03/07/2024

First Round: Three lessons without waiting

Next Sunday, July 7, the French will have to confirm - or not - their intention to entrust power to the Rassemblement national (RN), the radical right party heir to the far-right Front national founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972. The main unknown, at this stage, is that of the extent of the victory announced by all the polls. Absolute majority or relative majority? This is not a nuance, it is essential to know whether the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, who would be called upon to become Prime Minister, will be able to implement its program or whether it will have to negotiate the terms with other partners—and which? Over the last few hours, intense negotiations within the three major political blocs have aimed, for some to ensure the consolidation of their positions, for others to do everything--despite solid differences--to reconstitute a "republican front" against the party that came out ahead on 30 June and thus prevent the far right from seizing power. The task is complex as the interests and objectives are contradictory. And so much so that the voters seem determined to turn the table upside down.

This election, wanted by President Emmanuel Macron on the evening of the lost European election on 9 June, is historic in more ways than one. It is already shaking up French political life at least as much as it had been shaken by the election of François Mitterrand in 1981 with the support of the French Communist Party; it can profoundly change the situation of European balances, perhaps as much as Brexit did. As you can see, if this election is historic, it is not unprecedented on the old continent. It is too early to measure its real scope and to assess its consequences but given the exceptional nature of this appointment with the ballot box, it will be debated for years and many lessons will be learned by observers of political life and then by historians. At this stage, I will limit myself to drawing three immediate lessons from the first round alone.

Addressing daily concerns

The first lesson comes from the United Kingdom, where the British are also taking part in early elections this week. Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer declared that "the victory of the radical right gave progressives a lesson: they must respond to people's daily concerns, otherwise they risk being sanctioned like the French government." James Carville, adviser to candidate Bill Clinton in 1992, said it in other words: "It's the economy, stupid!" Even if it must necessarily act according to geopolitics, the priority for a government must remain purchasing power, employment, health and retirement (and, inevitably, security). Involved in Ukraine, committed to the European restructuring, focused on the Paris Olympic Games, brilliant on the international scene, Macron has given - wrongly no doubt - the impression of being disinterested in his most modest compatriots. They have not forgiven him. "It's the economy", then, but in the minds of the population, it is not macroeconomics, it is the economy of purchasing power, difficult ends of the month and inequalities in a deteriorating world.

Revenge of the zombies

Second lesson: Emmanuel Macron came to power in 2017 promising to reinvent the French political model that he considered worn-out. He has built an electoral coalition "neither of the right nor of the left" to seduce voters tired by years of sterile polemics and exhausted by a succession of impecunious governments (from Jacques Chirac to François Hollande via Nicolas Sarkozy). The French tried the experiment but the heterogeneous coalition did not hold. The president did not see it or did not want to see it and did not deem it useful to have a real party, both an electoral machine and a toolbox for reform. Considering that he alone embodied change and had carte blanche to transform the country, his movement became an empty shell and his popular support crumbled. The adventure initiated in 2017 turned out to be a leap into the void: deputies and ministers from civil society, inexperienced in the face of large-scale social movements; an ineffective coalition of personalities from different backgrounds, having in common only the will, no doubt sincere, to carry out reforms that deep down the French did not want; technocratic responses to social or health crises such as COVID... The “neither-right nor-left” reformist did not see the two blocs spontaneously rebuild themselves at their extremes. As in a horror movie, out of the inanimate bodies of the parties of the democratic left and right emerged incensed zombies: the Rassemblement national at the end of the right and La France Insoumise on the far left have been able to capitalize on the lack of definition and empathy of a heterogeneous and artificial center. Worried, voters now say they need clear definitions and directions to deal with the existential fears inspired by a fragmented world undergoing profound change.

The Republic and its safeguards

Finally, the third lesson (to reassure us): the arrival--now possible--of the Rassemblement national in power, just like that of Donald Trump in the United States, would inevitably be a shock, a fortiori in a founding country of the European Union, which is also the second largest economy in Europe (which is itself in the process of rightward shift like Italy, the Netherlands and Germany among others). It would also be a great leap into the unknown with leaders seeming to be motivated essentially by their fear of others, their fear of downgrading and their fear of a threatening world. They are worrysome because they display xenophobic--even openly racist--positions on immigration, they are anti-European and populist by proposing simplistic answers to complex problems. Hence the reflex of the Democrats who, during the very short current campaign, are joining forces not around a common project but to prevent the "far right" from winning. These political maneuvers will not necessarily be understood: many French people have become accustomed to the presence of this party which has gradually "de-demonized" itself and which no longer inspires, rightly or wrongly, the same fears. Moreover, it is obvious, I see it in my village, the voters who voted RN last Sunday are not all, far from it, racist, authoritarian or anti-European. They simply want to be heard and taken into account, no matter what it takes. For many, moreover, who may be said to be playing with fire, only the exercise of power will allow them to judge the reality of the RN's evolution. And many of them, today, are ready to take this risk.

The risk, it is true, is tempered by the presence of checks and balances that are supposed to limit the freedom of action of those in government. First, in the French system, executive power is two-headed, shared between a President of the Republic who "presides" – and who will regain in a year's time the ability to dissolve the National Assembly and call new elections – and a Prime Minister who "governs"; yet the Constitution of the Fifth Republic is quite clear on the responsibilities of each person in this double-key system. Secondly, the National Assembly, which gives legitimacy to the head of government, is not the only chamber that makes up Parliament: the Senate, elected by indirect suffrage by local elected representatives, plays a significant role in the adoption of the law and the two assemblies must negotiate. Finally, a certain number of institutions monitor the constitutionality and legality of government action: the Constitutional Council and the Council of State in particular. In addition to these controls, there are those exercised on the ground by local and regional assemblies, and, from Brussels and Strasbourg, by the institutions of the European Union – which carry considerable weight given the country's commitments. Finally, the trade unions, the parties and the media, together with the other components of civil society, will constitute important safeguards.

France is preparing to take a big step: either it jumps into the unknown or it becomes ungovernable for a time. In any case, it cannot be totally ruled out that the ground is slipping away from under it.

Pierre Henri Guignard: Former France ambassador to Argentina (2016-2019), he has just published a biography: "The last diplomat writer – the life of Pierre-Jean Remy, immortal Excellence" (L'Harmattan).