The ‘king of the gods’ has been undone by forces he unleashed
Emmanuel Macron once compared himself to Jupiter, the allpowerful king of the gods. Now the French president must learn the art of consensus, compromise and humility.
“Jupiter’s” thunder was stolen by a surge in support for the hard-right and hard-left in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Mr Macron lost the ruling majority he has enjoyed for the past five years and France now faces political paralysis and an uncertain future.
Mr Macron stunned the world when he was first elected president in 2017 after walking out of government to form his own centrist party. In April, he became only the second president in two decades to win a second term.
His astonishing successes have gutted support for the traditional centre-left and centre-right of French politics, who had previously taken turns in ruling the republic.
But his capture of the centre ground also radicalised the Right and Left, leading to unprecedented support for what was previously on the fringe of politics. Mr Macron campaigned in April as the only candidate who could defeat extremist politics, represented by Marine Le Pen and Corbyn-style firebrand Jean-luc Mélenchon.
It became clear on Sunday night that the president had fallen victim to the monsters his disruptive rise to power created. Both rivals have now never looked stronger, while France is facing the kind of chaos that Mr Macron promised only he could prevent.
Just months after she lost to Mr Macron in the presidential vote, Ms Le Pen led her National Rally party to its best ever results in legislative elections, making it the strongest single opposition party.
Mr Mélenchon, who came third in the presidential vote, is aiming to unseat Mr Macron’s prime minister after leading the hard-left NUPES alliance to a strong performance.
Both wasted no time in declaring the president’s plans to raise the retirement age to 65 dead, as Ms Le Pen crowed France would no longer be ruled as Mr Macron wished.europe’s most passionately pro-eu leader has been badly wounded at the ballot box by two staunchly Eurosceptic leaders. His foreign policy efforts on Ukraine have not translated into votes, despite Ms Le Pen’s closeness to Vladmir Putin or Mr Mélenchon’s desire to take France out of Nato.
His Ensemble coalition was 45 seats short of the 289 needed to continue to rule alone. His health and environment ministers lost their seats and are expected to resign, as did the parliamentary speaker and the head of Macron’s parliament group. The
honeymoon is definitely over after voters rejected Mr Macron’s promise to reunify the country after the April presidential election.
Mr Macron is scrambling to find an ally to form a coalition with a ruling majority. The centre-right Republicains, the most likely prospect, have ruled it out for now. The
The honeymoon is definitely over after voters rejected Mr Macron’s promise to reunify the country
alternative to coalition is to run a minority government on a bill-by-bill basis, which will mean painful compromises on his agenda.
Mr Macron owns the centre ground completely but must now adapt to woo moderates on the Left and Right. It is an unprecedented challenge for a leader used to ruling with a rubberstamping parliament.