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Chaos in French Politics
After a heavy defeat in the European elections, French President Emmanuel Macron has used his constitutional power to dissolve the French National Assembly and call a snap election.
The significance of this move cannot be overstated. Dissoudre is not something you do lightly, it's a very risky move that can easily have unforeseen consequences.
The last invocation of that power in 1997 by Jacques Chirac had devastating effects. Chirac, who was President alongside a right wing majority that he couldn't properly control sought to get a more presidential majority and in the end the left wing formed the Gauche Plurielle coalition led by Lionel Jospin, won a majority in the election and got Jospin appointed Prime Minister.
Many are speculating about Macron's motives. Not least because he has a reputation as a schemer.
Some see it as a trap laid for whoever wins the necessarily narrow majority. Historically Jospin's own cohabitation government would end up being so unpopular that he wouldn't make it to the second round of the presidential election following his tenure and would retire for public life altogether. Macron has had to rule with a very narrow majority since his own election and he may be ceding power to the left or right blocks which he knows are disunited to lay the groundwork for the next presidential elections.
Others even speculate this may be part of a complex scheme to allow him a third term beyond the two consecutive ones allowed by the constitution, as he would resign and then come back.
Whatever his motives were, he has succeeded in plunging the entire spectrum of French politics into unmitigated chaos. The elections are on the 30th of June and everyone is scrambling to ally and/or betray each other in most dramatic (and French) a fashion.
The Rassemblement National at the gates of power
The clear winner of French seats these European elections, Marine Le Pen's RN has never been so close to power.
This is the culmination of a decade of "dédiabolisation": efforts by her and her party to to become more respectable and erase the stigma of her infamous father and his ex-SS friends.
The broad appeal of the RN has surprised many. It is no longer a reactionary old man's party but has voters in pretty much all social stratas of French society. Young and old, poor and rich, everywhere the RN is now a force to be reckoned with.
The reasons are only now being admitted by French intellectuals who refused to see them for years and recently were even acknowledged by Macron himself: a broad rejection of France's policy on public safety and immigration.
This broad appeal is perhaps best represented by the RN's current party leader and would-be Prime Minister, Jordan Bardella. A 28 years old of Italian, French and Algerian ancestry who used to be a Call of Duty youtuber.
Despite this growing popularity, the RN has never led a French government and is still the would be target of the barrage républicain, the informal alliance of every other party against them on antifascist grounds. Though as we will see, this is now cracking.
The RN is in a sense the board onto which this whole election is played, and all stratagems relate in some way to its growing popularity.
Civil war among Les Républicains
LR is the established center right party, the party of Sarkozy and Chirac.
The party has waned in popularity under Macron but its position at the gates of the right and established apparatus has maintained its importance in French politics. LR parliament members have been the kingmakers as of late since Macron's party couldn't get a clear majority.
However the party's historical roots as a big tent for the right have posed a problem. Within it are now two coalitions, one of center right liberals sympathetic to Macron and another of conservative nationalists sympathetic to the RN.
Party leader Eric Ciotti is squarely on the conservative side which is more popular with the base, while his lieutenants are on the liberal side. A high-low vs middle configuration if you will.
As a result of the dissolution, Ciotti announced an alliance with the RN. This immediately lit the fires of rebellion.
His lieutenants unanimously moved to remove him from the party over this. However he ignored the decision, saying it was illegal and barricaded himself at the seat of the party.
This led to a number of dramatic scenes, including Ciotti talking down to journalists from the window of his office, as if on the battlements of a castle, as well as various party officials saying they were going to remove him by force, or call emergency services to remove him as he had lost his mind. French twitter went ablaze with memes comparing him to Tony Montana and his last stand.
Eventually the party officials found a key to the seat, opened the door and held an exceptional session of the political bureau to remove him with the forms. However Ciotti kept ignoring them and contested the decision before a judge.
His legal arguments were just recently vindicated and his exclusion stayed. Whatever this means for the future of the party or that of their alliance with the RN, nobody really knows.
The implosion of Reconquête!
R! is the party formed by right wing intellectual Eric Zemmour as part of his presidential bid. More radical than the RN on immigration but more liberal on economic questions, it was joined by Marion Maréchal, the niece of Marine Le Pen.
Maréchal and Zemmour share very similar politics, but a very different disposition towards the RN. And have led a bifurcated campaign during these European elections.
Zemmour antagonized the RN quite a bit, and Marine Le Pen in particular as being ineffectual, weak and ultimately left wing, whilst Marion Maréchal held to a more conciliatory stance seeking the union of the right.
This came to a head right after the dissolution, when in a party address, Maréchal, with Zemmour right behind her, announced apparently without his knowledge or consent that she was in talks for an alliance with the RN. To the applause of everyone but him.
They then proceeded to accuse each other of duplicity and treason on various media interviews. Zemmour excluded her from the party and she is now calling for people to vote for the Le Pen-Ciotti coalition.
The rise of the Nouveau Front Populaire
Before dissolution, the French left wing had been at its most fragmented for years. The Gaza war had finished to highlight the division between Jean-Luc Mélenchon's LFI and less radical parts of the left.
Mélenchon's conciliatory stances towards Palestinians and Islam in general may have played a big part in the surprise rejuvenation of the Parti Socialiste under Raphaël Glucksmann. The center left party which used to be the big tent for the left was left completely destroyed by Macron's first election and has only recently recovered the ability to contend with LFI for the leading spot on the left.
LFI had recently managed to put together an uneasy coalition with the left and the greens under the name of NUPES, but it was functionally defunct by the time of the European election.
Nevertheless, dissolution and the possibility of RN government turned every left wing mouth in the country to one word: union.
The same people who were at each other throats over Gaza quickly signed an unanimous pledge to unite under the name of the Front Populaire the famous antifascist 1936 left wing coalition of Leon Blum that instituted paid leave, the 40h work week and led France into its WW2 capitulation.
This new popular front has made a large contrast with the disunity of the right, however it seems on the left the knives still do come out, if after declarations of unity.
Mélenchon himself has not wasted time to attempt to seize control of the alliance. He has already declared himself the putative candidate for prime minister and his party cronies have started unilaterally nominating candidates.
As part of this, Adrien Quatennens, a high ranking LFI MP, who in 2022 had been convicted of domestic violence, pretty brazenly called for feminists to support him after being nominated for his own seat. To massive backlash.
The alliance also nominated François Ruffin (a documentarian and MP very popular on the left) for his own office seemingly without telling him. This angered him so much that he started attacking them and listing all the ongoing controversies with respect to the nominations.
This includes Quatennens' case but also the ongoing purges that Mélenchon has been doing, removing potential seats from anybody who ever criticized him. Committing the crime of "lèse-Mélenchon" as one of the purge victims put it.
The center left is no less divided in this unity. Many see Glucksmann's timidity towards LFI as weakness given he held a larger share of the vote in the European elections, and some, including two former prime ministers have denounced the alliance's inclusion of parties that supported Hamas, including the NPA, a small trotskyist party which is currently under investigation for making the apology of terrorism (which is illegal in France).
The mess in the background
All this political chaos has conspicuously overshadowed what are usually major events in French life: the football Euro and the coming Jeux Olympiques. Whoever wins this election will have to preside over the JO and the already expected chaos of them is to be compounded by the disorganization of a new administration.
Meanwhile and ever since the results of the European election, there has been a constant movement of riots and both declared and undeclared demonstrations against the popularity of the RN. Police officials have opined that with how occupied and exhausted they are with the JO they wouldn't be able to handle widespread riots that are sure to come with a potential RN win.
Overall France is at its most disorganized it has been in years. Even the election itself, the cause of all this ruckus may be difficult to make happen in the given timeline. There are concerns that there physically isn't enough paper to print all the ballots in time and many jurists have deposed motions before the Conseil Constitutionnel to stay Macron's move or delay the election, though the timeline is on the face of it within the bounds described by the constitution.
Shameless plug for something I run but https://shuffle.com/sports/novelties/politics/france/french2024 we were first up with markets and been surprisingly heavy betting on it. Super heavy RN action. No US/UK/AUS.
What are the odds for Rassemblement National to win a majority in the National Assembly?
I think the polls suggest they’ll probably get 20-60 seats short of an outright majority.
Which, of course, means they have no power at all. In fact, the more seats they get (short of an absolute majority), the more power the far left has. Unless Ciotti wins his fight, but I suspect what will happen is the wrangling will go on until Ciotti loses.
Ah, but you forget yourself. Even if they win a majority, there's always the bureaucracy of the deep state, the judiciary, the media and the academy ready to block any meaningful changes.
This, but unironically.
France isn't Germany or the USA; the law of the sword is a lot closer to the surface there - remember, they've had a constitution fail and get replaced within living memory, and French history for the last few centuries is mostly just one bloodbath after another (this is the French Fifth Republic).
Defying the mob there is not a safe proposition.
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