The decision taken by French President Emmanuel Macron on June 9 dissolve the National Assembly and the call for legislative elections to be held on June 30 and July 7 showed that Macron was seeking to position the National Rally (RN) as his only potential opponent. But it also demonstrated that Macron misjudged the left-wing parties and wrongly bet on their supposed inability to build a strong political alliance and to agree on a common political program. But the consequences of this historic day have proven that Macron’s bet was wrong.
After his electoral defeat in the European elections, Macron announces the dissolution of the National Assembly took the French people by surprise. His decision comes just after Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally nearly doubled the votes won by Macron’s center-right party (37% to 14.6%). Nothing in the French electoral code or constitution required the French president to make this decision. The dissolution of the National Assembly is a discretionary power provided for by the Constitution The idea was to allow the president to unblock an institutional crisis or to break an impasse in which the government was unable to obtain the approval of the National Assembly for important reforms. But none of this is the case in current French politics.
As polls and media reports show, the advent of early parliamentary elections has plunged the country into a political abyss and a state of democratic anxiety. From political analysts to some of his former political alliesThe French are still trying to understand whether Macron’s decision to play was the result of improvisation or simple narcissism. what were his real intentions And if he was well aware of the consequences of this decision. Although he repeated that the European elections had nothing to do with France’s domestic politics, Macron claimed that such results showed that the country needed a moment of clarification. But what is certain is that after the triumph of the National Rally in the European race, the calling of legislative elections opened a window of opportunity for Marine Le Pen’s party to obtain a majority in the National Assembly and for Jordan Bardella, the president of her nationalist party, to obtain the designation of Prime Minister.
Faced with the nationalist threat, and despite Macron’s political calculation, the left-wing parties have not remained inactive. Buoyed by the success of the socialist candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, pro-European and pro-Ukrainian, who came third with 14% of the vote in the European elections, the Greens, the Communist Party and France Insoumise have joined forces to create the New Popular Front. THE creation of this left-wing coalition has not been spared from severe criticism, with public opinion and the media pointing out the extremist and anti-Semitic rhetoric used by some members of France Unbowed after the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7. The Macronists also did not fail to show the contradictions between the different points of view expressed by the members of the New Popular Front to describe this collation as against nature. However, the New Popular Front managed to build a consensus that addresses the main points of frictionIt includes a fight against anti-Semitism and, simultaneously, a commitment to recognize the Palestinian state, an end to the brutalization of political debate, an increase in the minimum wage and the cancellation of Macron’s unpopular pension reform. Moreover, by including international political measures such as strong support for the European Union (EU) and the granting of military aid to Ukraine, the New Popular Front radically distances itself from Le Pen’s party. The same goes for the strengthening of public services such as public media and the French Post Office, whose The National Rally has committed to privatization.
Le Pen’s party won the first round of legislative elections On June 30, she obtained 33.15% of the vote, but her political party’s chances of obtaining an absolute majority are not guaranteed. However, President Macron’s camp obtained an embarrassing third place (20.04%), it was overtaken by the Popular Front which obtained 27.99%. The possibility that Jordan Bardella, or another member of the National Rally, will become Prime Minister is therefore high. If this is the case, it would be the first time in French history that a cohabitation government would involve a member of the extreme right. Cohabitation is a term used in France to describe a two-headed executive government in which the president and prime minister come from opposing political parties on the left-right spectrum. The most recent French cohabitation took place from 1997 to 2002 between President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. However, preventing the far right from gaining access to executive power has not only been a traditional practice, but almost a question of political morality for many French citizens. Commonly called the Republican Front, this practice has its roots in the formation of the Popular Front, which emerged from a left-wing coalition led by Léon Blum against a fascist threat in 1936. Over time, conservative and left-wing parties have systematically rallied around a single candidate in the second round of elections to prevent far-right parties from coming to power. It was precisely the Republican Front built against Marine Le Pen in 2017 and 2022 that allowed the election and re-election of Emmanuel Macron. The risks of seeing the republican front not materialize during these legislative elections are however high, Marine Le Pen having gradually succeeded in “de-demonizing” her nationalist party.
Since her first presidential campaign in 2012, Marine Le Pen has led a pseudo-purge of far-right members of the National Rally and has marginalized anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric from her party’s official discourse. While retaining a certain skepticism toward the European Union, the National Rally has abandoned the idea of leaving the Union and the eurozone. Yet Marine Le Pen’s relations with Russia leave much to be desired in terms of her commitment to strengthening the European Union and, more importantly, the humanist values on which France’s democratic traditions are based. From the National Rally’s loans from Russian banks to its refusal to support European military aid to Ukraine to its ambiguous stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the National Front’s controversial positions on international issues threaten to lead to a substantial shift in existential elements of France’s international policy. Recently, Len Pen has challenged the power of the French President as Commander-in-Chief of the Army The French armed forces have been strengthened, while emphasizing the role of the Prime Minister in national defense. Thus, the possibility of access to executive power by the Le Pen party is a question of global repercussions, France being a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a nuclear power.
The National Rally party has however succeeded in building a populist program Le Pen’s promises to build economic patriotism and national sovereignty against the European Union go hand in hand with Bardella’s promises on domestic policy. They involve strengthening authority in schools and implementing a principle of national priority that would limit immigration and privilege the rights of French nationals not only over foreigners but also over dual French citizens. It is therefore not surprising that Le Pen’s party’s prospects of winning the legislative elections have fueled hate speech and verbal violence.
Although he described this election as a moment of clarificationMacron and his current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal have failed to embody a vision of national reconciliation. On the contrary, Macron’s Renaissance Party has waged this legislative campaign by weaving political rhetoric based on fear. Borrowing Charles de Gaulle’s slogan “It’s me or chaos,” during the two weeks leading up to the first round, Macronism has systematically portrayed the National Rally and the New Popular Front as political extremes likely to provoke unrest. civil war. The political project of the National Rally is in contradiction with French institutions and political values, such as the equality of citizens. It is therefore in reality classified in the extremist category. But the same cannot be said of the New Popular Front. For some political analysts, in just two weeks after its creation, the New Popular Front has managed to generate hope and authentically gather the political will of left-wing voters. The defeat of Marcionism in the first round of the legislative elections showed that fear and economic reasons are poor arguments for regaining the support of French voters. The political project of the New Popular Front integrates social justice and the equality of citizens and reconciles agriculture with political ecology. While addressing its internal contradictions in the face of major international conflicts, the New Popular Front is probably the only option capable of provoking a renewed attachment of French voters to the Republican Front and to European construction.
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