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by Emmanuel Macron took a massive gamble by calling a snap election to show France and the world that the people would reject the far right. The results have shocked both sides.
Emmanuel Macron’s victory in 2017¹ was massive— he won more than 66% of the vote in the runoff election against his opponent, Marine Le Pen. The victory of his centrist party En Marche represented the end of the de-facto political duopoly of the Socialist Party and Les Republicains, the traditional left-wing and right-wing parties of the country. Macron, a former investment banker who served as the Minister of Economics under François Hollande, ran on a platform of consensus and pragmatism between the left and right; at a time of economic stagnation and a lot of anger at the status quo, he was a breath of fresh air.
Today, Macron has become the most hated man in the country due to various factors that drag him down in the polls², despite winning re-election against Le Pen in 2022. Macron’s unpopularity, resulting from a confluence of social and economic factors, has brought about a resurgence in the dominant far-right political party of the country, the National Rally (RN) that has grown their support in the presidential and legislative elections in 2017 and 2022. Emmanuel Macron’s political party— initially called “En Marche!” and now branded as “Renaissance”— follows a liberal social and economic policy and seeks a “middle ground” between the left and right. Through almost seven years in power, Macron has become an increasingly controversial figure. He is now seen as a leader who is progressively comfortable with subverting the democratic system and being authoritarian in how he deals with protests. In the 2022 legislative elections, Renaissance lost its majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of the French legislature, while competing against RN and Les Republicans on the right and the alliance of multiple left-wing parties NUPES, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon.
This significantly hampered Macron’s ability to get his policies through the legislature, and his lack of majority prevented him from passing an unpopular pension reform bill. This prompted him to, in perhaps the most controversial moment of his presidency, invoke Article 49.3 of the constitution³ to simply pass the bill without even holding a vote in the National Assembly. This prompted an immense backlash from the public, leading to weeks of mass protests by French workers, which turned violent in many cases. Macron was criticised heavily for his stringent police response⁴, viewed widely as an extreme move. Macron’s government has turned to Article 49.3 several times since then, such as to pass its 2024 budget, which has prompted accusations of his government overturning the democratic process. Macron controversially called on the police to quell riots and protests⁵ that broke out after a police officer killed a teenager of Algerian background, further reinforcing an opinion that his attempts at power projection were leaning into authoritarianism.
It had been glaringly apparent that with the increasing unpopularity of Macron’s centrist brand, the far right had been emerging. But the scale of their support was made evident in the elections to the EU Parliament where RN achieved a big victory, winning 30 out of 81 seats that France has in the EU Parliament— with more votes than any other party. Following this massive defeat for his party, Macron called a snap legislative election. The exact reasoning behind this is unclear. Some believe that Macron was hoping that his party would stage an upset and win, while others say that he was simply “ripping the band-aid.”
Far-right and right-wing parties had been emerging all across Europe in the past decade primarily on the topic of immigration, such as the AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain, Reform in the UK, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden, and FdL in Italy; France, having seen a large amount of immigration, was also part of this wider European trend. RN, when it was led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, was a very extreme force in French politics, largely unsuccessful and only winning around 10% of the vote since the mid-1980s and on, though they only won 1 or 2 seats from 1988 to 2012. Le Pen did come second in the 2002 Presidential Election, but he only won 17% of the vote. In 2011, his daughter, Marine Le Pen, took over the party, and the party underwent a rebranding to make itself more appealing to the electorate. She came third in the 2012 Presidential Election, and in the 2017 election, running primarily on an anti-immigration platform, she proceeded to the second round where she was defeated by Macron⁶. This was still a big success for the RN, which had never been able to get so many votes before, and the party continued to grow after that, as anti-immigration sentiment surged nation-wide. The party won 89 seats in the 2022 legislative elections, and Le Pen won 41% of the vote in the second round of the Presidential Election that year. As Macron’s popularity declined further, RN has used the anti-immigrant populist attitude to take away support from both the centre and the left as was seen in the EU Parliament election.
As soon as the snap elections were called, the left-wing parties desperately began to reorganise in order to prevent a total RN victory. It was clear that without a coherent alternative on the left, dissatisfied Macron voters would flock to the RN. The mainstream left-wing party in the country, the Socialist Party, had been destroyed in the 2017 election⁷, and since then the left had been thoroughly disorganised and politically powerless. In 2022, under the leadership of firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, most of the parties on the left united under an alliance called NUPES, which brought them big gains in the legislative elections. This time as well, they thought it best to form an electoral alliance a few days after the election was called: the New Popular Front (NFP), mostly composed of Melenchon’s LFI party, the Socialist Party, the Green Party, the Communist Party and smaller allies. Even so, this alliance did not attract much attention, as everyone believed that the RN was on course for a big victory.
What happened in the election?
Elections in France occur in a two-round process. In a constituency, if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, then the top two candidates progress to a second round, where only they face off against each other. If a third candidate receives votes from more than 12.5% of all registered voters in that constituency, then they also go on to the second round. The first round of the elections to the National Assembly took place on 30th June, with the second round taking place on 7th July. In the first round⁸, the RN took the most seats, with the LFI coming second, and Renaissance coming third. The RN got 33% of the vote, though the vast majority of seats went to the second round, as no candidate won a majority in those constituencies. A record number of seats had three candidates going to the second round. There was considerable panic among the centre and left regarding an RN majority in the National Assembly, which would make it France’s first far-right government since the Second World War. To avoid this, the NFP and Renaissance decided to work together; in all the constituencies with three candidates, whichever alliance’s candidate was ranked lower would drop out and rally their supporters to vote for the other, in order to defeat the RN.
This tactic of voting succeeded in the second round⁹ as despite the RN winning a plurality of the vote, the NFP came first in overall number of seats, winning 180 out of 577 seats, and Renaissance and its allies came second with 159 seats. RN and its allies came third with 142 seats, and Les Republicains came fourth with 39 seats. This was perceived as a big defeat for the RN, who had been expected to win close to a majority, but now France is set for a hung parliament with no clarity about who will be the next Prime Minister. The NFP has no singular leader as it is an alliance of perceived equals. Of course, Jean-Luc Melenchon is the most popular left-wing leader, but there is no surety if he will be the next Prime Minister.
To avoid a right-wing administration, the next leadership would either have to be a minority government or a coalition between the NFP and Renaissance and its allies. The question is which camp the Prime Minister would be from. If the PM is from the NFP, it would be putting the government in a situation called ‘cohabitation,’ where the President and Prime Minister are from different parties. In this situation, Macron will be significantly weakened, and while he will still have a stronghold over foreign policy, his powers will be shaky on the domestic front. Some analysts have theorised that this is what Macron truly desired: to force the RN into cohabitation, which would result in their inability to implement most of their policies. This would neutralise their popularity in time for the 2027 election when Macron’s successor will be determined. Of course, the RN didn’t win, and it is possible that the PM would be from Renaissance itself. This would be determined in the next few weeks, as negotiations drag on.
How does this affect India?
For India, France has been a very reliable trade partner.¹⁰ The two countries have a Strategic Partnership and engage in bilateral cooperation in defence and security, civilian nuclear power and space. PM Modi has had a good relationship with Macron, with the latter being the chief guest of India’s Republic Day parade in 2024. With foreign policy under Macron’s control, this result is likely to not affect relations very much, and immigration of Indians to France, especially students, is likely to remain unaffected under a non-right-wing government.
Even in the event that Marine Le Pen wins the presidential election of 2027, India is unlikely to be significantly impacted as there is cross-party consensus about having good relations with India. The RN sees India as a reliable ally against Islamic terrorism in places such as Pakistan and the Middle East, as both the RN and BJP are largely populist and anti-Islam.
References
Bilateral Brief - Embassy of India, Paris
Macron's snap election move is a very courageous decision ignoring the fact if it is sensible or not. It will be great to see how the French political field is changing in response to this strategic play in the coming days. The non acceptance of the far-right brings an element of mystery to the elections. Excited to see how this unfolds.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of quote when France sneezes whole Europe catches cold, excited to see will there be other far-right parties coming to power as well in Europe or not.
ReplyDelete