Opinions #28/24

It was supposed to be a traumatizing move to get out of political instability. In the second year of his second mandate, with the second government resting on an uncertain and random majority, Macron played a counterattack to block the advance of right-winger Marine Le Pen, who won European elections in June. The decision to vote early for politics was centered entirely on the “cordon sanitaire” to be erected around the radical right. The call to arms of the Republican Front had the effect the president had hoped for, but only one half of it. Rassemblement Nationale (National Rally) was trimmed after the first round on June 30, in which it emerged victorious. Turning to the resistance of other parties in the July 7 runoff allowed to sterilize a significant portion of the ten million votes the Lepenist party garnered at the polls: a record that ultimately yielded only 143 seats, dropping the RN to third place in the National Assembly. Half of the success, however, went to the head of the Elysee Palace, as the Republican Front turned into a formidable springboard for the relaunch of the left, which united in an improvised and attractive New Popular Front. Which Macron, by definition the “Time Lord,” did not foresee. Now he has to deal with the most radical part of the left, led by the experienced leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, the custodian of the package of most seats won by the New Popular Front, which he has already claimed for some time, if not for himself, at least for someone of his own to take over as prime minister. Macron, who announced his address to the nation on Sunday night as the polls closed, reversed his commitment and employed a tactic that has so far been ignored: silence. A sign of momentary difficulty. The coldness with which the young Prime Minister Gabriel Attal distanced himself from the president’s decision to hastily call political elections after his defeat in the European elections confirms this. Attal, who immediately handed in his resignation, was forced to withdraw it when faced with Macron’s request to remain in his post. The Paris Olympics are in a few weeks, and an already weakened France will not be able to cope with them without a functioning government. But it’s a temporary solution. The president has made it clear that he needs time. It is important to understand whether there are free voices from other political groups that could allow the formation of a majority without Melenchon and his followers, whom the occupant of the Elysee Palace has labeled as “extremists” for seven years, like the Lepenists. On the opposite front are “early elections to avoid instability and consequent ungovernability,” such was the worried comment of some of Macron’s early allies. In his analysis, Pablo Iglesias outlines the key elements of the risky challenge of the Fifth Republic’s youngest president in the context of an overall trend favorable to right-wing forces. While another type of leftist, on the other side of the Channel, returned to victory, and in a sensational way. But what kind of leftists does Labour represent? In some ways, the answer Donald Sassoon offers us is surprising.