Macron, the French president who is risking all or nothing by calling early legislative elections, why does he do it?

It is very likely that she – or another candidate from the same sector – will once again gain, as in the 2019 votes, an absolute majority.

This time there will be about 400 deputies out of the 720 total, bringing together the center-right of the European People’s Party (186 seats), the liberal centrists of Renew Europe (79 seats) and the social democrats and moderate socialists of the SD (135 seats).

Although the radical right did not win, it did advance compared to the results of five years ago, by overcoming the barrier of 130 deputies between the identitarians of ID and the conservatives and reformists of ECR, plus a dozen seats of extremists that some describe as neo-fascist, such as the German AfD, which achieved 16% of the votes against 11% in 2019.

In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni He won the elections with his FdI party (Brothers of Italy), which once again prevailed thanks to its strategy of moving away from the radical positions of the extreme right and moderating both its program and its language.

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The extreme right also gained weight in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and some Eastern European countries. But, the loudest victory was obtained in Francewhere Marine Le Pen’s National Regroupment (RN) got 31.3% of the votes for its head of the list, Jordan Bardella, just 28 years old, against just 14.6% for the Macronist coalition, 13.8 % of the socialists led by Raphael Glucksmann and 9% of the populist left of the France Insoumise (LFI) coalition.

President Emmanuel Macron He felt the force of the blow. At nine o’clock on Sunday night, after notifying Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his closest collaborators the decision to dissolve the National Assembly and call early legislative elections almost three yearswent on television and broke the news to the French.

“The rise of nationalists, of demagogues, is a danger for our Nation but also for Europe,” he explained. “That is why I decided to give you the possibility of choosing our parliamentary future, and as of tonight I am consequently dissolving the Assembly…” he said in a speech from the Elysée Palace.

Even among those who were betting on a harsh defeat for Macron – which occurred almost exactly as the polls predicted – few considered it a serious possibility that Macron would dissolve parliament. Le Pen and Bardella, the night’s winners, were surprised by the news, and the RN leader was forced to make last-minute changes to her victory speech.

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For them, this is good news, but not entirely. It is almost certain, as the polls already predict, that the RN will obtain the majority of seats in the new assembly. But It is not certain that there will be an absolute majority, which will allow him to impose a prime minister. And except for the small Reconquista party, led by debater Erick Zémour, which obtained a limited 5% in the European elections, they would not find another safe ally.

But Macron looks into the abyss: if the lists of his coalition repeat in the legislative elections of June 30 and July 7 (there is a double round), the poor 14.6 percent of the Europeans will be reduced to being a group very minor.

According to the rules of the Fifth French Republic, if in the legislative elections, the opposition to the president wins and shows itself capable of building an absolute majority, cohabitation is imposed, a political and government situation where a President of a party must govern with a prime minister who opposes him. In this scheme, the prime minister leads the Government’s policy and carries out its legislative agenda, but the President retains veto power and – which is no small thing – leadership in foreign policy.

Between 1986 and 1988, and between 1993 and 1995, the socialist president François Mitterrand was forced to rely on a right-wing prime minister, first Jacques Chirac and then Edouard Balladur. And between 1997 and 2002, Chirac – already President – had to cohabitate with the socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin.

Although the scheme was loaded with daily drama due to friction between the Presidency and the prime minister’s cabinet, the institutions functioned reasonably well in those years of cohabitation. The difference with current times is that, at that time, both the socialists and the moderate right were committed to Europe and shared numerous republican values.

The same is not true of Le Pen and Bardella: they are very critical of the EU and, in the current situation, they want to distance France from supporting Ukraine against the Russian invader. “We must not forget – the government source reminded EL TIEMPO – that Mrs. Le Pen received loans from a Russian bank close to Vladimir Putin, for one of her past campaigns.”

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According to the editorial writer and editor-in-chief of Le Figaro, Alexis Brézet, “the head of state calculates that the voters, perhaps frightened by the shock wave that his collective choice (for Europe) has just caused, are going to amend the legislative elections. the vote they come from expressing.”

And adds that Macron hopes “by dramatizing the challenge and throwing himself into the campaign, he will restore the situation and – perhaps by virtue of new alliances – rebuild a majority.” Majority that, after the 2022 legislative elections, was no longer absolute as it had been in his first term (2017-2022).

But the French president has a very difficult time. For this reason, other analysts believe that his bet is longer term and that it points to the next presidential elections, in 2027, in which he – re-elected in 2022 – will no longer be able to be a candidate. The previous cohabitations had an unexpected consequence, which meant that the prime minister became more exhausted in the day-to-day running of the government than the President himself.

After being elected head of state in 1981, Mitterrand lost the 1986 legislative elections and, consequently, appointed Chirac, his opponent, as prime minister. Two years later, in the 1988 presidential elections, Mitterrand defeated him and won re-election.

Chirac finally won the Presidency in 1995, but in 1997 his party lost the legislative elections and he had to appoint the socialist Jospin as prime minister. Then, in the 2002 presidential elections, much more worn out than Chirac, Jospin lost the elections and Chirac thus won his re-election.

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Macron’s name will not be at stake in 2027, but perhaps that of some of the figures in his coalition, such as his former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, 53 years old, or like Gabriel Attal, his current prime minister, who is barely 36. If Bardella took over as prime minister in this new cohabitation, he would also face wear and tear. This explains why Le Pen has made it clear that it would be him and not her who would occupy the position, in case the RN wins the legislative elections.

Due to the country’s complex economic situation (a public debt of 110% of GDP and stagnant growth), and the security challenges, as well as the risks involved in the war in Ukraine, Bardella would not have an easy time. Neither the debt is going to go down quickly, nor is security going to improve soon. The great promise of the RN, and for which a large sector of voters supports it, is to stop illegal immigration. But that is not achieved overnight either.

And as for Ukraine, although Macron has not achieved majority support in favor of his unrestricted support for Volodymyr Zelensky, it is very likely that a majority of French people will be bothered that a RN government denies aid to Kiev, in a an issue that, moreover, being in the sphere of foreign relations, is part of the President’s prerogatives.

The three-week lightning campaign has just begun, and there are many unknowns about the alliances that can occur across the broad spectrum of parties. that goes from the radical left to the extreme right. Is the left going to repeat its unity lists of 2022, with a worn-out Jean-Luc Mélenchon at the helm? Or on the contrary, after the success achieved by Raphael Glucksmann’s socialist lists in the European ones, is this group going to go separate?

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And something else: will Le Pen manage to drag moderate right-wing leaders from the Republicans group to her lists, which obtained a very mediocre result in the European elections of just 7.2%? And finally, will the Macronist lists be able to recover some ground, at a time when their leader is more unpopular than ever? Many more questions than answers for now.

The only thing certain is that, beaten and cornered, and risking everything in a very risky bet, President Emmanuel Macron can claim that his move gave him back the option to manage the times, to once again be “the master of watches” as he has been described so many times. But at what cost?

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