France voted yesterday for the political abyss. Far from making the hard right the largest party in parliament, as was widely expected, the French gave the hard left the first place according to the exit polls. Hardly anyone saw it coming.
But no party or group came close to an absolute majority, which will make forming a stable government difficult, if not impossible. The result is a recipe for confusion, chaos and a weak government.
The traditional French pushback when Marine Le Pen’s populist Rassemblement National does well in the first round of elections, as it did last Sunday, to rally against her in the second round proved more effective yesterday than anyone expected.
Instead of coming in first place, but without an absolute majority, they finished a poor third.
But the real shock of the evening was the success of the New Popular Front, an alliance of different currents within the left, which was the first to act, to general surprise.
President Emmanuel Macron has defied predictions and managed to form a left-wing alliance to keep the far-right party at bay, but now France is struggling with a stalemated parliament
Marine Le Pen’s populist Rassemblement National did well in the first round of voting but failed to win a majority
Supporters of France’s left-wing Socialist Party (PS) look at a screen showing the first results of the second round of the French parliamentary election during the party’s election night event in Paris on July 7, 2024.
President Macron’s centrist grouping finished a respectable second, the second surprise of the evening, relegating the Rassemblement National to third place and completing the hat-trick of surprises.
The French political establishment congratulated itself last night on having defrauded Le Pen’s party once again. But the troubles have only just begun.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, France’s Jeremy Corbyn but meaner and more extreme, took to the airwaves as soon as the exit polls came in to demand that his New Popular Front be given unlimited powers to implement its far-left manifesto, even though Ifop’s exit poll predicts it will only have 180 to 215 seats in the National Assembly. You need 289 seats for a majority.
Of course, Melenchon will not get his way. But what will happen? The Popular Front was cobbled together only a few weeks ago. It includes a number of respectable socialist and green politicians.
But it is largely a hodgepodge of far-left Melenchon supporters who have been there for centuries: communists, Trots, Antifa types and other agitators.
It is difficult to see how Macron’s centrist group could form a coalition with them.
The Popular Front is dominated by activists who hate Macron and were elected on a platform aimed at undoing virtually everything he has done since becoming president in 2017.
The New Popular Front itself may have a shorter shelf life than Liz Truss as prime minister. It is made up of precisely the 57 varieties of the left that are quick to clash, especially when compromises are called for.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (pictured) said he would offer Macron his resignation on Monday but that he was prepared to serve “as long as duty requires it”
Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right French party Rassemblement National (RN), gives a speech on stage after the partial results in the second round of the French snap parliamentary elections in Paris, France, July 7, 2024
Protesters set off smoke flares in response to the expected results after the second round of parliamentary elections, in Lyon, central France, Sunday, July 7, 2024
Crowds of people hold up a giant national flag with the text “France is the fabric of migration” and a banner reading “stop genocide” during an election night event after the first results of the second round of the French parliamentary election at Republique Square in Paris on July 7, 2024
Tear gas is thrown on the street during clashes between security forces and protesters after an election night event following the first results of the second round of the French parliamentary election in Rennes on July 7, 2024
Supporters light red flares during the election night of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) after the first results of the second round of the French parliamentary elections at La Rotonde Stalingrad in Paris on July 7, 2024.
While Macron’s centrists have done better than expected, he is now a failed president, presiding over pointless coalition-building and condemned to spend the remaining three years of his term in the Élysée Palace, growing increasingly irrelevant.
The National Rally is the big loser of the evening.
While Macron’s downfall was predictable, his third-place showing was not. But perhaps it dodged a bullet.
Trying to form a minority government would have been a paralyzing experience. Macron would have been at his most obstructive, undermining it at every opportunity. The left would have stirred up trouble in the National Assembly and on the streets, which can always be expected to play a role in French politics – a legacy, perhaps, of its revolutionary tradition.
The bond markets will give their own verdict. It won’t be pretty. These are the markets where the French government will be borrowing. The country is already €3 trillion in debt.
Last night’s winner wants to add hundreds of billions to his debt to lower the retirement age, raise the minimum wage and spend more on every social program possible – and this in a country where the state already accounts for 56 percent, yes 56 percent, of GDP. The markets will not be impressed.
Despite all the celebrations on the left, France now has a parliament with a powerlessness that condemns the country to political paralysis for the foreseeable future or worse – a non-party president and a parliament so consumed by fighting between the far left and the far right that a coalition government will likely be impossible.
Welcome to Back to the Future, French-style. The Fourth Republic, cobbled together in the aftermath of World War II, lasted only from 1946 to 1958. During its 12 years, there were 21 governments.
When asked what he was doing in Paris, the late Peter Sellers memorably replied, “I spoke to one of the French governments.”
General Charles de Gaulle, war leader in exile in London and the most important French leader since Napoleon, changed all that in 1958 by creating the Fifth Republic, with a strong president and a reduced National Assembly. He had himself in mind as president when he designed it, though the Fifth Republic has survived to this day.
After yesterday’s elections, France will look much more like the weak and chaotic Fourth Republic than the stronger and more stable Fifth.
What exactly awaits it now – beyond instability, confusion, even chaos – we cannot yet see. And we cannot say when it will return to normal – or what state it will be in when it does. But nothing good can come of France in its present state. As it stares into that abyss, fear for the future of the country.