As if the summer wasn’t already shaping up to be quite sporty in France, Emmanuel Macron decided to add more by leading his country into a surprise election on the eve of the Paris Olympic Games.
Posted at 2:29 a.m.
Updated at 5:00 a.m.
“Wow, he has a taste for risk!” “, was the reaction of Frédéric Mérand, professor of political science at the University of Montreal, when we learned in the middle of a conversation about the European elections that the French president had just announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and the holding of legislative elections on June 30 and July 7.
He did it with his usual showmanship. By addressing his fellow citizens and calling on them to curb the rise of “nationalists” and “demagogues”, a “danger for our nation and for our Europe”.
His speech took place just a few minutes after it became clear that the National Rally (RN), led by its historic leader, Marine Le Pen, and the current president of the party, Jordan Bardella, 28 years old, emerged as the big winner in the European elections in France.
We are not talking here about progress, as was the case for several parties of the radical right or identity movement across Europe on Sunday, but rather about a resounding victory.
According to the latest estimates, the RN obtained 31.5% of the votes, twice as much as Renaissance, the list linked to President Macron. To the triumph of the National Rally, we must add more than 5% of the votes collected by Reconquête, the formation of Éric Zemmour, the former journalist and polemicist who also belongs to the radical right movement. We are therefore close to the two voters in five who cast their vote to the right of the right.
Why did Emmanuel Macron dissolve the National Assembly? This is the multi-billion euro question.
Theories abound.
Because he believes that the European vote is a protest vote, but that when called upon to express themselves in a national election, the French will be less inclined to support the extremes, says Frédéric Mérand, expert in European politics. Moreover, this is what the French president suggested in his speech, affirming that his decision is a “gesture of confidence” towards the French electorate “who, faced with the harshness of times, has always been able to resist in order to draw the future rather than giving in to demagogies.”
The second hypothesis is more mathematical. The two-round voting method for legislative elections works less well for the National Rally than European proportional elections.
“The third theory is more cynical. This would be that Macron accepts that the RN will win the elections while he is president, but that before the next elections in 2027, the party will show its incompetence. It’s a risky bet,” said Mr. Mérand, adding that the French president has more to lose than to gain in this affair.
At best, he can hope to find the National Assembly in the state it was in at the time of its dissolution. “At worst, he will be the French president who handed over the keys to power to the far right,” believes the political scientist.
It would be a very funny medal to hang around your neck.
Whatever the president’s calculations, we cannot deny that the elections thus triggered are not bad news for democracy. An opportunity to hear what the population has to say and to ensure that their Parliament reflects them. This is the naive version, you might say, of the equation, but it should not be rejected out of hand, especially when a good part of the members of radical right parties think that the political elites ignore them. or, worse, plot against them.
If the European elections tell us one thing, it is that this political force to which we give many names – radical right, far right, identity right – has become essential across Europe. That it is no longer marginal. On Sunday, it was in Austria, Germany, Italy and France that she showed that she has the wind in her sails.
And this vote is no longer carried by the traditional electorate of the extreme right of the last century – poorly educated and rural -, but by a much broader base which transcends generations and which feels challenged by the themes addressed by these parties: immigration, insecurity and the downgrading of the status of the majority within society, whether real or imagined.
However, there is another trend in the European elections that went unnoticed on Sunday after President Macron’s shock announcement. In some countries, where radical right parties have governed or taken part in government, they have experienced setbacks at the polls. This is particularly the case in Poland, Sweden and Hungary.
It’s one thing to be a protest party, it’s another to govern. No one wins the decathlon that is democracy by simply shouting from the stands.
