Jupiter humbled: Macron loses his majority
Emmanuel Macron appears “stunned” by his sudden fall from grace, said David Revault d’Allonnes in Le Journal du Dimanche (Paris). In April, he convincingly beat his rival Marine Le Pen to become the first French president to win a second term this century. Yet now, just two months later, he has been humiliated by voters who last week denied him a majority in France’s National Assembly. After a muted campaign, Macron’s rebranded “Ensemble” party was left 44 seats short of the majority he enjoyed in his first term. His vote share was badly dented by a Left-Green alliance, the “New Ecological and Social People’s Union” (Nupes) formed by far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which won 131 seats to establish itself as the main opposition bloc. It was also squeezed by Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party, which won 89 seats, its best result ever; while the conservative Republicans won 61 seats. The results leave France in a political crisis: Macron, who gained power by siphoning off votes from the traditional left and right, finds himself “stuck between the radical left and extreme right”.
Macron is scrambling to solve the “puzzle” of how to govern effectively, said Olivier Bost in RTL (Paris). Having consulted rival party leaders, he has ruled out a government of national unity. The Republicans would be Ensemble’s most natural coalition partners, but they’ve shown little appetite for a formal pact; the Nupes and RN would be hard, or impossible, to work with. That leaves the possibility of Macron leading a minority government and seeking support on a bill-by-bill basis. Such “instability” could be disastrous, said Le Monde (Paris). The climate, healthcare, education, the cost of living, pension reform – these are all areas that demand urgent attention. But with Macron’s opponents ready to hold him to ransom on nearly every issue, the risk of “political deadlock” is all too real.
“And yet,” said Philippe Rioux in La Dépêche (Toulouse), “what if this new Assembly was an opportunity?” True, French parties are unused to coalition-building. But minority governments and deals between parties are the norm elsewhere in Europe: no party has an absolute majority in 21 out of 27 EU member states, and many of those function well enough. In France, new laws will benefit from the extra scrutiny they’ll receive from the opposition parties on whose support they may depend; and the Assembly will better reflect France’s fragmented political landscape. These results were “a victory for parliamentary democracy”, agreed Rudolf Balmer in Die Tageszeitung (Berlin). The unhealthy concentration of power in the Élysée, a source of resentment among voters who feel disconnected from decision-makers, will be diluted. And the Assembly will no longer “limit itself to waving through” bills and acting as “a rubber stamp club”.
It isn’t just at home that Macron has been weakened, said Michaela Wiegel in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; his standing on “the European stage” will be damaged by these results, too. True, the president still retains extensive powers over foreign and defence policy. But Paris may well become more inward-looking than usual, and even more focused on fighting for its own national interests in the EU. “The full scale of repercussions following the defeat has yet to fully unfold,” said Clea Caulcutt on Politico.eu (Brussels). The future of Élisabeth Borne, a technocrat whom Macron appointed prime minister in May, is already in doubt. And Mélenchon’s left-wing allies plan to table a no-confidence vote as early as July – a vote Macron could well lose. The president has had some successes, including his labour market reforms and his largely competent handling of Covid-19. But these results are a damning rebuke to the president’s “top-down” leadership style, which has earned him a reputation for “arrogance”. When Macron first came to power in 2017, he said that France needed a Jupiter-like president: remote and dignified, like the king of the Roman gods. Five years on, it seems that “Jupiter has fallen out of orbit”.