LEFT: Prime Minister Theresa May welcomes France President Emmanuel Macron to the UK-France Summit, at Sandhurst. January 18, 2018. Photo courtesy of Number 10. RIGHT: Reception from Santiago Abascal to Marine Le Pen at the Madrid Summit 01.28.2022 Photo Vox Espana.
No one can predict what France’s government will look like after the country’s pending election. With National Rally surging and the New Popular Front amassing support on the left, France’s traditional parties are being swamped by insurgents, and French President Emmanuel Macron could be a man without a political home, assuming his Ensemble coalition will go down in defeat. Michel Gurfinkiel explains the situation at The New York Sun:
A populist France — a country dominated by anti-Establishment parties — is likely to emerge from the coming general election, on June 30 and July 7. According to the latest polls, National Rally, the right-wing populist party led by Marine Le Pen as presidential candidate and Jordan Bardella as chairman, may garner 35 percent or 36 percent of the vote nation-wide in the first round and win 200 to 240 seats out of 577 at the National Assembly on the second round. The left-wing New Popular Front led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon may get 29 percent or 30 percent of the vote this coming Sunday, and end up with 180 to 210 seats.
A hypothetical populist coalition between the National Rally and the New Popular Front would thus total about 65 percent of the vote and 380 to 350 seats — way beyond an absolute majority of 289 seats. Whereas Ensemble, President Macron’s centrist coalition, would fall to 21 percent of the vote and 80 to 110 seats, from 250 seats in the outgoing National Assembly.
Admittedly, the “great populist RN-NFP coalition” cannot and will not materialize, even if there are some intriguing similarities on some issues between RN and NFP. The bottom line is immigration. The National Rally’s driving force is a nativist reaction against Islamic mass immigration from Africa and the Near East, and its implications. On the contrary, Mr. Mélenchon’s Rebel France party, the backbone of the New Popular Front, has basically transmogrified into an Islamist immigrant party.
Will Monsieur Macron, who wields considerable powers under the 1958 Gaullist constitution, be able to set up a viable cabinet even without a majority in Parliament? Technically, yes. He may pick up a prime minister outside the National Assembly and set up a technocratic cabinet of sorts that would rule the country by executive orders for one full year, until being allowed to call a further snap election.
He may also set up a coalition with at least part of the right or part of the left, depending on the outcome on June 7. As the iconic socialist president from 1981 to 1995, François Mitterrand, used to say: “First you win (or lose) elections. Then you see what can be done out of your victory (or your defeat).”
A left-leaning coalition that may include New Popular Front legislators wary of Mr. Mélenchon’s extremism and authoritarianism, seems more likely. Labor chief, Laurent Berger, the chairman of France’s comparatively moderate Democratic Confederation of Labour, might be a suitable prime minister — but he does not seem to be interested so far. Another option would be the former socialist president, François Hollande — Mr. Macron’s predecessor — who to everyone’s surprise is running for a National Assembly seat in his one-time constituency in South-West France.
Mr. Macron’s major drawback (and the key for his party’s precipitous fall) is his unpopularity. The country seems to have developed an intense personal aversion for him. In one telling incident a few days ago, a senior citizen on the campaign trail told the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, “You are OK. But we are fed up with your boss.”
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