French Elections: five years of turmoil ahead as Macron denied majority
France is in turmoil. A three-way standoff between Left, Right and centre in Sunday’s second round of the parliamentary elections has left the Republic facing an extended period of political paralysis. Emmanuel Macron avoided the worst of all possible worlds – that would have been actual defeat by the resurgent Left – but is staring at a five-year term in which nothing he puts forward is guaranteed passage and the government of France grinds painfully to a halt.
Of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, the President’s centrist coalition, billed for the election as Ensemble (Together) won 245 seats – well short of the 289 required to give it an absolute majority. The green and socialist New Popular Union, or Nupes, led by far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, polled well but failed to make a decisive breakthrough, securing 131 seats, while Marine Le Pen’s National Rally did far better than expected, ending the day with 89 seats, well ahead of the once-powerful Republicans and allies, who, with just 74 deputies, are now the weakest party of the Right.
Much of the talk in political and media circles this week will inevitably focus on who won and who lost and what it means for the President’s five-year plan. Yet the backdrop to what transpired remains inescapably the fact that democracy itself is in crisis. Of France’s 49 million voters, close to 26 million – 54 per cent of the total – had better things to do on Sunday than register how they would like their country to be governed.
The most high-profile loser was undoubtedly Macron, who just last month was comfortably re-elected to the Élysée and looked set to impose his agenda on a compliant Assembly. At least he can say that his is still by some distance the largest party. Mélenchon, by contrast, chose not to fight a seat, claiming that such would be his bloc’s margin of victory that he was bound to be appointed prime minister. He was wrong. Now he must rally his troops from outside the Palais Bourbon – surely a thankless task, especially for a man now into his seventies whose vanity has been handed a reality check for the second time in as many months.
Marine Le Pen is probably the only leader to feel genuinely elated. While she lost out to Mélenchon this time round, having narrowly outscored him in the presidential contest, she will derive considerable satisfaction from the fact that her representation in the new Assembly has leapt eleven-fold, entitling her far-right faction not only to a lot more speaking time during debates but the right to challenge controversial measures in the constitutional court.
Brave faces were the order of the night. Macron’s recently promoted prime minister Elisabeth Borne, two of whose ministerial colleagues lost their seats, talked of the need for compromise and a sense of responsibility across the board, but faced calls from across the political spectrum to resign. Starting today, assuming she remains in post, her task will be to somehow construct a working majority in a hamstrung parliament. For his part, Mélenchon boasted that the Left was back in business and in a strong position to bring “macronie” to a standstill. But only Le Pen, hailing a victory for “patriotism” wore what looked like a genuine smile.
Over the next few days and weeks – perhaps even for the full five years – there will be parliamentary ambushes aplenty, with the opposition parties ganging up to humiliate the President and frustrate his plans. Mélenchon and Le Pen, representing the two faces of populism, are anti-NATO and eurosceptic. Both support raising taxes on the wealthy and big business combined with a freeze on the price of electricity, fuel and everyday goods in the shops.
Moderate Republicans, on whom Macron will depend as he tries to make good his promises on pension reform and raising the state retirement age, may yet come to his rescue but they have said they are not ready to sign a blank cheque and will – at least for the moment – regard themselves as part of the opposition. Thus far, the madness of cohabitation, with Macron in the Élysée and Mélenchon in the Matignon, looks to be off the cards, but only if the conservatives join a centrist coalition can an endlessly transactional minority government be avoided.
Amid the chaos, Macron’s advisers are reportedly counselling their boss to use the next twelve months to demonstrate to voters that paralysis is not a good look for France and that only another round of parliamentary elections can restore good government. They may well be right, but the risk of it all going horribly wrong, or of a repeat of the current impasse, would be all too real.
Outside of the Assembly, the outlook is even less encouraging. Cynics were already predicting that the action following the election would move to the streets, involving abstentionists of both Left and Right who, though bitterly opposed to each other, are united in their loathing of Macron. That gloomy forecast now seems a safe bet. A long, hot summer could give way to an angry autumn and a potentially explosive winter, with the police – viewed by the extremes as the Establishment’s praetorian guard – caught miserably in the middle.
Macron will be kicking himself, or more likely his lieutenants, for not putting himself out more during the final week of the campaign. He appeared to think he had it all wrapped up and need only be pictured shaking hands with Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv to convince the French people that l’état was indeed lui. Instead, with record high temperatures across the country giving way to thunderstorms and torrential rain, millions of voters opted to sit on their hands. They may come to regret their choice, but for the next five years they and everyone else in France will be stuck with it.