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“French voters have given a broad leftist coalition the most parliamentary seats in a pivotal legislative election that has kept the far right from power but has put France in the unprecedented position of having no dominant political bloc in parliament…
“President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance came in second in Sunday’s runoff for the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, after his centrists and the leftists both campaigned against the far right, with candidates in three-way races dropping out to benefit the one deemed most likely to defeat the far right candidate. The far right party came in third, though still drastically increasing its number of seats…
“Results so far have showed just over 180 seats for the New Popular Front [NFP] leftist coalition, 160 for Macron’s Together for the Republic centrist coalition, and more than 140 for the far-right National Rally [RN] party.” AP News
The left is relieved by RN’s loss, but worries that it may still find success in the future.
“The RN is a party that scapegoats the marginalized for the woes of French society. Right-wing golden boy Jordan Bardella stated the RN’s agenda with chilling clarity: ‘We will act by expelling delinquents, criminals, and foreign Islamists who pose a threat to national security.’ His party has vowed to bar dual nationals from ‘the most strategic posts of state.’ The French investigative outlet Mediapart issued a report that found more than 40 RN candidates had spewed racist hate speech. And antisemitism is alive and well in RN circles…
“Meanwhile, the French left issued a manifesto expressing its intention to ‘increase the minimum wage; freeze the price of essential goods and energy; abolish the pension age rise to 64, reducing it back down to 60; and tax rises on income, property, wealth and inheritance.’ To flatten the National Rally and the New Popular Front into ‘the extremes,’ as Macron routinely insisted on doing, was to engage in a flimsy political charade.”
Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff, The Nation
“[The electoral strategy may] have ushered in a renewal in French politics. Incredibly, hundreds of third-placed candidates dropped out of three-way races to avoid splitting the anti-Le Pen vote. Even more spectacular was the fact that the electorate followed suit. French voters heeded the call to vote for the republican front even if this meant going against their political beliefs…
“Millions of liberals voted for leftists and vice versa, united by the conviction that the French Republic and its postwar values were in mortal danger. The attachment to those values still resonates with the majority of citizens. The far right’s threat to liberal democracy and European integration remains real, and with it the EU’s support for Ukraine, climate action and for a liberal world order. Yet the damage is contained.”
Nathalie Tocci, The Guardian
Others argue, “Beating flawed polls isn’t the same as winning. On the numbers, National Rally, until recently seen as beyond the pale, remains on a meteoric trajectory. The party, which in 2017 won just eight seats in France’s 577-seat National Assembly, captured 89 two years ago, representing 15 percent of the chamber’s total seats. On Sunday, it won 143 seats, one-quarter of the total…
“Le Pen’s most useful asset might be Macron himself, whose bloc lost one-third of its legislative seats in Sunday’s election, a disastrous result even though it bested polling predictions. The president — highhanded, brimming with self-regard — is the object of every political faction’s disdain…
“[Le Pen remains] a favorite in the 2027 presidential elections. Now, however, she’s in control of a bigger chunk of France’s Parliament. The elation of her opponents, who managed to limit her gains Sunday, is understandable. It also ignores the tectonic forces working in her favor across a country where discontent runs deep.”
Lee Hockstader, Washington Post
The right is disappointed by RN’s loss, but optimistic about its future chances.
The right is disappointed by RN’s loss, but optimistic about its future chances.
“The results of Sunday’s second-round parliamentary elections were far from the rebuke of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally party that it was portrayed as. To begin with, no party received as many votes as the National Rally party did. But that support did not translate into seats. The party received 37% of the vote, more than 10 points more than any other party…
“But due to the electoral system of the nation, both the far-left New Popular Front and Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble party secured more seats in the nation’s Parliament. Nevertheless, the National Rally won 53 more seats in Parliament than it won in the previous election. The only reason that the result was seen as a disappointment for the Right was due to pre-election projections that the party would be the largest in Parliament… Should new elections be called before 2029, the National Rally’s rise is likely to continue.”
Jeremiah Poff, Washington Examiner
“The most immediate consequence is that Mr. Macron’s economic-revival agenda is dead. The left-wing parties are fervently opposed to his signature pension and labor-market reforms, more so than Ms. Le Pen is. The investors who freaked out at the prospect that Ms. Le Pen’s party would blow up the public finances are about to discover things can be much worse…
“And note that to freeze out a party of the right sometimes accused of antisemitism, Mr. Macron made common cause with a leftist coalition that included La France Insoumise, a far-left party that has a genuine antisemitism problem surrounding its views on Israel and Gaza. Mr. Macron bet that voters remain uncertain enough about Ms. Le Pen that they’d think twice before electing her party. But his informal partners may prove as off-putting to voters the more the French see them in action.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Mélenchon, pressing his advantage, is insisting that the NFP be given the chance to form a government and that it should stick with its maximalist program, which includes a restored wealth tax, lowering the retirement age, linking public-sector wages to inflation, and other measures besides. With France’s finances in a less than ideal state (debt/GDP of around 112 percent) and the budget deficit standing at 5.5 percent, that’s not something that would thrill financial markets…
“Gridlock is rarely the worst thing, especially when compared with the economic policy horrors contained in both the RN and LFI programs. [Veronique] De Rugy seems to expect a Le Pen presidency in 2027. I don’t know. There’s a lot that can happen between now and then. But the issues — above all mass immigration and its consequences, most notably the rise of Islamic extremism — that have done so much to take the RN to its current position are only likely to get worse. If the ‘republican’ answer to that is Mélenchon, that won’t bode well for the republic.”
Andrew Stuttaford, National Review
Hippos Can’t Swim, But It Turns Out They Can Fly.
IFL Science
