Political fever is running high as the first round of the early parliamentary elections called by Emmanuel Macron following his party’s defeat in the European elections draws inexorably closer. While the polls continue to show the Rassemblement National (RN) and its allies in the lead with over 30% of the vote, the scenarios for the composition of the future assembly remain highly uncertain. Faced with the prospect of a victory for the national Right, the presidential camp and the Left are anxiously waving the red rag of civil war—without, however, succeeding in reversing the trend.
The polls come fast and furious, but they point in the same direction: they all place the RN and its allies forming a union of the Right at the top of the poll—fluctuating between 33% and 37% for the most optimistic polls for the ‘nationalist camp.’ In second place, the New Popular Front, bringing together all the left-wing parties, stands at around 30%.
But these estimates remain very incomplete. This is not a national election, but the election of 577 deputies by their constituencies, which obey local logic that may differ from one place to another—be they constituencies in large urban centres or in ‘peripheral’ rural France.
It is therefore important to compare the percentage estimates with the projections in terms of seats in the future National Assembly. Things then become much more complicated. The prediction is that the RN will dominate, with between 210 and 250 seats, but probably without reaching an absolute majority of 289 seats. The Left is just behind, with an estimated range of between 180 and 210 seats. The possibility of a victory for the Left is therefore not to be underestimated. The only certainty is the collapse of the presidential camp.
Debates on the different political programmes do not appear to have any major impact on the trends in the forthcoming vote. The RN has been dented by a controversy over dual nationals: the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella has been widely criticised for voicing opposition against people with dual citizenship being able to work as civil servants in ‘sensitive’ jobs (e.g., defence and intelligence). The Left took great pleasure in exploiting the controversy to castigate the alleged xenophobia of the RN, which—the Left claimed—would be ready to unleash a reign of terror.
The televised debate on Tuesday, June 25th, which pitted Prime Minister Gabriel Attal against Jordan Bardella for the RN and Manuel Bompard of La France Insoumise for the New Popular Front, did not really excite the crowds or change the balance of opinion—with the press content to hand out good and bad points with no real grip on public opinion.
Under these conditions, the shape of the National Assembly after July 7th is likely to resemble a configuration with which the French are all too familiar: that of the Fourth Republic, in the years following the Second World War and before General de Gaulle came to power in 1958. At that time, politics was dominated by a paralysing tripartism, with three opposing blocs, none of which managed to impose itself politically, condemning successive governments to inaction and discredit.
Faced with this more than uncertain picture, an alternative scenario has been gaining ground in the French press over the past few days: the possibility of the formation of a ‘technocratic government,’ made up of consensus-driven—i.e., inconsistent—figures and senior civil servants responsible for expediting current affairs without committing themselves to divisive issues. The aim would be to appoint people who would above all “embody nothing,” as constitutional law specialist Benjamin Morel explained to Le Figaro. This minimum service government—neutral, odourless, and tasteless—would have all the appearances of a centre-left ‘grand coalition’, which would bring together the debris of the Macronist presidential majority, the remnants of the Les Républicains party who refused the alliance with the RN, and the left-wing parties anxious to distinguish themselves from the outrages of the far left and sceptical about the New Popular Front—mainly socialists and ecologists. This would ensure that there is no serious political break with the Macron government, which has clearly been disowned and discredited in the eyes of the majority of French people.
What if the elections on June 30th turn out to be the revenge of soft centrism? Unfortunately, this prospect cannot be ruled out, and Emmanuel Macron has on several occasions demonstrated his ability to bounce back to retain power at all costs—even at the cost of France’s collapse. Communications from the Élysée Palace polishes its discourse to prepare the ground: keeping Emmanuel Macron’s party-dominated coalition in power would be the only guarantee against plunging the country into chaos, they claim. The president keeps talking about the risk of ‘civil war’ if the RN or the New Popular Front were to win.
This strategy is nothing new: it was the one deployed by Emmanuel Macron throughout the Yellow Vests crisis. It enabled him to weather the storm and stay in place during a particularly troubled period. Marine Le Pen, an incumbent candidate for leadership of the RN deputies, laughed at this speech. “Macron explained that it was either him or chaos. In fact, the chaos is him,” she quipped, with that sense of wit that has made the Le Pen family so successful in politics.
The Macronist argument seems outrageous, but it can work. The prospect of an uprising in the suburbs, if the RN wins, is taken seriously by many French people who dare not admit that they have already sold their souls and given up the fight. On the other hand, there is a whole fringe of French people who are—quite rightly—petrified at the idea of the far left coming to power with one of the craziest policy programmes ever put forward in France, both economically and socially. Restoring confidence in the presidential majority seems to them a lesser evil if they are not yet ready to slip an RN ballot paper into the ballot box.
For several days now, the number of proxy votes registered for the elections has been exploding. The turnout for the legislative elections looks set to be exceptionally good—on a par with 1993, when the Right returned to power in a cohabitation with the Socialist President Mitterrand—just as the French are getting ready to leave home for their holidays. What does this massive influx of proxies mean? It remains difficult to interpret. It can, of course, be understood as a rallying of the French against Emmanuel Macron, but it could very well benefit the far Left, which is able to mobilise its networks against the danger of the far Right.
In such conditions, civil war, indeed, is not a prospect to be ruled out.
