French President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election, in a game of chicken with the French people, hoping they’d swerve away from backing right-wing parties which enjoyed support in the European Union vote last month.
After two rounds of voting, a coalition of left-wing parties won the most seats.
It has blocked the far-right from taking power but left the country with no dominant political force and the prospect of months of negotiations to form a government.
Today, Emmanuel Macron’s gamble and the political mess left behind.
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William Drozdiak, Global Fellow with the Wilson Center's Global Europe Program and a former Washington Post foreign editor
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Yoan Valat, Pool via AP(Yoan Valat, Pool via AP)
Melissa Clarke: French President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election in a game of chicken with the French people, hoping they'd swerve away from backing right-wing parties, which enjoyed support in the European Union vote last month. After two rounds of voting, a coalition of left-wing parties won the most seats. It has blocked the far-right from taking power, but has left the country with no dominant political force. Today, Wilson Center Global Fellow and former Washington Post foreign editor William Drozdiak on Emmanuel Macron's gamble. I'm Melissa Clarke in Canberra on Ngunnawal country, and recognising other custodians. This is ABC News Daily. William we'll get to the results shortly, but first talk us through what Emmanuel Macron's plan was when he called this snap election. Why exactly are the French voting for a new parliament? What was he hoping to achieve?
William Drozdiak: Well, I think he was struck by the huge score for the national rally at the European elections, and he was very concerned that they were gathering momentum. He was probably going to have to dissolve parliament this fall when his budget was almost certain to fail, and he didn't want to see them accumulate more momentum. So he wanted to precipitate a crisis that would compel the French voters to really think hard about whether they want the far-right to take over the government.
Emmanual Macron, French President: This is a serious and weighty decision, but above all it is an act of trust, confidence in you, my dear compatriots, in the ability of the French people to make the just choice for themselves and for future generations.
William Drozdiak: He hasn't helped his cause because of his rather arrogant personality. He thinks he knows things better than anyone else, and that's why he took this rash decision, which was a real gamble. But he's a political gambler, he likes to take these bets, and I think he was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
Melissa Clarke: Let's look a little at the background here. Why has Emmanuel Macron been having so much difficulty with the parliament? Is that around unpopularity for his policies, or was it the nature of the make-up of the parliament that was the problem?
William Drozdiak: He lost his majority two years ago, and ever since then his government has had to operate as a minority government. And there's opposition from the far left and far right to a lot of the changes that he wants to make. Now, many economists and others say these are long overdue. France has one of the youngest retirement ages in the world and in Europe, so he wanted to bump that up a bit to 64. And there was protests in the streets.
William Drozdiak: There was the Gilets-Jeunes protests a few years ago. Those who know France well, and I've spent a lot of time there, realise that it's a fascinating country, and with intelligent people, but there is an undercurrent of distrust and dissatisfaction with their governing class, the elites. A French writer once told me, France is a paradise when you consider universal health care, free education through universities. It's a paradise inhabited by people who think they're in hell. And this is why there's such discontent among the voters.
Melissa Clarke: Let's look a little closer at the threat he was trying to fight off. Can you tell me about RN, the national rally, and what they stand for and who they are?
William Drozdiak: This is Marine Le Pen's party. She's run for president three times in the past and will run again in 2027. When I was meeting with Macron on a regular basis, he was telling me repeatedly that his overriding obsession as president would be to do everything he could to prevent Marine Le Pen from being his successor. He felt that if a nationalist populist party like the national rally would take over France, it would be a mortal blow for a more integrated Europe. And I think that's what was behind this early election. If the national rally got in power, he also wanted to make sure that they would take responsibility and govern in an incompetent way so that the voters would be inoculated against voting for Marine Le Pen three years from now.
Melissa Clarke: So Macron calls an election, rolls the dice to try and push back against the national rally. But one of the first big moves we saw was from the left, which uncharacteristically banded together. Can you explain to me what the strategy was there?
William Drozdiak: Well, they realised they were going to be overwhelmed because it's a coalition of five parties. They disagree on a lot of things. And, you know, from Greens to communists to socialists to the far left, France Unbowed Party. And even now, they still can't agree on what they should propose as government policies. And they can't even agree on who should represent their coalition as prime minister.
Melissa Clarke: Can we look in a little more detail at what happened in the two rounds of voting? Can you take me through the first and second rounds, how the French public voted and why there was a difference between what we saw in the first round and the second round?
William Drozdiak: Well, I think the first round is often the case in French elections, was a chance for voters to register their anger and frustration. And so it was something of a protest vote.
French voter: People are getting poorer and they're looking for stronger purchasing power, a better quality of life. If the national rally promises them things, then why not?
William Drozdiak: People who voted for the national rally wanted to send a message of dismay to Emmanuel Macron.
French voter: We need change and maybe it will get better. For the moment, nothing's being done. We need things to change.
William Drozdiak: The national rally got more votes than in the past. But then in the second round, that is when the French consider what the policies of a new government would be and how their own pocketbooks would be affected.
News report: The Eurosceptic National Rally Party wants to expel more migrants, stop family reunification, restrict childcare benefits to French citizens, give French nationals preference in access to social housing and jobs, and withdraw residency for migrants who are out of work for more than a year.
William Drozdiak: And the more they considered what electing the national rally to an absolute majority would be, the more alarmed they became.
French voter: I'm a bit scared of this national rally. They have good ideas, but I'm really scared because I think that they're quite racist and that's something I don't tolerate.
William Drozdiak: Foreign investors were threatening to pull out of France. There's talk that the euro would take a brutal blow because of this. And so there would be a lot of instability, particularly with a president who is substantially pro-European, a moderate centrist, and then supervising a far-right government. It was a recipe for instability. And while France has had cohabitations of rival parties in the past, they've never been as disparate as this would have been.
Melissa Clarke: So we've ended up with the leftist alliance having the most seats, I think around 180, and Macron's centrists around 170 seats, and then the far-right national rally and some of its allies with around 143 seats. So that's pretty evenly distributed amongst the three. What happens now in terms of trying to form a government?
William Drozdiak: I think it's going to take quite some time. I think from Macron's standpoint, he'd like to peel away some centre-left voters, maybe from the Socialist Party, and even from some moderate centre-right people, in the hopes of broadening his centrist movement and gaining enough seats, or at least support, from these other parties that would ensure a government of his choice to continue in power. The far-left will try to put its own coalition together. I don't think they will succeed. We could also see a temporary government of technocrats, figures above the political fray, who would govern France for the next year, and then Macron can call new elections next June.
Melissa Clarke: So it's possible that Emmanuel Macron could have gone through all of this process, but not get any resolution from it and have to go back to the polls in 12 months' time again anyway?
William Drozdiak: I think that's a good possibility, that he will have to go back to hold another vote in legislative elections one year from now.
Melissa Clarke: How would you describe Emmanuel Macron's gamble at this point? Can we call it a success or a failure yet, or is it too early to tell?
William Drozdiak: A week ago, it looked like an unmitigated disaster. Now it looks like, I wouldn't call it a success, I would call it a modestly positive outcome. But it leaves France in a very precarious, unstable position right now. And it also hurts Macron's legacy, because he wanted to, as the most pro-European president in French history, wanted to transform the country and make it into the foundation of a new power. France has the second strongest economy in Europe. It's the leading military power. It's a member of the Security Council and has nuclear weapons. And he's convinced that unless France leads the way on Europe and makes Europe into a global power that can stand up to the resurgence of big power rivalry with China, Russia, and the United States, that Europe runs the risk of being relegated to a minor role in world affairs unless it can come together more effectively and stand up on the world stage for European interests.
Melissa Clarke: So does the diminution of Emmanuel Macron's power at home diminish France's power within the European Union?
William Drozdiak: I think that's a fair assessment. I think right now we have a weakened Germany. We have a weakened France. Poland is showing signs of becoming a more pro-European government again. But there's nobody who can really lead Europe today. And I think that we're going to have to go through this phase of instability before Europe sees its way out of this crisis of leadership.
Melissa Clarke: And where does this leave the national rally in France? And where does it leave the far right in Europe more broadly?
William Drozdiak: Well, I think the far right has been weakened by this outcome. I think Marine Le Pen saw this as an opportunity whereby she would align with Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, and actually create a stronger coalition of far-right populist nationalist parties that would be skeptical about Europe, more integration in Europe, that would try to take back powers from Brussels and restore it to national governments. Now, that still seems to be their agenda, and they will be pushing harder for that. But whether or not they succeed, I think, is going to be Macron's next big challenge in trying to prevent that from happening.
Melissa Clarke: William Drozdiak is a Wilson Center Global Fellow and former Washington Post foreign editor. This episode was produced by Oscar Coleman. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Melissa Clarke, ABC News Daily will be back again tomorrow. To get in touch with the team, email us abcnewsdaily@abc.net.au. Thanks for listening.
