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Gabriel Attal, the French Prime Minister, is leaving the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on July 16, 2024, after the last Council of Ministers before Emmanuel Macron accepted his resignation.
French Prime Minister resigns: what now?
French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation of his Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, on Tuesday. Who will take his place? Good question!
France now enters a fraught transition period in which Macron’s outgoing ministers act as a caretaker government while a new coalition is hammered out.
As a reminder, this all resulted from the French snap election, which took place a million news cycles ago earlier this month. Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally party won more seats than any other single party, but lost to the New Popular Front, a leftwing patchwork in which Jean-Luc Melénchon’s far-left France Unbowed party is the biggest player.
Macron, whose centrist party placed third, called for an agreement “as soon as possible.” But it could take time. None of the blocs has enough seats to form a government alone, and coalition-building among political rivals after elections is uncommon in France. The Europhile Centrist Macron and the Euroskeptic hard-left Melénchon, for example, share little beyond a common disdain for Le Pen.
France’s transitions have never lasted more than 9 days, but as things stand, it would be a gold medal miracle if France has a new government before the Paris Olympics start next Friday.
Demonstrators celebrate during the New Popular Front’s election night after announcing the voting primary results for 2nd tour of the French legislative elections, in Paris on July 7, 2024.
French left-wing coalition tops election results
The New Popular Front won 182 seats in France’s National Assembly and became the largest party in a shock result from Sunday’s second-round vote, but no party has the numbers to form a governing majority.
Voter turnout was at its highest level in a generation – with the electorate likely spurred on by the far-right National Rally party, aka RN, coming in first last weekend. On Sunday, the RN fell far short of expectations, placing third with 143 seats. But fear of Marine Le Pen’s party did not drive support for Emmanuel Macron’s centrists, as it did in 2022 and 2017 — voters found a way to deny her a government while punishing the deeply unpopular president at the same time. Macron’s party lost seats despite coming in second at 163 seats, and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal offered his resignation.
What happens now? The NFP itself is a deeply unstable alliance of necessity, with bitter rivalries between the leaders of its constituent parties. It’s hard to imagine them staying together, but Macron is likely to try to form a “Rainbow Coalition” of centrists and leftists to govern with full powers. He’ll have to make major policy compromises to keep it together.
Failing that, Macron can implement a caretaker government with more limited authority until he can call another snap election in 12 months.
“France now faces a period of deep, political confusion which could be exploited by Le Pen,” says Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman. “The other squabbling, political forces of left, right, and center will struggle to agree on anything in the months ahead to soften the French electorate’s anger or anxieties about immigration, the cost of living, public services, or the exploding budget deficit.”Marine Le Pen, member of parliament and French far-right National Rally.
National Rally seeks allies as French legislative elections head into round two
As France prepares for its second round of legislative elections this Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, aka RN, party has announced that even if it falls short of an outright majority, it will attempt to form a majority government by drawing allies from the conservative Republicans party for parliamentary backing.
The announcement comes after the RN beat President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition in the first round. It’s expected to prevail – if narrowly – again on Sunday.
“It's not a change in direction because she is still saying they won’t form a minority government,” says Eurasia Group’s Europe director Mujtaba Rahman. “But she is saying that if they come close they will try to pull allies over from the hard right of the Les Républicains and then form a majoritarian government.”
It remains unclear, however, whether she and Jordan Bardella, the party’s chief and candidate for prime minister, will succeed. Éric Ciotti, the then-leader of the Republicans, caused outrage and was forced to leave the party last month when he teamed up with the RN.
In a bid to deprive the far right of a 289-seat majority, Macron’s alliance is working on pulling some of its third-place candidates ahead of Sunday’s run-off, and the left-wing New Popular Front has said it will pull all of its candidates. So far, 202 have dropped out – 127 from left-wing parties and 75 from Macron’s centrists.
If Le Pen’s RN succeeds in winning friends from other parties after the second-round vote Sunday, it would further normalize the far right in French politics and could usher in a far-right government in France’s parliament.
Le Pen’s already making post-election plans. Members of her party in the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy group plan to meet with EU allies next Monday to discuss the future of the far right Europe-wide. Many are considering whether to join a new populist alliance announced this week by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Marine Le Pen, French far-right leader and far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally - RN) party candidate, speaks to journalists after partial results in the first round of the early French parliamentary elections in Henin-Beaumont, France, June 30, 2024.
French election: Far right wins first round
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally won the first round of France's election on Sunday with 33% of the vote, while the young left-wing New Popular Front alliance took around 28%. President Emmanuel Macron’s gambit to capitalize on fear of the far right failed to generate excitement for his Ensemble alliance, which placed third with roughly 21% of the vote.
That said, Le Pen’s party is expected to win between 230 and 280 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly after the second round of voting on July 7. That would put them short of the 289 seats needed for an outright majority, but with enough to make it difficult for either the NFP or Macron’s alliance to form an easy coalition.
Turnout on Sunday was unusually high, around 59%, fully 20 percentage points higher than the contest in 2022. We’re watching how well that interest holds up in round two, as well as whether Macron’s efforts to coordinate with the NFP to deny the RN a majority bear fruit. If they can agree to turn competitive three-way second-round races into likely losses for the RN by strategically withdrawing candidates from certain districts and thereby consolidating anti-RN votes, they may be able to prevent a far-right majority.
The likely result will be a hung parliament, says Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman, meaning Macron would form a caretaker government with much reduced power. “France is now facing the prospect of an enfeebled caretaker government before new elections in 2025, which will leave this G-7 power and UN Security Council permanent member largely rudderless for a year.”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.
Macron's snap election gamble will have repercussions for France and EU
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Tabiano Castello, Italy.
Did French President Emmanuel Macron make a grave mistake by calling for parliamentary elections now?
Well, remains to be seen. I think it should be seen also in the run up, in the context of the run up to the 2027 presidential elections, they’re going to be the real crucial ones. I think he faced the prospect of a slow death in the National Assembly and deciding that this was the only option where he had any possibility whatsoever, of recovering some strength, if that's possible. Now, France is facing a very difficult choice between the far-right, a resurgent far-right, which had roughly 40% of the vote in the European elections, and a far-left, which is equally destructive in different ways, and the center ground having lost out considerably.
So a couple of weeks to go before we get the final results. But it's a big gamble that will have profound repercussions, not only for France, but for Europe as a whole.
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Eric Ciotti speaks to media in front of the LR heaquarters in Paris, France on June 11, 2024. The president of the Republicains, Eric Ciotti, announced on TF1 on Tuesday 11 June that he would like his party to form an alliance with the Rassemblement National for the legislative elections.
France’s center right splits over cooperating with Le Pen
The leader of France’s center-right party, Les Republicains, set off a firestorm on Tuesday by suggesting he would be open to an alliance with the far-right National Rally in upcoming snap elections. Éric Ciotti said his party’s dismal performance in European parliament elections over the weekend — fifth place, and just six seats — meant he felt obligated to work with Marine Le Pen to fend off the “threat to the nation” from the left wing and centrist parties.
Le Pen called the decision “brave,” but it’s driving a wedge through France’s traditional conservative party. Olivier Marleix, who leads Les Republicains in the lower house, called for Ciotti to step down and said he would not participate in any agreement with the far right, a sentiment many in the party echoed.
That’s exactly the kind of reaction President Emmanuel Macron is betting on to keep his party in control of the legislature in the upcoming vote on June 30. It’s worked for him before: French voters who went to Les Republicains or a party on the fractured left wing in the first rounds of the 2017 and 2022 elections begrudgingly pulled the lever for Macron in the second round after seeing a strong initial showing for Le Pen.
Can he make it a hat trick? Maybe, but it’s a huge gamble, and Macron’s approval polls are weaker now than they were two years ago. But if voters react like Marleix, he has a shot.
Macron's call for a snap election in France is a huge gamble
What happened in the European Parliament elections? Why is President Macron calling for a snap election in France? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Berlin, Germany.
What happened in the European Parliament elections?
Well, there was a shift, no question, but not the fundamental shift to the far-right that quite a number of pundits have been speculating about. If you look at what's been the sort o, the governing coalition, if you might use that phrase, of the center-right DPP, the Social Democrats, and the liberals Renew, they used to have roughly 59% of the seats in the European Parliament. They now have 56% of the seats in the European Parliament. It is a shift, no question about that, but hardly a fundamental one. And I don't think you will see much of a shift in policies resulting out of that.
Why is President Macron calling for a snap election in France?
Well, of course, even if there wasn't the major shift in European Parliament, there was a significant shift in individual countries. And, most dramatically, it was in France where President Macron suffered a very significant setback with the far-right, combined, getting roughly 40% of the electorate. Well, he decided this can't go on. So, he dissolved the National Assembly, called for new elections, got to be, sort of, in the early July, the decisive round. It’s a huge gamble. He might not have had much of a choice, but it’s a gamble anyhow. Will we end up with some sort of cohabitation between President Macron and elements of the nationalist right to France? Remains to be seen, but highly likely. Or will he succeed to mobilize those that are against this development in the country? That also remains to be seen. But that, of course, is going to have a fairly fundamental impact on what happened, not only in France but in the rest of Europe as well.
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