Elections 2024: France Rd 2

With the wolf at the door, the results simply chaos...or a new beginning?

Jul 08, 2024

Continuing our pledge at Andelman Unleashed to report and comment on every national election everywhere in the world, this week we have France….the dénouement.

What I've been saying back to 1983 when I first stumbled across Jean-Marie Le Pen, godfather to the French far-right and biological father of its current godmother, Marine Le Pen, is that no more than a third of all French voters have ever been persuaded it would good idea to turn their country over to the far-right to govern or rule their beloved nation. With the memory of Nazis and Vichy still strong even to the second or third generation, sure enough, after giving folks at home and abroad quite a scare a week ago, that's exactly what happened again.

But this time it was a hodgepodge of the left that came out on top, Macron's centrists a sliver behind and the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) bringing up the rear, capturing fewer than a quarter of the seats in the National Assembly. As Le Monde put it this morning in a "Special Edition"

The left in the lead, without a majority

The Republican Front defeats the RN

Macron's gamble may well have paid off, having demonstrated that the strong showing of the RN in European Parliament elections last month was just a fluke. Still, things are not going to be easy for him or for most politicians who, come July 18, will be gathering in the Palais Bourbon where the National Assembly meets. The sharp divisions and nearly equal three-way split shows no real path toward stability. There should be little celebration by any of the apparent victors. The fissures in all the ranks promise only to widen.

Still the left promptly went into the streets to celebrate.

But first, the "left" must find a path to power and this promises to be nothing but a rocky road. The fact is that this hastily cobbled-together alliance is as sharply divided along a broad spectrum as any coalition could possibly be. It was designed to thwart a presumed monolithic far-right and still potent, even quite unified, if shrinking, Macron-led center. So, from a newly-energized Socialist Party and the surging Greens, it passes through the quite vocal and demanding far-left France Insoumise (Unbowed) of 71-year-old firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, all the way to a Communist Party with its old, if now renounced, Stalinist roots vowing to "overcome" capitalism.

Suddenly the prospects for chaos—or perhaps a path for Macron—really become a bit clearer with this breakdown of each of the political parties united, more or less by the left:

And especially when you look at what's happened since the previous National Assembly that Macron dissolved:

Among the "united" left, the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) actually lost 3 seats, though it's still (barely) the largest single party among the leftists. The other loser was the Communists who dropped from 12 to 9. The big gainers are the Green Party and the Socialists, each more than doubling their seats in parliament. The Greens surged to 33 from 16. But the Socialists vaulted to 64 seats from 27. And so it is the Socialists, once counted out as moribund, who have suddenly found a new lease on life.

This is perhaps the single most stunning and least appreciated of all the reversals in Sunday's vote.

Seven years ago, François Hollande, France's Socialist president, faced with an 8% popularity rating, chose not to stand for re-election, clearing the way for Emmanuel Macron to surge to victory as head of his own newly-formed Renaissance Party. Indeed, the Socialists performed so poorly they lost their 'subvention' or government subsidy given to all viable political parties. Their donations drying up as well, they were forced to sell their stately headquarters on the rue de Solferino, around the corner from the Musée d'Orsay (and across the street from our apartment) that they'd called home since the 1980s—the last time a Socialist had occupied the Elysée.

On Sunday, even Hollande, who’d gone into well-deserved hibernation after being driven from office, came back and won himself a seat in Parliament—the second president of France to do since Charles de Gaulle formed the Fifth Republic in 1958.

As for the far-right, its failure, Le Monde attributed to quite a simple reason:

In the final week of campaigning, the RN faced scrutiny for the comments made by many of its candidates: Dozens have made racist, homophobic or xenophobic statements.

The problem is that now, France is facing the same chaos and possibility of revolving governments that led De Gaulle to dissolve the Fourth Republic in 1958 and write a new Constitution for the Fifth Republic.

But in France, there is a phrase—plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose—the more things change, the more it's the same thing. All that really changed is that the president must now wait a year before he can again dissolve parliament and call for new elections.

So, what's likely to happen in that year and what are the stakes, at home and abroad?

Well, first there's one little-perceived reality. If we disassemble the left into its widely disparate component parts, Macron's own party, now called "Ensemble" really has a large, coherent, and loyal block in the National Assemble—sharply reduced from last time, but certainly one able to do a whole lot of horse trading. Moreover, Macron now finds himself in a position he has got to love—that of kingmaker.

Le Monde saw this as "a 'new era,' with risk of paralysis'":

These results mean France will have a hung parliament, with three major blocs but no clear majority. That leaves President Emmanuel Macron in a position to negotiate with parties that have long been in opposition to him to try to form a coalition government.
"The president has the duty to call on the Nouveau Front Populaire to govern," said radical-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) party, who won the most seats out of the other left-wing parties, spoke from the restaurant La Rotonde Stalingrad, in northern Paris, where his party held its election night event.
Mélenchon praised the electorate's efforts to obtain "a result that was said to be impossible"–a victory for the left. "Our people have clearly rejected the worst-case scenario. Tonight, the RN is far from having an absolute majority," he declared, adding that this was "an immense relief for the millions of people who make up the new France. "The president must bow" to the results of the left, he said, adding that the alliance "will apply nothing but its program, all of its program."
The result of the legislative elections on Sunday, precipitated the fall of the majority Macronism and the advent of a parliamentary power ready to free itself from the supervision of the executive.

But has it? In fact, it is (still) the president who has the sole right to choose 'his' prime minister. Traditionally, it should come from the majority in the National Assembly. But without any majority, all bets are off. In terms of legislative priorities, he can pick and choose his allies, though it's certainly a lot more work assembling a new coalition for every major measure. Still, for his green initiatives he can certainly count on the powerful 33-member block of the Ecologists. For other measures, other allies.

In short, Macron will have to pick his way through the thickets. But the far-right has been removed as a decisive force and the left continues fragmented. All of which has suggested some potent wishful thinking, at least abroad.

Not surprisingly, the reaction from across the Channel was, initially, scarcely disguised schadenfreude.

Columnist Ben Hubbard of the Financial Times continued:

Voters showed what they were against but not what they were for. The country now faces months, possibly years, of political uncertainty and unstable government. That in itself is bad news for France and its European partners. France seems to be turning the clock back to the 4th Republic, the politically volatile postwar period when the presidency was weaker, and a raucous parliament was supreme. In the past few weeks power has drained away from the Elysée palace to the National Assembly. A hitherto micromanaging president has been relegated to a back-seat role— symbolically, he made no appearance on Sunday night, instead issuing a statement saying he would await the “structuring” of forces in parliament before taking the “necessary decisions”.

The fact is Macron's days of micro-managing may be only beginning. If the Parliament is unable to agree on his choice as prime minister, he has the option of going an entirely different route—one chosen to great effect in Italy with the appointment of an independent technocrat as prime minister, someone entirely outside the fraught domestic political landscape. Italy went for the brilliant, outgoing head of the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi succeeded in stabilizing a careening political establishment and moving his nation toward a degree of fiscal stability following years of bickering politics and profligate finances.

Such a move would also allow Macron enough political space to turn to foreign and defense policy which do remain the center of power the Constitution allows the president, independent of any parliamentary contortions. And with a newly potent right-wing bloc in the European Parliament after last month's elections and the assumption of the presidency of the Council of Europe for a six-month rotation by Putin's European stalking horse, Hungary's Viktor Orban, a Macron who is free to work his magic abroad is essential at this very moment.

Some of this may come into clearer focus this week as NATO leaders gather in Washington for their annual summit. The focus of the world may be on Joe Biden and his electoral path. But the roles of Britain's new Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron will certainly be under the diplomatic microscope.

In Brussels, our SubStack colleagues David Carretta and Christian Spillmann, in their indispensable La Matinale Européenne, observed from their perch at European Union headquarters:

Emmanuel Macron is going to Washington where he will participate in the NATO summit from July 9 to 11. The relief after the defeat of the extreme right in France was perceptible in European capitals. "In Paris, enthusiasm, in Moscow, disappointment, in Kyiv, relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw," summarized Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk….
It will require a break within the New Popular Front and negotiations between political parties with divergent sensibilities and interests. In fact, they do not agree on anything. This situation is the lot of all governments in the European Union.

But then, they suggested a most intriguing path forward:

“The French parties of the left and the center must learn the culture of coalition. No program has an absolute majority. This spirit of coalition works in many European countries. It can succeed here,” argued the Renew MEP Pascal Canfin.
The European Union offers a wide spectrum of coalitions. France can avoid the Italian and Dutch experiences with the far right in power. It can set up a tripartite like in Germany where socialists, liberals and greens are allied.

Certainly, we will all be watching.

For another sense of how we feel about all this, here's one of my appearances yesterday on CNN: