IMust choose between plague and cholera: Millions of French voters are anguished at the prospect of having to choose between candidates from Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration Rassemblement National party and the plague or cholera. – The runoff parliamentary elections on July 7th were won by the Liberal France party (RN) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party.
Unless President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition pulls off a dramatic upset in the first round on June 30, the second round in about half of the 577 constituencies will pit representatives of Le Pen’s illiberal national populist party against candidates from the New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily put together coalition of left-wing parties centered around Mélenchon’s radical left.
“I’ve never seen such a terrible choice,” said a neighbour in the small Provencal town where I live, where the RN won its first electoral district in 2022, defeating a conservative Gaullist incumbent.
Under France’s parliamentary electoral system, many center and center-right candidates are likely to drop out in Sunday’s first round because of divided parties and tainted by ties to the deeply unpopular president. Candidates need to win the support of at least 12.5% of registered voters to advance to a runoff. With expected turnout of about 65%, the threshold is almost 19%.
President Macron must take responsibility for plunging the country into an unnecessary general election that his Renaissance party and allies were likely to lose. The highly unpopular president gambled after the Renaissance party’s defeat, ignoring the advice of the prime minister, finance minister and key political allies. It topped the polls It received 31.37% of the vote in this month’s European Parliament elections.
The prime minister’s abrupt dissolution of the National Assembly and limiting election campaigning to a minimum of three weeks unsettled many middle-class voters who feared economic chaos, social unrest and the possibility of street riots if either of the two radical parties won by a landslide, and political deadlock if parliament was left hanging without a majority.
“He really put us in trouble,” said a man selling oysters at the market in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. “Now there’s no need for that. People don’t have money.”
Though the president still has nearly three years left in his second term, France is already in a post-Macron era, with his own supporters urging him to step aside from the race and turn things around for the more popular Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal.
The RN was long marginalized under its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, amid accusations of racism and anti-Semitism, but prime ministerial candidate Jordan Bardella, 28, has been trying daily to change perceptions of the RN’s ideological baggage. Hurry to win the electionPledge Withdrawal from NATOPolicies such as abolishing Macron’s command of the army, repealing his pension reforms and slashing VAT on essential goods have been abandoned or postponed to a distant “second phase” at the risk of confusing voters. Marine Le Pen, who is retreating to prepare for presidential elections scheduled for 2027, long ago abandoned her 2017 pledge to take France out of the eurozone.
The strategy is showing signs of working: RN’s poll results show Rising to 34% Conservative Republican Party leader Eric Ciotti has made a secret pact with Le Pen. Submit 62 his own candidates, supported by the RN. His colleagues in the historic Gaullist leadership voted unanimously to expel him, but the damage was already done. The “coronavirus disease prevention line” isolating the far-right has been brokenMr Ciotti, a second-string politician who won the leadership of a shrinking and divided party last year amid a shift to the right, may go down in history as the little man who opened the door to power for the RN.
The wave of support for the former National Front is still felt by some Brown Wave However, the party is calling itself “Blue Marine” (a play on the name navy blue and Le Pen’s first name), Strongest in the South Here in France, many of the descendants of former French colonies in North Africa live side by side with immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and French-speaking Africa.
“We’ve tried everyone else, why not give them a chance?” asked a woman selling cheese at the market. She cited insecurity and a declining standard of living as her biggest concerns. Last year, a week of riots followed the shooting death of an unarmed teenage driver of North African descent by a police officer. Drug violence is rife. RN is in a law-and-order mood.
Other merchants and shoppers expressed concern about the Left Coalition’s “tax and spend” economic policies, which are more aligned with Jeremy Corbyn than Keir Starmer, and include raising the minimum wage and state pensions, lowering the retirement age from 64 to 62, increasing tax on investment income, introducing a new wealth tax and a temporary levy on energy company profits.
Mélenchon’s movement had the most left-wing incumbents, so it had a strong voice in the manifesto, won the most constituencies in the NFP’s divided electoral districts, and especially won the most winnable seats.
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“I’ve put all non-essential orders on hold and am waiting for the election results. You can’t make plans in such uncertainty,” said a small business owner. A wealthy architect said he was preparing to move his residence abroad if the Left wins.
It’s far from clear that elections will break France’s political impasse. The president did not have an absolute majority in the outgoing parliament, but his centrist government managed to get by by negotiating legislation separately with conservative and sometimes centre-left lawmakers, and by ramming through the budget using a constitutional mechanism that allows votes of no confidence to be passed unless they receive an absolute majority. Such motions were routinely defeated by a divided opposition, but there was a possibility that they could unite to topple the government over the growing public debt later this year.
Despite Macron’s successes, hatred towards him is widespread. Reducing unemployment His government has raised taxes to 7.5% from 10%, attracting investment and helping to shore up the economy through the pandemic. Seven years into his presidency, the 46-year-old president is still seen as arrogant, technocratic and naive. He has earned the label “rich people’s president” since relaxing a largely symbolic wealth tax during his first term.
But the left also risks being branded as sectarian and anti-Semitic, due to Mélenchon and his supporters’ steadfast refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organization, their insults to prominent Jewish politicians, and their brutal removal of opponents from LFI’s list of candidates. Mélenchon denies the allegations of anti-Semitism, but his comments about Israel’s actions in Gaza have still alienated many moderate-left supporters.
Veteran Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, 88 years old, philosopher Alan Finkelkraut They said that if faced with that unwelcome choice, they would vote for the RN rather than the LFI because, in their eyes, the left tolerates anti-Semitism that Le Pen has eradicated from the party.
What will centrist voters do when faced with such a choice on July 7? My unscientific judgment from conversations over the past two weeks is that many will hold their noses and vote left to block the RN, which they see as racist and illiberal. Some will abstain, saying “disaster will befall both houses,” but the RN vote will be more than a minority, and its momentum will grow.
