total to 166.
In the aftermath of the election, the Left claimed that its strong showing — 182 seats — gave it the momentum and “legitimacy” to nominate a prime minister. But more than a month later, it has found it very hard to settle on any name. The Nouveau Front Populaire is itself an alliance formed in the frenzied weeks between the European elections and the legislative elections. It was created in large part to form a barrier against a victory of the far-Right, and brought together individuals and parties that until recently had been firm critics of one another.
Almost inevitably, suggestions for prime ministers came and went, vetoed by one or another of the coalition members. Lucie Castets, the Left alliance’s current nomination, has been dismissed by Emmanuel Macron, who retains the authority to decide who to ask to form a government. Macron’s position is that a government led by Castets would lack a majority, and therefore it makes no sense to nominate her. Completely unknown to the public, Castets, a civil servant specialising in public finances, has tried to establish herself over the course of the summer, giving interviews about her private life to Paris Match and campaigning across the country. She has done her best but, as momentum builds up towards the start of a new political year, doubts are emerging. Her boss at the city of Paris, the mayor Anne Hidalgo, has suggested that what is needed is a more moderate figurehead.
For all the gossip about the identity of the prime minister, there remains a fundamental difficulty which no amount of medal-winning has been able to efface. As things stand, the Nouveau Front Populaire contains as its principal member La France Insoumise, a far-Left party which Macron considers to be led by a demagogue — Jean-Luc Mélenchon — and not much better than the far-Right Rassemblement National. Yet since any name put forward by the Left coalition must satisfy La France Insoumise, it will likely be too far to the Left for Macron. Meanwhile, any prime minister drawn from the ranks of the centre or the Right would appear to undermine the results of the legislative elections: the centre-right party, Les Republicains, only won 47 seats.
Macron’s own view is that the new government should be made of various political currents, committing itself to compromise and collaboration. This is a position consistent with his own instincts, and the political project of Macronisme, which has always been to push ideology and doctrine to one side, and focus instead on “results” and solving problems that “matter” for people. However, in this instance, Macron is also aware that such a pragmatic solution would likely put an end to the Nouveau Front Populaire. His ideal government would be composed of socialists, greens, his own party, and a few smaller groupings of the centre-right —led a political figure from the old Hollande regime of 2012-2017, a centre-left politician acceptable to the Macronistes. But this would be quite unacceptable for the France Insoumise, presenting the socialists and the Greens with a choice between governing and keeping the Nouveau Front Populaire together.
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SubscribeI have no liking for Macron, but there was something slightly Napoleonic about his political manoeuvre after the Euro election. He called the subsequent national election knowing that the Macronistes would fare badly, but gambling that the rag-tag of parties opposed to Rassemblement National would (collectively) do well, and that, subsequently, that rag-tag of parties would squabble amongst themselves. Classic divide et impera. Who is to say that the gamble might not pay off?
Fare badly.
Oops