Populism Remakes France's "Ungovernable" Assembly. NewsWire

NewsWire: 6/30/22

• French president Emmanuel Macron lost his legislative majority thanks to major gains on the far right and far left. As a result, his ability to execute his centrist agenda has been thrown into doubt. (Politico)
• NH: Last Sunday, for the first time since 1988, the French president failed to win an absolute majority in Parliament. Emmanuel Macron’s party and its allies won 245 out of 577 total seats (42%). In comparison, when Macron was first elected in 2017, his coalition won 350 seats. The result seriously weakens his political power and will likely result in legislative paralysis.
• French newspapers characterized the result as an “earthquake” and a “slap in the face” that leaves the country “ungovernable.” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called it a “democratic shock.” But we saw this coming. (See “France Re-Elects Macron: What It Means for Europe (Part 1).”)
• As we predicted, Macron was stymied by huge gains on the far left and far right. Led by La France Insoumise’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the left-wing coalition NUPES, which is composed of the far-left LFI and Communists and the mainstream left Greens and Socialists, won 131 seats (23%). Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally won 89 seats, making it the largest single opposition party (15%). Five years ago, it won just 8 seats. Their gains set an all-time record for the National Rally.

• When it comes to legislative priorities, NUPES and National Rally have little in common. They don’t have any interest in working together. Even NUPES itself has fractured post-election, with the other parties rejecting Mélenchon’s call to form a permanent left-wing alliance. Nevertheless, both Mélenchon and Le Pen crowed that they had successfully achieved their one shared goal: blocking Macron’s agenda.
• What are Macron’s options now? His best hopes of passing legislation are in forming a new coalition that gives him a majority. The most obvious potential ally would be the mainstream conservative party Les Républicains, whose coalition won 61 seats (10.5%). Macron already named a center-right politician, Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister in May. But last week, LR party leaders said they don't want to form an alliance. This means that Macron will have to work with them on a bill-by-bill basis. LR is in a great position to ask for all the concessions they want.
• Macron could also try courting the left. But the mainstream left parties in NUPES are much weaker than LFI, who won by far the largest share of NUPES’s seats (72 out of 131). And Mélenchon couldn’t be less interested in working with Macron.
• If there’s one takeaway here, it’s that the rise in populism in France continues apace. The mainstream LR and Socialist parties, which as recently as 2012 won the presidency and dominated the legislature, have been reduced to a grand total of 81 MPs--a mere 14% of seats in the National Assembly.
• Meanwhile, voter apathy keeps climbing: The legislative elections were notable for their exceptionally low turnout, with more than half of voters staying home in both rounds. Turnout was also low in the presidential election. But there, at least, many voters on the left came to the polls, held their noses, and voted in the second round for Macron just to keep Le Pen from winning. But now that Le Pen has been thwarted, even many of these voters would just as soon stay home.