Is Macron’s poll call really a gamble gone wrong, or is it a calculated risk?

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party appears to be at the cusp of an unprecedented victory in France’s parliamentary elections.

If the RN wins the majority, it will form the first far-right government in France’s history. Le Pen rejects the label of far-right even as her agenda includes curbing immigration and immigrants' rights and pushing for an insular foreign policy .

The victory does not come naturally to Le Pen. The credit, even if just in part, goes to French President Emmanuel Macron. Following the European Parliamentary elections last month in which RN routed Macron’s centrists, he dissolved the parliament and called snap elections three years ahead of schedule. In line with the surveys, Le Pen’s RN comfortably won the first round of elections on June 30. The call for the elections has therefore been dubbed as a bet gone wrong.

But is that really the case?

Macron has long been a maverick in French politics — so much so that he is often dubbed as the James Bond of European politics for his mannerisms, sharp suits, and carefully-shot photographs. Shock and awe have been central to his governance style. His decisions are usually his and his alone and he has governed in a strict top-down model — sometime to his own peril. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, the wonderkid of Macron whom he brought just this year to set the country straight, was said to be among the last to know of the decision to call snap elections. Then, was it plain hubris that led Macron to erroneously call for elections that would serve the country to far-right on a platter or was there something that analysts are not yet able to grasp?

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The belief that Macron gambled and lost the plot is very simplistic and incorrect as he is a very seasoned leader and is unlikely to be so disconnected from the reality to make such a losing gamble, says Swasti Rao, a scholar of European politics at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA).

Has Macron’s bet worked as centrists & leftists come together?

Initially, it was understood that Macron had hoped that faced with the choice of extreme left that has proposed raising taxes and is tainted with antisemitism and the far-right, the French voters would opt for his pragmatic centrism.

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That has clearly not been the case so far as voters have chosen Le Pen over him. In the first round of elections, Le Pen’s RN won 33.15 per cent of the votes against 27.99 of the new left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NPF) and 20.04 per cent of Macron’s centrist bloc, according to France 24.

But Macron’s calculation has not been wrong altogether as his centrists and NPF have come together in an ad-hoc alliance for the second round of elections with the singular objective of halting RN’s march. More than 200 left-wing and centrist candidates have withdrawn to consolidate the non-right voters behind one candidate and prevent the break-up of non-right voters. The idea is to combine Macron’s and NPF voters behind the centrist or left-wing candidate most likely to win so that the far-right candidate on the seat does not win.

But is it too little and too late? That’s too early to tell for now. The French voters are casting their ballots at the time of writing of this piece and final results will be known by either Sunday night or Monday morning.

In the French election system, a candidate needs to win more than 50 per cent votes to win in the first round. If no candidate wins 50 per cent votes, then all those who won more than 12.5 per cent votes compete again in the second round and the one with the most votes wins. As per France 24, the RN won 39 of the 76 seats won outright in the first round of the elections.

A gamble or a calculated risk?

Macron has won two presidential elections and has staved off the rise of far-right once already in the 2022 elections. He has long known what he is up against.

The rise of far-right in France is not isolated but part of the broader political trend in Europe . While a lot has to do with the rising acceptance of right-wing agenda, the support for the right-wing is also a result of a dissatisfaction against the status quo of long rule of centrists and leftists. Ankita Dutta, a scholar of Europe’s right-wing politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), told Firstpost last month that the right-wing parties in Europe have capitalised on crises in the past few years, such as the financial crisis, migration crisis, cost of living crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the conflict in Ukraine.

“These issues added to the disillusionment and insecurity of people and fortified their beliefs that these issues have not been tackled properly by mainstream parties. Therefore, it is more of a protest vote. But that should not be taken as a momentary development because these parties now have a dedicated base among the lower economic sections of the society who have faced the brunt of economic slowdown and increasing migration,” said Dutta, an Assistant Professor at the Centre for European Studies of JNU’s School of International Studies.

Instead of a mere protest vote, it is a classic example of politics of resentment, said Dutta.

Macron understands this perfectly and has worked towards addressing these concerns over the years. Even though Macron is a centrist as per French political standards, he is effectively a moderate right-wing leader when looked at from a non-French perspective — particularly from the British perspective. In a discussion hosted by The Spectator magazine, journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray said that French centrists and even leftists have positions that appear to be more right-wing than the British Conservatives.

Referring to former French PM Manuel Valls, a leftist, Murray said Valls would speak in a manner that the “Right of the Tory Party would baulk at” — Conservatives are informally called the Tories.

“Why? That’s because they have got a serious demographic and illegal immigration issue and a serious security concern. People don’t realise that ahead of the Olympic games in Paris, the centre of the city is in a very near-lockdown. They just thwarted another plot to carry out a terrorist attack during it and everybody is on the edge about it. That’s why as the situation in the country changes, the politicians change in response,” said Murray.

Indeed, over the years, Macron has adopted a tough national security policy, checked illegal immigration, and appointed right-wing figures to key government posts such as cultural ministry to check the rise of far-right and address the concerns that he was moving to the left or ‘wokeness’ was taking over. He has also emerged as the foremost champion of Ukraine and has been at the forefront of flagging the importance of Europe crafting its own security arrangements regarding the Russian threat.

Then, how do you make sense of the losing gamble that Macron appears to have made with the snap elections?

Swasti Rao, the Europe scholar at MP-IDSA, says that it does not appear to be a gamble at all but a calculated move after proper thinking.

“Macron appears to have been convinced that you cannot stop the far-right from statements alone. That would explain why he called these elections and let the French people choose while continuing efforts to converge efforts to minimise Le Pen’s gains. The idea driving Macron appears to be that if people still end up electing Le Pen’s government, they would realise that the National Rally (RN) has nothing substantial to offer. As per this idea, people would see that the RN’s government has no solution to offer except for populist overspending and rhetoric on immigration and would realise they chose poorly and, in the next elections, revert to the centrists,” says Rao, an Associate Fellow at the Europe and Eurasia Center at MP-IDSA.

As far as Macron’s agenda is considered, there would be a risk of disruption, but he should have enough room to continue it as foreign and defence affairs remain the domain of the president and not the prime minister, says Rao.

Macron will stay in office till 2027. As this was his second and last term, there was no risk of harming his re-election prospects as well.

Therefore, it appears that Macron has played a calculated move to give Le Pen’s RN a chance at running a government and then counting on its failure to make the French public realise that the far-right is not a solution to their issues.

Even if a calculated move rooted in ground realities, there is flipside to it as well. If the RN wins now and Jordan Bardella takes over as prime minister and the RN also wins the presidential election in 2027, then Le Pen could finally become the president in her fourth attempt and that would cement the far-right’s hold in France, the second-largest European economy and the foremost military power. If that happens or whether voters revert to the centre is to be seen in the coming years.