Written by Akshar Patel
Edited by Annika Lilja
On the 9th of June, 2024, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, abruptly dissolved the National Assembly—France’s lower legislative house—and called for sudden snap elections. A shock to many in his centrist coalition, Ensemble, Macron called for such an election due to the large victory National Rally, a right-wing populist party led by Marine Le Pen, received in the European Union elections just days prior.
To give some background, every 5 years, the European Union holds an election across all of its member states to determine the makeup of all 751 seats in the European Parliament. Just a month ago, one was held that resulted in massive gains for center-right and far-right parties across the continent, especially in France. This alarmed many centrist and left-wing heads of state in Europe, including Macron, who decided to take a risk and call for a snap election—a type of election called on a whim and at a nonstandard date by the president. His idea in calling for such a sudden vote was to slow down the party’s meteoric rise and hope they run out of steam before 2027’s presidential election. In a public address, he stated, “The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger to our nation and also for France’s position in Europe and in the world,” as reported by Al Jazeera.
France’s elections work in a unique way. Due to the variety of political parties, there are two separate election dates. In this instance, the dates were set to be the 30th of June and the 7th of July. In the first election, each constituency votes for its preferred candidate. The top two parties, and any other party that receives 12.5% or more of the vote, move on to the second election. Usually, only two parties make it to the runoff vote in most constituencies, but at times, thanks to the 12.5% rule, constituencies sometimes have to deal with three, or even four, parties in a runoff. These three-way races, known as triangulaires, are rare, and four-way races, known as quadrangulaires, are even rarer.
In this recent election, however, there were over 306 3-way runoffs—double the previous record in 1997. This was mainly due to the three major coalitions in the election: the ruling Ensemble coalition, led by Macron, the socialist New Popular Front (NFP), led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, and the hardline conservative National Rally (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, with Jordan Bardella as its candidate for Prime Minister. Each polled at roughly the same level, though the RN initially led most polls.
The National Rally’s success in polling would carry over for a stunning victory for them in the first round, winning around 34% of the total popular vote as compared to Macron’s 20% and the NFP’s 29%. This meant that if the election ended that day, they would have gained over 289 seats, a large majority in the National Assembly. Many on the French left were upset by this result—leading to protests and riots across French cities.
However, the National Rally did not receive a majority. This allowed the other two alliances, the NFP and Ensemble, to coordinate with one another to form a Republican Front, or cordon sanitaire—a strategy in French politics where in each triangulaire, all but one Republican Front candidate drops out in hopes of aggregating the votes into a single candidate. This has historically been used by leftists, centrists, and moderate conservatives to counteract right-wing populists, and this year was no exception.
The left-wing NFP in particular was adamant in their opposition to Le Pen’s party, with party leader Melenchon declaring, “Not one more vote for the RN, not one more seat for the RN,” as reported by Al Jazeera on July 1st. Many NFP candidates pulled out of triangulaires they placed third in, hoping to block the RN as much as possible.
However, Macron was less enthusiastic about working with the left, who had been drifting into extremism in recent years. As Reuters reported, he called upon voters to choose candidates that were, “clearly republican and democratic,” excluding both far-left and far-right figures. This includes Melenchon’s party, France Unbowed, which has rubbed shoulders with the French Communist Party and other Marxists. Melenchon himself was once a Trotskyist (a branch of Marxism). Still, out of fear of an RN victory, many Ensemble candidates strategically dropped out to help the NFP.
What resulted was a deadlocked Congress. All three alliances received a similar amount of seats, and none received a majority. However, thanks to the strategy of the Republican Front, the RN faced a major loss and came in third place, while the NFP rose to first in seat count. While no alliance has enough seats to lead, the NFP is generally agreed to have won, leading Melenchon to claim victory. The New York Times reported that on the 9th of July, he demanded that, “The president should either resign or name one of us prime minister” in a speech to working-class Parisians. Riots ensued once more on French streets from Nantes to Lille—but this time in celebration.
To French leftists, the future looks bright, while to rightists in France, it is the opposite. Whether a ruling coalition can be settled upon is yet to be seen, but as it stands currently one thing is for certain: in a nation of increasing polarization, Macron and his centrist allies are increasingly being squeezed out by both extremes with each passing day.
Sources:
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“‘Not One More Vote’: Reactions as France’s Far Right Wins Snap Election.” Al Jazeera, 1 July 2024, www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/1/not-one-more-vote-reactions-as-frances-far-right-wins-snap-election.
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