Main Edition
US
FR
July 8, 2024 - 7:00am
This should have been their night. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN), once at the extreme fringes of French politics, that only had two MPs as recently as 2017, seemed poised to become the largest parliamentary bloc. Parisian shops set up barricades in case of feverish anti-RN protests. The scene was set for a nationalist big bang. But instead, Le Pen’s party got an electoral whimper with around 150 seats.
The story is now about how centrist and Leftist politicians stopped them by tactically removing over 220 candidates in the constituencies where RN qualified for three-way races. Their voters mobilised en masse. In the words of the Economist, the “centre” held and the RN severely underperformed even the most pessimistic pollsters.
In effect, this proves that the most important question this campaign raised, ahead of any substantial policy debate, was fear of the RN. Fundamentally, the only question on the ballot was whether the French wanted Jordan Bardella to be their next prime minister. And a majority of voters have decided against it.
It does leave France’s parliament in a fractious state. With 33% of the vote, the UK’s Labour Party won 65% of seats. With 33% of the vote in the first round, Le Pen managed 25% of seats. A system made to provide strong parliamentary majorities is giving birth to a parliament splintered into millions of confettis à la Dutch. If the French avoid having to resort to a technical government à l’Italienne, in the middle of this colourful mess there might be a coalition somewhere.
Macron will have to appoint a prime minister but that prime minister will need a majority. If you remove the seats of the RN and those of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Left-wing La France Insoumise — which has sunk any possibilities of working in a coalition with their ambiguities on antisemitism — then the President is left with around 360 seats. He needs to find 289 MPs to form a coalition. On paper, the centre-right and the Macronists would be short. However, it seems as though the Macronist bloc could be added to the non-Melenchon Left (the communists, the socialists and the greens) and just get a majority.
This is not without irony. French public opinion is probably the most Right-wing it has been in the history of the Fifth Republic (in the European elections the Right, bar Macron, won 44% of the vote) and yet France could end up forming one the most Left-wing governments since 1981. It’s hardly a done deal that Macron could lure the centre-left. The socialists have committed to staying united — which is what they should do to increase their bargaining power — but that’s the only road to 289 MPs that seems feasible.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWhat a mess – all caused by Macron, the megalomaniac. So you either get political chaos where nothing gets done, or a wild shift even farther to the left. Good luck with that.
The Right/Left split in France is way different than the Anglosphere.
The split isn’t left vs right in either country – it is the optimates vs the populares.
Reading this makes me realise how good the British system is. In Britain someone (almost) always gets a majority.
I’m looking forward to 5 years’ time when Labour in the UK suddenly realises again that first-past-the post is wrong, just wrong! They will also magnanimously agree, after the fact, that their majority wasn’t fair.
It is fair and they have no problem NOW accepting it’s fairness, but they will change their tune.
The recent elections in South Africa contradict this. After 30 years the ANC lost power with a meagre 41% of the vote and went into coalition talks which appear to have been a success. Representative democracy at work there.
Right, South Africa is a shining beacon of democracy.
It’s returning to tribalism.
A leftwards swing caused not by positive choices about the policies on offer, but simply by fear of the RN and a rag-tag alliance put together on the hoof doing anything to keep them out.
If the French are fed up and want change, they’re now going to get chaos in parliament and stasis regarding the problems they want addressed.
I think this has simply set the scene for an even bigger conflagration down the road.
The increasing immigration will result in either a, soft or hard, coup by the newcomers or a revolt by the Natives to retake their country.
Well colour me surprised that the degenerate bourgeoisie, Islamists, and communists would all collaborate together.
Yes but now they’re the majority, they’re going to start fighting among themselves in no time. I give the coalition a week.
Le Pen and RN, I do not believe are worried by this latest outcome, despite left wing glee. It seems to me not a bad thing for RN to avoid the poisoned chalice of probable minority government hemmed in by a hostile President. It is inevitable they will be elected, especially after the resultant hotch potch coalition will struggle to agree on most things. Being against RN alone is not the sound basis for a coalition.
Election results and polling simply show that European voters are radicalizing against the mainstream. Looking at the popular vote in the UK, you basically see the same. The underlying reason is a fundamental dissatisfaction with a system that seems very hard to change. Whether the vote shifts (far) left or right, or whether the status quo can play electoral chess and PR games to stay in power does not matter. The dissatisfaction is still there and the radicalization will continue.
Macron presented himself as something new, a safe alternative to the status quo. Since then the French have learned that this banker, and his ‘consultancy construct’ of a party, is pretty much as status quo as it gets. It is hard to really discover a consistent ideology with these centrist parties except for perpetuating the globalist system that is precisely what people are dissatisfied with. And even if radical parties get into power the system seems hard to change because it rests on a powerful network of supra-national institutions and agreements, out of reach of the voter. The discussion about trade deficits give us a glimpse of how this works. Even though this system of rating agencies, (central) banks and other financial institution should have lost credibility after 2008, it still has a massive influence over domestic politics.
Macron basically told the voters that he realizes people don’t like him but the alternative means “civil war”. The “there is no alternative” phrase is of course a classic strategy for any unpopular status quo to survive. But why is it so hard to reform? Behind it is probably a reality of class power. A powerful minority of the population know their privilege and wealth is protected by this system remaining the way it is.
France’s citizens angry with the Left’s destruction of their culture thought their war was won and relaxed. They were wrong; the Left is endlessly creative in finding ways to stay in power.
Macron and his ilk won big, in that nothing will change. The inevitable gridlock will see to that.
Hopefully, RN will stay focused and wind up winning in the end.
In point of fact, he and his successors can until the RN succeeds in separating itself in the minds of the French people from Vichy, anti-Semitism, etc. The right has been putting the cart before the horse. It cannot achieve its objectives (repatriation of powers from Brussels, curbing immigration, dealing with the threat of Islamic violence, etc., etc. – many of which, I suspect, are shared by many of the French people) as long as Macron, the ECB, the European Commission and the pro/EU/pro-globalist elite in France and elsewhere are able to successfully use trigger words that embarrass the voters into doing the “right thing”.