Weeks after Emmanuel Macron entered the Elysée for a second five-year term, French voters could decide to harm his newly re-elected leader by forcing him into a political “cohabitation” that would paralyze the country.
The first round of legislative elections opens on Sunday to decide who will occupy the 577 seats in the National Assembly.
Most of the sound and political fury in France was concentrated in the April presidential election, but now Macron needs a parliamentary majority to carry out his program for the next five years.
Coexistence, a situation in which the president faces a majority of opposition in parliament, would force commitments on legislation and effectively stop any attempt to carry out its most controversial reforms, including raising the age. retirement.
The biggest threat to Macron comes from a coalition of groups of the fractured French left, called Nupes – La Nouvelle Union Popular, Ecologique et Sociale (the New Ecological and Social People’s Union) led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the ‘anti-NATO. anti-European La France Insoumise (LFI – Unbowed France).
Polls suggest that Ensemble, Macron’s centrist coalition, is on par with Nupes, and while political analysts suggest the radical left-wing alliance is unlikely to win a majority, it could deprive Macron of to 40 seats and control of the lower house.
In the past, when France has elected a president, it has logically chosen a government that supports it with a working majority. However, Mélenchon, the third man in the April presidential election, has given new life to the French left with its coalition of greens, communists and socialists that is receiving the support of urban youth; surveys suggest that 44% of 18- to 24-year-olds support Nupes.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is back in fighting mode in Marseilles last week. Photography: Daniel Cole / AP
Manon Aubry, a member of La France Insoumise’s European party, said Mélenchon’s “Make Me Prime Minister” campaign was effective.
“For the first time in the history of the V Republic [since 1958] the president-elect is not sure he has an absolute majority. We have created a great deal of interest around Nupes; the campaign has revolved around us. It’s considered bad or good, but it’s been about us, ”Aubry told the Observer.
“The panic that this has caused, the caricature and the slander we have been subjected to, show the uncertainty and fear on the other side. They are very scared. “
Political scientist Pascal Perrineau, director of political research at SciencesPo, said there had been no “honeymoon period” for Macron after the April presidential election, nor any real parliamentary campaign by his party.
“Apart from Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has put on a show, no one has been able to campaign,” Perrineau told Le Parisien.
Shortly removed from the April 10 presidential election, Mélenchon, 70, acknowledged defeat and hinted that he was ready to step back and let a new generation take over. “We were very close, but … the younger ones will tell me, ‘We haven’t won yet, but we weren’t far, eh? Do it better,'” he said at the time. Nine days later, Mélenchon was again in a fighting mood, describing the legislative vote as a “third round” and demanding that voters elect him as prime minister.
French elections
Mélenchon is not running in the elections, and the constitutional rules state that it is up to the president, not the parliament or the people, to decide who runs the government, but he could still be appointed prime minister if Nupes, who has the support of left-wing economists, such as Thomas Piketty. , has a majority.
It is unclear how this would work in practice, as the couple disagrees on almost everything. Mélenchon has pledged to repeal Macron’s first-term changes and reduce the retirement age to 60, reinstate wealth tax, and raise pensions and the minimum wage.
Three constitutional law experts writing in a law journal last week suggested with admirable euphemism that Macron and Mélenchon would operate in a “conflicting manner.” “It would certainly be paradoxical to see the people make two opposing political decisions two months apart and deny the new head of state the means to govern,” they wrote, adding: “In these uncertain times of losing random electoral mobilization., the hypothesis cannot be ruled out ”.
“We’ve had coexistence before and that doesn’t mean chaos,” Aubry said. “The president is in charge of foreign affairs, but with a majority in the National Assembly we would elect the government and run the country,” Aubry added.
If no party gets an absolute majority, every legislative change proposal presented to the lower house would require the creation of alliances. Perrineau believes an absolute majority for Nupes is “completely impossible.” “Mélenchon does as he is told, he only hopes to be the first opposition group. He has just chosen Macron, the French are not so strategic as to deprive him of the possibility of implementing his policy “, he told the French journalists.
Abstention is another unknown factor, with polls showing it could reach 54%.
Macron on Thursday called on voters to give him a “clear and strong majority” and warned that the “extremists”, namely Nupes and the far-right National Rally, are looking to “break alliances like NATO … and questioning Europe “. On Mélenchon, he said last week, “It’s rare to win an election when you don’t even run,” he said. .
Legislative elections will decide who holds the 577 seats in the National Assembly. Photo: Remon Haazen / ZUMA Press Wire / REX / Shutterstock
Unfortunately, his political collectors say they have found that voters are “very unmotivated, even completely lost.”
Any candidate who obtains an absolute majority of votes and at least a quarter of the registered voters shall be elected immediately. Otherwise, the candidates with at least 12.5% of the votes will go to the second round next Sunday. The first results based on the votes counted in the polling stations considered representative of France will be announced on Sunday at 20.00. The final results will be announced on Monday morning.
Nupes needs at least 289 seats to get a parliamentary majority. The last period of “cohabitation” in France was in 1997-2002, when center-right President Jacques Chirac was forced to appoint Socialist leader Lionel Jospin as prime minister after losing his parliamentary majority. .
However, the odds of a nuptial majority are long. The latest Ifop-Fiducial poll shows that the alliance will get up to 205 seats. This would be well below the majority, but would establish it as the main opposition party and eligible for a number of key administrative positions in the chamber. The same poll suggests that Macron’s Ensemble will end up with 250-290 seats.
Nupes ’left-wing groups collectively won about 60 seats in the 2017 election, compared to about 350 of Macron’s allies. If the Macron Ensemble does not get an absolute majority, it will need the support of the ruling right-wing Republicans or moderates of the Socialist Party.
Since 2002, when the timetable for the presidential and parliamentary elections was changed in the same year, the French have never stopped offering a parliamentary majority to their presidents. The question is, will it be true this time?