Far right likely to achieve only hung parliament in France - and does not mean a rise in far right ideology - Le Pen is getting votes for policy on immigration and economy
- and Macron as president would retain more powers than most presidents
The far right in Europe is very different from the far right in America, it’s distanced itself from many far right issues, and the main focus is immigration and the economy
FAR RIGHT IN EUROPE WIN VOTES WITH IMMIGRATION AND ECONOMIC POLICIES WHILE DISTANCING THEMSELVES FROM FAR RIGHT IDEOLOGY - IF YOU THINK OF LE PEN AS A FRENCH DONALD TRUMP YOU AER VERY MISTAKEN
European far right leaders don’t try to appeal to far right ideology like Trump does
They get their votes by distancing from their party’s most far right views and focusing on the economy and immigration instead
Their manifestos are also softened
As an example, Le Pen:
supports gay marriage, has removed her previous pledge to ban it
has gay advisors to her campaign
supported the change of the French consitution to put abortion in as a constitutional right
has distanced herself from the antisemitism and racism of her father
On climate change she has moved away from total opposition
supports conservatrion and is luke warm not totally opposed on climate action
France as part of the EU has to comply with the EU regulations on climate change
The EU passed most of the most important climate legislation already as a result of the green wave in the previous elections
It may have some issues with new legislation but not with existing and France is part of the EU and has to follow the same rules and President Macron of course is strongly aligned with climate action.
See my:
On Ukrane, Marine le Pen has
distanced herself from Russia and Putin and is luke warm rather than opposed in support of Ukraine
On Islam:
No longer supports a head scarf ban
On the EU
No longer wants France to leave the EU
Her top priorities are
economic policy and
immigration policy.
The top two priorities of Bardella (lead of National Reform are
to cut VAT on energy and a list of 100 essential goods
Repeal the Macron pension reforms so that old age pensions can get pensions at a younger age
. France's National Rally seeks majority after big gains in first round of parliamentary elections
So - if you think of Le Pen as a kind of French Donald Trump you are very mistaken.
JUST ROUND 1 AND A LOT DEPENDS ON WHICH CANDIDATES DROP OUT VOLUNTARILY IN THE 307 THREE-WAY RACES
This is just round one. It's impossible to know what happens in round 2. Because of the high turnout, there are unusualy many three way races between a left, right and centrist party for round 2. (a party needs a % of the electoral vote to move on to round 2 and it is easier to achieve this with a high turnout).
577 seats in the National Assembly, so the majority is 289
Macron’s party had only 250 seats in the outgoing parliament so President Macron already had major problems passing laws
So far we have
39 seats for far right National Rally
31 for left wing coalition, NFP
2 for the Macron alliance
4 to other parties
There will be
501 runoffs on July 7
See:
France's National Rally seeks majority after big gains in first round of parliamentary elections
The left formed an electoral alliance, the Popular Front.
Its platform vows to increase wages, lower the retirement age from 64 to 60, offer better protections for asylum seekers and climate refugees, and back stronger climate policies.
“The left could be the real surprise in this election,” Marliere said. “It is possible that the left comes second [after RN], all parties of the left now aggregated into this coalition called Popular Front.”
But the coalition does not represent unity.
“The Popular Front is above all an electoral coalition,” said Marliere. “It’s not that suddenly the left is one bloc and has a new name. Certainly not. It’s there to serve one purpose: to field one single candidate per constituency because if they don’t do so, they’ll be eliminated in the first round.”
In a divided France, voters on the left hope to unite against the far right
So that’s how the left successfully survived to round 2.
It’s now about the left and the centrists working together in a similar electoral alliance.
The far right has best chance of success in constitutencies where it faces two opposing candidates, center and left, to split the vote.
Any candidate who got 12.5% of the registered elecoral voters gets through to the second round.
307 seats currently have three parties competing because of the high turnout, up from 8 in 2022 and 1 in 2017
Both Macron’s center party and Mélenchon, leader of the left block New Popular Front have asked their candidates to drop out of the race if they came third.
Candidates have until Tuesday evening to make this decision. They make the choice individually, the leaders of their block can’t force them out. Candidates historically have often ignored what they are asked to do so it depends on how they respond which nobody knows yet.
After that it will depend on voters. Both leaders encourge voters to vote tactically and avoid voting for the party that came third if there is a candidate they can support that came second and first.
. France's National Rally seeks majority after big gains in first round of parliamentary elections
What happens after that depends on how many drop out by Tuesday and how many voters vote tactically for those that remain as 3–way races.
So we won't know until Tuesday how many candidates have dropped out of those 307 threeway races.
Then it all depends after that on the remaining threeway races and whether voters listen to advice by Macron to vote strategically rather than according to their conviction to block the far right by votinfg for the second rather than the third canddiate in the race in races where the RN could win.
Current projections are for National Rally to get 230 to 280 seats but not quite reach the absolute majority of 288 as a single party
.
. France election: Far right hails lead and seeks majority
Expect those forecasts to change once we see how many candidates drop out of the three-way races which may reduce the projections for the National Rally.
MACRON STAYS IN POWER AND THE FRENCH PRESIDENT HAS MUCH MORE POWER THAN A US PRESIDENT
Then the president of France has far more power even than a US president. If Le Pen’s party gets a majority it means that he will find it difficult to get funding for many things he wants done. But the country will go into a stalemate position and the main risk is that nothing much is achieved for the next 3 years to 2027.
Macron remains president
Unusually, Macron can select whoever he wants as leader, typically the leader of one of the main parties
Then the parliament has to confirm, and it needs a 50% vote to confirm
If the far right get a majority, Macron has to select the leader of the far right as prime minister. .
If the far right fail to get a majority, Macron is likely to select a left wing or centrist prime minister and will likely need to negotiate and make deals to get other candidates to vote for him in parliament
. Explainer-Three-way run-offs and horse-trading: what happens next in French elections?
If this is what it ends up as then Macron will have difficulty getting laws passed through to 2027, likely harder than it is at present, and its touch and go if he can get a left -wing majority. If not he needs to appoint Bardella as his prime minister. So then he will have to work with a prime minister of the opposite party which makes it harder to get agreement.
But Macron likely couldn’t have continued with his current parliament through to the end of the year anyway. So some of the criticism of him for holding an election now is a bit misguided as it’s not clear he’d have done better if he’d waited with increasing calls on him to hold an election.
Macron said that the far right vote share in the EU elections had led him to a situation that couldn’t be resolved with coalitions or a change of government with the existing parliament but could only be resolved by dissolving it to see what the French people want.
. France's Macron defends decision on snap legislative elections, urges voters to defeat far-right
Based on the first round results, the most likely result is a hung parliament. However there are some things Macron would agree with, still would pass some bipartisan legislation.
If the far right get a majority then it will be able to pass laws by itself.
The president can veto bills but only once, to force the bill to be reconsidered in parliament.
He can also dissolve parliament at any time. And he can also select the prime minister from any party but it has to be confirmed by a majority in parliament.
. President of France - Wikipedia
Also the president of France has a rarely used special power few presidents have to force through a bill without a vote in parliament. He can in effect override the legislature.
He can do this only twice per year. He can only do it for a budgetary bill.
He used this power for his pension reforms in 2022.
If he does that then the parliament then has an option to pass a vote of no confidence in the president. If he loses the vote of confidence he has to resign. There has only ever been one successful no confidence vote in these circumstances
. How French government's special power to impose a bill works
More about it here
There isn’t any risk however of a government shutdown such as happens so often in the USA.
A French president can run the government in France even without a budget. Pensions continue to be paid, government salaries etc.
., Hung parliament the most likely scenario in France, says analyst
So he has special powers that could be useful in a hung parliament but if the far right get a majority they would be able to pass laws without him and he risks losing his presidency if he tries to force through laws against their opposition.
And with a far right majority or hung parliament in the worst case if he can’t get them to agree on a new budget or to let him force through a budget without a vote, he may have to run the French parliament without a budget, which is however feasible though obviously limiting on what he can do.
In more detail
EUROPEAN FAR RIGHT VERY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT AMERICANS CALL FAR RIGHT
what Europeans call far right is very different from what Americans call far right in many countries. The far right is winning votes in Europe mainly because of illegal immigration not because of adopting far right attitudes.
Most far right leaders in Europe try to appeal to moderates as their main emphasis. They do that by de-emphasizing and softening their far right poilcies and attitudes. Le Pen has moved hugely away from the policies of her very far right father..
These aren't at all like Trump who tries to appeal to the far right as his main focus for some reason. Looking at this strategy from the other side of the Atlantic it seems likely to be a losing strategy if he keeps it up to the extent he loses the middle. At any rate whether or not it works in the USA it doesn't work in Europe in most countries and far right politicians who are gaining ground like Le Pen here do it by the opposite strategy of distancing from the extreme far right in various ways.
Also president Macron remains the president through to 2027 no matter what happens. The French president has a lot of power, much more so than a US president. The worst case is a locked parliament where it can't pass much legislation because it doesn't have the support of the president, and the president can't get much done because the parliament doesn't support him.
Macron and others are trying to avoid that situation which is why they are focusing on trying to make sure that the RN doesn't get a majority by itself or with other parties it might ally itself with. I talked about that in my previous comment.
Macron's best bet is a kind of coalition of the left that can rule even though the far right has the largest party. Macron can choose who to have as prime minister, an example of the extra authority that a French president has over other countries. It then has to be confirmed in parliament. But he would of cousre want to choose a centrist or left leaning prime minister. He can do that so long as the far right don't get a majority of seats in parliament. It will still be difficult to work with a parliament like that but far easier than if he has to appoint a prime minister from Le Pen's party.
Most in the far right in Europe win their extra votes by focusing on immigration and the economy and distancing themselves from many typical far right views their party had previously.
This varies a lot from country to country but we do also have strong support for gay rights built into the EU constitution, and this is not questioned in most countries, Hungary is the main exception where it's hard for LGBT people.
SOFTENING OF MARINE LE PEN’S VIEWS ON LGBT AND OTHER TOPICS
Part of the reason that Marine Le Pen was able to get more votes in France was a considerable softening in her views on LGBT. She has changed her image to the extent that it no longer has the far right stigma that stopped many french people from voting for her.
So, Le Pen shouldn't be an LGBT worry because she is seeking to distance herself from her father and his antisemitism and at the same time has moved away from her previous anti-gay stance. She no longer wants to end gay marriage in France, and she employs gay political consultants, she also supported abortion as a constitutional right in France.
QUOTE STARTS
The two grandes dames of the European far right differ on social issues. Meloni’s government has pursued policies supporting “traditional” family models that LGBTQ activists in Italy have slammed as discriminatory.
By contrast, Le Pen has tried to distance herself from the antisemitism, racism and homophobia of the party her father founded 50 years ago. In recent years, she dropped a pledge to revoke equal marriage rights and hired several top political advisors who are gay. She also backed France enshrining abortion as a constitutional right last year.
. Europe’s far right won ground in the EU elections. Can they unite to wield power?
She doesn't have any LGBT agenda.
EFFECT ON UKRAINE - MOST OF THE FUNDING IS ALREADY ALLOCATED FOR UKRAINE FOR 2024 AND MACRON REMAINS IN CHARGE OF FOREIGN POLICY DECISIONS - THE FAR RIGHT SUPPORTS SHORT RANGE MISSILES THAT CAN HIT RUSSIA BUT NOT LONG RANGE MISSILES - AND NOT LIKELY TO GET A MAJORITY
Macron remains president to 2027. Bardella would be leader of Le Pen's far right National Front party in France. But it's not likely to be a majority.
Macron already has funding for 2024 so this makes no difference until 2025. That's a result of a vote Macron won by a huge majority in March /french-lawmakers-vote-ukraine-support-risky-macron-bet-2024-03-12/
And it's Macron makes foreign policy decisions.
Bardella supports giving Ukraine what it needs to defend itself with short range missiles, but is against sending long range missiles that can hit deep within Russia.
France’s far-right Bardella says he backs Ukraine but wouldn’t send missiles that could hit Russia
But it's not his decision.
Macron is in charge of foreign policy and remains president whatever happens in parliament. He is president through to 2027. He has already passed the bill on Fench funding for the Ukraine war for 2024. He already has difficulty passing laws in parliament. He has to pass them as a coalition. But his Ensemble party is still the largest party in the French Parliament. It may well become a much smaller party on re-election.
Le Pen is luke-warm, she wants to make sure Putin doesn't win but thinks it's impossible for Ukraine to win either.
Her party doesn't seem likely to get a majority so long as the left and centrists do manage to work together on the triangular races.
So it's likely to be first, Le Pen's "National Rally" then the Popular Front, then Macron's Ensemble party. Then various others but none of them a majority.
So then Macron will need to work with the left and centrists to pass policy.
Long term then Macron hasn't yet got a natural successor and his party might not be much of a force in french politics after 2027 depending on whether he can build in the infrastructure for it to continue - it's not a well established party.
But the Ukraine war is likely over by 2027 and most of the rest of Europe is strongly behind Ukraine
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