France is plunged into turmoil. This happened no longer through protesters, rioters or workers’ movements, but through the President of the French Republic himself.
After the last EU election, Emmanuel Macron was facing the success of Marine Le Pen’s right-populist National Rally (RN) and a decline in his own support. ensemble cast alliance. As a result, he immediately dissolved the National Assembly and called snap legislative elections – despite the Charter in no way obliging him to do so. For two years his party and his government were struggling without an absolute majority. The result after two rounds of voting over the weekend is a clean and virtually hung Parliament.
A hung parliament was once predicted by pollsters. What he did not anticipate was that the MPs’ biggest obstacle would not come from the RN, but from the far-left dominated untapped Common Front (NFP) coalition. In the end it won 188 seats, leaving Macron’s centrist coalition with 161 and the RN and its allies with 142, nowhere near the 289 needed for an absolute majority. Yet what is worse is that it is not at all unclear what kind of ‘coalition’ could even muster a majority. At present, as the largest team, the NFP is insisting that an untested Prime Minister should be appointed from its ranks to run the central authority so that it can implement its radical programme.
The drama is a sad one for Le Pen as well as Jordan Bardella, the RN’s president and leader in the European Parliament, who was aspiring to become prime minister if the party won a majority. Similarly, for Macron also this is an extreme limit. Through his personal movements, he has caused a political impasse in the government, and cemented his legacy as an arrogant, irritable decision-maker.
Most of all, though, it is a tragedy for the French people. The countryside has now entered a period of doubt and discord. Many may be angry that the RN, the birthday party they voted for, has been largely excluded from power-sharing. Even more may fear that a far-left government with a comparable program might actually come to power.
The French public did not vote for it. Overall, the RN clearly had the largest share of votes cast, ahead of both the NFP and ensemble cast, But this was completed only in the third park. This is actually the first time in the Fifth Republic that a party that was ahead in the first round of voting has not finished with more seats in the second round.
To appreciate its merits, it is impressive to understand one of the most technical aspects of the French electoral machine. In the first round of voting, the candidate with more than 50 percent is immediately elected, without even a moment’s pause. On 30 June, 76 MPs were elected in this manner, of which 39 were from the RN. This meant that 501 seats remained to be filled during the second voting. Where the rejected candidate wins more than 50 percent, all those who voted more than 12.5 percent according to the voter list remain in the race. Normally, this leaves only two applicants for the run-off. If there are 3, it is known as a triangular and if 4, a quadrilateral,
Recently, the first phase of voting brought a surprising figure of 306. triangular – The largest number, since the 5th Republic was established in 1958 – with 5 quadrilateral, For comparison, there were only 8 triangular One in 2022 and one in 2017. In this lifetime, more than 100 of those three- and four-way contests included an RN or RN-affiliated candidate in first place, opening up the opportunity to eliminate one or two of the alternative applicants and other non-RNs. Contact their voters to stop the candidate.
In any case, Macron’s 83 applicants ensemble cast And 132 from the NFP turned out to strengthen the RN’s chances of victory. This alliance was, to say the least, an unusual alliance. It was once composed of political groups that generally hated and opposed every option on all questions of coverage. Macron also once felt as if he was betraying his personal rules. Until recently, he claimed to equally shun extremists from both ends of the political spectrum. Now he only despises those on the right.
The spread of multiple competing influences from the primary level was no longer a disease of the subject of self-governance. Otherwise, it was a sign of strong political engagement and an overall plurality of viewpoints. The standard means would have been to simply vote and let the most productive candidate win. However, for those who consider self-governance a game machine, this was an opportunity to rob the citizens of their most popular birthday victory. Such political maneuvering will deflect skepticism as well as stoke the resentment felt among the ‘left’ who voted for the RN.
The nineteenth-century autobiographer and opium user, Thomas De Quincey, wrote about the silk stockings of Sir John Cutler, MP. They were continuously dyed with the story until there was no silk left. At what stage did the stockings purchased by Cutler become an untouched pair? Le Pen has reshaped the RN in similar ways since taking over the party from her father in 2011. He removed more of the last individuals (including his father), while recruiting unused, more trained ones. He moved RN closer to the center on coverage issues and controlled its rhetoric.
Does this render RN a completely unused birthday celebration? Macron and his leftist allies have no say in the decision. dediabolisation (‘De-toxifying’) process is just a sham for them. They declare that the same well-worn xenophobic extremists are behind it.
This is extremely unfair. I have met most of the important RN MPs and they are clean, well behaved and serious, like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Many people who are gay and in marriage or civil partnership take issue with the idea that RN is not LGBT-friendly (it actually goes against the excesses of gender ideology). They are self-disciplined and dedicated to their work as elected representatives. However, question marks remain over the affiliation of some of the people behind the scenes at the birthday celebrations.
Most likely the reason for the RN’s astonishing loss was that the second round campaign was poorly run, as Bardella has acknowledged. He himself did not enter the fray with his applicants or put pressure on the voters.
To make things worse, RNs were required to find a large number of untapped applicants on a massive scale in the past. Because of this, the party’s screening process for recruits was a complete failure. Like Reform UK, some rogues made it straight into the poll paper. After all, Klinking and the RN’s political combatants had a haystack with it – especially when it emerged that a candidate had once posted a photo of himself online in a Nazi hat.
In this context, Macron was smart to make a very large-scale announcement in the run-up to the elections. As ensemble cast And the NFP withdrew many of its applicants in the second round, with the RN needing almost twice as many meadows due to alternative events. With polls predicting a landslide victory for the RN and a media frenzy, the so-called united front against right-wing extremism had served its purpose. So much so, in fact, that the reaction to the RN went far beyond alternative means and left the withering left poised for power.
Of course, if Le Pen’s birthday party has made some fair and meaningful efforts to break into the mainstream, the same cannot be said about her l. A. france insoumise (LFI), which dominates the NFP and is a textbook Islamic-leftist birthday party. Despite not having an elected mandate, the LFI is still under the strong influence of founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Contenders to LFI’s success include many who have downplayed the magnitude of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel or even warned of anti-Semitism. Among them is a violent antifa activist, who has been singled out by the government as an ultimatum for nationwide security.
Under the influence of the LFI, the election program of the NFP is unquestionably final. It calls for immediate price controls on energy and food; unused more taxes on the rich; Huge increases within the minimum wage along with wage increases for the crowded sector; And to bring the normal departure generation back to 62. If implemented, it could really damage the French economic system.
An NFP government would also dismantle Macron’s contemporary, very timid immigration reforms, call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and recognize the Palestinian Authority. Naturally, this could take away support for Israel and ban arm sales to the country.
LFI MPs are insisting that someone from their party should be made the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, members of the NFP’s Socialist Birthday Party insist that it should be anyone elected solely through the NFP. As of now, numbers of MPs are still shifting to the NFP block, as the LFI and socialists appoint independents on the left, and there are some defections from the LFI to the socialists. The theory states that only the President can appoint the Prime Minister and he must choose someone whose government will not fall directly into a no-confidence vote.
In the turbulent environment of affairs, this becomes impossible. Disagreeing unused parliamentary elections could pose a threat to life, so France is stuck in the current nationwide meeting. These days, Macron is playing the long game, keeping his personal Prime Minister Gabriel Atal in the park despite offering his departure. Before MPs gather in their parks on July 18, one thing should have been decided.
As he left for the NATO summit this year, Macron left a searchable letter for his fellow voters to appear in the press. He tells them politely: ‘You have called for the invention of a new French political culture.’ His arrival means that he will limit the formation of a grand alliance to the national meeting itself. It is certain that the French people wanted to deny any such thing. Macron has only himself to blame for his country’s political meltdown.
jeremy stubbs is the deputy essayist of Reason,
