Presidential elections were held in France in April 2022. The Atlantic Sentinel endorsed the liberal incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, who defeated the far-right Marine Le Pen with 58.5 against 41.5 percent support. In parliamentary elections in June, Macron’s coalition fell from 346 to 245 seats. No party won a majority.
Skyline of Paris, France at night, February 9, 2019 (Unsplash/Sabina Fratila)
My hunch was correct after all. Before the French elections, I argued the most likely outcome was Emmanuel Macron winning a second term as president but losing his majority in the National Assembly and being forced into a coalition with the center-right.
After the presidential election, Macron’s liberals moved up in the polls. They also did reasonably well in the opening round of the legislative elections a week ago. It gave this Macronist hope that the president might defend his majority after all.
But no. His alliance, Together, is projected to fall to 234 seats, down from the 350 it won in 2017 and 55 short of a majority.
Night falls on the Bourbon Palace, seat of the French National Assembly, in Paris, June 8, 2007 (J.R. Rosenberg)
The outcome of the first voting round of the legislative elections in France confirms the three-way split I wrote about in April. President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal centrists and the left-wing New Ecologic and Social People’s Union (NUPES, it sounds better in French) took 26 percent support each. The combined far right won 23 percent.
The once-dominant Republicans, who were last in power under Nicolas Sarkozy, divided up the rest with also-rans and regional parties.
The electoral map reveals a geographical divide. Macron’s candidates placed first in the biggest cities and the prosperous western half of the country. The left have their stronghold in the interior of the south. That was once the heartland of the French Communist Party. They also took the low-income suburbs of Paris. The far right got its best results in the deindustrialized north and on the Mediterranean coast, where nationalists have roots going back decades, to when white Algerians settled there after independence. (more…)
French president Emmanuel Macron reviews a Bastille Day parade in Paris, July 14, 2020 (Elysée/Philippe Servent)
A lot can change in politics in six weeks. When I wrote my five French election scenarios in the beginning of April, I didn’t even consider that President Emmanuel Macron might defend his majority in the National Assembly or would have to govern with the left, yet those are now the two most likely outcomes of the legislative elections in June.
I thought Macron would have to do a deal with the center-right. That has become less likely. The Republicans and their allies are projected to win a mere 35 to 70 seats, down from 136 in 2017. (more…)
French president Emmanuel Macron chairs a meeting of the Council of Ministers in the Elysée Palace in Paris, April 13 (Elysée/Soazig de la Moissonniere)
Emmanuel Macron may yet hold on to his majority in the National Assembly. His liberal alliance, renamed Ensemble (Together), won 350 out of 577 seats in 2017. Polls give it between 310 and 378 seats for the elections in June.
Based on their strong performance in last year’s regional elections, and given that Macron’s party has weak grassroots, I expected the center-right Republicans to do better. They still might. Republican voters, who on average are older than Macron’s, are more likely to turn out. But their disappointing performance in the presidential election — Valérie Pécresse got just 5 percent support — may also have demotivated conservatives.
The alliance of the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, left-wing Greens and center-left Socialists — who failed to unite in the presidential election and lost — has a third of French voters, but it could struggle in the decisive second voting rounds. Left-wing candidates would do best against a conservative or far-right opponent. Then they could count on the support of centrists. But where a left-wing candidate qualified against a Macronist, the latter would be preferable to Republicans.
The same dynamic works against the far-right Marine Le Pen. If a candidate of her National Rally makes the runoff, left to moderate-right voters tend to back their opponent.
The two-round voting system makes it difficult to predict the outcome altogether. Divided government, what the French call cohabitation, in which the presidency and National Assembly are held by different parties, is possible.
The Louvre in Paris, France, February 9, 2020 (Unsplash/Louis Paulin)
I once hailed the French voting model as an alternative to America’s. Unlike the first-past-the-post system, which encourages voters to sort into two major parties lest their vote go wasted, France’s two-round voting system encourages temporary, not permanent polarization. Multiple parties thrive in the first round. Voters choose between two finalists in the second.
Until 2017, third parties seldom made the runoffs. But they played an important role by conditioning their support for one of the two major parties on policies or cabinet posts.
Under François Hollande, several members of the Radical Left and Greens served in a Socialist-led government. Nicolas Sarkozy had ministers from small centrist and center-right parties who backed him in the presidential election.
But what if the major parties don’t qualify for the runoffs at all? That has now happened in two presidential elections in a row, and it calls the stabilizing effect of the two-round voting system into question. (more…)
French president Emmanuel Macron makes a phone call from the Elysée Palace in Paris, January 28 (Elysée/Ghislain Mariette)
Emmanuel Macron has defeated Marine Le Pen for the second time. He is the first French president in twenty years to win reelection. The last was Jacques Chirac, who in 2002 defeated Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie.
Macron’s projected 58 percent support is down from the 66 percent he got in 2017.
He is also far less certain of winning another majority in the National Assembly, which puts his plans for a second term at risk.
Although the French presidency is one of the most powerful of its kind, without a parliamentary majority Macron might have to nominate a prime minister of another party (the French call this “cohabitation”) and could not cut taxes, invest €50 billion in green energy or raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. (more…)
French president Charles de Gaulle visits the Netherlands, March 16, 1963 (Anefo/Eric Koch)
France’s divisions haven’t healed. Like five years ago, Emmanuel Macron, the candidate of the cities, the optimists, the outward-looking and the university-educated, faces Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the small towns, the worried, the inward-looking and the working class, in the second and final voting round of the presidential election.
The surprise of the first round was Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s strong third-place finish with 22 percent support, behind Le Pen’s 23 percent and Macron’s 28.
Rather than a country split in two, France turns out to have three political blocs of almost equal size.
This is a throwback to earlier times. Historian Sudhir Hazareesingh writes that France had three political families until Charles de Gaulle replaced proportional representation with a two-round voting system in 1958 that encouraged the formation of two parties. The center-right united into what is now the Republican party. The Communists were eclipsed by the Socialists on the left. (more…)
France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon sits in the European Parliament in Brussels, June 6, 2019 (The Left)
Supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who are thinking of sitting out the second voting round of the French presidential election ought to take a lesson from Bernie Sanders’ supporters in the United States. When they abstained from the 2016 presidential election, or voted for Green party candidate Jill Stein, they made it possible for Donald Trump to win.
Just 1.5 out of 136 million Americans voted for Stein. Another 100,000 wrote in Sanders’ name (in the fourteen states where that was allowed), even though he wasn’t a candidate and had endorsed Hillary Clinton.
But those 1.6 million votes made the difference. Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three states Barack Obama had won four years earlier, by a margin of less than 1 percent and a total of 75,000 votes. In all three states, the votes for Stein could have tipped the balance in Clinton’s favor, which would have given her, not Trump, an Electoral College majority. (more…)
Prime Ministers Mario Draghi of Italy and Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom speak with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany during a NATO summit in Brussels, March 24 (10 Downing Street/Andrew Parsons)
Emmanuel Macron has suggested he could water down French pension reforms in a second term.
“I am clearly opening the door” to a retirement age of 64, he told BFM TV on Monday, adding that “65 years old was not a dogma.”
Germany and the Netherlands are raising their retirement ages from 65 to 67.
Macron also hinted he might call a referendum on the changes. “I don’t want to divide the country.”
French president Emmanuel Macron delivers a televised address from the Elysée Palace in Paris, February 24 (Elysée/Soazig de La Moissonnière)
This year’s French presidential election will be a rematch of the last. According to exit polls, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have won the first voting round and will advance to the second in two weeks.
Ipsos and Sopra Steria give the incumbent 28 percent support and the far-right Le Pen 23 percent. The far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon would place third with 22 percent. The other candidates are in single digits.
Macron defeated Le Pen with 66 to her 34 percent in the 2017 election. Polls suggest this year’s runoff will be tighter.
Here are my takeaways from the first voting round. (more…)
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have won the first voting round in the French presidential election.
With 95.5 percent of the votes counted, Macron, the incumbent, is at 28 percent support and Le Pen, the leader of the far right, at 23 percent. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon places third with 22 percent.
The April 24 runoff will be a rematch of the 2017 election, when Macron defeated Le Pen with 66 to her 34 percent. Polls predict a narrower margin this year. (more…)
French Republican party leader Valérie Pécresse reviews an exhibit of French presidents at the Mémorial Charles de Gaulle in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, October 5, 2018 (Facebook/Valérie Pécresse)
The first round of the French presidential election will be held on Sunday. Assuming no candidate wins a majority, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff on April 24.
Polls predict incumbent president Emmanuel Macron will place first in the opening round and win the second round, but the far-right Marine Le Pen and far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon aren’t far behind.
Aerial view of the Elysée Palace in Paris, France at night, March 12, 2019 (Elysée/Laurent Blevennec)
Polls are narrowing in France. Incumbent president Emmanuel Macron is losing support. The far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and far-right Marine Le Pen are going up.
The most likely outcome is still that Macron and Le Pen qualify for the runoff, and Macron wins. But that is less certain than it was three weeks ago.
There are also legislative elections in June, for which there hasn’t been much polling. Macron’s liberal party, The Republic on the Move (LREM), is expected to lose seats to the Greens and Socialists on the left and the Republicans on the right. What the French call “cohabitation”, and the Americans “divided government” — in which two parties split the presidency and National Assembly — is likely.
Here are the five possible outcomes in order of probability (as I see it), and what they would mean for French policy. (more…)
French president Emmanuel Macron gives a speech in Nîmes, December 6, 2019 (Elysée/Soazig de la Moissonniere)
When we endorsed Emmanuel Macron in 2017, it was because he was the best candidate to make France competitive and confident again. He has. French voters should give him a second term.
Macron relaxed French labor laws, which had been among the strictest in the world. Unemployment fell to a thirteen-year low. He eased auditing requirements, streamlined bankruptcy procedures and lowered social charges and taxes for entrepreneurs. Business creation rose 60 percent.
Foreign investors were impressed. Before the pandemic, France even overtook Germany and the United Kingdom as the top destination of foreign investment in Europe.
Opponents have lampooned Macron as a “president of the rich” for putting the economy first. But he also enrolled freelancers in public unemployment insurance, extended welfare to one million more households, and made dental services, eyeglasses and hearing aids free.
France became a leader again in Europe. Macron didn’t win every argument in Brussels, but the EU looks and sounds more French than it did five years ago. Xi Jinping’s authoritarianism and Donald Trump’s isolationism have convinced the other member states to give France’s proposals for European “strategic autonomy” a chance. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has given European defense cooperation, long favored by the French, a new lease on life. With five more years, Macron could put those ideas into action. (more…)
