By Raphael Hammond
President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to immediately dissolve the French parliament soon after the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) had performed exceedingly well at the EU elections was widely seen as a colossal gamble. The results of this election will define Macron’s second term and set the stage for the 2027 presidential race. Yet despite MPs now taking their seats, the true outcome of this move couldn’t be more uncertain. No party has an overall majority, and the answer to ‘who is governing France’ remains complicated despite ministerial posts now being assigned. How did this happen, and what is in store for the French Republic?
The decision to call elections after the RN achieved a record 31% of the vote, far ahead of both the left-wing parties and the presidential party, Ensemble, caught the country and the political establishment off guard. He tried to ask a simple question: “When push comes to shove, do you want the far-right to govern?” and catch his opponents unprepared. Unfortunately, it seems the president had kept this plan to himself.
Reactions within his own party were unsympathetic, while allies on the right increasingly broke rank with the president. On the left, the announcement was met with both concern and anticipation, and immediate calls for unity. The RN, much as it appeared confident and assertive, was indeed caught off guard, with many stories about unsavoury candidates and insufficient vetting emerging throughout the campaign.
And so, the campaign began, the date set for only three weeks after the announcement – preventing new registrations onto the electoral roll, disenfranchising some younger voters. The following weeks would see political psychodrama on a Game of Thrones scale all too familiar to British audiences. This included an episode where Eric Ciotti, the leader of the traditional right-wing party Les Republicains, barricaded himself inside his party headquarters after suggesting an alliance with the far-right, while other members attempted to oust him, seizing control of LR social media accounts.
Meanwhile, Marion Marechal, Marine Le Pen’s niece, was expelled from the fringe far-right party Reconquête! as she called to vote for the RN after years of fractious family dinners. On the left, grassroots efforts to convince parties to put forward a united front, including a petition spearheaded by François Ruffin that gathered over 420,000 signatures prompted an arduous and tense negotiation.
Despite being haunted by the disastrous collapse of the previous NUPES left-wing electoral alliance, party leaders negotiated to declare a new agreement with an ambitious progressive manifesto for government in under a week: the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP).
After an intense first round of campaigning, conducted under the shadow of the strong RN results, the first round provided little certainty. It was unclear whether tactical voting would keep the far-right out. Many centrist and right-wing figures, including Macron, called on voters to reject “the extremes” on both the right and the left. This rhetorical tactic set the left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI), a constituent party of the NFP, on a equal footing with the RN.
"The legitimisation of the RN’s racist, homophobic, and illiberal views by ministers in the new government should prove once and for all that Macron cannot be trusted to keep the far-right at bay."
Although Macron is infamously provocative this was a new low: by describing any alternative to his party as ‘extreme’ he drifts into antidemocratic tendencies and weakens his condemnation of the far-right. This poisoned the well in terms of tactical voting, with left-wing voters left angry at the demonisation of the NFP, and centrist and right-wing voters hesitant to vote for the NFP against the RN. Statistics indicate NFP voters were almost consistently tactical in their second-round choices, while many right-wing voters abstained or defected to the RN instead of voting for the NFP. Yet, the democratic barrier seemed to hold.
On election night, the NFP was declared the surprise victor of the elections, on 182 seats. Ensemble, the presidential party, had won 162, and the RN 143. No one party had achieved an overall majority in the legislature. While the RN was prevented from achieving a majority, it remained strong. The NFP took a full two weeks of fractious negotiations to declare its candidate for prime minister.
Several plausible outcomes stemmed from the result. The NFP could have formed a minority government. As they are the largest party, this would have broadly followed precedent, although it would often be ruling by decree, which it criticised the previous macronist minority government for. The NFP could likely not rely on the support of Ensemble given their oppositional relationship with LFI.
Alternatively, Ensemble could have sought to break the NFP and build a government spanning from the centre-left Socialist Party to the right-wing LR, but this would also be fragile. Ultimately, Macron chose a third option: an unprecedented unholy trinity of a Macronnist-LR government with the tacit support of the far-right. By appointing Michel Barnier as PM, a politician originating from a party who ostensibly ‘lost’ the elections, with just 6.2% of the vote, Macron has defied convention, to much condemnation from the left.
For those willing to read them, signs of a Macron-RN alignment had been around for a while. Yael Braun-Pivet, the Ensemble candidate for speaker, was accused of negotiating with the RN, granting them committee positions in exchange for tacit support. This was the latest in a series of Macronists kow-towing to the far-right, after their harsh RN-supported immigration bill, and constant adoption of their identitarian, anti-muslim rhetoric. The legitimisation of the RN’s racist, homophobic, and illiberal views by ministers in the new government should prove once and for all that Macron cannot be trusted to keep the far-right at bay.
Hope for France to keep out the far-right rests with the NFP, who must learn to listen to its voters. They must use the strength and legitimacy of their tactical vote and work together to keep the flame of hope alive. As the clock counts down to 2027, expect stormy weather ahead.
Image: Flickr
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