The candidates for the second round of the French parliamentary elections are now in battle order. After the Rassemblement National (RN) came out on top on June 9th and 30th, the “republican front” was reconstituted with formidable efficiency in order to limit the election of deputies from the national Right to a minimum. The alliance between the Left and the Centre is consolidated without the slightest hesitation. As a result, after two successive elections in which a party that responds to a need for greater identity and security came out on top, France is in danger of ending up with a left-wing government. In the secrecy of the polling booth, will voters once again allow political correctness to dictate their future?
On the evening of Tuesday, July 2nd, nominations closed for the second round of legislative elections, to be held on Sunday, July 7th. Intense negotiations took place in the space of just two days, with the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) and the Macronist centre having one obsession: to prevent the RN from obtaining an absolute majority at all costs, which is still within the realms of possibility according to some polling institutes responsible for projecting the number of seats in the future National Assembly.
The stakes were as follows: in just over three hundred constituencies (out of 577), triangular scenarios were looming, i.e., the arrival in the second round of three candidates, generally the RN (most often in the lead), followed by the NPF and Ensemble, Emmanuel Macron’s party. This configuration is known to favour the leading party, in this case, the RN. The Centre and the Left have therefore worked intensely to unite and withdraw one candidate in the hope of concentrating their votes and beating the RN. This is no more and no less than the umpteenth repetition of the ‘republican front,’ motivated by pseudo-moral considerations, which has prevented the national Right from coming to power for several decades.
At the end of the negotiations, no fewer than 220 withdrawals were recorded—including 127 NPF candidates who withdrew in favour of Macron and 81 withdrawals by Macronists in favour of the left-wing coalition. It is clear that the ‘republican front’ still has a long way to go and has found new ways of parading itself before the French people. Some of the calls to beat the RN have been much talked about, such as that of Xavier Bertrand, a candidate in the Les Républicains party’s primary for the 2022 presidential election, who in his constituency prefers to give his vote to a communist rather than the RN.
Without an absolute majority, the RN president, Jordan Bardella, has made it known that he will refuse to become prime minister. In the spheres of power, discussions are well underway as to how to go about governing without the RN. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has put forward the concept of a “plural majority” to extol the merits of a grand coalition-type team whose aim would be to stubbornly pursue the very policies that are being rejected out of hand by a growing number of French people. The outgoing President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, has no hesitation in referring to a “grand coalition ranging from the LR to the ecologists and the communists.” The Left, meanwhile, hopes to be able to take the lead and build a coalition around its own programme: “La France Insoumise will only govern to apply its programme, nothing but the programme, but the whole programme,” hammered La France Insoumise coordinator Manuel Bompard on BFMTV on Tuesday, ruling out participation in a grand coalition given the obvious lack of legitimacy suffered by Emmanuel Macron and his camp.
While it is true that 2/3 of the French people did not vote for the RN, it is also true that 3/4 did not vote for the NFP and 80% did not vote for Emmanuel Macron’s party. Under these conditions, the problem of the legitimacy of the government that will take over the reins of the country from July 8th will arise with intensity. The situation that has arisen as a result of this total lockout of the elections is particularly serious and has not escaped the notice of the wisest observers. Whatever solution is chosen, it is quite clear that there is an ideological collusion between the left and the centre, reflected in the desire to leave France in the rut of immigration, insecurity, and loss of self-confidence. The left and the centre redouble their media efforts to try and distinguish themselves, but in essence, they defend the same line and the same principles.
As the journalist Ruth Elkrief, who was not very kind to the RN in the past, explained, “Proposing a left-wing prime minister to French people who, twice in less than a month, are saying that they want less immigration, more security and more authority, is a provocation!” Dominique Reynié, a political science researcher, comes to the same conclusion: “Rather than solving the problems, as the RN voters want, we are setting up a system involving all the forces that have run the country to block the political consequences of these unresolved problems,” he explained on the LCI channel.
It now remains to be seen what, in the medium term, will be best for France, which is suffering from its procrastination and is being consumed by a slow burn. The answer to this question is not unequivocal. There is another possible scenario.
Marine Le Pen has raised the possibility of a compromise if a relative majority of 270 deputies is obtained by her camp—which would then have to be supplemented with representatives from other sides to pass the 289-elected mark: a situation that is, all things considered, more favourable than that of Emmanuel Macron in the previous legislature, whose party could count on just 250 deputies. But the RN’s constrained exercise of power with a small majority would be a perilous exercise. At the very least, in the short term, certain essential reforms, such as the abolition of the right to legal residence and the privatisation of public broadcasting, would finally be put on track. In the medium term, no party at the head of a cohabitation government has ever been in a position to win the next presidential election. Emmanuel Macron knows this and has certainly banked on it. The RN could lose its political credibility in a truncated experience.
On the other hand, the arrival in power on July 8th of a left-wing unity government would be an immediate disaster, as there would be no new direction given to the country by those who have been running it for decades without being able to tackle the ills that are undermining it. But this situation could only increase the desire of right-wing voters, cheated once again by the republican front and disappointed in their expectations, to take their revenge in 2027, and this time for good.
