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French President Emmanuel Macron speaks next to NATO Secretary General after a meeting at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on June 24, 2024.
Macron’s election gambit looks doomed to fail
France faces a nail-biter snap election this Sunday. Barring one of the biggest polling errors in French history, President Emmanuel Macron is set to lose his parliamentary majority.
Where are the polls? The far-right National Rally, aka RN, party led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is ahead with 35-38% of the vote, far exceeding Macron’s party, which is polling around 20% and falling. But an unlikely alliance of leftist parties calling itself the New Popular Front, or NFP, is garnering 28-31% of the vote, and given France’s unpredictable two-round voting system, the final result is anyone’s guess.
The worst-case scenario for Macron: Voters who fear the far right flock to the NFP, while those who fear the left go to RN in a mutual attempt to block the other’s chances of forming a government — squeezing Macron’s centrists out.
There’s a chance RN can pull off a slim majority, which would make Bardella Macron’s new prime minister – hardly a recipe for productive governance. Bardella says he won’t form a minority government and risk a rapid ejection by a coalition of centrists and left-wingers.
The left, meanwhile, is less likely to get a majority, and even if they did, they can’t agree on who would get to be PM.
What about a deadlock? This might be Macron’s best bet. He could then attempt to form a national unity government with a technocratic moderate as PM. Failing that, he could keep the current government with reduced powers in a caretaker capacity for one year before holding new elections — but that’s an unpopular option, and Macron is already deeply unpopular.
Macron’s decision to call snap elections may be one he lives to regret. France will struggle with gridlock and partisanship in virtually all these potential outcomes, which will be detrimental to France – and to Macron’s domestic and geopolitical ambitions.
“It would be ironic,” Ian Bremmerwrote yesterday, “if the man most devoted to building a strong France, Europe, and Ukraine ended up being responsible for weakening all three.”French President Emmanuel Macron takes part in an expanded videoconference in Paris, France, April 19, 2022.
Will the far right and hard left pull France apart?
President Emmanuel Macron’s prospects for the first round of France’s snap parliamentary elections on Sunday are fading fast. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, aka RN, is surging in the polls, and the heads of rival parties on Macron’s left flank have assembled an unlikely alliance that threatens to force the president into uncomfortable choices.
A poll released Saturday showed around 35% of voters intend to back RN, while just 20-22% plan to stick with Macron’s Renaissance party. RN’s telegenic young leader Jordan Bardella has helped the movement change its image and appeal more to those who — while not necessarily sold on far-right ideology — have soured on Macron.
Meanwhile, another 28-30% said they support the left-wing coalition. In past elections, Macron has managed to leverage the fear of the far right to bring voters from France’s shambolic left-wing parties into his camp, but the gambit may fail this time. The heads of the Greens, the Socialists, the Communists, and the hardcore France Unbowed party have formed the New Popular Front, vowing not to run candidates against one another in any constituency. This coalition is far enough ahead of Macron to make him sweat.
What’s next? If Macron is badly weakened after the second round on July 7, he’ll be confronted with unappetizing choices — which might be why he warned Monday that a vote for “extremes” on either the right or left could lead to “conflict and civil war.”
A bad result could pile on the pressure for him to resign, which could trigger a presidential election, but he has sworn not to follow that path. He could also enter “cohabitation” (what we call “divided government” in the US) with Bardella as prime minister – potentially a recipe for dysfunction.
But we’re watching for signs that Macron will try to form a government of national unity – with a moderate technocrat as PM – hoping that political rivals who sit a little closer to him on the spectrum will prefer that to having the RN in charge.
Newly elected National Rally leader Jordan Bardella with the outgoing Marine Le Pen during the party congress in Paris.
Hard Numbers: French far-right handover, Big Oil makes big bucks, China vs. COVID, Peruvians want prez out
50: For the first time in 50 years, the main French far-right party will not be captained by a Le Pen. Marine Le Pen, daughter of founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, has now handed over the reins of the National Rally to Jordan Bardella, 27, in a clear play for young voters.
200.24 billion: Publicly listed US oil companies reaped $200.24 billion in profits during the second and third quarters of the year thanks to higher prices driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. President Joe Biden wants to hit Big Oil with a windfall tax unless they pump more crude to bring down gasoline prices.
4,420: That's how many new COVID infections China reported on Saturday, the most in six months. No wonder the government once again confirmed that it has no plans to relax its zero-COVID policy anytime soon — whatever the economic damage.
6: Thousands of Peruvians took to the streets of Lima on Saturday to demand the resignation of embattled President Pedro Castillo. The left-wing Castillo has already survived impeachment twice and is the current target of six separate corruption probes.