French Vote For Political Pain
President Macron's coalition lost its legislative majority, the far-right made huge gains, and the left is (for now) the main opposition party. Will that lead to paralysis or progress?
This newsletter is not intended to be about politics exclusively, and so I hereby solemnly swear that this will be the last edition solely dedicated to the French elections. Unless I change my mind, in which case you will get to experience the kind of editorial uncertainty, whiplash, and chaos that will be representative of what awaits the nation as a whole over the next 5 years.
On Sunday, the French (which includes me!), went to the polls for the 2nd round of legislative voting to determine the makeup of the National Assembly. They rendered a verdict that defies any simple analysis and creates a political power void with no clear roadmap for filling it.
The media are perhaps the biggest winners. This will be a goldmine for the bottomless number of evening news programs that dominate French TV. There is sufficient fodder for everyone to make endless arguments about what went wrong, who won, and what it all means.
Let’s start at the top. Just a month after re-electing Macron to a historic 2nd term, French voters delivered another historic result by denying his coalition a majority in the National Assembly. It had been about 20 years since either had happened.
Macron’s Ensemble coalition won 246 seats, far short of the 289 needed for a majority, and about 100 fewer than in 2017. They even underperformed polling expectations last week which had projected between 270 and 300 seats.
Coming in second was NUPES, the surprising left coalition that won 142 seats, up by 84 from 2017. Though the NUPES also fell short of polls which had projected 160 to 190 seats.
The big shocker of the evening was the success of Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party which won 89 seats, up from 8 in 2017. This came just a few weeks after Le Pen was beaten by Macron in the presidential race, and following several weeks where she was criticized by supporters for failing to do enough campaigning for the legislative elections. Polls only projected 25 to 45 seats for RN. So this surge became the big headline of the night, trumping the success of NUPES.
Finally, the center-right Les Republicains won 64 seats, down about half from 2017, but not the total wipeout that seemed possible a few weeks ago when their candidate managed only 4% in the presidential vote.
WTF Just Happened?
One of the baffling elements of the legislative elections is the lackluster campaign run by Macron’s troops. Or rather, the non-campaign. Since 2017, Macron has fancied himself as a dude who is just above all this politics stuff (an air of superiority that infuriates opponents). He barely campaigned for his re-election, and largely stayed out of the legislative races.
After his re-election, Macron named the somewhat left-leaning Elisabeth Borne to be his prime minister. Borne is a technician who had never run for office and exuded all the personality of stale Wonder Bread. She had to run for a seat in the Assembly and only just squeaked out a win in her district. The vultures are already circling and pundits are betting she won’t last in the gig past the first week of July when there is supposed to be a vote of confidence in the Assembly.
In the aftermath of the vote, Macron’s coalition came under heavy fire for failing to clearly call for unified voting against Le Pen’s RN. Various comments over the past week seem to suggest that Macron’s supporters saw the far-left NUPES as much of a threat as the RN, a threat of “extremes.” This seemed to backfire, causing most supporters to sit out the 2nd round in those races where a NUPES candidate faced someone from the RN.
Meanwhile, NUPES de facto chief Jean-Luc Mélenchon, still dreaming the impossible dream of a majority for his coalition, campaigned furiously. He had hoped this would force Macron to appoint him prime minister, but the NUPES fell well short. Because Mélenchon did not run for his Assembly seat, he is now effectively unemployed, though doubtful he will remain silent or out of the public eye.
By the same measure, Le Pen has suddenly been rehabilitated. A year ago, it seemed she was going to lose her hold on the far-right to Éric Zemmour, a human troll and darling of the media. Instead, Zemmour crashed and burned in the presidential elections and his party failed to win a single seat in the Assembly. The French wanted to stick with the far-right monster they knew.
On the margins, there were some notable results. Several of Macron’s ministers lost their Assembly races and will have to resign from positions to which they were just appointed one month ago.
Meanwhile, baker Stéphane Ravacley, who became a folk hero for staging a hunger strike to protest attempts to deport his apprentice to Africa, fell just short in his bid for an Assembly seat.
On the other hand, Rachel Keke, the housekeeper who helped lead a major strike over a French hotel chain, won her race against a former minister. She becomes the first housekeeper ever elected to the Assembly.
Now What?
The NUPES may be the leading opposition group, but only if they can hold their coalition together. If they fracture, then Le Pen’s group becomes the opposition leader. There will be a lot of jostling for Assembly posts, including the leader, and how to allot speaking time, which could reveal whether the NUPES can maintain unity or will split apart, and which group establishes the most influence.
Meanwhile, Macron still has a lot of leverage to advance his agenda because France has a strong presidential system (including, god forbid, dissolving the Assembly and calling for new elections). But these opposition parties also have tools to at least slow his proposals by burying them with amendments and constitutional challenges.
Macron will have to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks. Should he seek a formal coalition with another party? (Most likely with the Republicains, which would nudge him even further to the right, though they are also divided internally). Or, does he attempt to cobble together support from different groups for each proposal? Is there some way to form a government of national unity?
In any case, it seems likely Macron will have to embrace compromise, which he has not had to do until now, and has not demonstrated much interest in negotiating with rivals.
"We will have to show a lot of imagination" to govern, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told EuroNews.
Chris O’Brien
Le Pecq, France