How Macron turned the tide of French elections to beat far-right & what it means for Europe

In defiance of all the polls and punditry, the French parliamentary elections have thrown a hung parliament in what’s one of the biggest upsets in recent times.

As voting in the second round of elections closed on Sunday at around 8 pm local time, the exit polls flashed on French news channels and the projections on the screen took the breath away of people across the spectrum. In elections whose results were a foregone conclusion in favour of the far-right National Rally (RN) party from the onset, the party was driven to the third position.

Contrary to all predictions, the New Popular Front (NPF), a newly-formed alliance of leftist parties , came first and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc came second. In the final results, of 577 seats, the NPF won 182 seats, the Macron’s bloc won 163 seats, and the RN and partners were reduced to 143 seats.

Macron has had the last laugh — for now

At a time when RN leader Marine Le Pen and her wonderkid Jordan Bardella were supposed to bask in glory, it was Macron who was the centre of attention — mocked for a month as a political gambler and condemned for serving France to far-right on a platter. Instead of a gamble, as Firstpost reported on the election day , Macron had played a calculated move and killed several birds with one stone.

Behind the far-right’s loss is Macron’s cunning scheming and realpolitik that few could grasp until the exit polls were released.

By calling the elections, Macron checked the rise of far-right, insulated himself from the blowback of anti-incumbency at least until 2027, and avoided the most awkward ‘cohabitation’ with the far-right that would have derailed his presidential agenda as well as the functioning of the French govt, says Swasti Rao, a scholar of Europe at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA).

“The belief that Macron gambled and lost the plot was rather simplistic and incorrect as he is a very seasoned leader. His decision seems to have several layers than merely being a losing bet it was first perceived as,” said Rao in an interview with Firstpost before the results were out, adding that the call for snap elections was likely a calculated move.

In an interview after the results, Rao says that Macron’s call was indeed a calculated move and is a sign of his ingenuity.

“Macron was convinced that you could neither stop the far-right nor check anti-incumbency. To address these concerns, he called the snap elections just after the European Parliament’s election results. That gave him a moral high ground whereby he could claim that he was giving people their voice and also gave him a benefit of doubt over what his real intentions were. In October, Macron’s centrist coalition would have lost the majority anyway as they were bound to lose the vote on the budget. By calling the elections, Macron also avoided that embarrassment,” says Rao, an Associate Fellow at the Europe and Eurasia Center at MP-IDSA.

Now, as a left-wing government will come up, the anti-incumbency’s burden will be shared and a cohabitation —a situation when the president and prime minister are from opposing parties— with the far-right would be avoided. Macron, the maverick of French politics who refuses to go down quietly into the night, killed many birds with one stone.

But how did this happen? Was the far-right not certain to win French elections? Were all the polls and pundits wrong? When Macron’s centrists were staring at a rout and Le Pen’s RN was set to have a sweeping victory at the end of the first round of polling, what changed between the first and second rounds of elections that turned the tides? Well, Macron happened.

The 48 hours that turned the tides of French elections

At the end of the first round of elections on June 30, the far-right RN won 33 per cent votes, the leftist bloc 28 per cent, and Macron’s centrists around 21 per cent.

In the French electoral system, a candidate needs to win over 50 per cent votes to win in the first round. If no one crosses the threshold, then all those with over 12.5 per cent votes go to the second round in which the one with most votes win. In the first round of elections, 39 of 76 seats that were won by candidates getting more than 50 per cent votes were won by the RN. The party was therefore set to win the elections.

Then, in the next 48 hours, the tide of the elections turned — but few could grasp what was happening. At Firstpost, we noted what happened. During July 1-2, more than 200 centrist and leftist candidates withdrew their nominations .

The withdrawals were aimed to consolidate the non-right voters behind a single candidate on a seat and to prevent the break-up of non-right votes. In an article before the results were announced, we noted that this withdrawal was the first sign that Macron’s calculated move was working well. To prevent the far-right’s march to victory, the centrists and leftists had formed an ad-hoc alliance at Macron’s prodding.

The ad-hoc alliance with the singular objective to beat RN worked as was seen in the results yesterday.

“Macron had counted on the fact that both the centrists and leftists detested the chaos of a right-wing government and had a common foe in National Rally. After it became clear after the first round’s results that they could not beat the far-right, they consolidated all the non-right and anti-right votes. Macron had regarded this tactical voting as a final resort from the beginning and this is what delivered yesterday’s results,” says Rao, the Europe expert at MP-IDSA.

Macron saves his presidency & prevents political chaos

Macron realised that he was going to enter into cohabitation anyway as his centrist bloc was going to lose the parliamentary majority anyway in October with the vote on budget. So, he decided to pre-empt the elections and take the initiative.

Instead of entering into cohabitation with the far-right, Macron set in motion a plan —as detailed above— that made sure he would be entering into a cohabitation with the leftist alliance that’s much more manageable.

“Contrary to the prevalent analysis on social media, the left-wing alliance NPF is not made up of all extremist parties. It comprises of four main parties and only two of them are far-left, while the other two, Socialists and Greens, are relatively moderate. The 4 party alliance is more moderate compared to the National Rally and it will therefore be much easier for Macron to enter into a cohabitation with them instead of the far-right, provided the PM is chosen from the moderate of its factions,” says Rao.

Had Macron entered into cohabitation with the RN, then the next three years would be full of chaos as the party has little substantial to offer except for proposed overspending and rhetoric on immigration. The tussle between the premiership and the presidency could have also derailed Macron’s agenda. Now, with moderate NPF in the premiership, Macron can have a relatively smooth tenure.

“If the prime minister and the president remain in deadlock, then it’s not just Macron who will face anti-incumbency. The leftist PM and his government will also face it. Moreover, if the tussle gets too bumpy, then the president holds an important lever. In the most extreme case, he can call dissolve the assembly and call for fresh elections. So, it is also in NPF’s favour to figure out a working relationship with Macron so that both sides could go about doing their business without too much trouble,” says Rao.

In getting a leftist coalition into premiership, Macron sought to save the remainder three years of his presidency. Three years later, Le Pen is bound seek a run for presidency again but that’s three years later — another battle another day. For now, Macron has prevailed.

What do France election results mean for Europe?

As the far-right has not won premiership and Macron remains in the saddle, Europe has breathed a sigh of relief. There will be continuity in French support to Ukraine and leadership in strengthening the European security architecture.

Until a far-left prime minister takes over, there will be continuity in relations with Europe, says Rao, adding that both far-left and far-right leaders are sceptical of the European Union (EU) and this why prospects of Bardella’s premiership had made some in Europe anxious.

Macron is the foremost supporter of Ukraine in Europe and champions Europe’s self-reliance in terms of security. As the EU’s foremost military power and one of the pillars of the broader European security —along with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland— stability and a moderate leadership rooted in EU’s values is what EU looks for in France. That looks settled at least for the next three years.

In France, there is broad consensus among all parties on the broad support to Ukraine and acknowledgement of the dangers from Russia even though there are subtle differences, says Rao.

Moreover, the security and foreign policies remain the domain of the French president, so Macron will have enough room to implement his European agenda if the PM is chosen from moderate left, which looks likely.

Rao adds that it’s only the far-left and far-right leaders who incite concerns while moderate right and moderate left are more compatible with the broad republican outlook.

“Scepticism for Europe and NATO and the lack of a vision of lasting European security are features of extremists on both sides of the spectrum. That’s why whenever far-left or far-right surges anywhere, there is anxiety among EU leaders,” says Rao.