Far-right is down but not out in France, here's why Macron still faces tough time ahead

The far-right National Rally (RN) ranked third in the French parliamentary elections but still secured the most votes.

The results that put the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NPF) in the first place were a result of a cunning ad-hoc alliance between the NPF and the centrist bloc of French President Emmanuel Macron. This means that even though the far-right has been stopped short of forming a government, the party remains popular and the movement is merely down but not down out.

Even though all polls suggested that Marine Le Pen’s RN was headed to a sweeping victory and pundits mocked Macron for making the mistake of his life with snap elections, the long game that he had played worked out in the end. He killed many birds with one stone: stopped the far-right march, consolidated non-right voters and parties, managed the anti-incumbency as now the incoming government will also share it with him, and took the moral high ground.

What Macron could not manage to do was to drive out the far-right movement. The movement remains popular — as election results show.

Even though the RN stood third with 142 of 577 seats, it won the most votes at 37.1 per cent. The NPF, which stood first with 188 seats, won 26. per cent votes, and second-place finisher Macron’s centrist Ensemble (ENS) bloc won 161 seats with 24.7 per cent votes. Compared to the last elections, Macron’s ENS lost 76 seats, the NPF gained 57, and RN gained 53.

The tactical voting that beat far-right — but did not rout it

While it is common in the first-past-the-post electoral systems that a higher vote-share does not always translates into more seats, what happened in France was much more complex. Macron’s ENS and the leftist NPF formed an ad-hoc alliance that halted RN’s march.

After RN won the first round of elections on June 30, it became clear that the RN was headed to a victory. Within the next 48 hours, more than 200 centrists and leftist candidates withdrew so that all non-right voters could consolidate to mount a united resistance to far-right. As the results show, the tactical voting arrangement worked and the RN was relegated to a third-place finish. But the party still remains the most popular among voters, as per the vote share.

The French voters have not rejected the far-right and it is only the last-hour tactical voting arrangement that stopped it from forming the government, says Ankita Dutta, a scholar of European politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru’s University’s School of International Studies (SIS).

“If there was a rejection of the far-right, the National Rally would not have increased their vote share. As Marine Le Pen said on Sunday, the far-right’s tide rising. She was pointing to the right-wing gains across Europe,” says Dutta, an Assistant Professor at the Centre for European Studies at JNU’s SIS.

Macron’s plan worked but put France in uncharted waters

Macron’s plan to prevent the far-right from winning the French premiership worked but still put France in uncharted waters.

No party or bloc has won an outright majority and there is expected to be no easy consensus on the next prime minister.

The left-wing parties of the NPF have not yet been able to name a prime ministerial face so far. Even though much of the leftist parties comprising the NPF are way more moderate compared to the RN, there are still extremist elements within the coalition that have radical agendas like hiking taxes too much and have a history of accusations of rabid antisemitism. Forget having a smooth relationship with the president, there are differences even amongst the coalition.

“France does not have a robust tradition of rival political camps coming together to form coalition governments and especially when many among both the camps have refused to work with each other. Far-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is widely disliked by many members of Macron’s Ensemble coalition and even by some within his own NPF bloc for his far-left politics. A political stand-off is on the horizon,” says Dutta.

Upcoming political chaos may affect EU

When France sneezes, Europe catches cold. It was true then and it may be true now as any political crises in France is bound to have ramifications for Europe.

France is the second-largest economy in the European Union (EU) and is the bloc’s foremost military power. In the broader Europe, it is one the military pillars of continental security along with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland. Stability in France and a leadership that’s not sceptical of the EU is therefore a must. But that’s not guaranteed as political gridlocks are expected in upcoming coalition and cohabitation politics era of France.

Dutta tells Firstpost, “With a hung parliament and no governing coalition in sight, the political gridlock casts uncertainty over France’s ability to wield its influence in EU. This is because a strong government in Paris is seen as an essential pillar for EU stability. With France now in unchartered political territory, it will cast a long shadow over EU as well. However, the security and foreign policies remain the domain of the French president, so Macron will have enough room to implement his European agenda.”

Moreover, if the far-left France Unbowed manages to get main role in the NPF-led government, then concerns are set to mount in EU.

“The France Unbowed does not bring confidence within the EU circles because this party has also in the past been accused of adopting a sympathetic stance towards Russia. Party leader Melenchon has said that it was ‘high time to negotiate peace in Ukraine with mutual security clauses’ and has consistently opposed sending sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine,” says Dutta.

Moreover, any government or prime minister —whether from the moderate of far-left— will have to deal with the reality that his government is far less popular than the opposition. The opposition’s RN party, after all, won much more votes that both the NPF and ENS. The RN supporters as well as the leaders have understood that both the blocs that also attack each other came together to stop them. In the coming days, protests and hardening of political sentiments is also expected that could further play into the ‘us vs them elite’ narrative that the populist far-right has been peddling in Europe and further consolidate its dedicated base.

In such a political landscape, Macron’s game might have worked to keep the far-right out of the government for now but also pushed France into uncharted territory. The far-right is very much in the game and more popular than ever. But, for now, it’s out of power and Macron and the left have some breathing room.