In Sunday’s French parliamentary election, voters delivered a serious shake-up of the status quo, meaning France no longer has a strong center, but a politics increasingly dominated by extremists.
The election saw the highest turnout since 1981, as well as a sharp rebuke to the far-right National Assembly (RN) which topped the first round of the contest and saw a landslide victory in June’s European Parliament elections. However, President Emmanuel Macron and his center-right Renaissance Party allied with a brand new left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), in an electoral strategy that prevented the RN from taking power.
The victory of the resurgent left reflects a new, highly polarized political reality for France.
Although Macron’s moderates won second place behind the NFP, it will not be able to form a government without appealing to the left. And it won’t be easy; Some members of the NFP have publicly refused to go into coalition with Macron’s party.
Macron dissolved France’s National Assembly last month after the RN defeated his party in European Parliament elections. Macron’s technocratic, neoliberal policies have been deeply unpopular in France; Renaissance came in third after a new coalition of the RN and France’s left during the first round of elections on June 30.
While this may be enough to shift away from real power, that does not mean that the new coalition will be easy to manage. Just a few months ago, the Greens, Socialists, Communists and France Unbod, led by fiery and controversial politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, were deeply divided over personal and ideological differences. But “historically, when the threat comes from the extreme right, the left has always come together,” said Rémy Lefebvre, a political scientist at the University of Lille. The New York Times.
Although the party has agreed on a platform, there are still serious questions about leadership and whether the coalition can govern beyond the immediate threat of the RN. That’s without factoring in Macron and his party, which, since Macron has vowed not to resign, will likely have what’s called a coalition with the left to govern.
The coming weeks will see France struggle to form a viable government, but this election has made one thing abundantly clear: the far right and left are dominating French politics, not Macron’s centrism.
Left, right, and vanishing center
As part of Renaissance’s electoral partnership with the New Popular Front, both parties pulled candidates from Sunday’s race, making the choice clear: it’s the RN versus everyone else.
It was a strategy that reflected France’s decades-long social contract, called the Cordon Sanitaire, which effectively prevented the far right from gaining power after the brutal rule of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy government during World War II.
And Sunday’s results showed it was ultimately successful. The mere fact that it was necessary, however — and that Macron now likely relies on the left to be able to govern — sends a strong signal of where French politics is now.
“Macron succeeded in building that centrist party,” Patrick Chamorrel, a senior resident scholar at the Stanford Center in Washington, told Vox. “But there is no alternative because all alternatives are either right or left, he has destroyed the right and left moderates. And now he is breaking his own team. So there is nothing left but extremism.”
Although the RN has existed for decades, first as the National Front under Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party was never more than marginal until 2012, when Le Pen’s daughter Marine ran for president for the first time as party leader. As the RN gradually gained legitimacy and popularity in French politics, Marine Le Pen won a larger share of the vote in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections – which Macron won.
Part of Le Pen’s strategy involves making the RN’s most damaging and hateful ideologies, particularly about immigration and anti-Semitism, more palatable. He kicked his father out of the party in 2015 after he repeated comments that belittled the Holocaust and tried to reverse his father’s policies on preserving social services for French citizens. which is reflected in public opinion; Increased support for RNs Since 2017 in almost all municipalities in France.
Still, the RN pushed a platform centered on restricting social services to non-citizens. “They want to deprive people who don’t have French citizenship or who are illegal immigrants, for example, of any health coverage,” Sandrine Cote, a professor of modern European history at the University of Geneva, told Vox. “It’s very clear, it’s not even hidden—it’s very clear what they want, what they want out [migrant workers from] Social apartments, social housing, and more,” on the basis that they are taking away social services from people born in France.
When it comes to the right, French politics follows a general trend in Europe. Right-wing parties have been building to this point over the past 15 years: Right-wing parties have steadily gained influence in Europe since the launch of the far-right German party Alternative for Deutschland in 2013, and two right-wing blocs — Identity and Democracy (ID) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) ) – now holds 131 of the 720 seats in the European Parliament, an increase of 15 seats from the last election.
However, the threat of an RN government reinvigorated the left founders. Mélenchon, for example, came a very close third behind Le Pen in the 2022 election, and in 2022 a coalition of the main left-wing parties provided a strong counter to Macron in the National Assembly.
Now, the public has put the left in power but has no mandate — and that calls into question whether any governance can happen with this upcoming National Assembly.
What is happening now?
Left-wing coalition Platform included Lowering the retirement age to 60, raising the minimum wage, and freezing the prices of basic goods to address the cost-of-living crisis that has gripped much of Europe in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. It has promised to make the asylum process easier – a direct counter to the RN, which demonizes migrants and promises to reduce immigration – as well as recognize a Palestinian state and push for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Despite being the strongest single bloc after Sunday’s vote, the New Popular Front will not necessarily be able to advance its ambitious agenda for the next three years. Instead, there will likely be piecemeal reforms, with left-wing coalitions relying on coalitions with other parties to legislate.
Macron’s term runs until 2027 and he has insisted he is not stepping down as president. His prime minister-elect, Gabriel Attal, tendered his resignation on Monday, as his party lacked a parliamentary majority. Macron asked him to stay in his post “for the moment to ensure the stability of the country”.
There are a few options going forward. Macron The Prime Minister can be from the Left – a “intercourse“In French political parlance. Who will be prime minister is an open question since the New Popular Front has no official leader. Immediately, the goal is to form a government, which would likely require a coalition between the New Popular Front and another faction, potentially with Macron’s centrists. , which came in second place (although some like Mélenchon have denied that possibility ) NFP politicians have said they will put forward a prime ministerial candidate within a week.
“We are going to have a situation we have never known before, in the absence of a stable, coherent, homogenous majority, very different from the previous three cohabitations. And in this political situation there is no natural alternative for the Prime Minister. Didier’s MouseConstitutional law expert Dr AFP.
Macron’s center-right, neoliberal politics have never quite fit in with French political tradition — last year saw some protests against raising the retirement age as many French people resented the idea that their right to stop work in the interest of productivity would be infringed upon.
All this puts France in an unusual position. Macron’s Renaissance Party appears to be at an end, and there are no other viable centrist parties; There’s the RN, and there’s the Left Alliance, which is still shaky, though its dominant coalition is ahead of the election.
This could create more unrest on the streets and raise questions about what will happen in the next presidential election. New, energized leadership could emerge from the French left, or the coalition could collapse. It’s unclear what the future holds for centrists like Macron, and even though the RN lost soundly this time, it’s not going anywhere.
